MikiWAR: 5 years ago you were more or less known for your mash-ups. Now the electro sound is popular. How has your mentality evolved? How do you stay creative?
Klutch: It’s hard. Everything is 128 bpm. Management wants you to stay 128. You really can’t create with 128. You can do things, but there’s no word play or feelings. If you’re a house DJ, you have your own thing. God bless you. Us hip hop guys have to throw our own spin on it. I’ve been trying to stay as true as I can to what I do, and not change to what everyone else wants to hear. At the end of the day, you have to get booked for you. Everyone is playing the same 200 records or whatever. I’ve been spinning for fifteen years. What am I accomplishing by spinning the same 200 records? As hard as it is, I have to try to stick to my guns. I do play top 40, but you can’t lose yourself in the shuffle. We evolve with it, go through the motions and when hip hop comes back, we’re good. We just got to wait it out.
Dainjazone: Do you keep up with what’s hot out here or do you guys do your own thing on the east coast?
Klutch: I just try to do Klutch. When I do a club, I feel like I have a sound. When AM did a club he had a sound to him. You can put him behind a curtain and you can tell it’s AM because of his sound. The same goes for Riz, Mark Ronson and even Q-Tip.
Dainjazone: Tell us about your relationship with AM. You guys were the first to bring him out to New York, right?
Klutch: We were the first at Deko. We had him out there for seven years as a resident. We didn’t even have him on the main floor. We had him in the basement. House music was on the main floor. Deko was a house club. Downstairs was for bringing in talent and showcasing. He opened for me at Babies only because he had another gig. That’s when we first met. He was running Nas' “Oochie Wally” edit “six in the morning” into “Gin And Juice” and it was all vinyl. I’m thinking this guy is opening?! The promoter told me, "Don’t get your head gassed; he has another gig." Haha. It made sense because this m***** f***** was nasty! After he played we exchanged numbers, but never followed through with one another. The owner of Deko told me, “We’re trying to bring this guy AM out.” I said, “We had him at Babies. He’s amazing.” When we brought him out, his first night was slow because he didn’t have that buzz yet. But everyone went crazy. Right from then they signed him and put him on the main floor.
MikiWAR: AM is obviously one of the most well respected guys you’ve gotten the chance to share the stage with, but go down the line. I remember seeing a couple videos with Jazzy Jeff. Are there other experiences that compare?
Klutch: Nothing really compares. AM, Jazzy Jeff, and Riz are probably an all-time high just on who they are as people. Some guys are hard to work with. I wasn’t supposed to play with guys like AM and Jeff. They would literally elbow me in the rib and say, “Yo Klutch let’s rock!” It was just love right from the jump.
Dainjazone: You told me something real dope last year about Winter Music Conference (WMC). You said it used to be about the music, then it got real commercial. People don’t know what’s going on, they just know it’s the place to be.
Klutch: This is going to be my ninth year at WMC. When it first started, it was empty. I remember seeing Arman Van Helden at Mansion and I could do cartwheels on the dance floor. The event just didn’t have that hype. The people that were there were there because they wanted to hear Arman. Now you hear it on the street: “Yo, where you going?” “Morillo at Liv.” That’s the party. People don’t even know who’s DJing these parties.
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