THE DJ

Turntablism as a modern art form and musical practice has its roots within hip hop and hip hop culture of the late 1970s. Scratching was already widespread within hip hop by DJs and producers by the time turntablists started to appear.

Kool DJ Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash are widely credited for having cemented the now established role of DJ as hip hop's foremost instrumentalist.[3] Kool Herc's invention of break-beat DJing is generally regarded as the foundational development in hip hop history, as it gave rise to all other elements of the genre. His influence on the concept of "DJ as turntablist" is equally profound.

To understand the significance of this achievement, it is important to first define the "break." Briefly, the "break" of a song is a musical fragment only seconds in length, which typically takes the form of an "interlude" in which all or most of the music stops except for the percussion. Kool Herc introduced the break-beat technique as a way of extending the break indefinitely. This is done by buying two of the same record and switching from one to the other on the DJ mixer: e.g., as record A plays, the DJ quickly backtracks to the same break on record B, which will again take the place of A at a specific moment where the audience will not notice that the DJ has switched records.

Kool Herc's revolutionary techniques set the course for the development of turntablism as an art form in significant ways. Most important, however, he developed a new form of DJing that did not consist of playing and mixing records one after the other. The type of DJ that specializes in mixing is well respected for his own set of unique skills, but playlist mixing is still DJing in the traditional sense. Kool Herc instead originated the idea of creating a sequence for his own purposes, introducing the idea of the DJ as the "feature" of parties, whose performance on any given night would be examined critically by the crowd on both a technical and entertainment level.

However it was Grand Wizzard Theodore, an apprentice of Flash, who accidentally isolated the most recognizable technique of turntablism: scratching. He put his hand on a record one day, to silence the music on the turntable while his mother was calling out to him and thus accidentally discovered the sound of scratching by moving the record back and forth under the stylus. Though Theodore discovered scratching, it was Flash who helped push the early concept and showcase it to the public, in his live shows and on recordings.

DJ Grand Mixer DXT is also credited with furthering the concept of scratching by practicing the rhythmic scratching of a record on one or more turntables (often two), using different velocities to alter the pitch of the note or sound on the recording (Alberts 2002). DXT appeared (as DST) on Herbie Hancock's hit song "Rockit".[3]

These early pioneers cemented the fundamental practice that would later become the emerging turntablist art form. Scratching would during the 1980s become a staple of hip hop music, being used by producers and DJs on records and in live shows. By the end of the 1980s it was very common to hear scratching on a record, generally as part of the chorus of a track or within its production.

On stage the DJ would provide the music for the MCs to rhyme to, scratching records during the performance and showcasing his skills alongside the verbal skills of the MC. The most well known example of this 'equation' of MCs and DJ is probably Run DMC who were composed of two MCs and one DJ. The DJ, Jam Master Jay, was an integral part of the group since his turntablism was critical to Run DMC's productions and performances.

While Flash and Bambaataa were using the turntable to explore repetition, alter rhythm and create the instrumental stabs and punch phrasing that would come to characterize the sound of hip hop, Grandmaster DST was busy cutting "real" musicians on their own turf. His scratching on Herbie Hancock's 1983 single, "Rockit", makes it perhaps the most influential DJ track of them all – even more than (Grandmaster Flash's) "Wheels of Steel", it established the DJ as the star of the record, even if he wasn't the frontman. Compared to "Rockit", West Street Mob's "Break Dancin' – Electric Boogie" (1983) was punk negation. As great as "Break Dancin'" was, though, it highlighted the limited tonal range of scratching, which was in danger of becoming a short-lived fad like human beat-boxing until the emergence of Code Money's DJ Brethren from Philadelphia in the mid-'80s.

Despite New York's continued pre-eminence in the hip-hop world, scratch DJing was modernized less than 100 miles down the road in Philadelphia. Denizens of the City of Brotherly Love were creating the climate for the return of the DJ by inventing transformer scratching. Developed by DJ Spinbad, DJ Cash Money and DJ Jazzy Jeff, transforming was basically clicking the fader on and off while moving a block of sound (a riff or a short verbal phrase) across the stylus. Expanding the tonal as well as rhythmic possibilities of scratching, the transformer scratch epitomized the chopped-up aesthetic of hip hop culture. Hip hop was starting to become big money and the cult of personality started to take over.

Hip hop became very much at the service of the rapper and Cash Money and DJ Jazzy Jeff, saddled with B-list rappers like Marvelous and the Fresh Prince, were accorded maybe one track on an album – for example, DJ Jazzy Jeff's "A Touch of Jazz" (1987) and "Jazzy's in the House" (1988) and Cash Money's "The Music Maker" (1988). Other crucial DJ tracks from this period include Tuff Crew's DJ Too Tuff's "Behold the Detonator" "Soul Food" (both 1989)," and Gang Starr's "Dj Premier in Deep Concentration" (1990).

The appearance of turntablists and the birth of turntablism was prompted by one major factor – the disappearance of the DJ in hip-hop groups, on records and in live shows at the turn of the 1990s. This disappearance has been widely documented in books and documentaries (among them Black Noise and Scratch The Movie), and was linked to the increased use of DAT tapes and other studio techniques that would ultimately push the DJ further away from the original hip-hop equation of the MC as the vocalist and the DJ as the music provider alongside the producer.

This push and disappearance of the DJ meant that the practices of the DJ, such as scratching, went back underground and were cultivated and built upon by a generation of people who grew up with hip hop, DJs and scratching. By the mid-90s the disappearance of the DJ in hip hop had created a sub-culture which would come to be known as turntablism and which focused entirely on the DJ utilising his turntables and a mixer to manipulate sounds and create music. By pushing the practice of DJing away, hip hop created the grounds for this sub-culture to evolve.

The origin of the terms turntablist and turntablism are widely contested and argued about, but over the years some facts have been established by various documentaries (Battlesounds, Doug Pray's Scratch), books (DJ Culture), conferences (Skratchcon 2000) and interviews in online and printed magazines. These facts are that the origins of the words most likely lay with practitioners on the US West Coast, centered on the San Francisco Bay Area. Some claim that DJ Disk, a member of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, was the first to coin the term, others claim that DJ Babu, a member of the Beat Junkies, was responsible for coining and spreading the term turntablist after inscribing it on his mixtapes and passing them around. Another claim credits DJ Supreme, 1991 World Supremacy Champion and DJ for Lauryn Hill. The truth most likely lies somewhere in between all these facts.

In an interview with the Spin Science online resource in 2005, DJ Babu added the following comments about the birth and spread of the term:

It was around 95, I was heavily into the whole battling thing, working on the tables constantly, mastering new techniques and scratches, and all the while working in a gas station and spending my spare time concentrating on all these things. One day I made this mixtape called "Comprehension", and on there was a track called "Turntablism" which featured Melo-D and D-Styles. And this is part of where this whole thing about turntablist came from. This was a time where all these new techniques were coming out, like flares and stuff, and there were probably 20 people or so, in around California between Frisco and LA, who knew about these. So we worked on them, talked about it and kicked about the ideas that these techniques and new ways of scratching gave us. And what I would do is write 'Babu the Turntablist' on tapes I was making at the time, and somehow it got out a bit, the media got hold of it and it blew into this whole thing we now know. But it was really nothing to start with. We'd all talk about these new scratches and how they really started to allow us to use the turntable in a more musical way, how it allowed us to do more musical compositions, tracks, etc. and then we'd think about how people who play the piano are pianists, and so we thought "we're turntablists in a way, because we play the turntable like these people do the piano or any other instrument". Beyond that, it was just me writing "Babu the Turntablist", because it was something I did to make my tapes stand out. I'd just get my marker pen out and write it on there.

So by the mid to late 1990s the terms turntablism and turntablist had become established and accepted to define the practice and practitioner of using turntables and a mixer to create or manipulate sounds and music. This could be done by scratching a record or manipulating the rhythms on the record either by drumming, looping or beat juggling.

The decade of the 1990s is also important in shaping the turntablist art form and culture as it saw the emergence of pioneering artists (Mix Master Mike, DJ Q-Bert, DJ Quest, DJ Krush, A-Trak, Ricci Rucker, Mike Boo, Pumpin' Pete, Prime Cuts) and crews (Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Beat Junkies, The Allies, X-Ecutioners), record labels (Asphodel), DJ Battles (DMC) and the evolution of scratching and other turntablism practices such as Beat Juggling which are viewable in the IDA (International DJ Association/ITF) World Finals.

More sophisticated methods of scratching were developed during that decade, with crews and individual DJs concentrating on the manipulation of the record in time with the manipulation of the cross fader on the mixer to create new rhythms and sonic artefacts with a variety of sounds. The evolution of scratching from a fairly simple sound and simple rhythmic cadences to more complicated sounds and more intricate rhythmical patterns allowed the practitioners to further evolve what could be done with scratching musically. These new ways of scratching were all given names, from flare to crab or orbit, and spread as DJs taught each other, practiced together or just showed off their new techniques to other DJs.

Alongside the evolution of scratching, other practices such as drumming (or scratch drumming) and beat juggling were also evolved significantly during the 1990s.

Beat Juggling was invented by Steve Dee, a member of the X-Men (later renamed X-Ecutioners) crew. Beat juggling essentially involves the manipulation of two identical or different drum patterns on two different turntables via the mixer to create a new pattern. A simple example would be to use two copies of the same drum pattern to evolve the pattern by doubling the snares, syncopating the drum kick, adding rhythm and variation to the existing pattern. From this concept, which Steve Dee showcased in the early '90s at DJ battles, Beat Juggling evolved throughout the decade to the point where by the end of it, it had become an intricate technique to create entirely new "beats" and rhythms out of existing, pre-recorded ones. These were now not just limited to using drum patterns, but could also consist of other sounds – the ultimate aim being to create a new rhythm out of the pre-recorded existing ones. While Beat Juggling is not as popular as scratching due to the more demanding rhythmical knowledge it requires, it has proved popular within DJ Battles and in certain compositional situations.

One of the earliest academic studies of turntablism (White 1996) argued for its designation as a legitimate electronic musical instrument—a manual analog sampler—and described turntable techniques such as backspinning, cutting, scratching and blending as basic tools for most hip hop DJs. White's study suggests the proficient hip-hop DJ must possess similar kinds of skills as those required by trained musicians, not limited to a sense of timing, hand–eye coordination, technical competence and musical creativity.

By the year 2000, turntablism and turntablists had become widely publicised and accepted in the mainstream and within hip hop as valid artists. Through this recognition came further evolution.

This evolution took many shapes and forms: some continued to concentrate on the foundations of the art form and its original links to hip hop culture, some became producers utilising the skills they'd learnt as turntablists and incorporating those into their productions, some concentrated more on the DJing aspect of the art form by combining turntablist skills with the trademark skills of club DJs, while others explored alternative routes in utilising the turntable as an instrument or production tool solely for the purpose of making music – either by using solely the turntable or by incorporating it into the production process alongside tools such as drum machines, samplers, computer software, and so on.

New DJs, turntablists and crews owe a distinct debt to old-school DJs like Kool DJ Herc, Grand Wizard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Afrika Bambaataa and other DJs of the golden age of hip hop, who originally developed many of the concepts and techniques that evolved into modern turntablism.

Within the realm of hip hop, notable modern turntablists are the cinematic DJ Shadow, who influenced Diplo and RJD2, among others, and the experimental DJ Spooky, whose Optometry albums showed that the turntablist can perfectly fit within a jazz setting. Mix Master Mike was a founding member of the influential turntablist group Invisibl Skratch Piklz and later served as the DJ for the Beastie Boys. Cut Chemist, DJ Nu-Mark, Kid Koala are also known as virtuosi of the turntables

The History of Turntablism

This turntable history section is an ongiong work that is constantly being updated so it is by no means complete in every sense. If you feel you have something to contribute, or you wish to dispute/correct any of the information which already exists, please feel free to email us and let us know about it. We would greatly appreciate your contribuition and are open minded to all suggestions. Special thanks to all sources who have contributed so far to the content listed below.

1850's - The phonoautograph is developed by French Researchers. The device records sound waves on a rotating cylinder

1870's - Thomas Edison begins to develop a tinfoil phonograph or speaking machine. The machine included a cardboard cylinder wrapped in tinfoil on a threaded axle. A mouthpiece and diaphragm were connected to a stylus that embossed the sound waves on the tinfoil. To play back the recording, a reproducer replaced the mouthpiece. To test the invention for the first time, Edison recited "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into the mouthpiece.

1876 - Elisha Gray invents the Musical Telegraph. Alexander Graham Bell beats him to the patent office and patents the technology, calling it a graphophone.

1877 - Edison unveils the first hand-cranked phonograph.

1878 - Edison patents the phonograph and intends it to be an office machine.

1887 - Bell's graphophone used wax cylinders and included a floating stylus for clearer sound. Edison improves the phonograph by using a solid wax cylinder and a battery-driven motor to replace the original hand crank.

1890 - Musicians begin recording their music. The cylinders of the phonograph had the ability to record 2-4 minutes of audio. Around 1890, musicians began to record their sessions by setting up several phonographs to record at the same time.

1892 - Flat recording discs are invented; the first of which is called the gramophone disc.

1895 - Edison begins mass production of the phonograph and continues to improve the original design by adding a large horn to amplify the sound.

1901 - The Victor Talking Machine Company of New Jersey is incorporated, and the first Victor gramophones is introduced.

1906 - A new Victor gramaphone was introduced, which featured a concealed (inside) horn. It was dubbed the Victrola.

1919 - Invention of the Theremin, by Leon Theremin (Lev Sergeivitch Termen).

The Theremin is considered the predecessor to the Moog Synthesizer. It is unique in that it is the first musical instrument that can be played without being touched.

1920's - The first electronic instruments appear. Theremin, Ondes Martenot and Trautonium

1925 - Electrical amplification (the microphone) was introduced. This invention forced engineers to re-design reproducers.

The Victor Company's answer to this revolution in sound was the Orthophonic Sound Box, which was very sensitive to high and low frequencies.

1931 - EMI researcher Alan Dower Blumlein invents stereophonic sound for recording.

1939 - Invention of the magnetic tape.

John Cage composes imaginary Landscape #1: the first piece to use electronic reproduction. The piece was performed on variable-speed turntables with RCA test tones and other sounds.

1940s - The first DJs emerge as entertainers for troops overseas.

During WWII, persons armed with a turntable, an armful of records, and a basic amplifier would entertain troops in mess halls, spinning Glen Miller, the Andrews sisters, and Benny Goodman. It was much easier than sending an entire band overseas.

1950s - Invention of the 45 RPM 7 inch records.

45 RPM records were cheaper to make and easier for American youths to carry to parties.

In Jamaica, as popularity of Jazz and R'n B increases, sound systems are used to promote the music. Sound systems developed from enterprising record shop disc jockeys with reliable American connections for 45s. They would load a pair of hefty PA speakers into a pickup truck and tour the island from hilltop to savannah, spinning the latest hits.

1951 - John Cage composes imaginary Landscape #4: the first piece to use radios as instruments.

1956 - Ska develops in Jamaica, which makes the sound system explode in popularity.

Karlheinz Stockhausen's 'Gesang der Junglinge' uses both natural sounds and electronically generated noises.

Duke Reid and Clement Dodd emerge as sound system operators in Jamaica.

1958 - Invention of the E-Piano

1959 - Artist begin conducting recording sessions that center on sound systems.

Duke Reid held his first recording session. This included the duo Chuck and Dobby, and the Jiving Juniors. He also recorded Derrick Morgan and Eric Morris for sound system play. Clement Dodd also held his first recording session recording over a dozen tracks with artists like Alton (Ellis) and Eddie (Perkins), Theophilius Beckford, Beresford Ricketts and Lascelles Perkins.

1960's - During the 1960's, modern electronics enters the music domain.

The first Moog Synthesizer hits the market created by Robert Moog.

New concepts and sounds begin to be used in music composition, such as mathematically based compositions by Arnold Schonberg and Erik Satie and "machine" sound by Luigi Russolo.

The late 1960's brought the birth of Dub music and the first remixes pioneered by King Tubby.

1960 - The "afterbeat" and "syncopation" concepts are born.

Prince Buster and Voice of the People begin to emphasize the afterbeat, which became the essence of Jamaican syncopation.

1966 - Rocksteady comes onto the scene in Jamaica.

1967 - Stockhausen Telemusik uses shortwave radio as instruments to create a "world music."

Late 60's - reggae takes over Rock Steady

Foundations for remix and rap music emerge.

Lee "Scratch" Perry, Edward "Bunny" Lee and Osbourne Ruddock (King Tubby) begin operating multi-track studios; they become major reggae producers.

1968 - King Tubby develops cutting

In his position as master cutter for Duke Reid, King Tubby regularly cut acetates (soft wax discs) that were designed exclusively for his own, and a few other, sound systems. When he left out portions of the vocal on a 'dub plate', (the local term for the acetate disc) he effectively created a new 'version' of a song.

1969 - Kool Herc, considered to be the first hip-hop DJ develops "Cutting Breaks." Kool Herc adapted his style by chanting over the instrumental or percussion sections of the day's popular songs. Because these breaks were relatively short, he learned to extend them indefinitely by using an audio mixer and two identical records in which he continuously replaced the desired segment. His particular skill, later copied by many others, was to meld the percussion breaks from two identical records by playing the break over and over switching from one deck to the other. Hip hop derived from "hip hoppin" on the turntable.

"Toasting" begins in dance halls - considered to be a direct link to rap music.

Technics introduced the Direct Drive System, SP-10

Early 70's - Technics released the original SL-1200 as a hi-fi turntable.

Giorgio Moroder is considered to be the pioneer of pro-synthesizer electronic disco music.

1971 - Ralf Hutter, Florian Schneider & Co. form Kraftwerk - the first electronic band.

1975 - Grand Wizard Theodore discovers the scratch.

1979 - Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" is released. While they didn't really utilize the skills of a DJ, this song had a profound influence on the sound of commercial hip-hop during the early 1980's.

Late 70's - Technics does some work on 1200s turntables by improving the motor, redesigning the casing, and adding a separate ground wire and pitch control. It releases it as the sl-1200.

1980's - While playing at a club called the Warehouse, DJ Frankie Knuckles lays down drum machine-generated 4/4 beats on top of soul and disco tunes.

Marshall Jefferson develops a deep, melodic sound that relied on big strings and pounding piano. The result was 'Move Your Body' which became the house record of 1986.

12" disco records that included long percussion breaks (ideal for mixing) contribute to the emergence of House Music.

Grandmaster Flash is one of the first DJs to utilize the "breaks" of certain songs which when looped in a table to table fashion created the "breakbeat".

1980 - Roland introduces the TB-303 bassline machine and the TR-808 drum machine.

1981 - Grandmaster Flash's 1981 single "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" was Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five's first record to demonstrate hip-hop deejaying skills

1982 - Afrika Bambaata's "Planet Rock" samples Kraftwerk and creates electro.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message" becomes a hit. "The Message" is seen by many as the first serious rap record.

1982 - Davy DMX's "One For the Treble" is released

1983 - Grandmaster D.S.T.'s "Megamix" is released

Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" featuring cuts and scratches by Grandmaster D.S.T. brings turntablism to a much wider audience

mid 80s - First affordable samplers (Akai s900) hit the market, which enable musicians to capture and manipulate existing sounds.

Other Hip-hop DJs in New York begin to use the spinback capabilities of the Technics 1200 turntable for "scratching", and to extend grooves and "breaks" by cutting back and forth between 2 copies of the same record as first exhibited by Grandmaster Flash.

1987 - The DMC (Disco Mix Club) holds its first annual DJ Competition

1989 - The rave scene develops.

The rave scene came out of Acid House and became so big that promoters came up with the idea of putting on huge events in the countryside outside London - events that held thousands of people and went on all night.

early 90s - Breakbeat emerges and produces Drum 'n Bass and Trip Hop.

Breakbeat, a descendent of Techno, has origins of Hip-Hop frenetic beats and high pitch samples. There are many variations of breakbeats: Darkside, Jungle and the most popular, Drum 'n Bass.

Trip Hop has roots in breakbeat and ambient and is a montage of beats, vocals, guitar & bass strings, and jazzy elements.

Steve Dee, strongly influenced by DJ Barry B. "The Cut Professor" from the Get Fresh Crew begins experimenting with "The Funk" which further develops and comes to be know as "beat juggling", or "remixing right before your eyes." He later founds the X-men who begin utilizing the style and take beat juggling to a higher level.

1990 - Mix Master Mike, and DJ Apollo form the first all turntable skratch band called "Shadow of the Prophet". They were the DJs for a rap group named F.M.2.0. and performed at various, radio shows and venues in the Bay Area.

1991 - Scratch DJ Innovator/Perfectionist DJ QBert gains worldwide attention in the Technics DMC DJ Championships

1992 - DJ Flare introduces the "Flare" skratch

QBert, Mix Master Mike, and Apollo dubbed as the "Rocksteady DJ's" by Crazy Legs.

92' also marks the year of the first skratch / battle record that was designed for ease of kutting and tricks because of the samples being on beat one after the other with no pause or lag time. It was called "Battlebreaks". The idea was then given to Darth Fader and the rest is history.

1994 - Shortkut, Disk, and QBert form the band, "Tern Tabel Dragunz" and perform at local Hip-Hop events around the Bay during 94'.

Shortkut Wins the Rap Pages DJ Battle in L.A. Strongly influenced by Steve Dee and the X-men, he also introduces his patented "Strobe" juggling technique and later in 94', wins the Technics DMC west coast championships.

Qbert's mixtape "Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik" (dubbed by Rap Pages as the greatest Mixtape of all time) ignites the fire of the experimental skratch / mixtape revolution.

DJ Shadow releases "In/Flux" further fueling the movement towards a more sampler oriented movement in turntablism

1995 - Perhaps the winningest competition DJs ever, Qbert and Mix Master Mike retire from the DMC to become judges and enter a new challenge, the creation of music with turntables.

Mix Master Mike and Disk unknowingly create the name "Invisibl Skratch Piklz" for the crew by jokingly throwing out hundreds of goofy names for bands.

1995 also marked the birth of the first "all samples skratched song" by QBert entitled, "Invasion of the Octopus People" which starts another phase in turntablist culture.

With the help of Shortkut's initial introduction to them in 95', ISP became the first DJ band to be sponsored by, then a small manufacturer of DJ products, "Vestax". With the help of ISP's designs like the PMC 05 pro, 06 pro, 07 Pro and 05 Pro ltd., Vestax has now captured first place as the world's leader in sales of mixers and become the biggest DJ product company.

1996 - The I.T.F. (International Turntablist Federation) holds it's first world champioinship competitions

Showcasing the new era of turntablism, the historic battle at the Rocksteady Reunion between ISP and the X-Men (now called the X-Ececutioners) took place.

QBert gets filmed as a starring role in the movie, "Hang the DJ", which gets picked up by Miramax and plays in theatres in Europe, Canada, and the U.S.

ISP recorded the classic turntable orchestrated piece, "Invisibl Skratch Piklz Vs. Da Klamz uv Deth", on Vinyl.

1997 - Turntable T.V. was born on March 23, 1997 (the day of the Lunar Eclipse) and has now turned into an international turntablist video magazine featuring the Piklz practicing and hanging out with DJs from all over the world showing off their talents, skills, tips, tricks, and other turntable entertainment.

ISP filmed the educational and hilarious "Turntable Mechanics Workshop" for Vestax (check out tracoman.com). In this video, skratches were more publicly defined and given names so that turntablists may now share a mutual "skratch Language".

1998 - Yogafrog creates and gives away the first ISP music grant to aspiring artists in the Bay Area.

Mix Master Mike Joins the "Beastie Boys" in 98' and brings skratching to the eyes of the mainstream.

QBert Receives a lifetime acheivement award from the DMC

mid to late 90s - Individual DJs and crews such as the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, BulletProof Scratch Hamsters/Space Travelers, Allies, Supernatural Turntable Artists, Fifth Platoon, Beat Junkies, 1200 Hobos, Scratch Perverts, X-Men/X-Ecutioners, Cosmic Crew, and many others continue to expand on the frontiers of turntablism as an artform.

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