The Most Dope
Smash Burgers, DJ Stories & Coastal Vibes w/ Ill Flow & Queen B
What’s the buzz about smash burgers, and why do they taste so much better? Join us for an engaging conversation with Ill Flow and Queen B as we swap stories about the golden days of Carl's Jr. when table service was a thing, and the BBQ Bacon Western burger was a must-have. We'll also share our podcasting journey, from capturing our voices with GoPros and Logitech webcams to engaging with the fast-paced world of TikToks and YouTube Shorts. Get the scoop on the technical setups that make our multi-angle views pop and the challenges we face to get our content noticed on ever-evolving social media platforms.
Ever wondered what it’s like to DJ on a rooftop near the beach in Pismo? You'll love hearing about Ill Flow's exhilarating experiences, including crate digging for vinyl treasures and the contrasting digital cataloging on the Discogs app. Take a peek into the camaraderie of DJ battles at Beat Junkies with DJ Babu, and our personal adventures like a quirky visit to Pothead coffee shop in San Diego. We also touch on the joy of discovering records in person and how these experiences shape the music we love and share.
From the thrill of our first turntables to flying kites on breezy coastal days, we reminisce about the youthful passion and energy that fuels our DJ sets. Explore the ups and downs of performing for diverse crowds, from massive festivals to intimate bar gigs, and the joy of keeping our sets fresh and engaging. Hear about iconic radio moments, the excitement surrounding Kendrick Lamar, and how we navigate the unpredictable nature of our performances to keep the audience hooked. This episode is a musical rollercoaster filled with nostalgia, excitement, and a behind-the-scenes look at the DJ lifestyle.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Most Dope Podcast! We hope you enjoyed the ride and found some inspiration along the way. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your preferred platform. Stay in touch with us on social media for the latest updates, behind-the-scenes moments, and more dope content. Until next time, stay dope and keep the good vibes rolling.
What’s the buzz about smash burgers, and why do they taste so much better? Join us for an engaging conversation with Ill Flow and Queen B as we swap stories about the golden days of Carl's Jr. when table service was a thing, and the BBQ Bacon Western burger was a must-have. We'll also share our podcasting journey, from capturing our voices with GoPros and Logitech webcams to engaging with the fast-paced world of TikToks and YouTube Shorts. Get the scoop on the technical setups that make our multi-angle views pop and the challenges we face to get our content noticed on ever-evolving social media platforms.
Ever wondered what it’s like to DJ on a rooftop near the beach in Pismo? You'll love hearing about Ill Flow's exhilarating experiences, including crate digging for vinyl treasures and the contrasting digital cataloging on the Discogs app. Take a peek into the camaraderie of DJ battles at Beat Junkies with DJ Babu, and our personal adventures like a quirky visit to Pothead coffee shop in San Diego. We also touch on the joy of discovering records in person and how these experiences shape the music we love and share.
From the thrill of our first turntables to flying kites on breezy coastal days, we reminisce about the youthful passion and energy that fuels our DJ sets. Explore the ups and downs of performing for diverse crowds, from massive festivals to intimate bar gigs, and the joy of keeping our sets fresh and engaging. Hear about iconic radio moments, the excitement surrounding Kendrick Lamar, and how we navigate the unpredictable nature of our performances to keep the audience hooked. This episode is a musical rollercoaster filled with nostalgia, excitement, and a behind-the-scenes look at the DJ lifestyle.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Most Dope Podcast! We hope you enjoyed the ride and found some inspiration along the way. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your preferred platform. Stay in touch with us on social media for the latest updates, behind-the-scenes moments, and more dope content. Until next time, stay dope and keep the good vibes rolling.
all right, y'all. We got uh ill flow with us tonight. Yeah, whoa, what up ill flow? What's up dog queen b over here chilling with us how you doing hello went and uh did a little 45 session today.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, little 7 inch vinyl spin Set.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, grab some smash burgers. Chilling, drinking, smoking. Those smash burgers are fire, though I like them better than A regular burger.
Speaker 2:You see Carl's Jr Trying to come out with a smash burger, are they?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's on the menu and everything.
Speaker 1:I don't know, do you? Yeah, we don't go to Carl's much. Carl's fire, really.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, I felt like Carl's was always like the premium quality of fast food when it comes to like burgers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably.
Speaker 1:I can see that.
Speaker 2:Remember when they used to bring it to your table back in the day like a restaurant, oh yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bring it to your table back in the day like a restaurant. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you sit down and they bring it out. Yeah, completely different. Where do they have the? Uh, barbecue bacon, western or something, what is there? Oh, you do like that one that one's all right, it has like an onion ring on it or some shit barbecue sauce, oh man.
Speaker 1:So, uh, man, where are we going over man? Restream IO, Discogs, yeah, Restream Beat Junkies, Twitch, Beat Junkie, iOS, Trying to get this little podcast playing around with it. Just chilling, man, I was talking to Ilflow when you were gone. Yeah, I was telling him about the podcast and he was like you know, if it blows up, that's cool right. And I was telling him about the podcast and he was like you know, if it blows up, that's cool right. Even today, just streaming, I don't know 15, 20 people jumped on watching, just hanging out. But if not, we got Ilflo's voice, we got your voice, we got my voice and God forbid something happens to any of us. We'll live for a little while with our voices.
Speaker 2:Forever History's met.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to distribute this out to my girls and out to everybody else.
Speaker 2:Hey, when you're 18, listen to all this shit and see how crazy dad was. We bought microphones and headphones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you might not understand everything we're talking about. You're a little young, but yeah. That's right. Yeah, we got to get some. Get some cameras, though.
Speaker 2:You're rocking a gopro 8, uh, gopro 8 and um a little logitech webcam oh yeah, I heard the logis are real popular man, yeah a little 70, 80 dollars, maybe like 90 or 100, something like that. I use that for my, my ceiling, top down, top down view of the the tables I use that.
Speaker 1:What is what's it hanging by, like what's it mounted to man?
Speaker 2:I don't know, man, I just I think I just I got some like some type of velcro all right, velcro from walmart and I just, you know, put it up there and wrap, yeah, wrap it around just made it work because you know we got this little ipad right here, man, but that shit's not tall enough to get a top-down view.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that top-down view is a tough one, man, the top-down view. I feel like having the two camera angles is better than just having one, because you can get bored just staring at one angle, you know. So I always try to have it to where it's 20 seconds max between each camera and they flip between each other, and then the visual is behind you that way.
Speaker 1:So you have it programmed automatically, you don't have to queue it up, you don't have to hit a button to switch.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, obs, the program that I use for streaming. It has this thing called an advanced scene switcher and you can automatically set it up your different camera angles and it'll automatically switch between the two or whatever you know, based on the time you put on it.
Speaker 1:Two camera view 26 seconds, whatever, 20 seconds, 20 seconds.
Speaker 2:Cycle through everything Because people's attention span is short, even shorter and shorter nowadays, right yeah, phones and all that.
Speaker 1:You go through Vine when, when vine was around, that was a little short video clip about that, yeah yeah, you got tiktoks, you got vines that didn't last long youtube. Shorts my girls are all over them. Shorts, all the time, yeah, you're like dead. I'm watching shorts. I was like what the fuck is a short man? Just like same as a real home. Yeah, it's a little video clip. That's all all I'm watching, but they call it shorts. I was like whatever.
Speaker 2:TikTok. How short are the TikTok videos?
Speaker 1:TikTok can go for a little while now. Yeah, some of this stuff comes across my feed, man. I might look like a conspiracy theorist sometimes, man, because I'd be like having Egypt and Anunnaki and aliens and all kinds of crazy shit it's like a rabbit hole, man.
Speaker 2:You can go down this fucking rabbit hole of just of shit I never downloaded into my phone, but I have an account and I realized that, um, I was like uploading, uploading content to it via the laptop. And I realized, if you don't got it downloaded to your phone and you ain't engaging, they're not going to open the doors for you. The floodgates is going to be crickets. It's going to be dry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can upload as much as you want, boy, but if you ain't engaging with other people or stuff like that, or following people, what do you think the best way is man? So when you do OBS and you have your overhead and you have your side, you have your different profiles and it's cycling through.
Speaker 2:How do you like? I have another monitor off to my side, all right, and it has my chat feed so I can see everybody who's like you know who's chopping it up with me. Yeah, um, restreams posted like restream. I have this restream chat and I have the twitch chat. The restream chat. It's supposed to like display all your chats.
Speaker 1:It's supposed to display from youtube, youtube, facebook, instagram, blah, blah, blah but the one that never shows is youtube's.
Speaker 2:I mean, uh, facebook, it never shows the facebook comments. So sometimes I'll have like my phone right here, I'll have the, the ip, I mean the TV with the extra monitor with the two chats. So I got the two chats blaring and I can see my Twitch and I can see the rest. But sometimes I'll just play between Facebook looking at them, because you got your page and you got your regular profile, so I'll toggle between them just to see if I see anybody say something, just so I can be like comment back, so they don't think I'm ignoring them yeah well, you, we, you gotta interact right, we gotta make it uh banter back and forth.
Speaker 1:You know I'm talking shit, doing whatever, keeping it light, uh, keeping it interesting, you know, whatever it may be, yeah, that's cool, man, we got to get all this. Do you have green screen stuff set up to virtual backgrounds? All that good stuff?
Speaker 2:green. Uh, I'm gonna call it an official green screen. But I just pretty much went to a fabric store and bought me some green sheets, yeah, and just pinned them up against the wall all right that works man and then got me, got me one for the table. So, um, when you get the top down view, what's it?
Speaker 1:look like the top down view, what, what, what graphic do you have on the table? So, um, when you get the top down view, what's it look like? The top down view, what, what, what graphic do you have on the table?
Speaker 2:um, I on the table, it's a green, green cloth, and then I just put whatever, whatever graphics I have, like I have like a bunch yeah, like over the time, over the time of streaming, I would create different scenarios and different scenes and stuff and I would have like six different types of visual loops. You know what I'm saying? That I would switch between. So after a while those six would get boring. So I go create another six, and then I had a Halloween one, I had a Christmas one, and then they just start like All themes yeah, themes. You know, I had this one where it's like a nighttime nightlife theme, where I'm like you know it's like a lot of time lapse videos that are just like going crazy. So, yeah, man, you just after collecting them for a while, they just kind of start building up and you could just kind of switch between them, because the OBS program allows you to save these profiles. So your profile becomes big and you're like which one do I feel like having behind?
Speaker 1:me today. I'm going to keep it fresh Today's going to be.
Speaker 2:I got this Sunday one where I'm like DJing in the clouds on a Sunday, like yeah and like or I'm on the beach, on you know, on the actual water, like it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I always wanted. I always wanted to DJ at the beach and I always wanted to DJ at a rooftop Fun.
Speaker 2:I mean, I DJed one time at that Pismo Inn.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:On the rooftop. It's like third floor.
Speaker 1:Close to rooftop On the beach Still got a view, though. Absolutely Hell, yeah, you can't compare to that man. Is there a better office?
Speaker 2:Right Pismo, you can't beat it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not a better office man. Discogs app Yup, Get your catalog in there. Get your vinyl up on the Discog app. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the spot, or as much as you can do a lot with the discogs. You know, if you got some bread saved up, you'll have a library in no time pretty quickly yeah but it takes away from the I don't know there's.
Speaker 2:There's something about going and digging digging through, yeah, when you go, when you dig, you know you did you go to a record store and you find something. Or you see a name, like I know, this is a dope record, I don't remember this song but I'm gonna buy it anyways, yeah. And then you get home and it's like yeah, it's fire art, like no, that's not the one. And then it ends up in the trade pile because you know, I got a trade pile of vinyls that even other record play, even other record buyers wouldn't trade with me.
Speaker 1:Like you can keep those ones, bro, but I want this one, keep the other five, keep that, elvis, what you mean but yeah, yeah, you know so uh, beat Junkies, man you down there on Tuesdays yeah, yeah, every other Tuesday, alright down there with DJ Babu getting nice on the juggles.
Speaker 2:We're doing a. We're doing a Sucker MC's challenge Right now.
Speaker 1:You got a battle coming up. Yeah, nah, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:I don't. No, I don't. I got I won the Michi battle, but I'm about to. I got the being that I won the battle.
Speaker 1:You get to host it again.
Speaker 2:I get to host it again. I'm the headlining.
Speaker 1:DJ for the next Mechie event, which is next month on the 13th. July 13th, june, june 13th we're still in May. We'll be back by then we can head out there, where you guys going. We got to go down to San Diego. Oh nice, her mom's down there, so we break off out there. Where are you guys going? We got to go down to San Diego oh nice, yeah, her mom's down there, so we break off down there and chill, go visit, hang out. Yeah, we just went to Seaport down in San Diego man.
Speaker 1:And we were talking about being kids with our moms, right, and we were talking about her mom versus my mom, white mom versus Latina mom. My mom thinks it's hilarious when we act like kids, right, we're young at heart again, right, her mom, she wants us to cut that shit out a little bit, man, we're doing a little too much. But we were down there walking around Seaport man, and the USS Midway was down there.
Speaker 2:We got to see the big old USS Midway with all the planes and shit on the deck and all kinds of crazy shit.
Speaker 1:Man. That sounded like fun, yeah, and we walked around. What did we eat over there? We went to that coffee shop.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Pothead.
Speaker 1:Pothead.
Speaker 2:Could you smoke, trina?
Speaker 1:It's just like a little outdoor coffee shop.
Speaker 2:There's not an indoor thing, it's not a marijuana.
Speaker 1:No, no, okay, no but you know what's crazy man? They sold grinders, they sold papers and they sold coffee.
Speaker 2:Oh, so it's the ultimate troll.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then they have this little pot, this little animated coffee pot. Looked like the Kool-Aid man, okay, but it's a coffee pot. Looked like the Kool-Aid man, but it's a coffee pot, and it's what was the place called again Pothead, pothead so it's Pothead. That's their logo man. So me and her, we took a picture over on the side of the building and it said this one here is a pothead for sure, and it had an arrow. It was right over her head.
Speaker 1:But we seen people flying kites out there. Man, I was like you know what, I ain't fly a kite since I was like 10 years old probably. My pops had a kite. He used to be into kites for a little while and then I was like I want to fly a kite. So we were walking around and there was a fucking kite store there, man. So I walk in and I hit the dude up and I like, look man, don't let me buy a bad kite. You know, I, I want to go out here and fly right outside your building, right here. I want to, I want to fly the kite right here. So we, uh, he said, hey, look man, I test all of the, I test all of them, I test all the kites and they don't get into my store unless I've tested them and they're, they're decent, right, so, and so I just bought one man, and we went outside and, uh, we had our coffee, we were chilling and no shit, man, we got that motherfucker flying.
Speaker 1:And you know, you're down there on the coast, man, there's, you know, coastal air and breeze and everything else. So you know, it's a nice little windy day. But man, this kite, we had it so far up in the fucking air, man, and the little handle, the little spool, the cable wraps around, man, is about the size of your fist, about the size of your hand. It seemingly took me like 30 minutes to pull the kite back down to the ground. Man, yeah, one at a time, one circle yeah because her mom was.
Speaker 1:Her mom spilled my coffee or something, and then there was some homeless dude trying to talk to her down there and she was like we gotta get the fuck out of here. So I'm sitting here trying to wrap this goddamn kite up, and I'm wrapping it like crazy and it looks like it's the same height that it was like five minutes ago. I was like, oh man, a hundred wines later, yeah, but that was a good little trip that was a good little trip, but we gotta find out when that, that record sale is yeah, it was once a month.
Speaker 2:It's usually like on a Sunday. You know, a little record fair, record fair in LA. Yeah, we gotta head down there. All the record vendors come together. They got like guest DJs spinning just out on the street, just like I guess they just have a set up there and just like they got their you know, whoever they invited and they switch it up all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, could be at echo, could be at hollywood, could be anyway, yeah all right, you got to just uh follow.
Speaker 2:Follow the the page, all right but yeah it's still bound. It's not the junkies page. No, this is a different, a total, completely like let's, I forgot what it's called. It's like like I forgot what it's called. It's like LA Record Fair. Okay, yeah, it's called LA Record Fair. I'm sure we can Google it. We'll find it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, see where it's going to pop up next. I'm pretty sure it's LA Record Fair. Yeah, something has to pop up with it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, once Sunday month, you know I'd be tight if it land on like a Sunday where there was like like the beat junkies are doing at that, they're doing that Sunday where they're going to have, you know, at that brewery.
Speaker 1:you know what I mean yeah, down the street.
Speaker 2:Them spinning and then the whole record fair. Everybody come out.
Speaker 1:The after party. Man, yeah, we dope. When did you start man? When did you start DJing?
Speaker 2:2003. All right, 2003. What did you start dj? Uh 2003? All right 2003. What'd you start? On some statins turntables. All right, I started. Uh, what was it like graduating o2? Took the first semester of college, of o2 off, then didn't go right away and then went the second semester and then got that financial aid. Didn't go right away and then went the second semester and then got that financial aid check and just pretty much gave it to dude with the turntables. There you go, bro, like didn't even cash it, probably didn't even look at the bag, handed it right over like let me get those. What was the mixer? It was some, something like I don't even probably some some cheap american dj gemini, yeah, gemini. Like five channel mixer. Like you know, I just remember like just pissing my grandma off because you know I had, I had had some friends who had a set of turntables already right, and they were like here, go ahead and rock them, bro. They knew that I was the passionate one out the crew.
Speaker 1:Sure, I was like the, you know the one, you were the one that was going to get the most use out of them. Yeah, I was the one that was going to go for it, you know. If anybody was going to make it, yeah, they were like you.
Speaker 2:And I was for real or serious about it. They were just passing them around, passing them around, and for the longest they were, and the reason why they let me take them is because for the longest they were in one of my good friend's basements, right Right, and I was just down there every day, like you know, just like recording freestyles off the instrumentals from the record to the tape, you know, and rapping over them, and they're just like, bro, you know, just take them home, bro.
Speaker 2:We ain't even using them. Just you know, just take care of them, and if we need them back, bro, we'll ask you.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:And I took them home and my grandparents were like uh-uh, they were having it, hell no. All that ruckus, all that noise. What the hell's going on with all this shit? Get that shit out of here.
Speaker 1:I was pretty lucky man. My pops played the guitars. A lot of guitars, Banjo guitar, all of them. He had little PV amps and shit.
Speaker 1:Chet Atkins, guitar, gretsch, something like Stratocaster Expensive shit. Apparently I didn't know anything about them. Fenders, yeah, fenders. My pops got me into music, right, um, I was. I had to practice every day. Wait a minute so you could play the guitar. No, I play the saxophone. Ah, I picked up the saxophone and I had to practice every day for an hour. It was a rule right. Every day for an hour you got to practice and I was fucking terrible and I feel bad for whoever had to hear. Every day for an hour. It was a rule right. Every day for an hour. You got to practice and I was fucking terrible and I feel bad for whoever had to hear all that honking and shit. I was trying to play anything at the time, man, but I got really good at it, man.
Speaker 2:Word. That's what's up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was fun, man. Then I got a little bored with the sax, picked up the trumpet. I wanted to learn how to play another instrument. You know I was kind of tapped out with a sax. I'd already made an honor band and I performed at the Civic Auditorium back in the days, fourth chair honor band in Kern County. I was decent, right, I picked up the trumpet. My boy, daniel he played the trumpet and Rudy and, oh man, mike Zepeda. Man, what's that group here in?
Speaker 2:town. Mike Zepeda doesn't live on the Central Coast now, does he? Oh, I don't know, Does he now? I don't know, I'm just wondering because I don't hear too many Mike Zepedas and I'm just like and you know who that?
Speaker 1:one is, I know, mike Zepeda.
Speaker 2:I'm like I wonder if this is crazy ass Is he a trumpet player.
Speaker 1:I don't know he OG now he plays. He's in a band here in town, man.
Speaker 2:Oh, he in town now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I forgot what band it was Like it's a pretty popular band, I don't know. Anyways, these motherfuckers always on trumpets and trumpets always got the. I wanted to be the dude. Yeah, you want to fucking, we wanted to flex, but I was never really that great at the trumpet, right I ain't. I wasn't that deep into it. Like, I was the saxophone since third grade, right, my pops had me on a saxophone at third grade all the way up and through high school, whoa years and years and years. I don't. But I was talking to her and and I said I want to get one again.
Speaker 2:Just get one.
Speaker 1:Because I could play all this shit, man. Anything I can hear I can play, right, that's what's up. That'd be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we need to get one Sample, some beats too. Make some beats, play a sample Right over the top of it.
Speaker 1:That's where my music knowledge comes from right. That's where I learned how to read, write, count all that, other things. Music theory and I think that's why it was, I hate to say, easy. It wasn't easy. Djing is not easy. Beat matching, transitioning it wasn't easy, but I felt like I had a head start on a lot of people that didn't know how to find the one. Find the one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, find the one. Yeah, you can't find the one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, drop it on the one. Find the one beat match. You know, like just the.
Speaker 2:You know how many bars are in this a bar phrase uh-huh, yeah, yeah of course, or in the current, or when's the when's, the when's the bridge, uh-huh you know how long is it yeah, the the anatomy of a track the anatomy of a song man, man, structure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's where I got, and I've only been DJing like a year and a half, two years. I'm not very good, right? I'm decent enough. I can not sound like shoes in the dryer.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:Like offbeat.
Speaker 2:I can get beat every time and your music knowledge is good enough to rock a party. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's so good because, like I said my father, he had records, man, they listened to shit.
Speaker 2:So you were training the whole time and didn't even know. It Didn't even know it.
Speaker 1:Man Didn't even know it. And you know what, man? I got out of music senior year in high school and I hadn't played ever since and I always kind of felt like something was missing. Right, I always felt like something was missing and I missed it, man. I missed music, man, and I missed you know. You know dad's gone now. He's been gone since 05, um, but that's something that he gave me right. A lot of times we can look back at our parents and say what they did wrong or what they fucked up on, and you know we can find things right or we could find the positive. So I'm always trying to find the positive, like, like, look, life wasn't perfect, right, my my pops, it was a little rough man, I bet. My my pops was in the air force, retired. I was the product of a second marriage.
Speaker 1:Uh, it was structured man, it was militant but yeah um, you know, I'm not never gonna badmouth my pops, especially since he's not here anymore. Man, he motherfucker can't even defend himself. Yeah, I could badmouth anybody that's not sitting here in this room. They can't defend themselves, and whoever's listening to this is gonna be able to be like oh yeah, that motherfucker's a piece of shit, right, there's always two sides to every story, man three, yeah, a b and the truth, uh-huh.
Speaker 1:And perception. Perception is a motherfucker man, like people, can perceive certain things that were not complete intention, right? Um, my perception of this person is is that they're lazy, right, but you don't have any idea. Perceptions of djs right. Perception of ill flow that motherfucker doesn't do anything. All he does is go to a club, shows up, play some music, some fucking leaves right, he has the easiest fucking life in the world. That's what everybody thinks about a dj, right? But females.
Speaker 2:Females think that I got them jumping out, jumping out the window. For me, I'm like, I'm the first and the last person there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's nobody here. When I show up, there's nobody here when I leave by the time I get home and unload.
Speaker 2:There's no time for nothing.
Speaker 1:And then record pools, record pools, youtube, whatever, trying to stay up on music, trying to dig through stuff. You got vinyl. You got that portion. I don't even have vinyl yet, man. I'm still Serato. I'm still the new DJ on Serato. Obviously, I've invested in turntables and I have the. I want to get to vinyl because I want to be well rounded right. I want to be able to go up to some tables. I want to go up to some CDJs. I want to go up to a fucking little Rev1 controller. I want to be able to go to everything and just start playing, man. So it's about the love of DJing, man. It's the love of music, it's the love of the art and it's I love it, man. I missed it, I missed music. That's dope, man. You find your way back to it, yeah, yeah. Hopefully you never lose it, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nah, for sure. Nah, I'm not. I already told myself I'll rock into a mold until I pass.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh yeah. How old do you think you're going to be on your last gig, man?
Speaker 2:I probably I don't know as far as gigging goes, who knows right but I know like I don't plan like that hard pretty much longer. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I probably got like a year being left, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna jump out there and and, uh, do parties here and there or like special guest spots, you know, because that that part of me, that's the fun part.
Speaker 2:that's the fun part, that's the hour or the power hour when, when you got the whole crowd and you're like you prepared this set and you know the crowd and you're like I'm I'm about to blow the roof off, those are the fun parties, or big artists and stuff like that. Yeah, I just don't want to be a working DJ. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:You want to enjoy it. I want to enjoy it For the passion for the love. For the love Because after a while.
Speaker 2:Sometimes the bags won't even be enough.
Speaker 1:It's not enough man, it's not enough. Man, it's not enough, it's not worth it Nah.
Speaker 2:I'd rather stay at home and practice and play.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I just want to play for myself, exactly, hey, because as a gig DJ, you don't get to play for yourself, you're playing for your audience.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I got my boy, dj Edit. We were just chopping it up yesterday's. Gonna come spend with me in a couple of weeks and at the Ratchet Spot, santiago's and he. I was chopping it up with him and he does a lot of like big corporate gigs you know what I mean and a lot of private gigs and a lot of the times those gigs, you know, are more professional gigs and we don't get to rock out like we want to Sure Play the type of music that we would love to.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes the little bar gigs, the compensation isn't enough for us to want to come play. But when you find that little bar that allows you to just do you and you're like I don't care about the money, I'll go DJ for free this night, like if I had to, because, like you know, you're not tripping on the money, you just want to go jam out and you know, and fill the energy and exchange energies with people with the crowd, you know, With your authentic self, with the music that you love, with what you curated for your crates, for your set, for everything else, and get to show out.
Speaker 1:And possibly somebody obviously likely if they're at a hip hop event they'd be like, oh, I love this motherfucker, Absolutely this motherfucker. He had a great selection, great mixes, great transitions, great, everything right. And this is my music, right? Yeah, I don't know, man, you go to a wedding. You're probably not going to get to play a whole lot of De La and Jill Scott or any of the non-mainstream, the roots, Talib, whoever it may be.
Speaker 2:But it goes both ways. Let's say, you're not doing very many weddings and you're doing a lot of other gigs that you're always doing and you get tired of those. But then you go doing a lot of other gigs you know that you're always doing and you get tired of those. But then you go do a wedding and you get to play disco.
Speaker 1:finally, and you're like.
Speaker 2:I haven't played disco in forever.
Speaker 1:I love the Bee.
Speaker 2:Gees, or you know.
Speaker 1:And you're playing dance and you're like yeah, all that. And you're like yeah. And they're loving it. You know, you're just like yeah, you know you get that fix in too, so yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even like Friday, for instance, we're going to be at 1933. I don't know jack about salsa, merengue and cumbia, other than the fact that I grew up in Arvin and I know all of the music for the most part. But these people out there I have the most fun in the world. The day that I met the couple Just Dance Thursdays me and Marion met them, stephanie and Carlos they went into 1933. I was DJing for fucking nobody. There was nobody there. I was DJing to an empty place. I seen something online that says you're not really a dj till you dj the empty place, right till you buy yourself it sucks.
Speaker 1:So they came in, man, she, she came up to me and she said hey, could you play some salsa or whatever, like yeah, hell, yeah, you're the only people here and I got it, so I'll play it. I played. They started dancing like professional man, like swinging around fast as shit man, like like craziness, putting on a show, yeah, serious. And they were happy, as can be man. They liked the facility, they liked everything else. They're like hey, you think we could get some people out here tomorrow? I was like hell, yeah, there's nobody here right now. So absolutely, come on, play whatever the fuck you want me to play. I'd rather play salsa for 100 people than you know hip hop for zero.
Speaker 1:I want to see people have a good time, man, I want to see people happy. So, less than 24 hours, man, that group got over like 100 people over there. Man, salsa, merengue. And then I'm learning that, right, you don't mix that, they don't want that mixed continually. Right, they want you to have like a two second, three, second, four second pause before the next song comes on. So you're not even beat matching, you're not transitioning, you're not doing anything. You press and play and you press and stop. You press and play and you press and stop, and then you're going through the different. You know cumbia, salsa, merengue, bachata, all at different BPMs, right? So, like merengue, you can't play like four merengue songs back to back to back to back and the motherfuckers are going to be exhausted, right?
Speaker 1:They're going to be falling off the dance floor like flies man. So Carlos man, he does DJing stuff on the side, I think minor you know, mostly for the just dance and for this genre of music.
Speaker 1:He was like man, you, you want to play a couple, a couple salsa, one merengue, three bachata and a cumbia, and then just keep going through that cycle, right, yeah, and keeping it, and yeah, no shit, man, dance floor all night, and and that was easy, you know, but there was no mixing, there was no transitioning, there's no, nothing special, man, but a lot of people having a great time, mature people, no bullshit, no, no belligerent, drunks people trying to fight anything else, man, just a lot of great people. Man, it was awesome man yeah, how was your?
Speaker 2:wedding. It was awesome. Man. Um, yeah, nothing, nothing spectacular, bro, just another wedding. Uh, it was all spanish, was it? As a matter of fact, it was, uh, literally just what you're doing. Okay, yeah, it was like, all right, you know, uh, they wanted, uh, they it was.
Speaker 2:It was actually a quinceanera oh, all right, it wasn't a wedding, wasn't wedding it was a quinceanera, a young lady turned 15 and, um, parents, parents, uh, she had some really loving parents, they cared, so they threw her a big bash yeah, it went all out for her. And um, the music they sent over was, uh, banda, and it was a trip for me because they were referencing Banda, the type of music that they presented me. They're referencing it as if it was cumbias, but it was Banda.
Speaker 1:It was.
Speaker 2:Banda for sure, but it was their type of Banda. Cumbias I don't know it was different, bro, but to me it was their type of banda. Cumbias I don't know it was different, bro, but to me it was banda. So I got to playing some bandas and zapateos, I got busy on some merengue, cumbias and a little bit oh rock and espanol.
Speaker 1:Yeah, spanish rock yeah.
Speaker 2:Rock and espanol. We got a big playlist, playlist that they gave me Of all that and I just, you know, went to town on it. I have I have most of it already, but it was cool. I like when I I get a, a client who's like Really serious About their music and and and they're, and, they're like Give me in there and they're like give me what they want, because I learned, you know, I'll learn introduced to new absolutely, or you get reintroduced, you know like to some stuff that you forgot about or you haven't played.
Speaker 2:Or you know, like I remember first, like I didn't hear a sweet caroline, oh man, until I did a wedding, you know, and I was like whoa, I didn't, I didn't realize how big of a song this was. I would have never played it.
Speaker 2:Oh, they sing along they love that song man, they love that song and um, yeah, so you know, uh, I would say that weddings, weddings, uh have taught me a lot like we're uh dj'ing on the central coast, taught me a lot like brought in my my horizon when it comes to music, as far as genres and music selection. You know, like, you know, the shots out to the Central Coast, you know, my boy, dj Crown, my boy Tim, yeah, they, you know, they brought in my horizon a lot. They saw the potential in me, you know, and it was like, yeah, this guy got it and then threw me in, you know, threw me in the water and sink or swim.
Speaker 2:And when you got someone's important, like when you're serious, you never want to mess up somebody's important celebration bro.
Speaker 1:Oh no, that's a lot of pressure man.
Speaker 2:It's pressure. So once you get through a couple of those and you're like I, kind of got this.
Speaker 1:I'm all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like you know, for sure, so yeah man. So let me ask you something, and this is going to be real kind of judgmental. I don't know. Judgmental is not the right word, but Central Coast, I would assume reggae. Is there reggae out there?
Speaker 2:There's definitely, definitely a lot of reggae on the Central Coast, but as far as when it comes to doing DJing, weddings and stuff, I don't get very much of the reggae stuff.
Speaker 1:How much do you get to Bay Area? How much do you get to Bay Area rap?
Speaker 2:Mac.
Speaker 1:Dre E-40, too Short Central Coast weddings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot. Yeah, you'll catch that a lot. All right, yeah, man, weddings, yeah, a lot. All right, yeah, you'll catch that a lot. All right, yeah, I mean, I'm not man, maybe the way, uh, this make my last wedding. My, yeah, yeah, y'all you know. And then when you start getting those requests and and those songs are in the exact same pbb, bpm, you're in. You're like wait a minute, like who's this guy?
Speaker 2:dj or or, like you know, send a chick over and the chick gives you a song in the exact bpm, like wait a minute. Like you follow where she goes over, and the chick gives you a song in the exact BPM, like wait a minute. Like you follow where she goes back to, and like you see, bingo, like yo that's the DJ boyfriend.
Speaker 1:I know it, you know this motherfucker knows too much right, and you keep sending these gems over.
Speaker 2:You're like, alright, I got you, you keep playing them. And then you drift into a different area of music. And then he wasn't expecting it and you got him, and he gets up and he dances. You're like I got you, bro. And then he comes and gives you your props at the end of the night. And at that point is when I knew that I had these Bay Area people, because you know, like I had a bunch of people asking for Mac Drain, a bunch of Bay and E-40, 40 and you know, too short, and you know I got to jamming it and I held. You know, sometimes I'll do it on purpose, like when I see that when I'm rocking out and people are like jamming me, jamming me up for the same song, oh, I'll starve you a little bit more just so that I can find the right time to give it to you, because I know when I drop this you guys are about to go crazy. So let's not just drop it, let's build up to it.
Speaker 2:Let's make it proper so when it comes, you guys are like, yeah, and I did that and I could tell I had a room full of Bay Area people and they came and gave me some love at the end.
Speaker 1:That was cool, that's awesome man. Yeah, you know, you have them.
Speaker 2:You know you have them at certain points. What's your favorite moment as a dj? Sheesh, uh, I guess, um, I, I would. I would just say, like you know, it would be between the art of discovery, music, and and and, um, you know, and and performing it all. The performing part. It's like a high that you keep chasing. You know what I mean. It never goes away and you just like the bigger gig, the bigger crowd, the more energy, like running back.
Speaker 1:It's addicting.
Speaker 2:And then there's the aspect of finding the music that you love. I'm sure we all have moments where you can remember when you first heard a so-and-so song or you know?
Speaker 2:or radio moments when something happened and you know and everything's just stopped. You paused everything, you sat down and you're just like what is that? Or you listened, you know. So, yeah, you know, I have radio moments of like when Dr Dre and Jermaine Dupri were battling and Power 106, I was in LA and Power 106 was playing it back and forth like the whole hour, Like that's all you heard. With those two songs Is that?
Speaker 1:what's going on with Kendrick right?
Speaker 2:now, yeah, well, kendrick, yeah, kendrick, kendrick, and the Not Like Us song is getting blared crazy in LA.
Speaker 1:Crazy Spotify just said he's the number one streamed of all time now.
Speaker 2:No, album no nothing.
Speaker 1:Out.
Speaker 2:Just going at Drake's head yeah, stuff like that, man.
Speaker 1:So how do you deal with the ebbs and flows, man? So, for instance, let's say that last Keemstar you did fucking amazing, right, like just top of the world. And next week you do a wedding and it's like like the, the, the vibe wasn't there, the energy wasn't there, it wasn't a dancing crowd, whatever it may be, and then you have that low again. So when it happens to me, I start questioning myself. Sometimes I'm like, oh shit, maybe I don't got it. But you know, the last wedding I did I was, I was on right, I had people throwing people in the fucking air man, like it was cool, it was a fucking part. And it was a dry wedding, which made it a little bit more difficult, right, because these motherfuckers aren't drinking they ain't getting loose, right, right, and I had to be careful with clean versions, man.
Speaker 1:Oh, they were super on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I rocked it right, uh-huh. But then some other times, man, it's like it's not there.
Speaker 2:Man, it just isn't there yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. I think. I think I've gone through that recently too. We're, like you know, in the beginning, like um, you know I was at a fresh new spot and you know you I it's my first time there, so you want to make sure that you do a great job so you can get invited back.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. So, like in the beginning, you start, you know, second guessing yourself, like, but there's, and realize that you're there for a reason.
Speaker 1:Do you ever go back through your Serato history for a set from the previous day, from the previous night, and look over? I don't ever look at my history, but I see some people do. Some DJs will go back through. They'll look at their history. They'll look out If it was a great set. Some of them will just copy it over into a crate Me. I don't want people to be able to anticipate what.
Speaker 2:I'm playing.
Speaker 1:I've been to three of Gordon's shows and he plays the same shit, same routine, same routine, every single time. So I don't even mess with the history. I try to obviously, read the crowd, crowd, read the floor, read the energy.
Speaker 2:Uh, do all of that, but I want it fresh every time, man, yeah yeah, yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, for sure, I, I agree with you, but, um, I guess it's. But it's also cool to like to to stack your routines and and have your premeditated stuff ready, because you're always going to be, um, I feel like you know, yeah, for sure you stay in Bakersfield and you gig around here, but let's say, you go to Arizona or something you know and you've been working for five years and all those routines have built up and now, like when you got those, once you like matured to that, you have like a freaking, you got playlists filled of routines that you could just jump in and out of. And like when you go to a new crowd, they're like who the fuck is this?
Speaker 1:Who the guy?
Speaker 2:is this. This guy is the greatest.
Speaker 1:It's fresh Shit they haven't heard before. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But at the same time yeah, I get it you don't want to be stale. You know, if you got a residency, you always want to make sure that your crates are fresh. For sure.
Speaker 2:So, or at least try to play it a different way, you know, or you know different style, or you know present a song a different way. But yeah, yeah, no, yeah, I always try to like, like. Every time I feel like most of my parties are about four hours long. If it's just me, it's usually about four hours. So I'll break it down into four hours each hour, I'll break it down to an opening hour and then you know I got my peak hour. You know where I'm holding all the hits on all the bangers.
Speaker 1:All the fire, all the bangers, yeah, waiting, you know waiting for them to catch their energy.
Speaker 2:And then you know paying attention. And then you know paying attention and then just having enough, making sure that I have enough uh music for each hour, to where I feel comfortable, to where, like you know, I know that I have those set four hours, but I could also wander off if I need to grab something yeah, if I need to someone asked me for some or if I start feeling a different vibe, you know so you know, you're gonna start out slow yeah are you gonna start out with the Sometimes like?
Speaker 2:this quinceañera I did last time, like you know, like I think there was like a miscommunication between the husband and the wife.
Speaker 2:Right, and we're all on the same chat, text message, same group chat, yeah, right. So like they send me all their music. And then last minute wifey is like hey, um, is it too late to send some more? Like no, it's fine, she sends over rock and espanol. Okay, right, and a lot of the rock and espanol that she sent me was slow, oh, and I was like, ah, you know, so when they send me all their stuff, I take the slow stuff that they got and I'll try to jam that into like cocktail hour sprinkle it in there, you know, to get it out the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get it out the way that you played it. It out the way. Know that you played it, know that I played it.
Speaker 2:It's there because I know that later on in the evening it ain't going to go too well, yeah Right, so I'll just chill on that, but I try to get that off. So as I was early on trying to get that off, you know the husband going to come up to me and tell me and you know it's not the time to sit there and debate with him and explain myself.
Speaker 1:His wife actually asked for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, so I'm just like no problem.
Speaker 1:And just I caught it. You know I understand.
Speaker 2:The music's too slow is what he's trying to tell me. He's just not communicating it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he wants to bring the vibes up.
Speaker 2:So I had to be able to read that you know what I mean and not get defensive and not be like, well, your wife, yes, sir, no problem, it's coming right up.
Speaker 1:So how about with weddings, man, and you get to the actual dancing portion 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, whatever time it is? You get to the dancing portion, man, and obviously BPM. Everybody does BPM you and I and some other people. We do key as well, right, I don't do key to the extent that you do, though, right, you do the pitch and yeah, I pitch between them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the pitch and play, or whatever it is with Serato, you do the pitch and you do it live. As the transition is happening. You're hitting up, pitching up, pitching down to get to that other track for that blend. Right Me, I just cue up another track, same key, similar bpm, similar key, close enough on the camelot wheel, like if I'm on a 3a, okay, then I'll go to a 4b or whatever. It may be right to try to stay within something. Right. You have a whole different method that you use when you actually start messing with the pitch yeah, I just uh, it's just, it's just pretty much.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's just, uh, it's pretty much. Sync instead of syncing bpm, it's the same key yeah, it's the same feature, uh, like when you sing, uh, pitching time has a sync feature where you hit the button and it's, and it'll sync whatever. Uh, it'll sync to whatever key that the current track is playing.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so once it syncs to that key, it'll show me on the computer the one that switched keys. It'll show me how many times it's moved up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, One, two, three. How many keys, right yeah? So if I see that it's moved up two, as I'm doing my A-bar blend, you know, maybe halfway through the a bar at the four bar blend I'll pitch it one, one, yeah, and then, like, when it get closer to the end, to the 7.9, go it out right, right, where right, when it's about to jet bang, hit the button.
Speaker 2:Like you can't even tell I switched it, yeah yeah, yeah, how about um energy?
Speaker 1:you pay attention to the track energy.
Speaker 2:Nah, all right you know, I've never, I've never. Well, yeah, I pay attention to. I think I would say that I do it manually, like for myself, like what I know yeah, mentally in my head, like I know it. That's a slow song, it ain't gonna you know, I'm not gonna jump with that one.
Speaker 2:I was playing the other night and you know it was cracking right. I'm probably at 105, 103, 102. You know, I got them bopping. It's a good, yeah, right. And the owner of the bar comes. I'm probably at 105, 103, 102. I got them bopping, it's a good, yeah, right. And the owner of the bar comes up to me with these chicks, right, and he's like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and he just pretty much dumps them off. Yeah, these guys want to go on a song.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh yeah, what song do you want here you?
Speaker 2:go and just dumps them off on me and then dips some off on me and it dips and I gotta play the song now because the owner is the bar owner. The bar owner just dropped them off. I mean I'm like what you want to hear? Like lil wayne lollipop. I'm like, oh you know, because I'm way up here in a different place 77, I'm just like yo, that's going. I was like I'm gonna do it, I'm just gonna do it, you know. And I just reverbed out and dropped it and it's like forget what I know and what I want. The bar owner wants us to please his customer.
Speaker 2:She wants to hear this, the song Lil Wayne's a goat. It's not a bad song.
Speaker 1:It's a well-known song, just the wrong time.
Speaker 2:Wrong time and I'm a pro dj, but I don't know everything. No, you know what I mean. Like I can't predict everything, so why not, let's try it.
Speaker 1:You know, hey, you see where it takes us you see what man I played that joint.
Speaker 2:It rang off everybody. I didn't like it when it came out. I remember it was popping when that song came out To me. It was slow I always liked that.
Speaker 1:Six foot seven foot. That was dope, mrs Officer. Mrs Officer, yeah, you know what it's nice I got Marion over here. She goes to all the gigs with me. We do everything together.
Speaker 2:She's my filter. Yeah, you got a female. You got a female perspective, you know because, because you know, like, uh, you know that's a thing, man, because you know you, you could get lost in trying to be creative and playing for yourself and not not even looking up at the crowd, you know like oh, sometimes I catch myself like I'm having too much fun. I'm all like, wait a minute. What if they're not liking?
Speaker 1:what you got going on. Yeah, what if they've all sat down Having fun? I'm just over here vibing Having fun.
Speaker 2:Bopping your head. You look up and they're staring at you. Had this thing. Like man, we gotta play for the ladies. Man, it's like you know. You play 80, you know, for the ladies, sprinkle 10 for yourself and then 10 for what else? What else you can go, you know, I mean wherever else you can go. So as long as you can get them, them ladies, on the dance floor and they loving it, you know who cares about the rest.
Speaker 1:Hey, this last, this last wedding on saturday, I played mac miller man, did you? I squeezed him in there, man. I was like this is for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I deserve it. Hey, there's times where I'll be like one for you, one for me yeah, one for you, one for me yeah, not for sure.
Speaker 1:How do you go about the roller coaster man? So like, say, you're at 100 BPM, you're at 105 BPM. So like, say, you're at 100 BPM, you're at 105 BPM. How long do you stay there before you drop off and go to something a little bit slower or even faster, right Even at 130 or 140, something crazy, right, like, do you, will you go one, 101, 105, 98, and then jump way off in one direction or the other?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure I've done that. I do that a lot. I'll jump, man. I could jump all over, bro, and I like to too, especially when we're DJing with other homies, like when it's like a jam session, like when you get together four or five DJs and everybody's taking turns. I'm paying attention to where everyone's at and if you're like at 105 and I could tell the crowd, you know, is some hip hop, you know, and they want they, you know they like the bop. So I know I can go down to 70 and 80s and you know, and a lot of the times you know, I don't like to be down there. But if you guys ain't going to go down there, someone's got to go there.
Speaker 1:You know, somebody has to bring in some of the other stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got to lie. So I'll just try to be different and take it to where no one else is going. I just pay attention to what other homies are playing and if they're stuck in the 105s or they're trying to do some 120s, 125s and super energy, then I'll take them all the way down and I'll pick something.
Speaker 2:Reset yeah, I'll reset it, but when I reset it'm yeah, I'll bring it back up, but when I reset it I'm playing something that you know that is down there, but it's still like oh you know, you know, and and it'll be something that I could just echo out and drop from the top and instantly they know it right on the one, right on the one, no eight bar, no eight bar, just bam, let's go and they're like you know, for sure, I do a lot of those man, nice man yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:What do you got?
Speaker 2:you're over there, quiet as fuck you ain't say shit, you ain't contribute to this podcast, soaking it in.
Speaker 1:You gotta get a little closer to that thing, girl. You're not even trying at this point, I'm just listening, baby, yeah, so she's gonna go down there with me. Uh, you know she's dj'd with me, uh, mostly on the sr2 or the rev one she be dropping mixes.
Speaker 2:Uh, she knows hey she can blend right she can transition.
Speaker 1:She's probably right where I'm at, roughly right. And then now we want to go, we want to go down to beat junkies and learn more and keep progressing.
Speaker 2:Come on man.
Speaker 1:And do this kind of shit with people like you. Dose was here last week, you were here the first week, you know, and just chill, man. I put something online the other day. It's not about the money, right, it's about the passion. It's about the passion, it's the fact that I love music. Money is a byproduct, right? If I love what I'm doing and I love music and I'm good at it it'll come you're gonna make money for sure.
Speaker 1:right, like, and I think, uh, a one. The dj community and I don't know if it's just a bakersfield thing or a Kern County thing is real catty man, real immature, real like possessive or something Like there's a gatekeeper DJ in Bakersfield that you have to go through Like, nah, I don't got to do anything like that, right Nah. But then you know, you come across cool people, good people. You Dose where we're just talking. You Dose where we're just talking and chilling. We got love for the music hanging out, talking about the music, talking about the culture, talking, shit doing whatever. That's what it is for me, man, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, sharing music, sharing ideas, collaborating, making people dance, having a good time, positive energy, for sure, man. When it comes to the DJs in every community, I would think, man, it's a lot of narcissism. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's because they're stuck in the room by themselves and while they're in there, they're fantasizing and they're dreaming about what they're going to do when they step out on these turntables and how the people are going to react. They're envisioning, they're manifesting, trying to figure out their sets, you know, I mean, and their superstar performance, so their showcase. You know what I'm saying, but you know, um, and then the eagle comes with that, you know, I mean. You know you can get really really good or get some, some sonority, you know, and that'll gas you up, you know. Make your head, you know, super big. You can't even walk through the door. You know what I mean Feeling yourself for real, you know. And then something has to happen to where it'll humble you and you realize you ain't shit, you're really not. You know, we're just playing music.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you're more you, we're serviced. You could be an artist, you know. If you want to be an artist With this DJ thing, you know, upload your shit and share it with everybody yeah, you know. And show people your creativity and your artistry. Yeah, you know what I mean. But when you're stepping outside and you're getting paid to play, you know what I mean they're not they're purchasing your services. Yeah, you know what I mean. They're not they're purchasing your services. Yeah, you know. And you gotta go. You gotta know the difference. And sometimes, you know, when you get booked a lot For your services, you know that can make you feel A type of way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, you can feel, you can feel Really refilling yourself. Or or when you're not, you're not getting booked you might think, you might second guess yourself and think you're not worthy enough. You might be thinking, damn, maybe I need a shark. What am I not doing, right, man? It's a psychological mindset, man, that you got to really, really, really tighten down and just know that, hey, this music thing is for everybody and it's for sharing and it's not just about you.
Speaker 1:Oh man.
Speaker 2:It's not just about you, and you might get to the point where you're super nice and then they book you and take you on tour and that's the illest. That'd be great. That'd be the illest right, and then you could like, maybe put some gas on your ego. But when we're local and we're, you know, I don't know. I think it's just nice to be humble and just treat everybody, you know, with good intentions, good energy, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like that's what I like. You know your take on beat junkies and stuff. You know you say you go down there and you got dudes, that A-track and everybody else that are just celebrity status off the fucking charts. Right, then you have me. Right, then you're in the middle somewhere and you know there are all of these people at different levels, but it sounds like everybody down there is cool as fuck man. Like everybody's down there with for one thing, one thing only, and it's for the love of of turntables, for the love of vinyl, for the love of music, for the love of the art, for the love of hip-hop, for all the way. Going back to what we were talking about earlier, you know uh, biz and and everybody else at the beginning of hip hop.
Speaker 2:It's cool too, man, because when you go down there as you're learning on the turntables, they're giving you history lessons, they're telling you where this scratch came from, they're breaking it down, and it's super awesome Because a lot of the guys that you're like Yo big DJs, they're like the B? B junkies, homies, like they pop in and out and it's just like, yeah, like you don't realize, you know, because there's such like on a, on a regular base level with you, you know, yeah, you don't, you forget that these guys are legends, uh-huh, you know, because you, you start developing rapport with them and you become cool and they're your sensei, you see them a lot, so you're not as nervous as you probably were the first time you met them and then they're bringing around these big djs and you're like whoa, sometimes you forget, but it's, yeah, it's super cool, man, everybody, it's a community orientated you know it's funny.
Speaker 1:Everybody shows love. I'll end up. You know, me and mary Marion, we're gonna go down there. We'll end up down there and I won't know who any of these motherfuckers Are. Anyways, right Like I'm ignorant to it, I do not know who Mr Chalk is. I don't know who All these people are.
Speaker 2:You're from Arvin? Yeah, you've never. You never like Came across.
Speaker 1:He probably than you yeah, was that motherfucker from arvin what really him? I think him and c-minus from arvin, really yeah, oh wow, yeah, that's my neighborhood, then, man yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1:I think I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure, yeah, yeah so, like I said, I don't, I wouldn't even know who h is if I didn't fucking watch youtube, right so I would go down there, oblivious and ignorant, to it all I'll tell you. I'd be down there trying to practice and I might have a world-class DJ sitting next to me, and you won't even know it and I wouldn't know. I'll tell you.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'll be trying to chop it up with him.
Speaker 1:Hey man, how long you been DJing man? I won't know anything about him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little fan here.
Speaker 2:A couple months. Oh, I'm kind of nice, you know, yeah, yep, yeah, no, me too, like I wasn't ever like a big super fan of those guys, like I understood who they were and I respected their contribution to the game, sure, so, like you know, to the game. So I never was really really super. My cousin, though he probably would have fanned out, fanned him on it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because he was actually copying those CDs and, like yo, he was on it. You know what I mean? I wasn't on them like that, but I understood who they were and how important they were and how dope they were. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, you'll love it, you guys will love it. Out there, man, it's a lot of fan love, a lot of community, a lot of gatherings and cool people. Man, and just learning and obtaining the knowledge. Yeah, you guys are going to love it. Man, I graduated, see, I'm still not trying to leave, I'm still pulling up.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like what else y'all got going. But you know that's a testament to you, right? That's a testament to not having ego right, not being all huge headed and knowing that there's still more that you can learn and there's still things that you can hone in on and sharpen and get crisper and cleaner and search for that perfection that none of us will ever reach, but get as close as possible.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, because practice don't make perfect, it makes progress. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Well, we'll go ahead and kill the podcast. We had Ilflow on tonight. Yes, sir, appreciate you coming and hanging out with us. Man. No doubt queen b over here, quiet as hell, not involved. She'll get a little bit more involved once we get her down to beat john there you go.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna make her do a gig somewhere she's gonna be like put her on the spot how you doing on your chirps. I suck on my right hand, but my left hand pretty good.
Speaker 1:How's the flares and the transformers?
Speaker 2:and everything going.
Speaker 1:Hey, before we kill it, then, man, how nice are you on the right versus the left?
Speaker 2:Oh, shoot my left, your left, I'm a left, I kill it on my cuts on my left, but people who don't know any different would swear like you're nice on your right. But like nah, yeah, nah, nah, I'm like you think I'm nice. But like when I start getting into like I can do basic stuff on my right and it looks super cool, but like when we start getting like complicated stuff, like I'm like, yeah, I got to go practice, sit down somewhere and hone that right side. You go retarded a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I ask everybody.
Speaker 2:I don't know if we can use that word.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's our podcast. We say whatever the fuck we want to say.
Speaker 2:There you go, but you know what I mean. Like you go, uh no, everybody is handicapped on one side. You'll see watch, Because In the beginning they make you work both hands. Sure, they make you work. You're like, all right, switch, you got to go to this side. But you'll realize that there's one side.
Speaker 2:That's a little stronger than the other, and it's because, if you're right-handed, your right hand works good on the fader and your left hand is cool on the record, but when you switch, like that left side on this fader is like ah, you know, and my cousin man, he's getting both of them. Oh, does he? Yeah, he's, but he's like putting in the work. You know what I mean. He's actively focused on that.
Speaker 1:He's nice on his right but he's trying to get that left hand and the left hand is pretty up there, like I'm like, bro, you're already there, you're good man, I'm trying to god tell you he knows where he's at.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? Exactly, yeah, and always chasing, exactly, always chasing, always trying to get better, always trying to hone in, perfect, get better, absolutely, I always. I always equate it to uh, it's that little thing that they have you do, pat your head and rub your belly, and if you can do this, if you can do them at the same time, you'll probably be okay, mr chalk uses that analogy.
Speaker 2:He was like look, it's like pat your head, he says it and everything, he does the whole thing yeah yeah, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I heard man, if you really want to get nice on your off side, every other day you do everything with that left side. So when your ass wakes up in the morning, you brush your teeth with your left. Oh snap, I didn't know that. When you put your shoes on, Left first. Yeah, yeah. And then you just do everything that you would normally do with your right, you do with your opposite, or vice versa right, that you would normally do with your right, you do with your opposite or vice versa right, and I heard, if you do that every other day for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're going to get there.
Speaker 1:It makes that connection oh.
Speaker 2:I got to get there. That's got to be the next thing, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's got to be it, all right, y'all, we'll catch you next Wednesday. Peace, peace.