The Oxford English Dictionary … of ROCK Part 2: turntablism

turntablism, n. [added September 2007]

The action or practice of performing as a turntablist. Cf. TURNTABLIST n.

1996 Xmen vs ISP in alt.rap (Usenet newsgroup) 2 July, I know that both crews have mad respect for each other and I think battles like these keep pushing the art of turntablism into the future. 1999 Muzik Nov. 165/1 Anyone who says vinyl is dead now obviously has their head stuck up their arse... You only have to look around and see the amount of turntablism going on at this show. 2004 M. M. LEWIS Scars of Soul II. vi. 81 The beats from DJ Kayslay resuming his expert turntablism soon reverberate through the hall.

Better late than never – I was pioneering this ‘ish with my ma’s 7” Elvis singles in the early 80s. Apparently Kool Herc was doing the same thing a decade earlier, and Jimmy Savile thirty years before that. In 1998 I witnessed what I guess was turntablism in its highest form – the Invisibl Skratch Picklz supporting the Beastie Boys in Brixton. After a while it all sounded like birdsong, not that there’s much wrong with birdsong, but it wasn’t much to look at either.

I’m liking several things about the OED’s definition: the inclusion of the phrase “mad respect”, the attention to detail of mining an old-skool interweb discussion group, and the quality of writing on offer in Muzik magazine. But most of all I like the fact that shouty, beef-encouraging, pork-discouraging New York mixtape regular and “drama king” DJ Kayslay turns up. Here he comes now:

I was previously unaware that Kayslay, who is clearly excellent at fake reality shows and standing near Papoose, actually has skills as a turntablist. Initially, I assumed this was a clunky bit of authorial laziness, like when Funkmaster Flex and the ‘Aphex Twins’ make unconvincing cameos in Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama. But Bronx native Miles Marshall Lewis (who recently wrote on the making of Sly Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On for the 33 1/3 series), has hip-hop credentials. Well, he has a good blog.

Famous types only get into the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography once they’ve died, so we’ll have to make do with the wikipedia bio, which provides useful insights such as “Kayslay knew the meaning of gangster at a young age” and “Upon his return to the streets, Kayslay began living a new, drug-free life that was a real hustle.”

Anyway, here’s Kayslay’s incomprehensible fake reality show, plus some turntablist fun

Grandmaster Flash – ‘The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel’

Statik Selektah – ‘No Mistakes Allowed (feat. Doug E. Fresh, Tony Touch, Scram Jones, DP-One, DJ GI-JOE, DJ Revolution, Esoteric)’ (from Spell My Name Right)

Those “adorable” turntablist kids!

And finally, RZA, possibly under some influence or other, claiming he tried to patent a digital turntablism gizmo that he discovered “at the end of a rainbow”. See if you can keep up:

RZA – ‘Afro Samurai OST’

Delayed gratification has been the keynote of RZA’s career for the best part of a decade. His touted solo “masterpiece”, ‘The Cure’, has been promised since before the release of ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ in 1997, and currently resides in the same bracket as Dre’s ‘Detox’, the new My Bloody Valentine record and (surely nobody really believes) ‘Chinese Democracy’. In the meantime, RZA hasn’t been lazy – contributing to Wu albums, solo joints, soundtracks (in particular, to ‘Kill Bill’ and ‘Ghost Dog’), and albums as RZA and Bobby Digital. But all of these releases came with a pre-loaded defence mechanism against heightened expectations, be it the cartoon persona of Bobby Digital, or the stylistic constraints of a soundtrack for somebody else’s project. Nothing is allowed to be a ‘true’ RZA solo album, so nothing is quite as good as ‘The Cure’ surely, must be.

Given this pathological tendency, RZA must’ve been salivating at the prospect of Afro Samurai – a project so silly, and so ‘RZA’, as to cast Samuel L. Jackson as a jive talking blaxploitation anime hero, questing to become the ‘Number One warrior in the world’. No sweat, no pressure: a license to indulge his favourite tropes. Accordingly, we are treated to silky-smooth RnB pastiches (forgetting that R. Kelly’s light years ahead on this bonkers path), sword-swinging nerd rap with Talib Kweli and Q Tip, an underwhelming Big Daddy Kane appearance on ‘Cameo Afro’, and the over-familiar dialogue snippets: c’mon, “give him his sword” already. It’s nice enough, but nothing new, and hardly a stretch. RZA only steps from behind the boards on a few tracks, and on most of those he retreats into his diminishing-returns, misogynistic Bobby Digital persona. “C’mon, Bobby, let’s get some sleep,” suggests an unnamed lady. “Unh,” says Bobby. Only on ‘Fury In My Eyes’ does RZA allow a glimpse of the awesome potential that still lurks: over a melody reminiscent of Kill Bill’s Meiko Kaji moments, RZA’s slurring flow combines with Thea’s feline hook to inspiring effect: “I’m the master of the clan, you can see by the headband / spirit of God becomes one inside man.” It’s enough to sustain those who believe he still has the classic in him to rival ’36 Chambers’.

B+

More fun:

RZA - 'Fury in My Eyes'

Couple of mp3s at So Much Silence.

Buy 'Afro Samurai'