Originally Posted by Downstroke
Dayaam!! I'm offically the oldest dude here! I'm, wait for it… 36 years wise! I've been into hip hop since 84 when I first heard Grandmaster Flash's the Message & Malcolm McClaren's Buffalo Girls. I was originally a breaker (original B.Boy) then got heavy into graf, but always loved the music, especially the idea of making it out of other peoples. As corny as it sounds now, I remember watching Beat Street and loving watching that scene where Double K plays that beat he made that starts off with a tap dripping and then starts incorporating blues, calypso, salsa and everything else, just by messing around with a reel to reel tape & his turntables.
I copped my technic 1210's in 89 & totally got into all aspects of hip hop DJing, which lead to me getting into breaks. I started off collecting the Ultimate Breaks & Beats, but then found Jimmy Castor Bunch's It's Just Begun at Camden market, and from then on I was on a mission to hunt down those original vinyls.
I started making beats in about 94 using an old 12 bit Cheetah sampler (with 5 seconds sample time) and an Atari running this sequencer software which wasn't Cubase or Notator, but was still dope. I was running with a few guys who have gone on to become well respected UK hip hop producers so the competition was pretty high. Due to domestic shit tho, I kind of fell out the game for a big chunk of time (yep, kids'll do it to you) and fell away from the whole scene. It wasn't till about 2 years ago that I got my life back, and the first thing I did was get back on the beat game. In that time, so much shit had changed, so I started back at the beginning again. I was using Garageband for quite a while cos it was all I had, but it was cool, cos you learn how to use the limitations, just like I used to with that old Cheetah sampler. I'm now mainly using Reason, but I'm pretty much making beats much the same way I used to back in the day.
Sorry about the length of this post, but as you can see, I got history in the game, lol!
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