| We caught up with 4 Time DMC champion DJ Craze at an exclusive masterclass hosted by DJWarehouse in Sydney. In this intimate workshop Craze entertained the audience with his freestyle scratching skills and spoke frankly about his musical history. He started competing just a year after he first started scratching saying he always knew he wanted to battle rather then play as a club DJ. He quickly developed his skills and thanks to a lot practicing and lonely nights in the bedroom has had an illustrious career. Now 34 Craze has been scratching since 15 years old and in that time has seen the popularity of the scratch culture rise and fall. He argues that battle scratching has become too tricky and isn't feeling new scratch artists saying: We were taking records that people knew, and flipping them and making them something new and fresh.... We wouldn't try to go over people's heads. Like if I was practicing with A-track and he would do some shit, and it was way too crazy i'd be like, 'yo slow down.' You gotta like fucking show skills but you have to make them understand what you're doing. And i think now days it's way too technical... it just goes over people's heads. Like there's a way to keep it real technical and real musical. Furthermore Craze described DJ culture as being dead saying he's seen a major decline in upcoming DJ's as they turn to record producing to find work. Despite there still being an audience for DJ's he believes the most important factor today is to ... |
