Grand Mixer D.ST

Turntable virtuoso

Interviewed by Frank in Harlem, October 10, 1998

D.ST is the grandaddy of all turntablists. While scratching was first brought to life by Flash and his protégé Theodore, it was D.ST (born Derek Showard, now called DXT) who gave it wings and inspired kids all over the world to stay in their rooms flicking their wrists and wearing out crossfaders.

D.ST was the first DJ to win a Grammy. He stepped up to receive the award as part of Herbie Hancock’s band for the 1983 single ‘Rockit’, a track which for most of the world was the first time they’d heard scratching. D.ST was the soloist pulling a wealth of itchy sounds from a copy of Fab 5 Freddy’s record ‘Change The Beat’. To a video of high-heeled robot legs, he showed that in skilled hands a turntable could not only lay down scratched rhythms but could also make improvised tones – musical notes. Jazz keyboardist Hancock, ever one to experiment, added him to his touring band.

We meet at his girlfriend’s place, a spacious ground floor flat in Harlem’s East 140s. He shows off the home studio he’s built for her, including some ‘fifteen grand’ piece of equipment he’s just brought in with him. The TV is on without sound throughout, and KD, his enthusiastic sidekick sits patiently listening. After the interview D.ST heads over to his studio in Jersey, dropping his girl at her job in a midtown fashion store. We barrel through Central Park in his jeep talking about playground games.

Where were you growing up?

In the Bronx.

How did you get into music?

I’m from a musical family. My mother sings. She still does. Blues and pop, Billie Holiday kind of stuff. And my sister is a professional dancer. So my whole family was in showbusiness.

How about you?

I always enjoyed music. I used to sleep in the living room on the floor by the radio. I would just spend a day listening, changing from station to station. As far as playing music, I started off as a drummer. I had my first drum set, I had to be four, five, maybe younger. It had one of them British rock groups on the bass skin, like the Beatles or something.

It was always percussion?

When I got into school I learnt how to play the clarinet. And I noticed something about playing the horn: it’s a feeling. You can actually play it if you feel like playing it. If you feel what it feels like to get those sounds out – that’s how I did it.

Instinctive?

Yeah. It’s an instinctive thing. I played drums for a long time, and in my neighbourhood all the musicians were older guys, and they all played jazz, and I would always want to play some of the more hip stuff that was on 99X radio station.

What was that like?

Rock, pop. It was a real radio station, not like what we’re listening to today; they had a variety of stuff. But I would only be allowed to play with these guys if I was gonna calm down and just play some shuffle beats.

What year is this?

1973, ’74. Right around ’74 I was playing jazz in the summertime, in parks all around the Bronx. In my neighbourhood we’d set up outside, and just play, they’d bring out the amps. By that time, my drum set, I had beat it to death. My mother couldn’t afford to buy me a new kit. So now I’m borrowing pieces. I got pieces of everybody’s drums.

So what inspired you to try DJing?

I became a roadie for a band called the Funkmaster’s Gang. This was a complete cover song band, from Mount Vernon. I was their first and only roadie. I used to use the vacuum cleaner to blow the dry ice on the stage. We did a party at a Latin club and there was a DJ there when the band wasn’t onstage. And just the way he was playing, I thought it was pretty impressive. And to this day I don’t know who he was; he wasn’t a Kool Herc or none of that, but that was the first time I saw a DJ. He was just playing some old classics: like Bobby Byrd, ‘Keep On Doing It’. But when it came on the whole crowd got up and everybody got into it.

And Kool Herc was a big inspiration too.

A friend of mine, James White, I called Jazzy. He was telling me, ‘Kool Herc’s doing a party. Yo man we gotta go.’ I went to see Kool Herc and I realised that he has the same kind of pull that the bands have, the local bands. People go see him just to see him, and I just stood there and watched him DJ and I was amazed. He didn’t cut on time or nothing like that, he just… his variety of music, the songs that he had, it was very clever. And it moved the crowd. It was a combination of the old and new.

Where was this?

I went to see him at The Executive Playhouse, in 1974.

Was he playing breaks by then?

He was playing them but he wasn’t cutting. Kool Herc never cut. To this day, he don’t cut. When the break would come up he would just move it on. He would just pan the fader over; it would be all off-beat or whatever.

So he would play the breaks just fading between them?

Yeah. He would play the breaks without being synchronised.

Was he playing two copies of the same record?

Yeah, yeah. So he’s actually the first guy who… But Flash made it to the point where he would cut them so it’s more of an edit.

On beat.

Yeah. I stood there, and at the time I was a B-boy, so you know I was ready to breakdance at the drop of a dime. So I’m listening, checking out people doing the hustle, and I’m waiting for ‘Apache’ to come on, so I could B-boy. And I’m checking out Herc. And I’m also in there breakdancing. So now there’s a place, there’s a guy I can go, to his party and practise my moves. Whereas anywhere else you’d just be waiting for the breaks.

So would you just be standing on the side?

Most B-boys would be like this [arms folded tight under his chin]. That’s where that came from. Just waiting. Not from trying to be cool.

You’re just waiting for the break.

Yeah, you’re just standing there waiting, you know… while the hustlers are doing the hustle.

And then the breaks come on and then, bang!

Yeah. There was a bunch of guys, waiting around for Kool Herc to play the beats. And sometimes he played the disco for the disco crowd, then all of a sudden he would play the beats and it’s B-boy time. And some of the best hustlers were some of the best breakdancers too. And back then it was still into, you know, asking a woman to dance. With some class. And then you can impress her by doing a spin on the floor. So it was a great time, man. So that was it. I became a fan, instantly, of Kool Herc.

Just how legendary was he at that stage, in the Bronx?

I mean, these guys were famous, man. They were incredible. And in my neighbourhood I was like the Kool Herc guy, cos I was the only guy with all those records. My mother had all them records so I started stealing all her records. And making little tapes and stuff and blasting my music into the neighbourhood.

’Cos all that time I was making pause button tapes. Everyone had one of my pause button tapes. I was one of the biggest pause button guys. And back then they didn’t even have pause buttons. Nah, I would just cut with the record button halfway down…

“  I was a B-boy, so I was ready to breakdance at the drop of a dime. I’m listening, checking out people doing the hustle, and I’m waiting for ‘Apache’ to come on, so I could B-boy. ”

Did you sell the tapes or just give them away?

I was just giving them away. Sometimes five bucks. Then when I got a pause button I was off the hook! Then we started making plates, acetate plates.

It took me a while to get a pair of turntables. I think it was ’77, I hooked up with some guys who had turntables. But since I was a drummer already I knew about synchronising time. That helped me a lot whilst I made the transition: I already had that skill. Plus as a drummer, I knew I could not allow the rhythm to fall off. For me it was so clear that it had to be on time.

In 1976, the bicentennial year, I was hooked up with two other guys and they happened to have two Garrard turntables and a mic mixer that had four knobs. And we started putting our records and stuff together and doing house parties. And we would literally have to be in a room so quiet, so we can hear the record, ’cos there were no headphones. To cue up the next record we would put our ear to the record, to the needle while it was playing. Like, ‘Shhh, be quiet.’ and you could just hear the ch ch chsh chush…

You’d be mixing from another room?

Yeah, we’d be in another room. And then we’d turn the four knobs, and mix. And what was ironic was that people were already calling me D.ST, which stood for D Street. and these two guys, one guy’s name was Shevin and the other guy’s name was Timmy and they called me D, so D. S. T. – Derek, Shevin and Timmy. It just went together that way.

Where did the name D.ST come from?

I got that name cos I used to hang out on Delancey Street downtown, and people called Delancey Street D Street.

But then those guys got with this other guy, one of the neighbourhood thugs, who had the most equipment, ’cos he was trying to DJ too. And I just wasn’t into the rough guy scene so I started doing parties myself. Another friend had a pair of Technic turntables, and there was a mixer, so I ended up going up there every day. Working on my craft.

Then I started going to these parties up in Mount Vernon. My cousin Todd would take us, and I got popular up there, from breakdancing. So this one guy, who was one of the big DJs up there, DJ Rob The Gold – his brother was DJ Smoke, from the Kool Herc crowd. I got down with his crew. And another guy named City Boy. They had big 18-inch woofer cabinets, and so I’m really playing on a real set now. They had 1800 turntables, the Technics, the real big heavy ones.

And up there they didn’t know nothing about Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, or Kool Herc; they were still straight up disco. I went up there. I got these beats. So I’m like Kool Herc now. When I’d get on I’d start playing these crazy records, and people would be like, ‘What are you doing?’

They didn’t get it?

I would clear the dancefloor.

How long did it take for them to figure it out?

Took a summer. By the end of the summer it was like all the girls… Once the women get into it, that’s where the guys are gonna go.

“  All of a sudden I was doing all this insane stuff. And people started realising that you could do all this shit with the record on the needle. ”

When did you start thinking about what you were doing, playing records, maybe you could take it another step further?

Once I left DJ Rob and City Boy and decided to start my own crew, cos these groups started coming up, like Furious Five. So I said I gotta get some MCs now. I had Baby T and Baby Ace, two girl MCs, then I had Baby T, Half Pint, Kool Out, Infinity. Then Al B, who became a gangster. He left, and by this time, now I was in high school. And I met this guy Shaheim, and he was saying rhymes. Raheim from Furious Five, he was there, all of us was in the same school, so he’d come up and we would just make these tapes, of us cutting and rhyming.

And then I had a guy named Little Quick, he was my understudy. And we had this little, little white kid named Joe. He was like nine or 10, and he was no joke. I used to stand him on a milk crate to DJ. So it was the three of us, the three DJs, and Kool Aid, who was the ‘Master of Beats’, ’cos he would read album covers and he would look for specific percussionists, specific drummers and he knew how they played.

I would spend eight to 10 hours a day in my house, in my room, driving my mother crazy. I went from the drums, she went, ‘Good, he’s got rid of them drums, now I could get some sleep,’ and now I had some turntables, finally.

I had my whole entourage, it was Kool Aid, Master of Beats, Little Quick, Big Joe, Infinity Four, Masters of Ceremony, which was Shaheim, Baron, Kimba and Mike Nice, and Jaheim, who was the programme director, so to speak. He would keep all the records in order. He’s the guy who would pass me my records.

And we had a whole synchronised thing. I would never look backwards. And I was so fast at it. It was a whole synchronised set of how we got down. We had a little rock’n’roll light rig with us so each MC had their own colour, and just that little change was enough to add more to the show. And we also was the first to put four mic stands out. Nobody did that. And everybody was like, ‘Damn, they gonna do a show!’ And I was so synchronised that, the timing, you would not know that I changed the record, and I would do crazy tricks.

Your style was just beats?

I had the traditional disco DJ blending skills. You start there, you have to have that. But then the more radical things were the most demanding, so you practised them more.

And you ended up playing at The Roxy

I was the DJ at the Roxy, which was the biggest scene in New York, and I would start out by playing the typical stuff that you hear on the radio, and some of the club stuff. And then all of a sudden I’d just twist the whole club. I’d throw on ‘Stop The Love You Save’ by the Jackson 5, from the beginning [does the drum and horn intro], and the whole club would go, ‘Oh shit.’ and then from that point I’d go left, completely go fucked up.

And that’s what makes hip hop so special, because it’s a combination of everything. I mean we would throw on Elvis, ‘Love my baby, and my baby loves me’ [‘C’mon Everybody’] that’s a hip hop classic. And 3-6-9, the goose drank wine [‘The Clapping Song’] and ‘The Name Game’ [both by Shirley Ellis] and all these old songs. These are songs that you’d play in a hip hop club.

It’s the way you’d combine them.

Yeah, you know you could be playing ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby’ [Human League], all of a sudden you’d throw on ‘Shoe shine boy, shoe shine boy, been all day shining shoes, da da da da da’ [Eddie Kendricks ‘Shoeshine Boy] and the club would go crazy.

What about scratching. How did that come about?

That was Flash and Theodore, and another guy who doesn’t get no credit: DJ Tyrone… Cool DJ D, his hip hop DJ was a kid named Tyrone. And he used to take ‘Apache’ [by Incredible Bongo Band] and he would go dmm-zmm, dmm-zmm, dmm-zmm [ie just scratch back and forth]. That’s all he would do. But it was so dope because nobody ever did it before. And then he would let it play, then [catch it again for another little scratch]. That’s all he did, but it was enough to go ‘Ohhhh shit!’

And then Theodore, who was phenomenal, and he was a prodigy. He was so skilled so young, it was ridiculous. It was effortless, his cutting ability. I mean, he was faster than Flash. Flash will deny that, but he was faster than Flash. And he was articulate with the shit, physically, you know.

What do you mean?

He expressed it. Without opening his mouth, he was articulate. He was physically articulate, in his gestures, and in his ability to be so precise, and synchronise – ’cos Flash was good. And Flash was a definite technician, but there was something about Theodore that made him different.

And remember he was a student of Flash. He had this knack for speed, and to be on time with the speed. And he expressed it, the way he would physically move. It was an expression. What I mean is, articulate for me, ’cos I’m a DJ and it was a language that I understood.

How did things progress?

As a musician already, I started using my music skills to manipulate the turntables. And so I started forcing the whole threshold of the concept of being a turntablist. I moved it because all of a sudden I was doing all this insane stuff. And people were like [amazed], ‘He did that with the turntable?’ And people started really, really focussing on it and realising that you could do all this shit with the record on the needle.

What kind of things were you doing?

Like needle-dropping: it almost doesn’t happen no more, but the most talented, the best DJs are the ones who can needle-drop, on cue, at will. Theodore… There was only about four or five of us that mastered it. And believe it or not, Little Quick mastered it; it’s just that he didn’t get the recognition. But he was one of the best too. Flash was not one of the best needle-droppers. That’s why he started the Clock Theory, spinning records back, ’cos he couldn’t drop.

There was me, Theodore and Imperial JC, who were the best needle-droppers. JC was also the fastest cutting, out of everybody. Out of everybody. JC was the first person to go ‘Good, good, good, good, ‘with ‘Good Times’ [by Chic]. ’Cos I got this fast: ‘Good times, good times, good times, good times,’ I mean precise, ’cos everybody said that when JC did it the shit was all crazy and out of time. I remember the first night I seen him do that and I went [sharp intake of breath] ‘I gotta go home and practise.’ And he did it on Herc’s turntables. That’s when he was spinning for Herc.

And that was the whole thing about the hip hop culture. Every time you went to one of the parties, you never knew what to expect from one of the real premier DJs ’cos they was always home. Just like these new battles, these DJ battles, same thing, ’cos every time I go, now it’s off the hook. And I look at these guys and I think: we started that shit. It’s incredible these guys what they took from us and there’s no end to it.

I love to go there and see these guys. Me and Flash at the DMC [DJ mixing competition], we was sitting there going ‘Yo man, look what we did. Look at this, man, this is ridiculous.’ To actually know that you have inspired a genre, a whole movement, and we just in the projects, doing that, with no money, man, just for the love of it.

Were you playing that style of scratching already?

By that time I was off the hook. I was doing all kinds of crazy tricks and stunts. I did everything but blow up the turntable. I was running around the place coming back and cutting on beat with no headphones on. Breakdancing, kicking the mixer, everything.

Scratching means it’s not about the record, the record isn’t important. I’m just using the record to make notes. When did you start doing that?

When we were just doing chzzum-chm, chzzum-chm, the simple stuff, it was just a matter of time before we’d want to do that more intricate… As a musical person I decided that I can play rhythms, because I’m a drummer. So I was listening to rhythms. But the idea of getting certain sounds, like the record backwards, and a little bit more staccato than just chzzum-chm, chzzum-chm, that was an accident. One day I was doing my thing and I fucked up and Shaheim was like, ‘Yo, yo, that was dope.’ I was like, ‘What? It was a accident.’ ‘Well do it again.’ So I did it again, and it was dope, so I just started practising doing it.

“  Quincy Jones took a chair, spun it around backwards and sat in front of me like this: ‘Go ahead, play.’ Then he gave me a bear hug. ”

What exactly was it that you did that time?

It was drit dru drit… drit dru drit where before it was just drit, drit, drit [the difference is we’re now hearing the pullback noise as well as the choppy forward scratch]. And so now it had more life to it and I started to practise that, [imitates a complex scratch which makes a breakbeat rhythm], and I’m thinking, [more complex drum patterns], and now I’m humming it. So once I realised that there was something there, my musical skill kicked in and I started singing these phrases And I started practising whatever I sang. I just applied my drum skills to the turntables.

When did you first feel like a musician rather than a DJ?

Took me a while. You know when I really felt it, when Quincy Jones came and sat in front of me, took a chair, spun it around backwards and sat in front of me like this [chin on folded arms]: ‘Go ahead, play.’ Just like that. And when I finished he picked me up and gave me a bear hug, and walked the fuck out. Then it was official for me. When Quincy said, ‘Yo man, that shit is dope. That’s some dope shit you doin’; that shit is so bad, it’s incredible.’

He said ‘You playin’ triplets. You playin’ a lot of triplets.’

When did you meet Quincy Jones?

When I was with Herbie Hancock and the ‘Rockit’ band.

How did you hook up together?

Playing at the Roxy. I met a guy named Jean Karakos who owned a French label called Celluloid.

What record did you use to scratch on ‘Rockit’?

I started recording my first single with this label Celluloid, and Fab 5 Freddy did a record with them called ‘Change The Beat’. And of course at the end it has ‘…this stuff is really fressshhh.’ When we were doing ‘Rockit’ I was going through a bunch of records to find the sounds that I wanted. We’re all in the studio and I’m doing my rhythms, and I used fresh wisht wshht and everyone went, ‘Woah. That’s it, that’s it, roll the tape!’ and I just did my part. I just did whatever I felt.

Did you right away think ‘I’ve made the turntable into an instrument’?

Yeah. By the time I got to the ‘Rockit’ band I realised there was something special, with the turntables, and it was growing. And like I say I didn’t really feel the respect from the band yet. They kind of looked at me like, ‘Can’t have a turntable… in a band, man.’

They thought it was a gimmick.

But when Herbie saw it, because Herbie he’s totally into that. Because it’s new, it’s clever, it’s technical. So he was totally into it.

He was open-minded enough to say, yeah, I’m gonna make a record with you?

Yeah. So, we did it and made history with that record. That was a great experience. That was my introduction to mainstream showbiz, and to be introduced on that magnitude, is incredible. Boom! hit record, world tours, grammies. It happens so fast that you don’t enjoy it. ‘What happened?’ ‘Yo man, you got a hit record.’ Like I never saw the effect that the record had in the United States, I never saw it ’cos I was gone.

You were touring, supporting it?

I never was in my neighbourhood to see how people responded to it.

People must have told you though.

In those neighbourhoods people are poor, so they think you’ve made it, so now you can’t talk to nobody, so everything gets real funny. But I wasn’t in my community when that record blew up like that. I became so busy, that your life just changes.

How long were you on tour?

I did from ’84 to ’88. And that band ended and I was in the Headhunters also. I was playing keys, and singing lead by that time. And turntables. So I took the ride, you know.

What made the band finally respect you as a musician?

It was a song we were working on; there was some trouble at rehearsal, and they were asking Herbie – they were saying ‘Hey Herbie, this part?’ And he said ‘Yo man, don’t ask me, ask him, he did the damn song.’

© DJhistory.com

GRAND MIXER D.ST SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

PHASE II – The Roxy (scratches)

INFINITY & GRANDMIXER D.ST – Grandmixer Cuts It Up! (writer/producer/scratches)

RAMMELLZEE & SHOCK DEE WITH GRAND MIXER DST – Rammellzee & Shockdell At The Amphitheatre (scratches)

GRANDMIXER D.ST – Crazy Cuts (producer/turntables/synthesizer)

GIL SCOTT-HERON – Re-Ron (backing vocals)

D.ST & JALALUDIN M. NURIDDIN – Mean Machine (Dub) (producer/writer)

D.ST – Megamix II: Why Is It Fresh? (producer/arranger/writer)

HERBIE HANCOCK – Rockit (scratches)

DST – Home Of Hip Hop (producer/writer)

GINGER BAKER – Satou (scratches)

HERBIE HANCOCK – Metal Beat (turntables)

BILL LASWELL FT. DXT – Black Hole Universe (scratches)

APC – Magnetic D. Street (scratches)

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VARIOUS – The Celluloid Years – 12”es And More