BROLICARM
@DJROBSWIFT • 9,469 subscribers
I'm better than you all! I can out-learn you. I can out-read you. I can out-think you. And I can out-philosophize you. And I'm gonna outlast you.
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I just want to clarify something for my Grimes advocates but moreover for all of you aspiring DJs who've been keeping up with Grimes' miscarriage of DJing. Human perception of time in terms of beats per minute is extremely malleable. Since the human brain focuses best on one thing at a time, factors such as focus, pressure, etc., will radically alter your perception of tempo as you're DJing. Unless you're counting beats in your head while simultaneously running a stopwatch till it hits 60 secs, it is impossible to mentally calculate a song’s speed while simultaneously DJing, which by the way was Grimes' biggest mistake and whoever "taught" her how to "DJ" failed her tremendously. But I digress. B/c of the level of multitasking involved with mixing, it's important to use headphones as they allow us to sonically crack the puzzle of bpm instantaneously. DJing takes a very high level of aggregation b/c you're listening to the music playing out of the venue house speakers, monitoring the song playing in your headphones, and making the necessary adjustments on your Turntable/CDJ/Controller's pitch control until both songs lock together in speed. We call this mixing by ear and it's the most fundamental skill a DJ can have. I wish Grimes luck next weekend b/c if she doesn't learn how to accomplish a mix left to her own devices by the time she steps back up on the Coachella stage, she risks experiencing the same catastrophe.
BROLICARM209,250 次观看 • 2 年前
KRS One is right! Since the dawn of time, there has been no genetic or scientific evidence to support the belief that any race is superior to another. Despite this, the concept of race is still used to marginalize and oppress people based solely on their appearance. Although Hip-Hop has been impacted by racism in the last 2 years, true Hip-Hop heads must transcend these issues and strive for progress and elevation and build on higher ground.
BROLICARM106,379 次观看 • 2 年前
Some use the term Hip Hop in accordance with it being a “Black owned” house. Instead, Hip Hop is a strong glue that holds people from diverse racial, ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds together. If this post makes you feel uncomfortable, then examine your biases.
BROLICARM128,153 次观看 • 2 年前
DJ Clark Kent founded the Supermen DJs (DJ Scratch, Daddy Rich, Plastic Man, etc.) in the 1980s. At that time, they were the world’s most loved, envied, and, to a degree, hated DJ crew (not because they sucked but because they were so good). DJ culture was so different back then, though. You stuck to your inner circle and “to hell with everyone else.” It’s not like the way it is now, where dudes fake like you when they see you in person, asking to take a selfie with you and all, only to talk trash about you the minute you walk away. Nah, DJs knew who they were and were not cool with and we all respected those boundaries. The fun fact is that Steve Dee and Sean C formed the X-Men (later known as the X-Ecutioners) solely because we saw the Supermen as our rivals! We wanted to battle Clark and his crew with a passion. That healthy (and sometimes no-so-healthy, if I’m being honest) competition was what inspired me to come up with routines like my “Nobody Beats The Biz” because to be the best, you have to beat the best! Thank you, Clark. Thank you for teaching me how rivalry motivates me to be a better version of myself. The Supermen’s DJ skills helped the X-Men define who we are and how far we want to take our DJ careers. Each member of your crew’s standing within the DJ community kept my crew focused and committed to improving as DJs. The Supermen, led by DJ Clark Kent, were the first superheroes of turntablism, while the X-Men were their arch-enemies. Although it may not have always looked like it on the surface, our rivalry existed because we respected Clark and his crew, and I’m blessed that the energy that made us rivals ultimately transformed us into great friends. Rest in peace.
BROLICARM68,027 次观看 • 1 年前
Am I the only DJ who feels concerned about how normalized mediocrity is in the digital age of DJing? The Tiesto, David Guetta, and Deadmau5 fanboys are swarming me like bees to honey this week. The idol worship of DJs who couldn’t carry a mix longer than 20 secs is disheartening. In premodernism, music fans were educated and celebrated creativity. Postmodern music “fans” reward inauthenticity and treat DJs with pedestrian talent like gods. What happened to discernment? Music culture is asleep.
BROLICARM74,745 次观看 • 2 年前
The crux of this Coachella DJ scandal is Grimes & her defenders reduce DJing to hitting the SYNC button on your controller or app, then letting A.I. magically lock the tempo of two different songs. But DJing is an intuitive art form, not computer science! Machines lack intuition.
BROLICARM68,742 次观看 • 2 年前
The "Buffalo Gals" music video encapsulates what I meant by "...the innovation in Hip-Hop was primarily driven by its diversity." It features Latino, Black, and White Breakers and Graff artists and women, who, by the way, aren't being sexualized. I'd be remiss if I didn't add that the song was produced by a British punk rocker named Malcolm McLaren and featured the World's Famous Supreme Team rapping and scratching. FYI, they were a part of the five percent nation of Islam. "Buffalo Gals" literally shows how authentic Hip-Hop by the early 1980s included Religion, Race, Gender, and Ethnicity. If Hip-Hop were purely "Black culture," it would have been birthed somewhere in the South, Georgia, the Carolinas, or something. But it wasn't. Hip-Hop exists because of the unique social, political, and economic circumstances and the vast mix of cultures in NYC, particularly the Bronx. If you lack the wisdom to evaluate information, you'll resist the truth, in my words. I lived what I just wrote, though, so whether you accept it doesn't make a difference because I saw it happen.
BROLICARM59,094 次观看 • 2 年前
Fake, Hip Hop posers are on every social media app on your phone. That’s because the internet has changed the criteria for what it means to be Hip Hop. For the last 48 hours I’ve tussled with online influencers rockin’ Twitter handles like “Hip Hop Library” (🤦🏾) and “the president of hip hop” (😂) and it made me think, which in turn inspired me to write, about how easy it is to download Twitter, Insta or TikTok to your little pocket computer and conveniently integrate yourself into the Hip Hop community. Gift of gab is as far as y’all MF’s talent goes. Y’all nasty with those thumbs, I’ll give y’all that. But these clout chasers who dress up their social media profiles with fancy pictures, sleek looking videos from they bedrooms posing, and third hand YouTube content will NEVER come close to possessing the natural aptitude to DJ like someone of my caliber or rhyme with the verbal agility of a cunning linguist like Supernatural. Y’all are frauds, and although Hip Hop’s checks and balances have disappeared, consequently opening the floodgates for y’all no talent ass having, podcasting “who’s better, Drake or Mos Def?” “Hip Hop is FBA...” culture vultures to infiltrate our shit, whether it’s today, tomorrow, next week, month or year, heavyweight Hip Hop heroes like Nat and myself will forever be here for you to deal with when the Hip Hop day of reckoning comes!
BROLICARM36,587 次观看 • 2 年前
When you mentally live in a small world, seeing an 11 year old B-boy like Maloy breaking his heart out for an all-Russian audience can make you "feel a way." But it's important to remember that Hip-hop was not created for the exclusive enjoyment of Black people. For the culture to thrive, it needs to expand; for it to expand, practitioners of Hip-Hop break (excuse the pun) the barriers people put up!
BROLICARM27,402 次观看 • 1 年前
Our journey as DJs began in the Jackson Heights - East Elmhurst areas of Queens, our hometown. We crossed paths in our late teens, under the guidance of the mentorship of Dr. Butcher from Corona. The early 1990s marked a pivotal period in our careers as we honed our skills and put into practice what we learned at local parties. Returning to perform at Jackson Heights Day this past weekend was a truly special experience, as we were able to showcase our craft to the same community that had supported us from the very beginning.
BROLICARM15,388 次观看 • 2 年前
Although Hip-Hop is musically centered, the story of how it came to be does not begin: "Once upon a time, a DJ named Kool Herc threw a back-to-school jam in the Bronx on August 11, 1973." That is to say, the story of the more incredible culture isn't how it was created as much as the story is how it happened! Hip-Hop, in the broader context of policies like benign neglect implemented by President Richard Nixon, was a reaction to cuts to public education and other social services, legal segregation in the form of redlining, and failed gentrification of the Bronx, NY, in the early 1970s. Hip-Hop was anti-establishment because the establishment was anti-Hip-Hop. By 1980, the innovation in Hip-Hop was primarily driven by its diversity, but as one of my favorite scenes in the movie Wild Style depicts, becoming a part of Hip-Hop culture was also more elusive than it is today, "Yo, I'm ready to paint Virginia but yo what are you doing here in the yard you're not supposed to be here." Hip Hop was powerful because it was a culture you couldn't choose to enter. It was more a matter of whether or not you were allowed, and that hinged upon not the color of your skin but your authenticity, creativity, and the accumulated direct experiences you had with its stewards; in other words, if you wanted to be down, you had to prove yourself over time, regardless of race. Today, bigotry and race-signaling slogans like "they're not like us" have become the barometer for exclusivity in Hip-Hop culture, not aptitude in a given element like it used to. At least based on the framework of Hip-Hop counterculture and what it was countering while I was growing up in the 70s. At what point did Hip-Hop go from your participation in it being grounded on the merit of your creativity, leveling out the playing field, to being overwrought with zealots restricting one's participation based on race, and why?
BROLICARM15,712 次观看 • 2 年前
Hip-Hop culture suffers from TRUTH DECAY. The issue is microphones are shoved in the faces of some Rappers who share untruthful stories and narratives. These unvetted Hip-Hop accounts are then spread throughout social media by podcasters and influencers who sacrifice facts for views and feed their followers with lies. Then we're left to argue about misinformation, and round and round we go. In our age of "Information" overload, Hip-Hop needs to channel the energy from discriminating against each other towards correctly discriminating between truth and falsehood—guard against being led astray by rappers like Lord Jamar who falsely claim Breaking, the element responsible for introducing our culture to the world, isn't a part of Hip-Hop! Of all the elements of HIp-Hop (DJing, MCing, Graffiti, Breaking), Breaking is the one I revere the most because it resurrects despite its multiple deaths. To those of you trying to kill it again, you can’t kill what WON’T DIE!
BROLICARM10,307 次观看 • 1 年前
People think culture dies when outsiders (vultures) exploit said culture's resources for profit, but that's only half true. The real way cultures decay and expire is from within. It's scary because no matter how hard they try to erase the contributions of Graff Writers, DJs, Rappers, and Breakers who contributed to the formative years of Hip-Hop when it initially began flourishing, none of them can just erase what I know took place from the records like it never happened. Yet, I've been witnessing the deletion of important Hip-Hop history for the last two years. Zoomers are being re-educated to hate the diversity in talent and "race" that makes Hip-Hop remotely the culture I've been studying, NON-STOP, since 1979. Forty-five years of collecting park jam tapes, battling B-boys from all over NYC at USA Rollerskating Rink (69th Street and Roosevelt Avenue), writing Graffiti, Rapping, and, of course, DJing have made me wonder if the ideas I have been fed about Hip-Hop being "universal" have survived today. I think not because some of our legends are rewriting HIp-Hop history to their liking. At the rate we're going, I firmly believe the genuine, authentic concept of Hip-Hop is bound to disappear, and I won't mourn its death. That may sound like a messed up statement, but after this weekend, I'm convinced Hip-Hop needs to die.
BROLICARM10,900 次观看 • 2 年前
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