| DJ K TONE from Denver, USA |
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| Written by Jai Boo |
| Friday, 18 December 2009 23:46 |
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You’re from Denver Colorado can you tell us what the Hip Hop is like there? Yeah I’m from North East Denver. The scene is actually not that big but it’s really growing. We have a couple of artists who have recently got distribution deals and it’s expanding throughout the west and mid-west. It’s like a gumbo pot because you can’t really define the sounds. We’re right in the middle of everything so we have some people that get their influence from the east, west or the south. Our individual artists are real nice and the music is really picking up in the clubs and on the radio. We’re in a town where it’s never really been like that. Right now Denver is looking real good! You’ve had many mixtapes out over the years can you tell us how the DJing all started for you and who were you inspired by? Well I really first started when I was in college in Missouri at Lincoln University. When I started there in September I got a job on the radio station and I started my jazz show. Then I moved up to a hip hop show and I started getting a lot of requests to DJ and doing parties and stuff. My cousin was a DJ in Philly and I went to visit him and he sent me back with some turntables, that was around 2000 and I’ve been doing it ever since. Throughout the industry you’re known as the ‘Turf DJ’ what does that mean and how did you get the title? Turf means your section, your neighbourhood, the part of town you’re from, your city, state, so that’s turf. I got that name because I always used to really rep where I’m from you know what I mean? I’m from Denver and everybody knew where I was from and they would always say ‘You be reppin’ all the time!’ So, you know that became DJ KTone the ‘Turf DJ’ because I really rep my section, my people and my city. You also own and run Still Livin’ Entertainment can you tell us about and the services that you provide there? Still Livin’ Entertainment provides DJ services and entertainment services. I’m the main DJ but I also hire other DJ’s as well for different venues. Say for instance if I can’t do a certain show then we’ll hire another DJ. If somebody needs a DJ for a wedding, a concert whatever we provide all those services. We also do promo too; we do promos for labels, artists a venue or whatever. Do you DJ all over the States? Yeah I play a lot in Colorado, California and Missouri I’m in those places a lot. You’re also CBO’s official DJ, how did this come about? CBO is not really doing a lot right now, but yeah I DJ for him and I also have a couple of artists that I DJ for as well. CBO is real heavy in Denver and he travels here a lot. My cats from Denver named Young Doe and Hawkman who I also DJ for have had a couple releases under his West Coast Mafia umbrella, so that’s how I got connected with him. As well as being a DJ and promote artists etc you have also mentioned being a radio DJ. Right now you have two shows Turf Time Online and We The West.com can tell us about your radio shows? With Turf Time Online, that’s one of my favourite shows. How it started was I hooked up with my publicist Portia and we just kind of decided that we needed to do something different, this was decided about 6 or 7 months ago. So we do the show online through Ustream, you can broadcast on www.ustream.tv and set your own show up. We set the show up like it’s a real show! We didn’t play with it like a lot people do, we set it up and I do the show every Tuesday and Thursday. It just went from a couple people logging on to 10, 20, we might have 100 listeners or another week have 150 listeners. I just do it every week for an hour. I might do different themes like all Jay Z one week or I might do an R&B Tuesday or whatever, we do different things and let people request what they want to hear through email. It’s really taken off and it helps with the promo too. You can log on anywhere! And you can actually see me DJing live on the internet. We the West.com is an hour show which comes on Mondays at 12pm PCT and that’s all west coast music. So you know, we just really cater to the west and get the west coast back on. The south is everywhere you know? They’ve had their shine, so if it’s west coast we’ll play it. Do you talk to artists on your shows or is it just more about just playing the tracks? With the west coast show I just mix live. I want to start doing artist interviews but we really just want to focus on getting the show going and getting the west coast music back in rotation. With the Turf Time Online show I’ve had guests on there it’s usually Denver artists but if somebody comes into town then we’ll have them on there. That show is more for the visual because people hear radio and they don’t really know what he looks like, what he acts like, so it’s more for the visuals. You can see us live in the studio and I’m mixing everything live. Do you enjoy doing the radio shows and mixing live on air or do you enjoy actually going out there and playing to an audience where you get participation? I think I like doing the shows with the crowds more because I like the reaction. I also enjoy the live online shows too because you can chat on there and it’s fun. But I like the crowds reaction at a live show, I really like being in front of a crowd. You also write for Ozone Magazine out there in the States can you tell us about that? Yeah I do a section called ‘Rap Quest’ I do a write up every month for my city Denver. I let people know what’s going on and what’s happening in the city. Like I’ve said you released a lot of mixtapes hosted by various artists like Chamillionaire, Murphy Lee and Teirra Marie to name a few. What equipment do you use to do your mixes? CDJ’s, Serato? I use Serato and I also use Technics 1200’s when I do my mixes. I don’t really use CDJ’s the only time I do use them is if I’m at a club and that’s all they have. I like the feel of vinyl, everyone’s on Serato now, even on there you use vinyl. But me personally I don’t really like the CDJ’s, I’ll use them but there’s nothing really like that vinyl feel, if I have to choose that’s what I’m on! When you do your mixes do you mix them up with established artists and underground Denver artists? I treat the artists in Denver like they’re national so I mix them together. That’s how you really have to do it to break the artists. It’s a mental thing if people really don’t know them and I say they’re from Denver then they may criticise them. I just mix them and treat them like they are stars too especially if it sounds good and it mixes well. On my mixes you will always hear some Denver, Kansas City or the Bay artists or whatever on all my mixes. What projects are you working on at the moment? I’m working on ‘We the West’ mixtapes that’s what I release, that’s the biggest thing that I’ve really got going the ‘We The West’ show and mixtape. All I do is work my show onto a mixtape so you can all hear what I’m playing. I’m actually working on a mixtape with UK DJ, DJ Ames. At the moment I’m also working on my ‘Playas Glide’ mixtape I’m on part 8. There are also about 5 different artists from Denver that I’m doing mixtapes with too. Where can people go and buy your mixtapes? You can go to www.djktone.com and www.pushdistributionco.com . Do you want to shout out your websites? You can hit me up on www.djktone.com on Twitter @DJKTone and www.myspace.com/djktonedotcom Interview by Jai Boo |
| Last Updated on Wednesday, 16 December 2009 21:04 |
