dj domo Words by Matt Sonzala
Y
ou’re known as one of the original dudes out here. Where exactly did you come from? I come from LaPorte. I went to school out in LaPorte and started DJing probably around the summer of ‘83. I was like 12 or 13 years old when I started DJing. What made you start? Man, I have no idea. My homeboys from back then said we were sitting watching Jam Master Jay on TV one day. I just started doing that shit and from the first day, I was cold at it. How did you end up being the DJ for the Geto Boys? You started when you were 13, but there’s got to be a lot more to it. I remember hearing you on the radio live from a club. Me and my pa’tna Wiz - who’s now the DJ for Aesop Rock and Def Jux Records - was DJing at this club called Amnesia out on 290 and Antoine. Scarface and Bushwick used to live together right there off of Mangum. Ready Red used to live over there; everybody lived over there. They used to come to the club and we automatically just started kicking it. That was when that Grip It! On That Other Level came out. The Scarface single just came out so they used to come through there. But aside from the club I used to go fuck with ‘Face and Bill. I’d go ride over there, pick ‘em up, go get food, whatever. We used to kick it. After that we was just sort of hanging around for the next two years, but after Ready Red left the group it kind of fell in place to do that shit. I was on the radio before I got with them. Me and Wiz were on live mixing from the club at Infinity. That’s around when Bill got shot. I was up there [at that club] that night fuckin’ with Bill. Like all around that time, when Bill got shot, going to the hospital, that’s when Red quit, so a muthafucker got the opportunity and seized that shit. You still work with them to this day, right?
OZONE
Yeah, when muthafuckers work, I’m there. Tell me about the Coughee Brothaz. Is that your production team? The Coughee Brothaz has different aspects of it, but as far as I’m concerned it’s mainly with production. Me and Devin and Rob, we do the Coughee Brothaz production thing. What are some of the songs people might know that you’ve produced? I got a lot of songs on Devin’s albums. I did like ten of ‘em on The Dude, six or seven on Just Tryin’ to Live and I got like six on the new album, Waitin’ to Inhale. I did a couple songs for David Banner. What else do you have in the works? I’m just getting back in the lab, jammin’ on beats, man, doing some more Coughee Brothaz songs. I got my boy Capo and them from New Orleans that I’m fuckin’ with. What equipment do you use? There’s a kick drum and a snare, a hi-hat, and a couple hand claps. I fuck with the 4000 though. I do all the sequencing on the 4000, and everything else comes from records, live shit, keyboards, whatever. I got a bunch of little different shit that I get sounds from, but I do the drums and sequencing on the 4000. So this year at South by Southwest you’ll be DJIng for Devin the Dude and also being the house DJ along with Good Grief all night. What can we expect to hear from you? We gonna jam, man. You know me. I’ma bring some real old school with me. I got some old shit; I’m gonna bring that. Grief got the new shit, I got the old shit and we gonna play it all. //
www.myspace.com/djdomotraxxx or milkcratemusic@gmail.com