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my gig at a hip-hop crowd party

so one of my friends who spins progressivish like myself asked me to spin at a birthday party on campus for a mostly hip-hop crowd. they were going to have breakdancers, so he wanted my help spinning breaks and playing some hip-hop tracks. i knew i would have to put up with a lot of BS, but i was broke (well, i still am broke ) and i would be able to drink for free and make a few bucks.

neither of us had any hip-hop tracks, but the guy throwing the party was supposed to bring us some CDs. neither of us had spun any hip-hop before.

so, there were only a few people there so i started out spinning some breaks and then on to prog/house stuff, and then the dude came back with 20 hip-hop mp3s on two CDRs. 1/3 of the tracks were VBR and therefore were not cueable on the CDJ200s. the CDs weren't labelled, so I just started playing tracks in order 1,2,3 i learned that hip-hop BPMs vary greatly...i would have one track at -16 and one at +16 and it would still not be in range. some tracks had decent cue points, and some did NOT...sometimes i would just cue from some point before the first snare and see how it would go. i pulled off some beautiful transitions, but many transitions were just quick fades and some were complete shxt. and 20 hip-hop tracks don't last for long. no way i'm going to mix hip-hop again, i'll just put in a mix CD.

the basement started filling up, and some girl was like "can you play "lean back" again? and i was like "...the track that i just played" and she said "yeah" and i must have given her an "are you retarded? " look because she was like "okay, WhatEver!".

so the hip-hop cashed, and my friend was spinning prog, and these 2 girls and a guy at the bar were like "no techno! no techno!". then, the breakdancers came, which i'd actually met before, so i started playing breaks, and they breakdanced for 2 tracks, and then stopped. i was just getting warmed up, and a little ticked by the general rudeness of the partygoers, so i started playing the nastiest hardest electro breaks that i had....that felt good...

eventually we went back to spinning the same 20 tracks of garbage that we played earlier, and that was it. only two college-boy scuffles broke out the whole night. it's not like everyone hated us; there were people dancing and we got a cheer at the end. so, a cooler of cold beer by my side the whole night, and 20 bucks for hangover food the next day....about adequate compensation for a night of putting up with BS. not something i'd like to do on a regular basis though...

thought i'd share my experience!

Lol...my 1st hiphop experience was just as bad, well not bad for the ppl, but for me. I had a friend give me two cd's with about 60 tracks in total mp3 format. I just used the quick fade technique and played with the effects on my DXM and the crowd loved it.

quote:

Originally posted by Atmos Lol...my 1st hiphop experience was just as bad, well not bad for the ppl, but for me. I had a friend give me two cd's with about 60 tracks in total mp3 format. I just used the quick fade technique and played with the effects on my DXM and the crowd loved it.

lol, oh yeah, i was rocking the FX the whole night especially the "zip" onboard the CDJ200s.

also i guy asked to "play something you can grind to" hmm....let's see, i usually put my grind stuff inbetween the deep house and minimal tech-house....

quote:

Originally posted by lucas ss also i guy asked to "play something you can grind to"

this and everything else you mentioned is exactly why i have no interest in ever playing for a hip-hop crowd...

edit: err, i forgot. i did play for them once. it was pretty much exactly like you said. it was back in high school. it was so stupid.

i dont meen to sound like a cockass, but if you call that putting up with 'bullshit' while playing top 40 and hip hop, then you sir are a lucky lucky son of a bitch and i envy you in never having the experience of playing to dumb ghetto wannabe ass mother******s who should be exterminated...




...seriously

Now you see over here we don't really get the "every party wants hip hop" thing... it's much worse than that

Most of the young people over here just want cheese. By cheese, I mean a sprinkling of cheesy pop that's in the charts at the moment, some of the big commercial dance tracks (that I can cope with), the odd big r'n'b or hip hop track, whatever indie tracks are big at the time and the bulk of it is filled out with 70s, 80s and 90s pop like the same Queen tracks you hear at every fucking cheese night (normally 'Don't Stop Me Now'), shite like 'Build Me Up Buttercup' by The Foundations, Chesney Hawkes, Brian Adams, S Club 7 (I don't even know if that was a 'phenomenon' which reached the States) and so on... we're talking about the majority of people aged between 16 and 25 here, it's sickening. It's literally all that 80% of university girls will listen to.

Give me cheese ANY DAY over "Pop Lock and Drop It" "Walk It Out" "Throw Some D's On It" and a bunch of people acting all hard and loud and obnoxious to try to mimick a lifestyle they clearly know NOTHING about


I get the cream of the crop experiences since I play some big clubs around here, some really really dark shitty ghetto ones AND weddings...and give me anything...seriously guys I can't stress it enough, ANYTHING over ghetto nasty poppin snappin yo fingaz good ol U.S. Of A. hip hop retardation


ANYTHING

sounds just like the party that I DJed at a few weeks ago...

quote:

Originally posted by Raveaddict19 Give me cheese ANY DAY over "Pop Lock and Drop It" "Walk It Out" "Throw Some D's On It" and a bunch of people acting all hard and loud and obnoxious to try to mimick a lifestyle they clearly know NOTHING about I get the cream of the crop experiences since I play some big clubs around here, some really really dark shitty ghetto ones AND weddings...and give me anything...seriously guys I can't stress it enough, ANYTHING over ghetto nasty poppin snappin yo fingaz good ol U.S. Of A. hip hop retardation ANYTHING

Werd.

One time this DJ played at my school cafeteria. It was hip-hop and he was also MCing...

Yeah, it was horrible.

quote:

Originally posted by Raveaddict19 Give me cheese ANY DAY over "Pop Lock and Drop It" "Walk It Out" "Throw Some D's On It" and a bunch of people acting all hard and loud and obnoxious to try to mimick a lifestyle they clearly know NOTHING about I get the cream of the crop experiences since I play some big clubs around here, some really really dark shitty ghetto ones AND weddings...and give me anything...seriously guys I can't stress it enough, ANYTHING over ghetto nasty poppin snappin yo fingaz good ol U.S. Of A. hip hop retardation

BAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAW, I LOL'd... I did a shitty house party once and all I got was "yo man turn dat techno shit awff and throw down sum gangsta beats yo". seriously... who says yo twice in one sentence... douche bag

ive had some bad experiences from doing hip-hop parties because the people are so freaking rude and they freak out on your ass if you dont have or play the song they want.

the worst night was when i did some girls 17th b-day party at her house. Before i started she sent me a list of songs that her and her friends like and like i expected, all really hardcore rap and hip-hop...ugh. So i get to the party and the father of the daughter came up to me and was like "dude, i feel sorry for you." after some conversation, i figured out that the b-day girl advertised her party by posting flyers all over her high school as an open invitation. About 2 hours into the night, there were like 300 people packed into the backyard and all around the house and most of them were gangstas. I had to repeat walk it out and ballin like 20 times each which was annoying as hell. then i had people requesting rap from artists i have never heard of...then they proceed to flip out. so basically i got treated like dirt so towards the end i just start playing some tech-trance and house music and half of them left lol....that made me smile

but yeah, i feel for ya man

It seems as though the majority of youth like shitty music. The more shitty/retarded/cheesy music you play the more they will go bat shit crazy.

Hell, if I played a song where *insert overpaid stereotypical rapper here* and the whole song was just the guy shitting onto the mic the crowd would go bat shit crazy.

I wouldn't mind playing REAL hiphop to a crowd but the sugar coated commercialised twat that gets passed about nowadays, you can stick it up yer fudd.

quote:

Originally posted by ZeJayMan I wouldn't mind playing REAL hiphop to a crowd but the sugar coated commercialised twat that gets passed about nowadays, you can stick it up yer fudd.

+1

intelligent rap for the win. Except often times it's not really party material. Best thing is when you actually have rappers and all you have to do is lay down beats for them.

sounds like you need to move outta madtown lucas.

I started spinning mostly old school beats recently (not top 40 mind you) and I found it more challenging than your run of the mill edm. If only because two random tracks with almost no breakdown and possibly widely varying BPMS have to come together in short order.

On the other hand you can look at it as being easier because you can just drop the track in for a bar and cut the other one out and people are not going to complain as long as the beats are on and they like the next song (though few would call this skilled hip hop mixing).

Sounds like it would be harder on CDJ200s (never used them though). I like being able to toss my vinyl about when I'm trying to get the track mixed in.

quote:

Originally posted by Project-K +1 intelligent rap for the win. Except often times it's not really party material. Best thing is when you actually have rappers and all you have to do is lay down beats for them.

+1

I can't believe the bullsh*t that makes it onto the radio, good hip hop has to have at least one of two things: Good lyrics or a Good beat.

Most of the stuff playing sounds like a 5 year old wrote a poem and recorded the sound of a dying pitbull chewing its own leg off.

And most of it is probably classed as rap.

Re: my gig at a hip-hop crowd party

quote:

Originally posted by lucas ss the basement started filling up, and some girl was like "can you play "lean back" again? and i was like "...the track that i just played" and she said "yeah" and i must have given her an "are you retarded? " look because she was like "okay, WhatEver!".

quote:

Originally posted by Omega_Blue sounds like you need to move outta madtown lucas.

i would, but the ghetto's got me trapped!

Spinning hip-hop and rap is fun IMO, but it takes a little more preparation. The BPM and structure varies much more than when spinning trance or house.

And, it's only really fun if the crowd isn't complete shit. I have been playing house parties for friends of mine, who aren't ghetto trash. They just like rap music, because that's what they know how to dance to. (EDM, aka "That Techno Stuff" is not popular at all around here. People just aren't familiar with it.) I have fun playing anything that gets people to dance, really.

Plus, sometimes you're able to throw in a house remix of something that's popular at that moment, and mix in to another EDM song or two, and they'll be dancing to it without even realizing it sometimes. You just gotta ease them into it and not overdo it.

I'm in the process of organizing all of my hip-hop tracks and getting all of their BPM counts documented. (I use Traktor and MIDI controller to play, which is hardly accurate for BPM count. MixMeister's BPM Calculator does a much better job to get you in the ballpark.) I'm having a lot more fun mixing it now that I am not trying to mix songs that are grossly incompatible. I'll get to try it out on the 27th as I'm going to be playing my first ALL hip-hop party for a friend's graduation. Last time I was mixing hip-hop and top 40 I did a lot of the simple crossfade or slamming tracks together. I want to do a lot more actual mixing this time.

I have to say that commercial rap and commercial hip-hop has really died in the arse where I live.
I know lots of people in my area listen to euro dance stuff though.
Groove coverage anyone?

I guess they are getting closer.

quote:

Originally posted by david.michael I'm in the process of organizing all of my hip-hop tracks and getting all of their BPM counts documented. (I use Traktor and MIDI controller to play, which is hardly accurate for BPM count. MixMeister's BPM Calculator does a much better job to get you in the ballpark.) I'm having a lot more fun mixing it now that I am not trying to mix songs that are grossly incompatible. I'll get to try it out on the 27th as I'm going to be playing my first ALL hip-hop party for a friend's graduation. Last time I was mixing hip-hop and top 40 I did a lot of the simple crossfade or slamming tracks together. I want to do a lot more actual mixing this time.

I have to do this myself, its frustrating throwing a record on and then realizing that you've wasted a quarter of the track playing on it because the BPM is either impossible or will sound like trash.

Though it makes you good at cut ins.

quote:

Originally posted by nousplacidus I have to do this myself, its frustrating throwing a record on and then realizing that you've wasted a quarter of the track playing on it because the BPM is either impossible or will sound like trash. Though it makes you good at cut ins.

LOL, very true. Kinda forces you into making "oh shit" transitions, which can actually be a good skill to have.

I just decided I wanted to be a little more prepared this time.

i am a music snob i guess, i wont compromise my playing style THAT drastically (going from house to hip hop) just for a gig. Even if its for friends. It's like converting religions to me. I would feel like I am selling my soul.

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