My Day with DJ Quik 1992

 

 In my newest installment of Old School Hip Hop tales, I will share my day with DJ Quik in 1991 or 1992 (please forgive me it was a long ass time ago).

I was a young DJ learning how to produce. At the time I was sampling mostly funk and hadn’t delved into jazz yet. I just purchased an Ensoniq EPS and an EMU SP1200. A local 805 promoter by the name of Chuck Dennis took a liking to my beats and asked me if I would do some beats for a female artist from LA named Roche. Roche was down with Greedy Greg, who at the time was DJ Quik’s manager. You can hear Roche being shouted out at the end of “ Born and Raised in Compton “.

Chuck wanted me to record the track I made for Roche at Greedy Greg’s studio off of Crenshaw and 76^th.  It was in an upstairs bedroom in an older mid century South Central style house. There wasn’t any sound proof and you could hear the 808 booming from down the block. We get there and I set up shop. If I remember correctly I flipped One Way’s “ Pull “ with and an LTD sample. About an hour into the session, in walks DJ Quik , and let me tell you, he wasn’t happy. The thing no one told us was that it was all DJ Quik’s equipment! Imagine if you came home and some stranger ass producer was cranking his shit up in your studio. I’d be fuming to. He was like who the fuck is this and why are y’all in my studio without telling me! Of course I apologized and told him I didn’t know I was recording on his gear without his permission.

He left the studio for a minute and then came back and apologized for trippin’.  He actually stayed the entire session and engineered Roche’s vocals. It was a tremendous learning experience watching him coach the vocal process. He also schooled me on how to equalize drums.  This was around the time when Quik is the Name came out so he was also a wizard on the SP1200. At the end of the day, DJ Quik was a class act, cool-down to earth cat, and a Hip Hop musical genius. Big ups to Chuck for introducing me to DJ Quik , 2 II None , and HI – C . That crew put on some of the best live shows in the early 90’s and their sound was always top notch.They also represented some of the best west coast Hip Hop ever with sample heavy beats with tons of scratching .

Stay tuned

Spitzuki