Mean As

For many in Auckland, being a fan of “urban” music ain’t easy. Sometimes you don’t want to go to a club and hear guys who sound like robots harping on about Patron and shawtys ALL night. Alternatively,  it can be hard to actually have a good time and stay awake through a whole night of obscure conscious raps over some jazz loops. All things in moderation they say – so for the people that can appreciate Slum Village AND Snoop Dogg, people who like D’Angelo who don’t hate every song that’s on the Radio or TV, or people who wanna hear the new shit they just downloaded off Nah Right in a club – once every month, we’re gonna try and do something Mean.

Shucks… we might even play a 2Pac song that ISN’T “How Do You Want It” or “California Love”.

Featuring Live Performances from:

David Dallas

Vince Harder(Acoustic Set… you don’t wanna miss this)

Spycc

DJ’s:

Fire & Ice

Dj PayDirt

Dj Mouli

& special guest

P-Money

To top it off we’ll be having a Street Fighter Hyper Comp with the winner scoring themself a copy of the brand new Super Street Fighter 4 which drops the end of this month.

Too mean.

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A sweet excuse for a party on a Monday night! Mondays are hospo night at Cassette #9 and the past few times that I’ve DJed there it has been cranking, which is bizarre to me but awesome at the same time. Come down and celebrate the epicness of the late great Aotea Square with us!

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This weekend just passed, Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan blessed New Zealand with his first live performance in the country; only the third original founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan to come to our shores. He played at the Powerstation in Auckland with Shaun Wigs and Du Lilz of Theodore Unit and tore it down! Suffice to say it was one of the illest shows I’ve been to. But this ain’t no gig review, this is the story about how I DJed for Ghostface Killah… yeah, you read that right, I DJed for Ghostface Killah, no bullshit! How did this come to be? Allow me to explain…

The following is my recollection of the events leading up to and including my DJ set at the Ghostface Killah after-party and is the god-honest 100% truth! Give me five to ten minutes of your time and I’ll give you an entertaining read.

The Ghostface concert:
Like many hip hop fans, I was raised on a solid diet of Wu-Tang Clan. I know everything in the period from 36 Chambers to Forever inside-out and back-to-front. So any time a Wu member comes to New Zealand, which is basically almost never, I’m there without a doubt. When the Ghostface gig was announced there was no question if I was going, I bought my ticket the day they were released.

Ghost arrived in Auckland on Wednesday morning and spent the lead-up to his gig on Saturday night chilling in the city. I secretly hoped that I’d have a Ghostface sighting. Given that I work and study in the city and also host Auckland’s longest running hip hop radio show, I figured the chances of me either seeing or meeting Ghost prior to Saturday night were fairly high. I lucked out, no sightings prior to the show. I also joked on Twitter and my radio show about giving Ghost “a white block of cheese from New Zealand” in reference to his lyrics at the tail-end of Ironman’s ‘260′ – now hold that thought.

So I went to the Ghostface show and enjoyed it. My Shot Then co-writer, rapper David Dallas, was the support act on the night and he held it down. He was buzzing off of the opportunity to open for Ghost, not to mention the radio interview with Ghost earlier in the week where his name came up. Ghost and the Theodore Unit came on and tore it up. The sound was sketchy in parts of the show, and ‘Daytona 500′ was noticaebly absent, but it didn’t matter so much. Ghost was such an intense and sincere performer that you couldn’t help but be mesmerised by him. Long story short, Ghost killed it, if you have the opportunity to see this dude live, do it!

The After-Party:
So the show ended, it was almost midnight and me and my girl headed to Zen for the after-party; dropping home one of the casualties who unfortunately couldn’t make it along the way. I wasn’t due to spin until 3:30AM but I was up for a party.

At 1:30AM DJ CXL gets on the decks. From memory he was visibly tired and a bit drunk, so I told him if he wanted to jet early to let me know and I’d cover for him so that I didn’t have to stay too late either. If you’ve ever seen CXL DJ before you know whats up, he is so on point with the mixes and the cuts, needless to say he killed it. He was joined by three local rappers in the DJ booth, Temple Jones, USOuljah and Ethical, who were doing their thing hyping up the party. And by this stage the party was wild, everyone was intoxicated, people were dancing on speakers, Du Lilz popped up in the DJ booth at random to hype up the crowd and everyone was just having fun. CXL dropped Dave’s joint ‘Indulge Me’ and me and my mates celebrated while Dave missed the opportunity to get his shine on ‘cos a fan had cornered him and she was talking his ear off.

At 2:25AM I got the message that CXL was ready to wrap up his set and jet, so I headed to the back-room by the DJ booth. As I  expected, the other DJs at the after-party would rinse out all the hip hop party classics and Wu joints before I got on and that the party would be waning. So earlier that day I prepared a set that avoided boom bap rap and was a bit more uptempo and leftfield to keep the party energised. I hadn’t planned on bringing up a hype man like the other DJs though so I was half expecting peeps to be disappointed. This is when things took an unexpected turn.

Meeting Ghost:
I needed to take a piss really bad before I spun, so I was about to head to the toilets when Ghost and the Theodore Unit showed up in the backroom. Wigs and Du Lilz wanted to get in the DJ booth so I stepped back and let them past. Du Lilz proceeded to dry hump some groupie chick in the DJ booth.

At this point Ghost was standing in front of me and I was about to tell him that I enjoyed his show earlier, maybe grab a photo, and then  go and have a piss, but he just started to have a conversation with me.

I can’t remember or don’t know how he worked out that I was DJing next but he began asking me if I had particular songs, “ayo, you got that Jay-Z joint that goes, ‘Jiiggaaaaa!’” I replied, “you mean ‘That Nigga Jigga’?” and he nodded his head*. Then I had to check myself ‘cos I just realised that I had just said the “n word” to a black man, I thought I might get punched in the face for that racial faux pas. I wasn’t trying to get popped on the chin (pause) like Pastor Mase. Nothing happened though, so maybe he didn’t care, or maybe I get a pass ‘cos I’m brown, either way he just kept asking for songs.

(*He later made me aware that the song he meant was actually “Jigga My Nigga”, I always get them two mixed up ‘cos the titles are so similar)

Me, Ghost and Wigs searched through my library picking out tunes that they wanted to hear, Ghost even specified what order he wanted them played in. Ghost really wanted to hear some T-Pain, Ron Browz, and Jim Jones. I was a bit gutted that I didn’t have ‘We Fly High (Ballin’)’ on my laptop (I only have a corny remix of it) ‘cos that joint would have gone off and Ghost really wanted it too. He asked about Carl Thomas and Jaheim joints too, but I don’t really have any, in any case they are probably not so well known round these parts anyway. This went on for about 20 minutes or so, meanwhile I’m thinking my friends are gonna bug the fuck out when I come out into the DJ booth with Ghost on the mic.

So at about 2:55AM Ghost is ready and he wants to get up, I told him to chill for a minute to give me time to swap over my laptop with CXL. When you are using Serato changing DJs is a bit of a bitch, it requires the use of a vinyl record or CD to play while the DJs unplug and plug in their laptops. I handed CXL my ODB ‘Pop Shots’ 12″ to spin while we did the switchover. Meanwhile Ghost and Wigs were in the back-room taking photos with a few peeps. I didn’t have time to neatly put that ODB record back in its sleeve afterwards so I leaned it up against the wall on the floor, that was a mistake that I’ll come to in a moment.

DJing for Ghost:
So Ghost came out and introduced himself to the party and I started spinning while Ghost and Wigs rapped along to the joints. That piss that I really needed to take? It got put on hold. My friends bug out and ran up to grab some photos thinking that this wont last very long. All the while Ghost is in my ear telling me what to play and when. Again rapping the words to songs that he didn’t know the names to. I had to be quick in the mix too because Ghost would name a song and then immediately count me in by hitting me on my back with his right arm - “ayo, you got *insert song title here*? Drop it in 1-2-3-4!”. My friends said that Ghost and I looked like best friends, even describing it as a bromance – Ghost had his arm on my shoulders half the time and we were laughing away like old friends.

Meanwhile Wigs is filling up glasses with Grey Goose over the turntables and handing them out to the crowd, spilling it all over my Serato control records. So not only was I dealing with Ghosts quick-fire mix requests, I was taking my records off after each mix and wiping them down on the chair at the back of the DJ booth. It was a tight squeeze up in the DJ booth too, Ghost was leaning over the turntables rapping so I’d have to reach under his arm to play shit on the left turntable. Ghost was also getting up in the mix too, he’d scratch the record on the left turntable when he wanted the next joint mixed in.

To make matters worse the left turntable was fucking up which made the records sound as though they were screwed. I had to switch to internal mode on Serato to avoid using the left turntable for a while and had to relearn on the spot how to DJ with one turntable using Serato. I did that for a few joints until I realised that a large clump of lint on the left turntable’s needle was the cause of my problems, I cleaned that off and went back to DJing with both turntables. As I was doing that I noticed a small block of camembert next to the Grey Goose, someone had actually given Ghost “a white block of cheese from New Zealand!” I was also having difficulty hearing shit in my headphones because of the chaos surrounding me but that’s a whole other story.

At some point during this mayhem Ghost noticed my ODB record on the floor, he picked it up and read it. A huge smile formed across his face when he realised it was an Ol’ Dirty record. What happened next perplexed me though, he waved the record around excitedly, then snapped it in half with his forehead, and threw the two pieces into the crowd. Fortunately I had doubles of that record, I suppose I have triples now.

What further perplexed me was his insistence that I play 50 Cent. I thought those two had beef, remember Clyde Smith? I’d heard rumours that Ghost had pushed 50 down a staircase over the ‘How To Rob’ record. That was a long time ago though, so I guess they have moved past that. I ended up playing three joints off of get Rich Or Die Tryin’.

It was at this point that J-Love appeared in the booth to get in on the song requesting action. Ghost was now telling me he wanted to hear some shit from around 2000, immediately following that J-Love told me to play “Know The Ledge” by Eric B. & Rakim. Now I had a dilemma, either I play some 2000s ish and piss off J-Love or play some early ’90s ish and piss off Ghost. I turned to Ghost and said, “yo Ghost, your boy J-Love wants to hear some Eric B. & Rakim.” I can’t remember his exact words but he said something like, “ignore that nigga! Ghost is the boss, what Ghost says, goes!” Problem solved, crisis averted.

This went on for about 40 minutes, the last two joints Ghost wanted to hear were Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’ and Biggie’s ‘Juicy’. After that he headed to the back-room where he shot the shit with my Trueschool co-host, Penfold, and recorded a crazy drunken drop for our radio show. After that he headed back to his hotel room.

J-Love stuck around for a bit and I played some tunes with him. Du Lilz appeared at some stage and rapped along for a few minutes handed me the mic and then bounced. Eventually it was just me in the booth DJing by myself and the crowd began to thin out as it was getting late and Ghost had left the building. I played a few more joints but struggled to stay motivated to want to stick around much longer, I mean how was I gonna top that. Even if I picked the right songs and had the tightest mix and did backflips and cartwheels there was no way I was gonna come anywhere near matching the awesomeness that was the previous hour. I wrapped up my shit and left it to Penfold to close the night out.

I regrouped with my crew who gave me dap for DJing for Ghostface. We chilled for a moment then left the club at about 4AM. Even if that shit with Ghost had never happened, that night would have been a great night – the concert was off the hook, the after-party was dope, I got drunk with my friends and partied. But that shit with Ghost took it to a whole other level. Epic! This experience was easily the highlight of my DJ career if not my life! Even now I’m wondering how it came to be that I, a Ghostface and Wu fan from one of the most geographically isolated countries on Earth, would end up DJing for one of my hip hop heroes.

No-one can tell me nothing about Ghost now! I was always a fan of Ghost but after that shit I am a Ghost fan for life! Peace.

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“them hipsters gonna have to get along wit them hood niggaz” © Drake

Who isn’t excited about this gig? I can only think of one person…

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Yup, this Thursday ABC will be holding their Brothers exhibition which will feature artwork from the following mean dudes: Phat1, Lee Ralph, Rakai Karaitana, Glenn Smith, Levi Hawken, and Chey Ataria. There’s sneak peeks up here at the ABC website and it’s looking pretty mean bradas. If you’re into artwork or into being cool, this is probably the place you wanna be at.

ALSO they’ll be premiering Ninja vs Warrior the ABC/Expertise tour video at 9:30pm. It’s  gonna be mental, I can’t fucken wait. I had a sneak peek of some of Joe Whaanga’s footy and it was beyond good.

Catch you’s up there.

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This looks like the place to be if you’re in Auckland city tonight. Propers to Pause and everyone else involved for bringing this event back and putting something on for the DJ’s. Underground heads can rejoice too as Blu should be sick. Shotthen would like to wish best of luck to all the entrants.

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If you don’t know already J-Live is performing at Fu tomorrow (Wednesday) night in Auckland and our boy D-Fizzle has arranged for a brief J-Live performance and autograph session at DMC High Street at 5PM. A fucking sweet opportunity for ya to get a sneak peak at what to expect from the full show for free, woohoo. I’ll be at the Fu show playing support along with Penfold, Substance, D-Form, Truent, Alias and possibly even Rectangle again. Hopefully he does Braggin’ Writes live that would be ill

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Just in case you were forgetting …

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Yo, if you are looking for something to do tonight head down to Fu ‘cos Mixmaster Mike is gonna be performing there. For the unitiated not only is MMM the Beastie Boy’s resident DJ, he was the ‘92 NMS battle champ, he was DMC World champ alongside Q-Bert in ‘92 and ‘93 before being asked not to enter because him and Q-Bert were too good, not to mention being the guy that influenced one of the most influential DJs of our generation, Q-Bert. Oh yeah, he also communicates to aliens via scratching… I saw him last time he played at Fu ’bout two years ago, dude is insane!!! Anyways, I’ll prolly be there with D-Form and Truent analysing his tweak scratch, lol.

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