Black Expressive Culture Narrative Stage: Groove Phi Groove; Street Poetry; The Punk Funk Nation; The Scanner Boys
Web Video Text Tracks Format (WebVTT)
WEBVTT
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[[background song is playing, lots of drums, words chanted to the rhythm]]
00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:55.000 Speaker 1: Get back you alphas, kappas, sigmas, and q's, that's what they said...
00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:01.000 Speaker 1: They were downing the other black fraternal organizations,
00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:10.000 Speaker 1: And proclaiming Groove Phi as the one that gets down,
00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:19.000 Speaker 1: Pointing at anyone in a crowd.
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That's it
00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:34.000 Speaker 1: So, as you see, either you're on beat, or you're not, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's not jumping around in any random sort of, uh, fashion without being in beat or keeping a rhythm,
00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:44.000 Speaker 1: That's, that's what, you know, that's a common denominator in our stepping, We all- If you're going to step, you have to be somewhere in the beat or be with the rhythm,
00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:52.000 Speaker 1: Or you- You'll look like, what, a black dot on a white, on a white sheet or something, you know, Lost.
00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.000 Speaker 3: Are there any more questions?
00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:57.000 Speaker 1: Yes?
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[[inaudible, someone asking a question in the background]]
00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:20.000 Speaker 1: The question is, what is the difference Groove Phi Groove and the Omega Si Phis, which are referred as Q's? Alright, Joe would like this question. I like it too, but go ahead.
00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:29.000 Joe: Yeah well, we can share it. As far as the Q's, alright, and the Alphas and the Kappas and [[crosstalk]] the Sigmas. The non-social fellowships.
00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:36.000 Joe: They are from the Greek tradition, alright?
00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:46.000 Joe: They are Greek letter organizations, which is part of the Hellenic philosophy -- that's the word that's attached to that.
00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:59.000 Joe: We are not a Greek organization. We would like to be considered more or less a Black American organization because that's where our history is derived from.
00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:01.000 Speaker 3: I'd like to add something else to that,
00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:06.000 Speaker 1: Out of turn of course but go ahead. [[audience laughter]]
00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:09.000 Speaker 3: Getting back to that question, I'd like to give a little history about us.
00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:24.000 Speaker 3: We started in '62, as you might here in some of our chants. In the time preceding that, there were the white fraternities and sororities, and they didn't allow Blacks to enter into their groups.
00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:31.000 Speaker 3: Then as time went on, later in the 50s, early 60s, Blacks began to organize their own fraternities and sororities.
00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:41.000 Speaker 1: It really started back in 1911, right around then. The Alphas were the first Black fraternity founded...what was it, 1906? Okay.
00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:54.000 Speaker 1: We went from there, the Black fraternities became almost...I mean they called it a sort of elitism
00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:00.000 Speaker 1: Whereas they would accept members, but only certain members of the Black people.
00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:16.000 Speaker 1: Here you have organizations proclaiming to be this and that for Black people, but in essence Blacks, a lot of them, couldn't obtain membership into them for any different number of reasons.
00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:29.000 Speaker 1: Now, out of the need for the people to be recognized as Black American people and not basically go in and proclaim to be Greeks or whatever,
00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:39.000 Speaker 1: Groove was founded as a means for anybody who had something to offer the organization, they could achieve membership.
00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:46.000 Speaker 1: We have white Groove Phi Groove brothers, so, I mean, color is not a barrier.
00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:52.000 Speaker 1: If you have something to offer the organization, then you can pledge.
00:04:52.000 --> 00:05:07.000 Speaker 1: This is where there's a major difference, I feel, in how history has been,you know, brought down, especially through Black fraternities and sororities and Black people, onto what we're trying to do as a social fellowship.
00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:13.203 Speaker 1: We're very young, we were founded in '62. But, go ahead, you got a rebuttal.
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Speaker 1: Well, having a 2.5 grade average I mean, you know, that's fine. If everyone can't sustain a 2.5 average what does that tell you?
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Speaker 1: I mean it, it doesn't tell me that they can't be my brother or they can't have something to offer groove. I mean, so I'm not going to hold that as a barrier for someone who really wants to pledge. I mean, if he graduates, fine. He can pledge our grad chapter but he won't have to have a 2.5 in our graduate chapter and he could still be doing for the community.
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Speaker 1:I mean, you know, we don't say that we're the smartest people in the world. We don't proclaim to be or anything, so therefore we don't make judgments upon other people, which may not be unjustified.
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Speaker 2: Um, I would like to add that we, also, have a GPA requirement. Um. In terms of being discriminatory, we are talking about in terms of wealth or any other means of material possessions and stuff like that. Or social standing, we don't use those to qualify the person for membership.
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Speaker 3: I think we've got a philosophical question that I think a brother must have a Q under his arm.
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[light audience laughter] Speaker 3: Uh, anyhow. What we. They will be performing here this afternoon at 3:15. We can't solve it at this time, I would have hoped they would have had a chance to do for my colleague last week Friday a little something for the Zetas, but we will let that pass until later. Well, she's a Zeta y'all, so please be sure and do something that's later this afternoon. This is Dr. Glassleryfr a folklorist at the University of Maryland
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Speaker 3: I would simply say to my uh brother, fella Walker that uh to simply add something here. The 60's was as we know the period of you know the period of struggle. John O. Killens the novelist wrote, has written a trilogy of really of the black American experience, "And Then We Heard The Thunder," "Young Blood," and "Sippi". "Sippi", the novel looking at the 60's looking through the eyes of a young black legion who has a dilemma, "Should I stay in collage or should I leave and join the movement?"
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Speaker 3:And I think pretty much what they are talking about here in terms of an organization, we should reach or or we should available to blacks of all social, economic, and other status, you know for whatever walk of life, if you're for the uplift or the betterment of the community you could be my brother. Uh, I think that is pretty much where they are coming from.
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Speaker 3:Uh, but anyway that's a nice question, we'll see you over there. And we will check you um to see what you got. We have the next workshop which is coming on which is uh spoons and we will now, let's give the gentleman a hand of Groove Phi Groove as they leave at this time to prepare. Thank you again gentlemen.
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Speaker 1:3:15.
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Speaker 3:3:15 on the main stage.
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Speaker 1: Is that a Bouvier? I have one at home.
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Expressive culture from Philadelphia area. In this workshop, for approximately 15 minutes we'll be speaking with Mr. Horace Spoons Williams. Spoons is a 74 year old performer, musician and street raconteur.
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Today we'll be looking at that latter aspect of his performing repertoire. Rather than asking him to perform for us on Spoons which he has done once on the main stage already and will be doing at approximately 4 o'clock later this afternoon, I've asked Spoons to speak with us today about the art of street poetry.
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Now a lot of people when they think of poetry immediately associate it with the written word. They think of poetry as something that you learn in school, as something which is read in books and printed. Always in printed form but not in oral form, a form that is pass down from generation to generation.
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However, in the African American community, easily since the early 1800's, the art of creating verse and passing that verse on orally, not through a written form, but rather through the telling of the verse, has been very important and played an important role in the broader expressive repertoire of Afro-America.
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In the 1800's, this skill at rhyming this link between the ability to rhyme and social status and social standing within the community led to the development of two parallel forms of recited verse in the Black community. The first of these and the one with which many people are probably familiar is simply called The Toast.
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Now, when a lot of white people think of toasts, they tend to think of one, two, three line verses which are recited before you doff the drink, send it down. In the black community however, the word toast has a very different meaning. A toast is, (well we have competition in the back there, don't we?), a toast is an orally recited poem that extends maybe from 115 to 200 to 250 all the way to up to 500 lines.
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The poem is never written down. It is learned in social situations, on the street corner, at house parties. The theme is learned, the story line is learned and then it is told and re-told pass from generation to generation. Now, a number of toasts, have been recorded easily over the past hundred years every decade.
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Toasts like the signifying monkey. Things of that sort. Toasts which are long stories told in rhyme and always invariably very profane. Every fourth or fifth word in a toast is such that if we were to tell a toast here on the stage we would be sent packing very quickly back to Philadelphia.
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There is a parallel tradition to the toast, though. A tradition where you keep the same ideas of meter, the same ideas of stanza, the same types of rhyme, but you do not tell the traditional storyline. What is passed on is the style of rhyme but not the content of the rhymes.
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In the Southern Black community this form was simple called "a poem," so you had poems and you had toasts. The poems, unlike the toasts which told traditional stories, the poems were stories of a personal nature; stories of one's own experience.
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Today we have with us at the festival a master toast-teller and street poet. He performs both types of rhymes and has performed both since he was a young man in South Carolina. Spoons Williams, with us here on the stage, is 74 years old.
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Spoons was born in a plantation in South Carolina. When he was only 5 or 6 he began to hear the fellow farmhands telling rhymes when out in the fields and when gathering together at corn shuckings or to work in the tobacco barns.
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When they were all male gatherings, there were no women and children around, those rhymes tended to take the form of the profane toasts. However, when children were present, or when women were present, at dinners and things of this sort, the rhymes took the form of what were called poems.
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Spoons began putting together toasts and poems when he was a young teenager, and over the years he has continued to compose and perform these pieces: composing them in his mind, writing them down but not memorizing them from the written word, never publishing them, never really referring back all the time to what was written, but rather reciting them orally at parties, on streetcorners, or when gathered together with friends and neighbors.
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Spoons, I think with that introduction, I should turn it over to you. If you could tell us when you really wrote your first poem?
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Poet: That has been some time ago, I would rather say I will try because it has been a long time. And I think my first poem was really maybe when I was about 12 or 13 years old... possibly younger. Interviewer: Could you perhaps give us an example of one of those to give the audience an idea of what this sort of poetry is? Poet: Well first I would like to state that I had quite a few experiences during my stay in South Carolina and recalling back to some of the incidents that occurred, I wrote, that is the best that I could. I had to stay on the farm to plow the mule, to milk the cow, to cut wood, what have you. So when I did go to school which I finished I think about the third or fourth grade. And I am very fortunate because I was always eager to learn and God has blessed me tremendously. Because I did learn - Oh you know how to read, write, and to spell somewhat. However I will not prolong any longer with this, I would like to tell you of an experience that I had during my stay in South Carolina and it all came from people whom I've seen hung - my people - and please I don't want anyone to think that I'm prejudiced, but these are the thoughts that entered my mind when I'd seen this happen. The title of this poem is "A Black Man Talks to God."
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*Reading from the poem "A Black Man Talks to God."* "My God, we are down here in part of your world where ALL men are supposed to be free. But oh father God torture is being used by the steel toes on shoes and a nuce is a swing in a tree. Here, old Father, where it is dangerous to walk in daytime or night because the shadows of death is nearby, and the ropes in the trees just wait in the breeze because the black man will surely soon die. Here old Father where shots in the night fill many with fright and the bang of hounds is sure death. Yes, it's a lynching mob to do a job but first, they'll amuse themselves. So with the wives and the daughters [?] while the husbands are tied to the bed to be found the next day in a very crude way. The husbands and their families are dead. And Oh Father we are all hungry for just a little knowledge but out of ignorance they try to prolong and it just ain't no justice for the black man, how then can he help BUT be rogue? You see they close most of the schools to us down here and we pay taxes for the [?] to vote. Now, Father where is that great constitution that the so-called white man wrote? They don't want us educated but they will sell us whiskey, wine, beer, and gin, and they will try to destroy our character and treat black women just like men."
00:18:46.000 --> 00:19:03.000 Speaker 1: But old father God, just let a white woman say that she has been insulted. You know they will hang the first black man they see and they will cut off his fingers for trophies and drag his dead body through the streets.
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Sure, they will any innocent black man and they will laugh at his mother's tears and only because he's been accused of a crime that the white man committed for years.
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Oh, Father God, our churches are being bombed and our people are being hung and high shares of dogs are being paid to use blackjacks and lead on our people head but for this, no arrest would be made.
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If so, what's the use they'll just turn them a loose and they will pin golden medals on their chest and then highest a mother because those other brave brothers will be sent out of town for arrest.
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Oh, Father God, the grass turns red from the blacks who are dead, like I say, and their bodies can find no rest until the vultures have gone leaving only the bones and [[?]] and black mother's breasts.
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My god, we working them fields every day for pennies from dime to dust, but when the days are over not even thanks is given us and you know we'll made to fight in all their wars and they teach us to shoot their guns but as soon they're [[?]] of victory, you know that our wars have then begun
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because the same soldiers that we [[?]] decide to bring them a victory.
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My God, there some of the same who hide behind sheets and destroys our families.
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Oh, Father God, you know these things and forget those days and nights when bullets zoomed about our heads and we all smoked from the same cigarette and we ate [[?]] from the same piece of ---
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Speaker 1: Oh, god, father, you know that I believe in you but I just don't think it's fair for us to have to fight like hell down here and then do the same damn thing there
[SILENCE]
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Speaker 1:Now, father god, I want you to hear me, and please consider this black man's prayer and build a high neon sign in heaven stating that you'll have no discrimination up there. Thank you
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[Aplause]
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Speaker 1:Thank you
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Speaker 2: Suppose how many pieces do you currently perform which are similar to that which you just did there?
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Speaker 1: Well, I've been writing quite some time and I dare not state how many poems I have written because it is possibility that I have will make a mistake.
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But Ummm, I think I will be close to right about say that I have written about maybe two, two and a half to three thousand poems and uh as of yet, I have never had an opportunity
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to have a book made or to put them out on the streets
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Speaker 1: There usually said around people who are black because of the fact that I was afraid to recite them in the presence of white people
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Afraid of what reaction they may take.
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Now ladies and gentlemen. There's another poem that I would like to recite to you and believe me I am not prejudiced and just that I came upon such strangerous condition and uh I was afraid to talk about them outright.
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But god, gave me the ability to try and relate it to people in a song.
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You know, in musical form where there would be no disturbance.
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This is titled "My birthplace"
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This is my birthplace. But to me, it's not a home. Man, I've stayed here I think just a little too long. Because all of my life, I've been living in a storm. Now I think it's time for me to be moving on.
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You know, I was your farmer. And I cleared your woods. Also a solider for you and even fought the best I could. But yet you just don't treat me the way you should. And I think it's time for me to be moving on. And you know what? I have been working for you all of my days and my parents before me, they was also your slaves. And freedom was all that they ever craved.
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And if I want to find it, I've just got to be moving on. This is what you did to me. You called me brute because I'm strong. You used my legs and you also used my arms. And you had my woman cooking your meals and you worked my children day and night in your fields.
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Yes. You said that you would pay us, but you seldom did. You promised eight but you gave us two instead.
00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:31.000 Speaker 2: ohhhhhh, you said so many things that I believe
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and I never got them even bending down on my knees.
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The church while worship you burn that to the ground and even burn the little school house down.
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You hung my father and my brother too then you raped my mama and my sister when you were through.
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It just ain't no burden too heavy to put on my back
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you don't call me a man because I'm black
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yes, this is my birthplace but I be damned if I can call it home
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and now I want to change this just a little bit, to help your mind
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Now ladies and gentlemen, I know there among you some who had a lover in the service,
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some was lost in the service and uh but this is not the Christmas season however
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this is how this poem taken place, it was during the Christmas seasons, I myself was a soldier in the second world war.
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The title of this poem is "My saddest Experience".
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You know the saddest experience that I've ever had
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it was on one Christmas Day a mother with three of her small children were kneeling down to pray
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and near them was a dying infant and I, a soldier, stood by--
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:35.000 Speaker 2: hear the deadless sounds of bombs as they drop down from the sky
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My God! I heard that mother say, "But this be none our fault, yet here lay dying is my infant babe who had not yet learned to walk,
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and he brought no arms against any nations, he knew nothing of a command a baby bottle was all he held in his tiny hands",
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and then my tears came streaming down but not because of faith but because those words that mother spoke I knew so well was right,
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for every child from his mother's womb be that mother's greatest delight and man has no right to take her blessings
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and teach it to kill or fight.
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Well slowly I moved towards that heartbroken mother but her words pierced me through and through,
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"Away with you young soldier" she said, "for you are a killer too"
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and ohhhhh that hurt me so you will never know because, because at one time I was so proud I'd tell ya
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I sported my medals for all to see, it was a hero to the crowds
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but you know what really made it hurt so bad, well it was all my glory and my great pride,
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I tell ya it left my heart a burning hell why I'd won them from babes that died.
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Well then I picked that dead baby up, you know it I held it in my arms, again to hear that mother state,
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"yes soldier, you helped to kill my son".
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One night an old building that was once a church had been all but blown down,
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well I wandered there to say a prayer and what was left of a cross I found and on that broken bit of cross was a part of the Christ's child arm
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and the side of his holy body in which the spear was thrown--
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[[Speaker Name: Speaker 1]] Speaker 1: Then, gently, oh ever so gently, I laid the dead baby down
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and I raised the broken cross above my head, and I tried to ask for forgiveness-
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but "My God!"
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was all I said, because I knew of no other to call that could ease these pains inside!
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And then I thought about the blameless ones,
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who had no place to hide from the mass destruction that was made by Man and the horrible ways to die from the millions of guns and those deadly bombs being rained down from on high.
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Well then [[?]] you know, a gentle hand rest upon my shoulder- the mother had came near while I [[unintelligible]] and I looked into her smile instead of tears-
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"Oh, pray with me, young soldier," she said, "for you have a mother too, and please try in your heart to forgive me for ever blaming you,
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for somewhere out there in distant lands, a million mothers live in fear; and there are nights they can find no rest, and their pillows are soaked in tears."
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Well then you know, the other children she called to her, then she cuddled them in her arms- and looked up and said,
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"You know, God has been real good to me, for some mothers had just one-"
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:17.000 Spoons: Oh then I tell you the burden has ripped from my heart because brothers I have none and a sister who died at childbirth and now mother haves only one.
[SILENCE]
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But I never will forget that day. For it's rooted within my heart the dyin' day of ever days and the birthday of our God.
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{APPLAUSE}
00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:46.000 Spoons: Thank you {APPLAUSE}
00:32:46.000 --> 00:33:05.000 Moderator: Spoons has performed for us three recitations or monologues the middle one of which "This is my Birthplace" he also performs as a song which he sings or chants really to a rhythm created by beating on a percussive instrument usually a jug.
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:20.000 Moderator: Are there any questions from members of the audience to Spoons about how he composes the pieces, where he performs, how long he has been working with them anything of this sort? Yes, ma'am?
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:21.000
[SILENCE]
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:27.000 Spoons: No ma'am.
[SILENCE]
00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:32.000 Moderator: A literary agent, let's hear it.
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:40.000 Spoons: Yes, ma'am. [Inaudible] Thank you, thank you very much.
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:53.000 Moderator: Are there other questions from the audience? Oh come on, ya'll didn't learn all that much, you gotta have some kind of questions. Yes?
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[SILENCE]
00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:04.000 Moderator: Ok, the question was whether or not the poems are performed on the street and whether or not they're accompanied by music.
00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:06.780 Spoons: Yes ma'am, they are performed--
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Poet: It gives me great pleasure to do so.
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Poet: At that time, when we have outings or little house parties and it gives me a great pleasure to recite them because I write them.
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Poet: And because I think it has a lot to--I just feel like if people would listen to them, sometimes they might get a message out of 'em.
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Poet: And like oh, like the lady said, I would like very much man, there's one more poem I would like to say.
00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:52.000
Host: The uh, the poems are traditionally performed in community settings.
00:34:52.000 --> 00:35:04.000
Host: Spoons, until approximately two and a half years ago, had never really performed any of these poems on a stage. That's something - that's something rather recent.
00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:12.000
Poet: Okay. Well, thank you ladies and gentlemen, for being concerned enough to come out and hear.
00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:23.000
Poet: And uh I would like you all to give yourself a round of applause because you are a beautiful audience. Thank you. [[clapping]]
00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:36.000
Host: From here in just a few minutes, we'll be doing a workshop with uh the DJs for the Scanner Boys and Grandmast--with Grandmaster Nell of Grand Master Nell and the Punk Funk Nation,
00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:48.000
Host: trying to break down some of the artistry of these wizards of the wheels of steel by bringing the DJs and their equipment onto the stage and letting you un
00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:57.000 Host: --letting them explain and hopefully helping you all to understand what exactly goes into the art of mixology, of blending and broadcasting.
00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:09.000 Host: So if you'll bear with us a few minutes as we get the turntables up on the stage, we'll have uh approximately a thirty-minute workshop in the art of mixing.
00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:19.000
Host: [inaudible] workshop, here at the narrative stage of the Black Expressive Culture from Philadelphia section of the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife.
00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:28.000
Host: Now, on this stage, this year we're doing something a little different. We're making a little departure from the traditions of past festivals here at the Smithsonian.
00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:42.000
Host: Rather than focusing only upon traditions which have clearly been passed on from generation to generation and defining folklore in terms of that passage over time and through space,
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:50.000
Host: what we're doing is looking at folklore in a new way: looking at it as forms of vernacular artistry.
00:36:50.000 --> 00:37:00.000
Host: Artistry that is found in the communities and is recognized by the community as being part of an aesthetic, part of a broader artistic whole.
00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:10.000
Host: When we change our definition of folklore to look at it this way and begin to think of folklore not only as something old and something of the past
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:20.000
Host: but rather as something which can be current and vital and vibrant, in an artistic sense, in an ongoing way in the community, then it opens up the entire field.
00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.000
Host: It broadens our lens, if you can put it that way.
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:31.000
Host: Because of that new focus, because of our now--because of the way we're now looking at folklore in a different way,
00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:40.000
Host: we're able to look at other artistic forms and artistic forms which have developed with time and which incorporate contemporary technology.
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:53.000
Host: For that reason we have at the festival this year breakdancers, rappers, and here on the stage with us now, the vital third part of that combination:
00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:05.000
Host: DJs, who will be working with the double turntables and the mixers to create the sounds that dancers use to dance by on the floor and the rappers use to do their vocal raps.
00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:15.000
Host: We have with us today on the stage two different DJs, the DJ with the breakdance group from Philadelphia, the Scanner Boys, over on my right Grand Wizard Slide.
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:17.660
Host: Let's have a hand for Grand Wizard Slide, please
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:30.000 Speaker 1: And here on my left, the DJ with Grand Master Nell and the Punk Funk Nation, Grand Master Nell himself.
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:32.000
{APPLAUSE}
00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:52.000 Speaker 1: Nell and Sly are going to be speaking with us today about the art of mixology and broadcasting. What we are going to try and do is breakdown the techniques of mixing, of broadcasting, of blending in order to show you all exactly what goes into the 'Art of the DJ'.
00:38:52.000 --> 00:39:01.000 Speaker 1: A lot of people when they hear the music will think well what the DJ is doing is letting a record play all the way through and then blending it into another record and when it ends.
00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:19.000 Speaker 1: Now that's how it all started, that's precisely what the disc jockeys on the radio have done for ages now. Let a record play, if they want to play another record right after it, begin to fade at the very end of that record and queue up another record increasing the volume of one as the other one fades out.
00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:42.000 Speaker 1: That's a very very basic form of blending which really doesn't tell much us about the 'Art of the DJ'. The 'Art of the DJ' took off where that started. That was old-time radio technology. What we've got now though developing in the block parties and in clubs and discos is an entire new artistic form. The use of turntables in a very different way.
00:39:42.000 --> 00:40:02.000 Speaker 1: The use of many of double discs and many cases all the way up to five discs in five different turntables to create a new sense of sound, a new type of rhythm to add percussive effects manually to the records to put records together so you've got the vocal from one and rhythm track from another.
00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:17.000 Speaker 1: We are going to explore all of these things today and show you also a little bit of the flashy DJ work. The things DJs do, not as much for the people on the dance floor, or for the rappers with whom they are working as much as competing with other DJ.
00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:36.000 Speaker 1: Things like DJing with a sneaker instead of with your hands to spin the records or scratch the records to create sounds. Things like playing a record upside down where the needle instead of going on top of the disc comes from underneath the disc and plays the record backwards that way.
00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:52.000 Speaker 1: Perhaps the best way to start is to explain, what is the equipment that a DJ has, the very basic equipment and we'll start with you Sly. What exactly is it that a DJ needs in order to follow this profession?
00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:57.770 Sly: Well the basic equipment for a disc jockey would be two turntables, a mixer and a set of headphones.
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:18.000 Speaker 1: Why is it that you would have two turntables? Speaker 2: The reason for two turntable is so that we can keep a party going at a steady pace. If we only had one turntable, we have to take time off to change the record, and by the time we got another record on and got it started, the party woulda been--anybody would've been sit down.
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:34.000 Speaker 1: Now, with two turntables, you're obviously able to move from one record to another record, yet often when DJs work, they use two copies of the same record, one disc on each table. How exactly--why exactly do you do that?
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:54.000 Speaker 2: The reason a DJ use two of the same record's cause you might buy a album that only might got about ten seconds worth of music in it wors--worth listenin' to. So what you would do with two tables is move from side to side and keep the party going at a steady pace and trying to keep the record on beat at the same time.
00:41:54.000 --> 00:42:07.000 Speaker 1: So what we're talking about, then, is a sequence of music on an entire record which is particularly hot or which is particularly good for rapping. For example, a small instrumental section before a vocal on a record.
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:48.000 Speaker 1: Now if you're working with rappers, clearly the rappers do not want to rap over another vocal, a prerecorded vocal. They need a clear, solid rhythm track. So what the DJ will do: take out a rhythmic track, a sequence of maybe five to ten seconds, from one disc, have two copies of that disc, one on each of the turntables, play it on one, then switch over to the other, switching back to the first to the second to the first to the second and endlessly repeating that one small sequence of music, moving from turntable to turntable and never missing a beat.
00:42:48.000 --> 00:43:02.000 Speaker 1: Now, this is the most basic of the skills of the party DJ and the street DJ. Sly, could you give us an example of just this sort of work, moving back from one, to the other, back to the first?
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:09.000 Speaker 1: Could you start maybe by playing us the piece that you're going to play over on both sides and letting us hear a little more than what that sounds like?
00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:27.000
[[music]]
00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:37.390 Speaker 1: Okay, that's the original disc. Now what he'll do is move from one to the other, he has that same record on both turntables
00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:56.000
[[music, which continues playing until 00:44:43]]
00:43:56.000 --> 00:39:59.000
Host: Now he's on the second disk.
00:39:59.000 --> 00:44:02.000
Host: Queuing up the first one again.
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:11.000
Host: Now back to the first one.
00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:16.000
Host: Now, clearly the art is in not missing a beat.
00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:42.000
Host: If you're working with dancers on the floor, you've got to be able to move from the first to the second to the first to the second without putting them off at any time.
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:50.000
Host: Let's have a hand for Grand Wizard Sly. [[clapping]]
00:44:50.000 --> 00:45:13.000
Host: Now the sort of mixing that you heard there is really the most basic form, where you move from one turntable to the other, repeating that sequence of music. Sly was adding a few little things there; he was scratching the record a little bit, moving it forward greater than its original speed to get that particular sound, which allows you to add an extra beat or a set of beats to the rhythm track laid down on the first record.
00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:25.000
Host: We'll be going more into that with Grandmaster Nell in just a few minutes. However, first I'd like to talk about different types of mixing, and here we'll turn to Grand Master Nell.
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:50.000
Host: This form of mixing, the purpose is simply to keep that beat, to keep that sequence of music that has the--the right beat playing, so that you can extend it endlessly. Often, however, DJs, when they're in competition, are not as concerned with keeping the steady beat for dancers as much as they are with doing something flashy with their turntables, exhibiting their speed in moving back and forth.
00:45:50.000 --> 00:46:04.000
Host: So what has developed is a form of mixing known as 'speed mixing,' a form not heard as much on the dance floor as in competitions among DJs. Nell, could you tell us a little about speed mixing and how it's done?
00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:24.490
Grand Master Nell: Yes, speed mixing is when you workin' both turntables constantly, going from the first turntable to the second turntable like-- you constantly just moving, like from this turntable, this one back to this one, this one back to this one, this one this one this one this one and this is, I'm just explaining to you right now, I want there to be a demonstration with speed mixing next.
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:35.000 Speaker 1: But you are always constantly moving. Never taking a break.
00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:46.000 Speaker 1: Speed mixing isn't really for dancing. Speed mixing is mainly for like sh showing, you know like showing off or you have to show or you want to show somebody your speed.
00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:54.000 Speaker 1: You tell them have a seat, check you out, listen to you, whatever man.
00:46:54.000 --> 00:47:02.000 Speaker 2: Now could you start by playing us again, the segment that you will be mixing back and forth to let the audience hear what it is like, on a single record?
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:08.000 Speaker 2: Yeah, just, just play it on one record and then so let us hear what you'll be doing.
00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:12.000 Speaker 1: Ok, here's how the record sounds.
00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:17.000
{MUSIC PLAYING} "Rhythm in the bottom, In the bottom,"
00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:22.000
{MUSIC PLAYING} "Here's another one"
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:28.000 Speaker 2: Sorry, there we had both, both DJ tables turn hot at the same time.
00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:30.000 Speaker 1: Here you go
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:39.000
{MUSIC PLAYING} Time after time after time [inaudible] Living in tomorrow
00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:49.000 Speaker 1: Catch the beat coming up. "Here's another one". Now what I'm going to do I'm going to make it say, "Here's another one", "Here's another one", "Here's another one", "Here's another one".
00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:56.000 Speaker 1: I going to keep repeating over and over by using my speed from both turntables.
00:47:56.000 --> 00:48:01.000
{MUSIC PLAYING}
00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:03.000
{MUSIC PLAYING} "Bottom" "Here's another one"
00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:06.000
{MUSIC PLAYING} "Here's another one"
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:10.000
{MUSIC PLAYING} "Here's another one"
00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.000
{MUSIC PLAYING} "Here's another one"
00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:16.000
{MUSIC PLAYING} "Here's another one"
00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:50.136
{MUSIC PLAYING} "Here's another one"