I’ve been into cutting edge music since I was a kid. Whoever was creating the most interesting sounds or using the newest innovative technology to make big records is who had my attention. This interest eventually grew into a passion for me around age 11 or so. I was living with my grandfather at the time cuz I was too much of a little shit for my single mom to handle. My granddad, who among other things was a master electrician, saw how interested in music I was at that early age and he did a few things that would change my life forever.

One day he asked me if I wanted to visit the local college radio station that I listened to all the time. So there I was, 12 years old, standing in a college radio station, watching this DJ do his thing. Turntables, mics, amps, mixing consoles, and phone lines, with one dude operating it all in order to make what I heard come out over the radio. The DJ was actually a major dick and didn’t like having a kid and an old guy cramping his style, but he let me watch for a while anyway. That was all I needed to know this was what I wanted to be doing.

After seeing my reaction, my grandfather did the second thing that set my life�s course at such an early age. He dragged his old, dusty belt drive turntables from the attic and after cleaning them up a little, gave them to me. If that wasn’t enough, he then taught me how to operate them and what I’d need to do - things like the guy on the radio did. So a couple of trips to radio shack and a hardware store later, my grandfather had built me two phono pre-amps and a custom mixer out of scrap metal, a few wires, and a bunch of other strange components. I learned how to hook up these turntables to my new mixer which, incidentally, had no faders - just two knobs controlling the volume of each deck with NO master volume control.

I was 12 and learning to be a DJ without even realizing it. After that, I spent the next 4 or 5 months spending what little money I earned from doing chores and saving my lunch money buying records down at the shop. I bought mostly 45s of the popular 80’s crap at the time, because I used to get ‘em for around 75 cents each. As my collection grew, kids in my sixth grade class found out I was the dude with all the new music. They of course had no idea how to get it and or play it for themselves. There was no internet, no iPods, not even CDs. Some people had Walkmans and even fewer had “record players�” because they were ridiculously expensive for kids our age. At any rate, I made some custom tapes for a few friends and word got around. Ultimately I turned into a hustler at 12 years old selling custom made mix tapes to my classmates. I used the proceeds to buy more 80’s shit-pop music and some good stuff too.

After a short while, my collection became pretty impressive (for a 12 year old anyway). Around that time, my grandfather started realizing that I was getting good at playing the music I was buying, so he gave me the last push in the right direction. He gave me my first gig.

I DJ’d my uncles wedding at 12 years old for free. I could barely reach up over the table where my turntables were sat. After he saw I did a good job there, he had me take over for the DJ at some stupid church function. I continued from there.

All of this happened before I discovered hip hop. The first hip hop song I ever heard was “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel.” I didn’t know it was even a hip hop song. I didn’t know what hip hop was or what I was hearing, for that matter, but it blew my fucking mind! I was hooked from that point on. I thought I knew what a DJ was and did. I had spent the last year learning the equipment and how to play records for people. Then, this guy makes this record with scratching, mixing and multi-track overdubs of rock and disco songs. This was brand new, but even at 13, I knew this style of DJing would become the new standard eventually. So I began my studies.

10 years later I made my way out to LA to try and check out a new hip hop scene and get into the music business. I had been doing club gigs years before I was old enough to get into them legally, and I can’t even count how many house parties, block parties and other hood events I had done. Mixtapes, college radio, and battles all added to the experience that made me confident I could pull something off out there in Cali. That, and the fact that I had to get out of where I was. I lived in Massachusetts but spent enough time in NYC to know I wasn’t feelin’ it. It was getting a little stale for me and the east coast winters were becoming unbearable.

I drove to LA with no connections to anything, aside from a place to stay at my girl’s mom’s house. I worked a few odd jobs and eventually started running into people involved with hip hop. While I was weaving my way through the crowded entrance of the maze, so I could have my chance at the cheese too, I ended up getting a job at a place called Hits Magazine. I got stuck in the back with all the other peons, trying to make something of themselves, while wasting their precious time in a carpeted, particleboard cubicle, slaving away for someone else. But it was a job working with music, so I gave it a shot.

Working there was a blessing in the disguise of a horrible curse that some employees never shook off. I learned a lot and got a taste of why people looked at the music business as a breeding ground for scumbags and extortionists. Aside from squandering my creativity, and exerting valuable brainpower and energy for nothing, I met a person who would eventually become a good friend. He would ultimately connect me with what I was supposed to be doing in life (Obi-wan-kenobi style). His name is Prince Ice.

Incidentally, Ice was also being victimized by a notorious sleaze, who just so happened to be a pretty smart dude and a powerful figure in the business at the time with Hits Magazine. I already knew about Ice from some records he put out that used to get regular rotation in my club and party sets, so I was cool with dude from the beginning. After some time passed, (much of it spent begging and pleading with the stubborn pig that was Ice’s boss) I was able to get King Tech’s address.

I had heard The Wake Up Show a few times on THE BEAT and knew I had to connect with theses cats. This was at a time in LA when 92.3 was KING. The guy who got me the job had a friend who also booked me with Julio G. Julio had a few shows on at the time, so from there I was really paying close attention to what was happening on LA radio. There were a few classic hip hop shows on the air in LA at the time, but Sway & Tech made it fun and entertaining, while still taking it serious and making it about the music first.

I remember the tape I sent to Tech. It was OLD and sounded like shit. I felt so embarrassed that I hadn’t made new one since I had been in LA because of my work schedule. It was just a bunch of old school mixes and a ridiculous scratch track I had done at least a year and a half prior. Two weeks later, Ice hit me up in the hall at Hits and told me that Tech wanted to bring me on the show. He gave me Tech’s number and told me to call him. I did. We set up a time for me to roll up and do a cool little set. Nothing special, just come mix a bunch of records and cut it up. Thinking back about that particular tape and how it�s the reason I got my break is really, really scary. Because I’m sure if I heard it now, it would shame me beyond belief.

Two weeks later, I showed up at the show with a cool 20 minute set, not knowing my life was about to change. A little cuttin’ and scratchin’ and jugglin’, with some cool records was the plan, but when I hit the booth, that plan quickly went to shit. In the hall by the entrance to the booth was the ENTIRE Beat Junkie Crew. In the control room with Sway & Tech was the entire Invisible Scratch Picklez Crew with Rob Swift from the X-men. I had never met any of these people and really, to be honest, being fresh from the east coast, never heard of a few of them. To make matters worse for me, they had set up a mixer I had never seen before. It was the original Grey prototype Vestax 05-pro. Minutes after this had all sunk in, Sway puts me on first and tells me on air “Don’t screw up, we have 5 million people listening.” Great!

Needless to say I was able to get down and hold my own, doing what I could with no preparation or routines, while the rest of these world class DJs got so busy with all of their well rehearsed battle sets. Most of them had been using the 05 for a while and were doing crazy cuts you really couldn’t do with any other mixer. I loved every minute of it. This has to be the most inspiring night I’ve ever had to this date and still remains my number one Wake Up Show experience.

I’d heard new scratch styles and juggling patterns, hung with Sway & Tech, and used what would turn out to be the mixer that re-invented the way I scratched. It was unbelievable. I remember driving home that night while they were still on the air. I listened to Q-Bert do his “Rock-the-Bells” routine for the first time on the radio. To top all that off, they asked me to come back.

But I have to say this: even back then, no one there that night had ever heard anyone cut like me, aside from Tech and Prince Ice. I brought a style that was equally impressive, yet totally different.

10 years, 2 radio stations, 3 albums, countless mixtapes, interviews, and guest features - I’m still doing the same thing, cuttin� up real hip hop music on the radio with the realest dudes in the game. All this, while having been around the world more times than most people in 3 lifetimes, and producing music for artists, TV, and film. Through all the changes the business has made and decisions it has forced us all to make, I still show up to participate in hip hop history every week on the air in LA and have it syndicated around the world.

I skipped a lot of things worth mentioning, but you’ll have to read about that in my book, if I ever retire. Until then, just support this music and all its various facets. Oh yeah, and by my new albums and mixtapes when they come out. Or if you cheap bastards download ‘em for free, at least come check me at a show when I’m in your town burnin’ up the Technincs!