With a pending investigation looming over their successful run in the mixtape game, DJ Drama and Don Cannon are literally victims of their own success. Thousands of miles away a pool of West coast jocs felt a need to sound off.
DJ K Tone TURF – Denver, Colorado (Park Hill) HANDLE – “The Turf DJ” PRODUCT – Bricks Superbads & Duffle Bags, Playa’s Glide, Slap Music, U Don’t Even Know, Southern Takeover, Get Money, I’m So Fresh SHOWSTOPPER – The A List at Blue Ice, Oasis Cabaret, Club Flow, Denver’s Finest Awards HUSTLE – Internet Radio WOET Radio (oentertainment.com) “The cool thing about it is you’re stretching out your network so tough. It’s like anybody can log on.” CLICK – All Out All Stars, DJs R Us, Elite Entertainment Group, Lights Out Entertainment HOOKUP – djktone.com, myspace.com/djktonedotcom SUPER HYPHY – “Denver and The Bay, we grew up on their music. Now the world is getting’ up on the Bay, but we been bumpin’ the Bay since the early ‘90s. We been up on the Bay. That’s where a lotta niggas got they style from. We spend a lotta money on their records out there and that’s why they show us love. We been up on the underground Bay for years. It’s not even nothin’ new. This was goin’ on in ’02, ’03 with Mac Dre. They been here. You know how fads go. It seems like a fad, but it ain’t no fad. This is how them niggas live.” BACK IN THE BOOTH – “The DJ is the core. The DJ is the center of the whole movement. If you don’t have a DJ, you’re music ain’t goin’ nowhere. If you’re an artist and you go to a show and there’s no DJ to bring your music in, you’re not performing. I feel like DJs are finally gettin’ the respect they deserve.” GAME RECOGNIZE GAME – “We run the party. If you go to a party and there’s no DJ, there’s no party. You could have a party without a promoter, but you can’t have a party without a DJ. It’s not gonna happen. Niggas been playin’ us to the back for so long, but with groups like The CORE DJs and all these other organizations that bring DJs together, they have to recognize now.” - Words by N. Ali Early
20 // OZONE WEST
“I think he was targeted unfairly. He’s not one of those DJs who goes down the Top Forty charts and puts the hottest 25 tracks on his mixtape and sells it. Drama was working with the artists and he had permission from the artists. At the end of the day the problem is that the artist doesn’t own their masters, the label does. So if the label [objects], they can sue you and what’s the artist going to say? It’s their music, but they don’t own it. I’m hopin’ that it doesn’t go through, cause that would be unfair.” – DJ Juice “I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, but it just seems like a DJ doin’ his own thing and I guess it turned into a Federal case. I haven’t read up on it enough to speak on it, but you know… Free Drama! That’s my dude.” - DJ D-Wrek “Because the record industry is so wack and has its head so far up its ass the DJs have actually been cakin’ out. Drama and Cannon got attention not because they were making mixtapes, but because they were drivin’ Benzes and off in their face and the record industry was like, ‘Wait, that’s our bread.’ But if they’re not creative enough and smart enough to get that bread, whose fault is that really? If you look at the artists that they’ve worked with in an era where when record sales are definitely decreasing, I think the argument should be made that Drama and cats like that have helped the artists on a certain level.” – DJ Sake 1 “I think it’s fucked up. I don’t know exactly why they got in trouble. I don’t know if it had something to do with copyrights or tax evasion, I don’t know. We’ll see how it pans out. If they get them on some copyright infringement type shit then that’s gonna change the whole mixtape game. As far as what happened to them I think it’s fucked up that labels don’t get behind DJs more.” – DJ Devro of the Demolition Men “A lotta that shit is a test to see what the street really likes. It’s definitely going to separate the weak muthafuckas from the real niggas and keep the real niggas in the mixtape game. We need to start puttin’ out mixtapes just like albums and shit with a barcode on it and record original material. That way the RIAA can’t fuck with you.” – DJ Impereal of the Demolition Men “That shit will weed out a lot of the borderline niggas that was just in it to get some paper or that was pretty much just downloadin’ some shit and puttin’ it out. Now it goes back to really having a relationship with these artists.” – Dow Jones “Once it got past the street value and it went to big chain stores, that’s when I feel like it got out of hand. I’m not knockin’ nobody for makin’ money, but when you don’t handle your business right, the folks are going to come crack down on you.” - DJ Big Dee “As far as the artist and DJ relationship, being a mixtape DJ, that’s crucial to me. There’s no other way a lot of times. Out here or anywhere, these big corporations and radio take over and ain’t no other way they get heard other than mixtape DJs. I think it’s a big part of an artists’ career to get with the DJ. It’s crucial.” – DJ Moe1 “I think the white man just tryna get his money right now. The mixtape game, no matter what they do, they’ll never in their life be able to stop it. I think the RIAA ain’t makin’ no money from it, but they’ll try to find a way.” - DJ K-Tone “[The Affiliates] are the biggest name in mixtapes in the world. When the RIAA wants to send a message, they like to do it by making an example out of key people. They did the same thing with a group of college students when illegal downloading on college campuses became a big issue. The RIAA considers mixtapes bootlegged music and they wanna stop it. They figured the best way to do it was by getting at the cats that run the mixtape game. The funny part is that many times mixtapes are financed out of labels’ promotion budgets. So something still doesn’t add up.” - DJ Felli Fel