DJ Rhettmatic: Visionary Beat Junkie - Part I

Today it’s very seldom for any one individual to know what mark they want to leave in this world, if any. DJ Rhettmatic, part of the Beat Junkie Crew and co-founder of the Visionaries has left and continues to leave his stamp on one of hip-hop’s founding elements, the DJ. In California diversity is a nomenclature. The son of Filipino parents, Rhettmatic, one who considered himself a nerd growing up fit perfectly in the hip-hop culture. DJ Rhettmatic is more than a versatile DJ, he’s the true essence of a dying breed and with a cultural heritage that runs deep and exudes through the scratched and spun vinyl, the more you listen to the music the more you’ll understand the perspective.

Scheme: What part of California are you from and how much does your cultural background play into what you do?
DJ Rhettmatic: I currently live in Long Beach but I grew up in a suburb region called Cerritos, which is like borderline LA county and Orange County and its 30 minutes away from LA but ironically it’s in the middle of everything.

My cultural background, I’m Filipino-American, I was born here and my parents are from the Filipines. A lot of people don’t know that Filipino’s here on the west coast have played a big part in hip-hop. The running joke is that we’re like the Puerto Ricans of the west coast. The inside joke of the Filipino and Asian community is that the Filipino’s are considered the “Blacks” of the group if that makes sense. In our culture there are a lot of tribal aesthetics and a lot of people don’t know that we have a big Catholic and Muslim community. We’re kind of indigenous because our people were invaded by Spain, so we have some Spanish, Asian and African blood in there as well, that’s one of the reasons I think our culture is so connected to the Black culture because there’s so much tribal aesthetic ingrained in our culture. For us being Filipino-American it’s an everyday thing to be a part of hip-hop at least on the west coast.

Scheme: What’s your definition of a DJ?
DJ Rhettmatic: The generation I come from, besides being a music selector you have to know how to rock a crowd, you have to have extensive knowledge of music, you have to have a pretty good record collection because that’s a reflection of your history, you have to have skills, you have to know how to do a little bit of everything, scratch, make beats, create mixtapes and DJ for rap artists, that’s the kind of generation I grew up in. That’s what all the greats were doing. Just because you have a Serato [software program] doesn’t make you a dope DJ. If you’re a wack DJ in the first place a computer program is not going to make you a better DJ.

Scheme: When did you touch your first set of turntables?
DJ Rhettmatic: I was in junior high, that’s around when hip-hop found its way to the west coast. I remember seeing cats pop and lock and I just remember thinking, “What is that? I grew up listening to Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, Earth Wind & Fire and of course the Go-Go’s, Black Flag, Van Halen and whatever was cool at the time. I remember I was hanging out with a family friend at the time and his older brother was a DJ and then when I heard the Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel? Then of course my first rap record was the Sugar Hill Gang. Whatever was coming from New York was slowly making its way to LA. All the hip kids new what time it was but I was a nerd. During that time I was doing at least two of the four elements of hip-hop, even if you weren’t a DJ, you were a b-boy a graffiti writer and we all did a little bit of everything. I tried to rap and I couldn’t rap for sh*t. Before I became a DJ I was more of a popper and a graf writer.

Scheme: When did you realize this was something you loved but you could also profit from?
DJ Rhettmatic: Honestly, when I was in college, in high school at least on the west coast I was part of the mobile DJ scene. We had our own crew, we didn’t know anything better. You had crews like Uncle Jams Army and the World Class Wrecking Crew. DJ’s were cutting it up but they were also doing parties and they would have sound systems. Of course when we found out that they did weddings, high school dances and barmitzpha’s and all that stuff. So coming up in hip-hop I tried to get my own crew and getting paid to do these house parties was kind of the thing. The money we made from doing these types of parties we saved up and would buy equipment, records and stuff. Whatever allowance I got, I wouldn’t eat lunch but I saved up to buy those records. In junior high and high school I would practice everyday and my parents would get mad at me because I wasn’t concentrating on school-work and stuff.

Battling was always a part of the thing growing up and we would battle for equipment or battle for our names. In some ways it was a little more personal (laughs) because there was more stuff on the line. In terms of practicing I would practice at least three to four hours a day. Now I’m lucky if I can get a good hour in (laughs).

Scheme: I’m very envious of your record collection, if I had a dream of how I would want a room in my house to look it would resemble that.
DJ Rhettmatic: That’s actually my garage (laughs). I just recently moved, so my studio does not look like that now.

Scheme: Your collection is very extensive, do you still have an art to digging or has it got beyond that point?
DJ Rhettmatic: What I dig for is old school sh*t that I can play in the clubs or I dig for sample sh*t. Compared to other diggers I know I don’t think I’m like the best , I just happened to have been collecting for such a long time. I don’t really go out and grab the rarest records, the best diggers to me are Cut Chemist, Madlib, DJ Shadow and I’ll put J.Rocc in that too because that guy is a diggin’ monster himself. A lot of my friends, we still dig and stuff but we just dig for certain things.

Scheme: Talk about the Beat Junkies and how that concept began?
DJ Rhettmatic: J.Rocc is the one that started the crew in ’92. For people who don’t know there’s like thirteen members but not everyone is as active as they used to be. Some of us came up together and some joined the group later. In the beginning a lot of us were in different scenes and we would always see each other at other clubs and events and stuff. For some reason we all got along and we admired each other’s talents. When we all hung out we realized that we had a lot of things in common, the music, the love and we had the same sense of humor and that helped out a lot too. J.[Rocc] always wanted his own crew and he approached us one day about it, this was at the time he was working in a comic book store and he was like, “We’re going to be called the Beat Junkies and we’re going to wear these Green Lantern Rings.” These were some glow in the dark Green Lantern rings that he got from the comic book shop. So the talk around town was who were these f*ckers winning battles wearing these Green Lantern rings?

Scheme: What is your involvement with the Visionaries and what are the plans for 2008?
DJ Rhettmatic: I’m one of the co-founding members, there’s five emcees and then there’s me. We’ve been together for about twelve or thirteen years. As of 2008 we’re restructuring. Everyone is doing their solo project right now. LMNO has an album coming out with Kev Brown, 2-mex did an album with Mars Volta and I think it’s called Look Daggers, Zen and Dannu are both doing solo projects, and me I’m just d’jing and trying to get my name out there along with working with the Beat Junkies and making my own beats. I’m actually working on a Producer’s album with J-Rawls from the Lone Catalysts.

Scheme: Was beat making something you always wanted to get involved in or is it something that birthed out of djing?
DJ Rhettmatic: I think it’s a natural progression, I’ve been making beats since ’88-’89. I’ve never sampled, I work more with the drum machines. I had an ASR16 drum machine and I tried to emulate “Sucka Emcees” because I couldn’t afford to buy samplings so I just tried to mimic drum programs. When sampling came in and I did my research I found out about the SP1200 and I was like, “Ooh!” So I got more into that and I bought the re-issue of the SP1200 in 1990 and that’s when I really got more into sampling and stuff. So when EMPD’s “You Got’s to Chill” came on I was like, “I bought that record!” So I’ve always been making beats I just got more seriously into it by the year 2000.

Scheme: What have you learned from the beatmakers you’ve worked with across the board?
DJ Rhettmatic: A lot of it came from trying to sit and down and listen to records and figure out how do they do that? Then I would hear second hand stories about what they would do and stuff like that. I heard how Muggs [DJ] on one of his albums hooked up three SP200’s together because the SP200 only had 10 seconds of sampling time. I would also read all the recording magazines because there was no internet back then, so if there was a mag with Preemo on the cover I would definitely pick that up. When I started meeting these people I would ask them questions and learn from that as well. It was a lot harder back then because we didn’t have all this access that we do now.

Scheme: What’s it like being with hip-hop in its beginning stages and seeing where it’s gone now, more specifically on the west coast? How have you had to adjust to those transformations and stay somewhat competitive?
DJ Rhettmatic: When I was coming up it was all about getting your props and having fun. There was no money to be made off of it, if you got money that was an extra topping. You just wanted people to respect you and for girls to like you and sh*t like that (laughs). As I got older I started to realize, this is some real sh*t right here and it’s unexplainable you just live it.

In terms of living off of it, I’ve been pretty lucky, each market and each generation is different. It hasn’t been a struggle but the DJ market isn’t how it used to be. I think we’re still relevant per-se but it’s because we stick to our guns. We might have to adjust a little bit here and there but for the most part sticking to our guns and being true to ourselves. We’re still appreciative that people like our work and our crews work, in all honesty I’m probably one of the least known Junkies, if not least known least popular (laughs) compared to Babu [DJ], J.Rocc and Shortkut.

Scheme: Well you talk about being the most un-popular one but how did you become the DJ for J Dilla’s last tour?
DJ Rhettmatic: Part II Tomorrow…