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DJ SAKE-1
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TURF – San Francisco, Filmore and the Mission District CREW – California’s Local 1200 Sound System, Snobb Deep Movement, Soul Deluxxe and Planet Fillmoe FORTE – “Remixes, mixtapes, and production on the soul side of things. I combine rap and R&B, kinda do both equally. It got to the point where I got kinda frustrated so I just started throwin’ my own shit. I was blessed and they was real successful and they took off. Out of that I started Ubiquity Records and Fader hollered at me to do mixtapes for them and I became a tastemaker DJ as opposed to a street DJ or a scratch DJ. “ ROOTS – “Hip Hop, but I branched off into a different style/sound so now I get compared to the DJ Spinners and DJ Jamads of the world.” PRODUCT – FADER/Cornerstone Mix – Suite 903, Podcast for Ubiquity Records (out this fall), Soul Deluxe mixtape series, Miami Winter Music Conference mixtape 360 DEGREES OF SOUL – “It’s a soulful edge, but my definition of a soulful song could be anything. It could be a dancehall reggae song. It could be a Mary
J. Blige or it could be an underground tune, but I’m able to find soulfulness out of it and rock a party with it. [My style has] a sexy edge but it ain’t too sexy to where the homies ain’t feelin’ it. That’s my niche.” HANDLE – “My name stems from graffiti from back in the day. It doesn’t really mean that much. The funny thing is I did a gig in Japan and they thought I was Japanese, cause they thought it was like ‘Sake’ and I went out there and they were trippin’ cause I was definitely not Japanese. It’s just a word that I used to write when I was little and I used to tag in the streets and it just stuck with me.” BOTTOM LINE – “The Hip Hop part is always going to be in me, but for me it’s not about going to a party and playing a bunch of music that I’m paid to play, because I’m promoting myself as an artist/producer. I started out as a DJ, so it’s always going to be about rocking a party. If I got a song that I made that rocks the party then it’s all good, but if it’s another song that rocks the party then I’ll play that too. At the end of the day that’s my goal.” HOOKUP – myspace.com/djsake1 , djsake1.com
PHOTO: D-RAY
DEMOLITION MEN MEMBERS – DJ Devro and DJ Impereal TURF – from Los Angeles (Devro) and Queens (Impereal), but rep Oakland – “LA’s cool. It’s a nice place to visit, but the Bay is where it’s at.” – Devro HANDLE – The Mixtape Kings; earned their moniker(s) by hitting the streets day and night with backpacks full of custom mixes for the Bay Area masses and demolishing weaker, less polished competition in the process. THE BUBBLE – came up by delivering customized mixtapes to their customers in every corner of the Bay. Over the course of three years they moved 36 mixtapes, including nine devoted to East Bay slap, which helped earn fans a dedicated market that serves the entire West Coast. THE MERGER – After leaving Los Angeles in favor of the Bay, DJ Devro tried going it alone until he and Queens native Impereal met through a mutual DJ friend. “Just as Impereal
was moving out here, one of my roommates was moving out and I let him move in. He came in here and it was instant. We just clicked,” Devro says. PRODUCT – Nuthin’ But Slap, Best of the Bay, Out the Trunk, Supply & Demand, R&B Slap, Mas Caliente, Mixtape DVD hosted by Husalah and various customized mixtapes for underground Bay artists. BAY LOVE – “It ain’t nothin’ like the Bay. We stick with Bay Area artists because thy’re independent. They ain’t got nobody standin’ over their shoulder tellin’ em what they can and can’t do.” PROOF POSITIVE – “We talk with our hands out here. After the first couple mixtapes came out and we sat down and listened to them with the talking on them, we decided that that’s not what we do.” HOOKUP – www.myspace.com/ demolitionmenmusic OZONE WEST // 17