The Rebirth Of Hip-Hop
Inception
"After 20 years, hip-hop has finally reached its starting point." -- Alex Aquino, International Turntablist Federation (ITF) founder - OPTION
"People's ears have been reopened to scratching after a long period of banishment because the rap element has become a bit stagnant. MC's don't battle anymore and the battles boost their creativity. So the lack of that and the emergence of more instrumental dance music and the openness to non-lyrical music like Techno and TripHop has combined to make scratching return." -- John Carluccio, producer of "Battle Sounds" - WIRE
DJs, once the heart of hip-hop culture, are emerging from more than a decade in gangsta rap's commercial shadow. The days of block parties and breakdancing in the streets may be over, but the legacy of the old school has inspired a turntable renaissance. -- OPTION
Origin
The turntable manipulators hark back to a more innocent, semi-mythical time of block parties, when the DJ, not the rapper, was the star, a time when notions of battling were purely rhetorical, a time before major label interest, gangsterism and the violent deaths of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. -- WIRE
Art Form
This new school of scratchadelia practices its science without forsaking the body-rocking imperative that is hip-hop's raison d'etre. Perhaps more than any other aspect of hip-hop culture, scratching epitomizes its obsession with the mind-over-matter imagery of Hong Kong chop-sockies and the otherworldly control fantasies provided by video games that David Toop first elucidated way back when in Rap Attack. - WIRE
Just as kung fu flicks revel in the flashy physicality made possible only by years of study and practice, scratch DJing reconnects with the party-jam excitement of old school hip-hop by rigorously rethinking and transfiguring the rather dour new school. - WIRE
The mental gymnastics and light-speed vinyl manipulations of the X-ecutioners and Invisibl Skratch Piklz have transformed hip-hop classics into hopping corpses of their former selves. - WIRE
While the DJ-as-jazz-musician analogy is as tired as a Coolio rhyme, the Skratch Piklz manage to put a fresh spin on the ideal. With funky pauses, volume and intensity shifts, and involved body language, Q-Bert convincingly approximates a be-bopper going through his paces. - WIRE
"I used to use a lot of Hendrix, just going crazy without pause. Now I'm listening to Miles Davis, learning how he used silence." -- Q-Bert: The Invisibl Skratch Piklz - WIRE
Future
There are signs that turntablism has already started to move outside the borders of hip-hop; Beck, Branford Marsalis, and bands such as Praxis and MCM & the Monster have all added DJs to their lineups. - OPTION
"Back in the day, people wanted to take up a guitar and be a rock star. Now they want a turntable, instead. I believe every band will one day have a turntablist; I even see turntablists being in orchestras." -- Alex Aquino, International Turntablist Federation -OPTION
"Community," Shortkut notes, as he watches a teenage girl try her first scratch, "is the heart of hip-hop."