what happened to the DJ?

having just recently visited our nation's capital (washington, dc for the slow) to party it up with some of my friends from college i was moved to write about the state of the DJ. the club i visited had almost everything you needed to have a great time: ladies, liquor, and music ('almost' being the operative word in this sentence). the ladies, they were fly (what up philly!); the liquor, it was flowin (champagne campaign 2005); and the music...well let's just say it was something to be desired.

now it's true that i can't remember most of the music played at the club, after all the champimple was flowin and the ladies were on fire (he-he alriiight), but i know i walked out of the club KNOWING, that with the exception of the one rakim song i was vibin to and a few throwback snoop/dr. dre tracks, the DJ was officially gabage (that's beyond garbage for those who don't know)! what i realized is that ANYONE can pass as a DJ nowadays. to sum it up, the DJ was whack. no ifs, ands, or buts about it, he flat out sucked.

in hip hop’s earliest days in the 1970s, DJs were the most important component of the culture, front and center keeping the party going. DJs were the men and women who brought the culture to the masses. in essence, it is the DJ who instigated the rap revolution. the responsibility of the DJ was to create the sounds to which MCs and b-boys (and where are they nowadays?) would rhyme and dance to. the importance of the DJ has become over looked in the last decade-and-a-half with the MC reaping much of the reward and public exposure, and producers creating the sound that MCs rhyme over.

from hip hop's inception the party couldn't and wouldn't start without the DJ. in 1981, had a DJ demanded that people get up and party while mixing the sounds equivalent to techno-reggaeton and nelly-esque hip hop (that's what it sounded like) he would have been dragged out of the building and beaten like a dog (this is a hip hop club people). in fact, i would have treated my dog nicer than the DJ. the sad part is, he is not the first DJ to play whack music at a party i've been to, he's just the most recent. today the DJ, for all intents and purposes, has been relegated to the back corner of clubs hidden behind a thick fog of smoke or the bar. in this particular case, the DJ belonged there. hell, he wasn't even a vinyl DJ, he used CDs. call me old fashioned but you can't even mix and scratch a record the way it needs to be with CDs.

it is obvious times have changed. CDs are replacing vinyl and producers have replaced DJs as the creative force behind the music. we can blame technology and commericalism, but these are the sign of the times. maybe i should just roll along with the punches. HELL NO! then i wouldn't be me. but i suppose it really doesn't matter, after all these are only my thoughts ladies and gentlemen.