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For the Longest time the West Coast had the game on lock. DJ's from all around have taken a custom to making street albums and not just mixtapes and we sat down with the man that made you want to come back to Left Coast and make good music. He is more than just a DJ and his highly acclaimed "SkeeTV" brings you a much more in-depth check of the industry. With several years underneath his turntables we sat down with one of the hardest working people in the game. Straight from the West Coast we bring to DJ Skee.....
illRoots.com: First off I want to thank you for letting me sit down with you today, definitely a pleasure.
Skee: Oh yea, no doubt.
illRoots.com: What would say makes a good DJ?
Skee: I mean it depends there’s different kinds of dj’s you got radio dj’s, club dj,s mixtape dj’s at the end of the day its playing the right music for your audience. If its radio its playing whatever the millions of listeners out there want, if it’s the club its playing specifically the couple thousand people there will like, and if it’s the mixtapes making what the streets are going to embrace. Just coming with that right music at the end of the day.
illRoots.com: So who were some of your influences coming up?
Skee: Man, everybody coming up, I mean hip-hop wise the whole emergence of the west coast you know Tupac, Dre, Snoop. You know I mess with everything though the whole underground east coast scene to everything with DJ Premier would come out there and you know I used to run around with Stretch Armstrong so I was really into that whole New York scene for a minute too, you know so I lived in Minneapolis for a while, so you know all four cultures were blended and I’ve lived everywhere. I was down in Miami for a little bit, to Texas, I was born in New York and then I moved out here (Cali).
illRoots.com: I definitely copped the American Gangster shit was fire, so what other new projects are you working?
Skee: You know we got some top secret shit, I’ve just got a lot of shows popping off, its that time of the year you know you got New Years and the Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, NBA All-Star Weekend so you know I’m getting a lot of gigs and hitting the road. But yea man I’m actually working a lot on, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with my album yet, like I’m not putting out my album unless I’m getting 5 mics across the board. I mean we’re just going in to see what we’re going to do with that so. I don’t want to put out just the traditional album because ain’t nobody really buying that shit anymore and why try to do something that somebody else has done. So you know we’re really trying to revolutionize how you do things, like all my mixtapes we’re giving away 100% for free we’re not even trying to make anything, you know definitely partnering up with a lot of sites and doing giveaways and things of that sort. We definitely are kind of trendsetting right now every other dj is the world has their own tv show. We’re different its based on my name but its literally a daily tv show of urban culture, we going to relaunch it in the next month.
illRoots.com: Where is hip-hop right now?
Skee: Hip-hop is wack right now dude, there’s nothing fresh right now, hip hop has that edge that’s stuffs coming up because it was on the edge and fresh in the culture. But right now hip hop isn’t cool, its boring, its dull, you can’t really listen to it that much. There is a few artist still doing it. But overall its wack right
illRoots.com: Its stagnant.
Skee: Exactly, that’s why we’re trying stuff like the American Godfather because it was a cool idea, and not just that it was a cool idea but its dope, that’s hip hop. Its taking stuff flipping it putting a different twist on it and coming back doing it. We’re trying to do a lot of stuff this year to try to bring it back, but its going take a lot more than that. But yea man just projects and stuff, you know everywhere I told you that shit was on like TRL (referring to American Godfather), which is crazy because its not….its like pop…Its coming up with stuff like that over the years to because I like to keep things fresh.
illRoots.com: If you could sum your whole life in one song what would it be?
Skee: Wooow, ooh man dude I don’t even thing you could put lyrics to it dude. It be some orchestra stuff on some Frank Sinatra stuff, something crazy.
illRoots.com: 'ol Blue Eyes.
Skee: Yeah, something like that. But I mean if I had to relate it to hip-hop or something I would have to “Kanye – The GoodLife” you know.
illRoots.com: Who is the most underated DJ of all-time?
Skee: Um…there so many dj’s that are underated and overrated but just one, I’ma say Crazy Tunes, the west coast people all know who he is but a lot of other coasts be sleeping, that guy is crazy.
illRoots.com: But uh, alright so Who’s Next coming out of the West?
Skee: There’s a lot of artist coming out of the west its almost like a door and everybody’s trying to squeeze through there wasn’t really that one artist since Game. You know when he came out you know everyone was like unanimous like yo this dude is the truth, and then he had Dre behind him and then when 50 got with him, you know that was kinda like undeniable. But like right now there really isn’t like one artists that separates themselves from the bunch, there is a lot of people making good music but nobody’s really made that transition to move outside of the West Coast. Like there’s a lot of people bubbling in the West Coast because they aren’t quite there yet, and hopefully within the year a couple of them will break through, but I can’t say there’s anything real clear cut, “oh so and so” is about to be the next, it could be anybody.
illRoots.com: Thanks Skee from the illRoots family. Look out for more with illRoots.com and DJ Skee we will be moving into some major things in the future. For More Skee make sure to catch www.myspace.com/djskee as well as www.skee.tv