Melo-D Interview

Dainjazone: Who were the DJs you listened to when you first started?
Melo-D: This was early mid 80's, so a lot of the stuff I listened to was from local crews in my area. Shout out to my man DJ Curse, who is also a Beat Junkie. He was probably the first guy from my local area in Cerritos (where I was born and raised), to be putting it down in terms of scratch styles. As far as scratching, the Mix Masters were running things out here. For those that don’t know, they were doing 1580 KDAY Mix Show; Tony G, Julio G, Joe Cooli, Ralph M… they were about eight or ten deep. To answer your question; the KDAY Mix Masters, Public Image was Curse’s crew; Rhettmatic had a crew called Double Platinum; I can’t remember these other two crews’ mobile names, but together they had a conglomerate called United Kingdom. They used to throw these big hall jam parties with a setup of four or six turntables. This was all on wax and it was before DMC, VHS tapes and YouTube, so a lot of these cassettes I was listening to were third, fourth and fifth generation copies: real muffled to death. I learned how to DJ from listening to these guys. Then you had groups like Low Profile (Aladdin), Cash Money, Jazzy Jeff, DJ Scratch from EPMD… Scratch-wise, I learned a lot by ear. When VHS tapes came out in the early 90’s I was able to see Qbert, Rectangle, Mix Master Mike and all these legendary DJs.

Dainjazone: Whats going on with the Beat Junkies? Who’s doing what? Who still considers themselves a Beat Junkie?
Melo-D: We’re all still crew. We are 14 deep. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s, we used to do a lot of group performances and battling. We’re all still “fam”, but since then, everyone is doing their own thing; Babu is still rolling with Dilated Peoples: they have a new album coming out and he does his own production on the side; same for Rhettmatic; J Rocc rolls real tough with Stones Throw, Madlib, and that camp; I’m doing my club dates; Icy Ice is doing this online DJ University; Havic is still doing his thing; Symphony (who is Icy Ice’s little sister) is a full time mom now; Mr. Choc is doing Soul Assassin Radio; Tommy Gun is involved with Napster… Everyone still has love for music and DJs whenever possible. We’re all still brothers and we’ve been together since '92.

MikiWAR: Do you guys see a reunion coming soon?
Melo-D: We are actually doing an event that is a tribute to Roc Raida (RIP) on the 24th at the Echoplex. I think the 24th marks the day of his passing. Rob Swift, Total Eclipse and Craze are going to be in the spot too. So it’s going to be a reunion of sorts. That was an event we used to do monthly at a place called the Knitting Factory.

Dainjazone: How do you feel about Fat Beats closing down?
Melo-D: It’s a sign of the times. It’s definitely a sad day. I remember going there every week, sometimes twice a week to shop. Things evolve, not just with music, but also with everything in life. They definitely had a good run. Shout to everybody; Joe, Josh, Johnny Juice; my crew definitely put in work to get its rep up. Shout out to them for sure.

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