Back in the early days of Hip Hop – before emcees, before breakdancers,
before graffiti taggers, before hostile corporate takeovers raped and pillaged
the genre like it was the days of colonial imperialism all over again- there
was the deejay, and the deejay was king. Rising from the ashes of the disco
era, turntable wizards like Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster
Flash ruled the five boroughs (and beyond) long before Sylvia
Robinson got the idea to create the Sugarhill Gang
and cash in on the growing cultural phenomenon, and for well over a decade the
wheels of steel were to Hip Hop what the electric guitar was to rock ‘n’ roll.
Eventually emcees began to take over the spotlight, though exceptions such as
the Beastie Boys‘ DJ Hurricane, Public Enemy‘s
Terminator X and Run-DMC‘s Jam Master
Jay continued to innovate. But as Hip Hop became big business and
image became everything, deejays tended to fade into the background like
drummers, more of an ominous presence than a serious force to be reckoned with.
For true school Hip Hop fans, it was thrilling to watch the rise of the
turntablist underground in the late 1990s. Groups like Invisibl Skratch
Piklz and the X-ecutioners, and solo artists such as DJ
Shadow and DJ Spooky challenged and expanded the
boundaries of Hip Hop, creating dazzling turntablist manifestos that proved Hip
Hop didn’t need rappers spitting fire to be compelling. By the time the X-ecutioners
had a crossover hit collaborating with rap-rockers Linkin Park
in 2002, it looked like turntablist culture was ready for its moment in the
spotlight. But in the years since, the movement has gone increasingly deep
underground.
Emerging on the tail-end of the movement, The Allies
released only one EP (the excellent D-Day) before going the way of the
dodo, but Montreal-born DJ A-Trak‘s legacy far outshines that
of his former group. He was the youngest deejay ever to win a world
championship battle (at 15); the first to win all three major championships-
Disco Mix Club (DMC), International Turntablist Federation (ITF), and Vestax
World Extravaganza; and the first to win five world championship
competitions… all before he’d turned 18. As if that weren’t enough, he was
tapped by Kanye West to become his touring DJ, contributing
tracks to instant classics like Common‘s Be and West‘s Late Registration.
All of this goes a long way towards explaining why Dirty South Dance
is such a disappointment. Commissioned and released by clothing manufacturer Obey, the album plays like an extended
dance club remix, with only brief, occasional flashes of the turntable
brilliance for which A-Trak is known. Tracks like “Frenchies Act A Fool,”
“Walk It Out
Trizz” and “Hustlin’ Hustler” are so mind-numbingly repetitive on a
musical level and so totally vacuous on a lyrical level, I personally found
them utterly unlistenable. Perhaps when put into context, dropped into a
blazing hot dance mix on a steamy, sweaty dancefloor as you’re grinding up on
your girl, these songs individually would serve their purpose. But
collectively, they were a major letdown for anyone who watched A-Trak‘s
Sunglasses Is A Must DVD and was hoping for more of that brand of
turntable wizardry.