Scheme is on the scene, come on kick it! Okay, I guess the original “Evil Dee is On the Mix, Come on Kick It” sounds much better but you can’t blame us for trying. Any way’s, it goes without saying that DJ Evil Dee, one half of the seminal producer/beatmaker group Beatminerz is a hip hop legend. He may not have produced records that have gone 5x Platinum but don’t forget as Buckshot put it “Commercial rap gets the gun clap”. He has had a hand in producing two of hip hops greatest albums; Blackmoon’s ‘Enta Da Stage” and Smif N Wesson’s “Da Shining”, as well as countless underground hits. Check it out as we kick it with this legend on a stoop in BK before a set that night.

Scheme: What is Hip Hop to Evil Dee?

Evil Dee: Hip Hop is my lifestyle; Hip Hop is something that I live. I wake up in the morning and I do everything Hip Hop, I am Hip Hop. I wake up and dress Hip Hop, I practice my DJing for two hours, I make beats, and I conduct business within this “Hip Hop Game”. Hip Hop is me……Hip Hop is you.

Scheme: At what moment did you first become conscious of it [hip hop]?

DJ Evil Dee: I remember it like yesterday, I was at home and mom’s just yelled at me. I f*cked up something but I don’t remember what but I was in my hallway and I heard (making sound effects) “I said a Hip Hop, a hippidy…” and I said to myself ‘What the hell was that?” It was “Rappers Delight” on the radio. Now don’t get me wrong I had heard hip hop before this but this was the first time I acknowledged it, when I figured out that this was something real that wasn’t just done around the way but was also being played on the radio. I was thinking “These guys are rhyming on the radio” and then came “Christmas Rapping”. By this point I’m thinking “oh my god, there’s two groups on the radio rhyming” That was my introduction to the separation, of music from hip hop. You see back then we really didn’t have any boundaries; we listened to all kinds of music. We listened to Average White Band, we listened to Chicago, and we listened to Earth Wind and Fire, Parliament. We listened to everything; we didn’t have this segregation in music like you have today.

Scheme: When did Hip Hop move from being a hobby to the point where you said “This is what I want to do full time, this is how I want to live?”

Evil Dee: It was the same time frame as the other question, I walked outside my house and seen my neighbor who was my brother’s God brother; Charles “Doobie” Charles, blending the records. I sat there watching from my stoop for six straight hours and that’s when I was like ‘Yo, this is crazy”. Then the wildest thing happened, after that my brother got on and then the big brother little brother competition started like ‘If you can do it, then I can do it” and at the same time that’s when I made the decision that this was what I wanted to do. I would try to practice and my brother would kick me out so I would wait for him the leave and then jump on the turntables and practice. Then I would try to put the settings back to the way he had it but I would always miss two or three things and then my brother would come and beat me up, that was me paying my dues by getting beat up by my brother and his crew. I don’t know what happened but one day it all came together and he realized I was dope at what I did. He never did give me that dap, that acceptance but what he was doing subliminally was making me work harder because I was thinking ‘Damn, I’m gonna show him, I’m gonna be nice, I’m gonna be fresh” and I just worked harder to show him. It got to the point where I knew we were gonna get on but had a sibling competition to see who would make it first.

Scheme: And this is Mr. Walt right?

Evil Dee: Yeah, he was known around the neighborhood as Quick Walter Dee and cause he was nice with his he then became Slice Nice; Always Cuts the Beats Twice and then went on to become Mr. Walt. It was ill because my brother was the illest DJ in Bushwick until I came along. When I came along I took his crown, he’ll never admit that but I took his crown.

Scheme: So what is that like for both of you, knowing that this is your life? Do you have conversations about it?

Evil Dee: Oh of course! You know what it is, you know how some cats talk sports or how people read the stock market, I do that with records. I’ll get online and I’ll hear a new Stevie [Wonder] record that I never heard before and I’ll call up Walt and tell him I just heard a new Stevie record that I never heard and blah blah blah and he’ll reply and tell me what it is or help me find it. My brother owns Beatminerz but I help him run the business and all we do is talk music all day. At this moment I am rewiring the house to do over our studios and we are discussing what to do with the studio and what equipment to use and why. Everyday we talk music, create music and rock parties; that is what we do everyday. We even keep charts of records which keep track of how much the records are worth and we have a network around the world, that’s how serious this is. Say for instance you’re looking for a Prince Erotic City Picture Disc, I can call someone in Japan right now and they’ll find it for me and I can have it for you in two days. If not there I can call someone in London, or in Canada or send out my emails and ask cats and that’s jut what we do.

Scheme: Did you ever imagine that you would go from being a kid from Bushwick playing on your brother’s tables to becoming someone who connects with people all over the world, over music?

Evil Dee: Nah! I always thought I was gonna be that dude from around the way, that DJ dude. I never saw it going outside of New York. Even when we did Blackmoon’s first album “Enta Da Stage” I was creating something for my boys that hang out. We’d be hanging out at 3 in the morning and the radio would be playing some bullsh*t. They would play three fast records that you don’t want to hear and a slow jam. When you’re hanging out with your boys you don’t want to hear no f*cking slow jam! I tried to create something for cats hanging out late nights to listen to; it was meant to be the soundtrack to the streets. That is what happened, people in Baltimore connected to it, people in Philly connected to it, people in Boston, people in Cali, people in London and people all over the world because there is something on that album that everyone relates to. Yo, I was shocked just like everyone else was like “Yo, we’re going to do a show in Virginia, people in Virginia listen to this? We’re doing a show in L.A.?” Because at the time hip hop to me was New York. This is just the way we are in New York, we look at New York and you can’t top us because we are the innovators and I was stuck in that mentality and then to hear the whole country likes your record was crazy.

Scheme: “Enta Da Stage” and “Da Shining”, are incredible to me personally. I mean first and foremost I am a beat person. Some people will hit rewind on the lyrics but for me it is beats. Don’t get me wrong, I listen and analyze the lyrics but the beats just grab hold of me, to this day “Enta Da Stage” and “Da Shining” are f*cking incredible.

Evil Dee: Thank you!

Scheme: How did you do those albums, what went into it?

Evil Dee: Half of “Enta the Stage” was done in my house on a 4 track, “Who Got Da Props”,“N*ggas Talk Sh*t”, “Act Like You Want It”, “Powerful Impact”; we pre-tracked all of those in my house. After we pre-tracked those we got the deal we went to Kaleidopy. At Kaleidopy I bought records with me everyday to the studio, just bags full and made beats right there on the spot. I’d hit Buck up and tell him this is the new beat. He would listen to it and start vibing to it and write down a few lines. Then he’d go into the booth, rock it and finish the song in 3-4 takes. Once we finished the first side we left Kaleidopy because the owner was an asshole. We bumped into Premier and Preemo took us to D&D [studios] and that was it we were D&D for life. We redid some of the records we did at Kaleidopy and did the remaining songs. I would take crates of records up to D&D, because once we got to D&D it felt like home and we started to treat it like home. I would leave records up there, like 8-9 crates of records. I would make the beats there and Buck would come up with the verses on the spot and that’s how we made “Enta Da Stage”. Now with “Da Shining”, I did “Bucktown”, “Lets Get it On” and something else in my house and then we did the rest at D&D. The difference is this time instead of doing it into the control room with the big boards I just went into the editing room and just got busy but we got the same results. Tek and Steele came in the same way; Buck did and created their verses. My brother suggested they do the Run DMC styled back and forth and there you have it. I tell everybody, your best work is done when you’re not thinking about it. When you start thinking about it, you start to force the process and that’s when your music is overcooked. One thing about me is that if you asked me to do a remix by Monday, I’ll start working on it Sunday night because it adds that pressure and I work better under the pressure. That is how those two albums where created under pressure but at that point you just start doing instead of just thinking. We did them on some hip hop sh*t, we didn’t sit down and think about it and talk about it, no we just did it. That’s why they worked out.

“Two Turntables and a Mic’, when I decided to scratch up “Heartbeat” on the record cats started asking me “is that your attempt to go commercial” and I said no because if you listen to the third verse Buckshot says “commercial rap gets the gun clap” you know what I’m saying.”

Scheme: It’s crazy because I would always throw on those records when I visited my cousin’s in New York. I’m from Connecticut but spent a ton of time at my cousins and he had a set of Gemini’s and I would throw on these records and just zone out. I wouldn’t scratch or cut these because I just wanted to listen. Then when cd’s came out I would spend my money on them and not eat for a week or not buy gas just so I could buy these cd’s, Blackmoon, Smif N Wesson, Nas, CNN, etc. Was it ever like that with you and your music?

Evil Dee: That’s crazy but I know what you mean and I know the feeling. I was the same way, when I was in school I would take my lunch money and buy records. I could show you records from when I was in high school and I was mad thin cause I didn’t eat. All I cared about was music, I was buying records and I was trying to buy turntables. It’s crazy because that’s why now I am in the situation I am in now. It is something that I worked towards and I didn’t bullsh*t myself. You see a lot of people in the industry bullsh*t themselves and force it and just didn’t what I was good at and didn’t force myself to have talent. I did what came natural, I tried to rhyme and I was whack on the mic and I knew that. I tried break dancing but I was corny, I did Graffiti but my moms would bust my ass. So you know, DJ was the only thing I knew how to do without f*cking it up. When you’re a DJ, you become a producer. Actually the right DJ becomes a producer because when you take two pieces of vinyl and blend them back and forth, you are producing a version of that record.

“They try to say that music is not selling because of the digital age; no music is not selling because the music being put out is bullsh*t.”

Scheme: I saw a DVD, maybe a year and a half ago and I think it was a Smack and one portion of it featured the producer Rsonist from Heatmakerz showing how he could make a beat in 10 minutes. During this session, he ripped the sample he needed from vinyl into his computer and then he just cracked the record in half and threw it on the floor and said something to the affect that he didn’t need it anymore and that it was no good to him anymore. How do you feel about that scenario, what are your thoughts on it?

Evil Dee: That’s him. It’s a matter of knowing your history, in order to know your future you need to know your past and that’s for real. See with music, as a producer or even just a beat maker you need to have a database of sounds and a reference point and those records are your database. If he wants to create his beat and destroy his past then that’s hi. He’s gonna have to reference that record again sometime in the future and he’s not gonna have it because he destroyed it. Cats do things and don’t think about it. My thing is that I still have my sampling disc from “Enter Da Stage” that I still reference to this day. We put out a track in 2004 called “Stone Is Da Way of The Walk”, the B-Side of that record is the record that I sampled for “I Got cha Opin”, the original, you never know when you’ll need stuff again. What happens is that your ears change, your taste changes and you’ll hear things that you didn’t hear before. I used to be the guy that said “Oh, I’ll never sample anything that’s common” but I can do that now because I will hear something that you wouldn’t have heard and will bring it to the forefront. For instance, ‘Two Turntables and a Mic”, when I decided to scratch up “Heartbeat” on the record cats started asking me “is that your attempt to go commercial” and I said no because if you listen to the third verse Buckshot says “commercial rap gets the gun clap” you know what I’m saying. My thing is that back in the day, when you heard “Heartbeat” it was being cut up at the party, and that’s why we had the routine called
”Two Turntables and a Mic”. It’s funny because commercial radio thought “oh my god, wow these guys are great” (in the high pitched nasal tone reserved for imitating your stereotypical uptight executive), because “Two Turntables and a Mic” was our biggest commercial record to date. Z-100 added the record “wow, these guys are great” but when they figured out what it meant, Bucks third verse they pulled it but it was too late because the record was already four weeks in and we accomplished what we wanted. So going back to that Rsonist thing, that’s on him, that is his thing and good luck to him.

“I like the fact that I can walk around with a phone in my pocket, a phone that can hold my beat tape. If I run into Rakim and I want to give him a beat, I can download from my phone the song right there and give it to him.”

Scheme: What do you appreciate today in the industry and the culture that you didn’t have or weren’t exposed to in the beginning?

Evil Dee: I’m probably gonna get a lot of backlash for what I am about to say but I like the fact that now I don’t have to carry my records or bust my ass to run around carrying crates of records everyday. A large part of the wear and tear on vinyl is constantly taking them out and playing them every night and they start to wear down and you lose records. Ever since 9/11 airlines want to charge an arm and a leg to bring your vinyl with you so I like technology right now. I like the fact that I can do an iChat with a dude from India and we talk in real time, technology is crazy. I like the fact that I can walk around with a phone in my pocket, a phone that can hold my beat tape. If I run into Rakim and I want to give him a beat, I can download from my phone the song right there and give it to him. I like that! I’ll catch backlash because that runs into the whole MP3/CD vs. Vinyl debate and a lot of purist are mad because we are not running around with our crates. My reply is that at the end of the day, I’m still your best DJ when it comes down to it. I still have my knowledge of records and I’m still rocking parties, so what’s the problem? I think that’s going to be the debate in hip hop, the problem with hip hop is that we get too stuck in our ways, we don’t like change. If we keep that up it will be easier to destroy us like they are doing now. Like the whole vinyl debate “I’m ah keep it real god, I still carry my crates”, well you go ahead and carry your crates. While you’re walking around with two crates with 200 records in them I have 20,000 on a laptop and I got my joints with me where I can play anything. I can think of a song and put it on the turntable while you’re limited to your 200 records. That’s how you kill hip hop, when we refuse to change. I mean the South cats, all they are doing is taking stuff that we threw away and putting it back in the mix. You have the 808, the call and response chorus, simplicity in records. They are taking that, repackaging it and giving it back to us; “Ay Bay Bay, Ah Bay Bay”, “Buck em Down, Buck em Down”, it’s the same sh*t but different because we took time to create classics but people today are in the microwave era. We home cooked our albums; right now they are microwaving everything. They are taking what we already made and reheating it. Right now you have The Shop Boyz with the “Party Like a Rockstar” Album, three weeks later the album is out because the label knows you have to get it out now before it fades away like it is right now. We partied like a Rock Star already, so what’s next? You have Mims “This is Why I’m Hot”, he’s cold. Do you hear that record around anymore? He had the hottest record on the radio, but his album did nothing! Technology, I like what it allows me to do but they are also using it against us, we need to embrace the technology so that they can’t use it against us. They stopped making the vinyl, all right you can stop making the vinyl but you’re not gonna stop me from DJing because I’m gonna learn to DJ with CD’s and DJ Serrato where I can cut up MP3’s. They try to say that music is not selling because of the digital age; no music is not selling because the music being put out is bullsh*t. Case in point, if a dope album comes out it sales 1-3 million. Dr. Dre still sales millions, T.I.’s album is good and it’s selling. It comes down to if your stuff is whack or if it is dope, that’s what it breaks down to. We need to embrace the technology; we just started to use Pro Tools. Pro Tools has been around the entire 90’s. R&B and Rock have been using it for years; we just started to use it because it is inexpensive. We just started duplicating our CD’s and pressing up our own vinyl, the pop acts did it already. We are always last, but one thing we did do that they couldn’t was we beat their ass in record sales with hip hop in the 90’s and early 2000. We busted they ass and they couldn’t understand it but now it’s back to that bullshit, time to shuck and jive.

Scheme: So what do you feel about people who are just now learning to DJ and they are learning to do it on CD?

Evil Dee: It kind of takes away from it because I feel that you should learn on vinyl first before you move onto using CD’s. What happens is that everyone thinks they are a DJ, you turn around and buy Serrato today and you call up Bubba because he has Serrato and has 20,000 songs on his hard drive so you copy his hard drive and now you have 20,000 songs and you feel you are an instant DJ the next day. “I’m Nice”. No, you have 20,000 songs but you don’t have the knowledge. It is always like that though, the kid who has the most toys but doesn’t know how to use them but that kid with the one matchbox car but he knows how to flip it, tire falls off he can fix it and play with it to the point where he mastered it and that is what it’s like. You turn around now and you see kids in the industry that have everything and can’t do anything with it. Look at Jay-Z, he can sell Jay-Z but he can’t sale a record for anybody else really. Look at the Def Jam roster, it’s horrible. He killed Nas….he killed Nas because you put Young Jeezy over Nas. You killed the Roots, but he got everything. When his album came out, $5 million promotional budget but he still didn’t sell a lot. Whatever he sold, barely recouped what he took. That’s how it is man.

“They are taking that, repackaging it and giving it back to us; “Ay Bay Bay, Ah Bay Bay”, “Buck em Down, Buck em Down”, it’s the same sh*t but different because we took time to create classics but people today are in the microwave era. We home cooked our albums; right now they are microwaving everything. They are taking what we already made and reheating it.”

Scheme: I heard you say that people go out and buy stuff and become “instant DJ’s” but at the beginning of the interview you noted that you still practice your DJing two hours a day. So even though you have years in the game and classics under your belt you don’t slack off. At this stage, are you just staying in rhythm with things or are you still learning new things?

Evil Dee: Yeah! I go back and forth with my cutting and scratching. I work on my blending, I listen to new records to learn them and work on new routines. There can be a day when I am learning needle drops, and I do that with vinyl and not Serrato because it’s like cheating. I had a routine with “Rock the Bells” where I would pick up the needle and drop it on the same “Rock the Bells” point which is tricky to do. When it comes time for Blackmoon to tour; the lost art of DJing will be coming back to life where as I will do a five to ten minute routine before the show starts to warm up the crowd. That’s lost, not many are doing that now and those who are doing it are not being creative with it, except for a few cats like Scratch.

Scheme: Do you feel there is a difference between a beatmaker and a producer and if so what is it?

Evile Dee: We got it twisted! A beatmaker is the dude that constructs the music and the producer is the dude that orchestrates the music and brings it to life. Quincy Jones is not coming in and playing the guitar, he comes to the studio and directs. You can think of it as a movie, the producer is the director. People try to say that Puffy is not a producer, no Puffy is not going to sit in front of a machine chopping up a record but Puffy will come in a direct that sh*t. With Beatminerz, whoever programs the beat is the beatmaker and the other brother directs the track. It’s a big difference, one is the director (the producer) and the other is the writer (beatmaker).

Scheme: What do you not like about today’s music?

Evil Dee: The segregation in the game and the music. There is no reason that Talib Kweli doesn’t get radio burn and it’s because of segregation. They like to have the pretty boys and the gimmicky cats and they are not checking for the dudes that are dropping the lessons. Why is it that the only Dead Prez record people know is “Hip Hop” when Dead Prez has so much material out? There is a lot of stuff that doesn’t get the light of day. The same ten records get play around the United States because outside of the United States they actually look for the music. Outside the United States buy mixtapes but they don’t pick up the Kay Slay because they are not looking for someone screaming into the Mic, they are looking for someone talking with the turntable who is cutting and scratching. There is too much segregation over here.

Scheme: Who do you respect out here now that’s putting out mixtapes or even just respect their live show?

Evil Dee: Premier, Jazzy Jeff, Cash Money, Rich Medina, King Britt. I can keep naming people that some think are not even in the hip hop realm but they are hip hop whether people like it or not. People think King Britt is a house (music) DJ, no King Britt is a DJ period. I can also name Kenny Dope, my man Spinna. There are cats that are doing it and cats that are just here. Understand that as a DJ, you’re a brand. Evil Dee went from being a DJ to a brand when people started requesting me to perform and I am a brand because when you hire Evil Dee you know what you are getting. It’s not like you hired me to be Funk Master Flex or I cater to the geographical area I am playing. There are only a minimum amount of DJ’s that I will actually go out and see rock a show today.

Scheme: You named off a few Philly DJ’s there and a lot of people don’t give Philly its props in terms of the DJ scene. There are people who think Jazzy Jeff was just Will Smith’s sidekick and played Jazz on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air but they don’t know that Jazzy Jeff is a legend and a pioneer.

Evil Dee: Exactly, what you have to do is school them on it. There are people, especially the younger crowd that don’t even know I am part of a group. They think I’m just some new DJ cat that came out of no where and am tearing down parties. When I’m doing some gigs, I still get people coming up top me and telling me I’m good and how long have I been doing this? I’m not here for that; I’m not here for the yuppies and all of that. I am here to educate the real hip hop fans and I will break down my history to you. Jeff isn’t that type of cat, he’s not the type of cat that will go “Listen Muthafu%ka, this is what I’ve done” but at the end of the day if you do your research you will know about Jeff (Jazzy). The only reason I know is because I am from that era. I was trying to get into Times Square when he Transform Scratched which is something that was happening in Philly way before he brought it to New York. There was a record called “Bring That Beat Back” by Steady B and his DJ Amir Transformed for him and that was three years before Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince came out. We have to study our history; you have to know your past. A lot of people don’t know Schooly D, Schooly D is dope! They don’t know Schooly D but they know his records, they know “Saturday Nigtht” and “P.S.K.”.

Scheme: I consider myself to be a student of hip hop and to this day I am still learning things. I was recently researching Paul C or Paul McNasty, because I always see his name in liner notes or shouted out from some of the older rappers and decided to learn more about him and he was really accomplished and pioneering in some aspects. When it comes to the history of the game, who’s responsibility is it to teach the youth?

Evil Dee: We as artist have to educate our people, our fans. We are on a platform and we need to use that platform. For instance, back in the day around my way I used to make copies of old school mixtapes and pass them out to the shorties around the way and be like “Yo son, you like Jurassic? Then listen to this Cold Crush tape” and from doing that cats from around my way know their history because we helped them with the knowledge. If you look at Rock N Roll, they know David Bowie, they know Rolling Stones and they know their history. In hip hop all we know is RUN DMC, and don’t get me wrong Run DMC did they thing and you need to bow down to Run DMC but they are all we know because they took the time to break down their own history. A lot of people don’t know that a DJ named Luv Bug Starski is the dude that created the term “Hip Hop”, and Luv Bug is my personal friend. He is one of the few people that I was actually star struck when I seen him, and I don’t get star struck aside from when I first met Rakim and Prince. The only reason I was star struck off of Prince is because he knew who I was and what I did. Back to the point, we the artist need to take it upon ourselves to teach, the same way people taught me and Luv Bug Starski taught me we need to teach them. There is a lot of old school stuff out here that’s been recycled and the young cats think it is brand new, and we need to take that as a challenge and teach them.

Scheme: When was that moment when you knew that you “Arrived” so to speak?

Evil Dee: I haven’t arrived yet. I’m chillin right now and I never want to know that I’ve “arrived” because once I know that the fun is gone then the game is finished.

Scheme: How do you feel about 9th Wonder working with Boot Camp artist and doing full albums with them? Do you think they came out good?

Evil Dee: They came out dope. As a matter of fact, I started those collaborations. My thing is, they [Boot Camp] have a mission that they want to do and to be a hog and keep all their talents to myself would be a waste. I feel like if someone else is nice, they should rock with them to help create that magic. I’ve worked with other artist so why would I feel negative about them working with someone else? 9th is dope, and I told Buck he should do some stuff with him and they gelled together real well. The same thing happened with the click, they rock with other producers and do what they do and it’s dope.

Scheme: When is the last time that hip hop made you happy to the point that you didn’t even realize it until you were already smiling and having a good time?

Evil Dee: It’s been a long time.

Scheme: What will it take to get you back there?

Evil Dee: Originality. Little Brother did that for me, when I first heard their first single I remember just saying “Yo, they’re hot”. Then I heard “The Listening”, the full thing I was thinking “They are hot man, this dude 9th Wonder and his boys are really taking it there”.

Scheme: Where are the best spots you go to do your crate digging?

Evil Dee: I get some really good stuff over seas because over here [United States] a lot of record stores know the rappers are coming and they file the records under “Funky Beats” and “Boom Baps and Bass Lines” and charge $80 when they know they usually charge $.25. Philly has some nice spots, and Boston and here in New York. I actually found a spot in this neighborhood (Williamsburg) that’s a flea market that has mad records all over the place. I have to go there with the mask on and go in the basement and dig. Sometimes he even asks me to help him straighten up in exchange for some free records. Little does he know who I am but it’s cool, I sit there and straighten up and he’ll give me a crate of records, it’s still fun. I will not go to the big stores, only the Moms and Pops, Thrift shops and Garage Sells. The game is messed up because a kid will buy an MPC and thinks he needs to spend $300 for the loop. He doesn’t realize that it’s not the loop, it’s the dude who is making the beat that makes it hot.

Scheme: There is a gentleman named Simon Crouch who is against hip hop and I saw him on BETJ once stating that Hip Hop has made no relevant positive affect on music such as Jazz, Classical and Rock have. His opinion is that hip hop just takes from all other music and puts it together. How do you feel about that statement?

Evil Dee: I mean in all music, we are taking sounds and putting them together. Hip Hop does take different music and put it together. What makes hip hop better is that we take music and sounds that are not supposed to work together and we make them fit. Regular musicians just change the note if it doesn’t fit, but with hip hop if it doesn’t fit you have to chop that record more and find the part that does fit. He is right in a sense but he is being sarcastic with it, whereas I wear it as a badge of honor. He doesn’t even know that he said something right but said it in the wrong way.

Scheme: Do you have any other hobbies outside of the music and hip hop?

Evil Dee: Sneakers! Sneakers are my thing. Back in the day I used to paint my sneakers before a lot of people began doing it. The sneaker game is the same as the music game nowadays though. It used to be your joints could be exclusive but now if you have something and one week later everyone else has them. It’s just a matter of how much money you have to spend.

Scheme: What’s Evil Dee’s Scheme for 2007.

Evil Dee: 2007 and 2008 will see a lot of records from me because it is needed. The game needs it and I’m about to step it up and put the stuff out there. We have a new Blackmoon album coming out, new Beatminerz, a Beatminerz Trojan record coming out where we remix the old Reggae joints. We have a lot of Beatminerz mixtapes coming out with a lot of Beatminerz remixes that have never seen the light of day. We also will do a lot of parties. This year I might do a tour, Premier and I might do a tour. We did the test in Philly and it worked out good so we will see what happens.

Scheme: Last thing, I always wanted to know what prompted you to come up with your signature battle cry “Evil Dee is on the mix, come on kick it”?

Evil Dee: That’s a funny story from back in the day. When I was first DJing my man and I used to always compete over who was better and the usual competition that comes along with that. I started to put out mixtapes and I was feeling myself one day. This dude was on the block in his car and he was pumping my tape. So I said to my man “watch this” and walked up on this shorty and tried to impress her by telling her that dude was playing my tape. She didn’t believe me so I went up to the car and asked the dude, “Yo’ who made that tape?” Money looked me up and down and said “I did” and drove away. I got clowned by the shorty and my man. So I was sitting with my boys and I was thinking of ways to make sure people knew it was me so I started coming up with different phrases that were all wack. Well my man Luis was chilling with us and his mother comes screaming down the block at dinner time (in his best Hispanic accent) “Luis, fried chicken is ready, it’s time for dinner”, “Luis, the fried chicken come on and get it”. Her accent was pretty heavy and she was straight screaming so we started to clown Luis. Once he left we started cracking on each other and soon it became “Evil Likes Fried Chicken” and cats were cracking up. Then some how it turned to “Evil Dee is on the Fried Chicken, come on Eat it” and then shorty said “Evil Dee is on the Mix, come on kick it” At first we were laughing because it was still a joke but then I thought about it and it was dope. From there I started to use it on my mixtapes and that’s how it happened.

Do your history, know your knowledge, teach the young and take notice when you hear “Evil Dee is on the mix, come on kick it” because that means you are in for a treat!