How The First Turntablist Album Was Made
There are many classic scratch moments… Grandmixer DXT on “Rockit”, Babu’s “Blind Alley Juggle”, DJ Premier In Deep Concentration, the list goes on and on.
But what was the first Turntablist album… ever? What project had the turntable as it’s sole instrument… do you know?
The answer is MAN OR MYTH, by DJ Faust.
Released in May of 1998 on Bomb Records, this 60 minute/27 track album was created without any sequencers, samplers, keyboards, effects processors or traditional instruments. Everything was scratched by hand, sewn together by Faust.
I recently interviewed DJ Shortee, who has been his wife and creative partner for 25 years. She broke everything down for me.
DJ Shortee:
“…he actually started working on this in Radford and he finished it in Atlanta, but it was what became his first album. It‘s also the first Turntablist album ever created by any Turntablist ever.
MAN OR MYTH was DJ Faust’s first album. It featured myself, that was my first time on record. And then it also featured Craze. If you don’t know who DJ Craze is, you better act like, you know!
DJ GREEN ARROW: (15:32)
You’re crazy if you don’t know who Craze is! If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re on the wrong podcast if you don’t know who Craze is!
DJ SHORTEE: (15:39)
Right! MAN OR MYTH featured myself, that was my first time on record as well. And it also featured our crew members at the time, and I’ll talk about our crew in a second. But the other people that were featured on the album were DJ Craze, who is a three time DMC Champ solo, three time DMC Champ team. And he’s amazing. And if you don’t know who he is, you better act like you know, because he’s an amazing DJ, an amazing Turntablist all around. He’s ambidextrous too. We could go a mile long talking about this guy. It featured him and Shotgun, who is also an amazing Turntablist and Battle DJ. T-Rock was on it too. We all created a crew at that time. When we moved to Atlanta, we formed a crew called Third World Citizens, and Craze lived in Miami at the time. And then the rest of the guys lived in Atlanta. The full crew was myself, Bobby and Craze. And then shotgun T-Rock, King James and Klever who’s also a DMC Champion. Bobby and I were part of this collective that included writers and MCs called Third World Citizens. And this is also how the album MAN OR MYTH got signed. One of the writers in the collective, his name was Dave Thompkins. Bobby had made this, what at that time was just like this really intricate mix tape because MAN OR MYTH was created on a Yamaha eight track. But that time there was no like computer software that he was using. We didn’t know how to use computers really at that time. This was in 1996, ’97 in my college. If you wanted to use a computer, you had to go to the Computer Lab! I didn’t even have my own in ’96 but he had a Yamaha eight track. Every single thing was scratched in, whether it be an echo… if you hear an echo, there’s no effects processor. It was all done by hand. You’d do (imitates echo) full volume, then a little lower then a little lower then a little lower. With the fader. When listening to MAN OR MYTH, know that that was not created with a sequencer or a computer of any kind. It was just a Yamaha eight track to sequence it, basically on eight tracks. He had created this and he was just going to release it as a mixtape, but do like a crazy one. And then Dave Tompkins (DJGA/editor’s note: DJ Shortee forgot Dave’s last name, the correct name is Tompkins) or Thompson? Tompkins, I don’t remember now. His name is Dave. We’ll go with that. But he loved it and he put the mix on his answering machine. It was his answering machine message. It wasn’t on the answering machine for 30 minutes… I think the album is an hour long. It was only as long as the answering machine would take. And it wasn’t voicemail either. But he had part of MAN OR MYTH on his answering machine and he happened to be friends with Dave Paul from Bomb Records…
DJ GREEN ARROW: (18:23)
“RETURN OF THE DJ”.
DJ Shortee: (18:23)
Yup, yup. But this is previous to “RETURN OF THE DJ”. Dave Paul called him, called the other Dave (Tompkins) and got his answering machine. Granted no voicemail, it was actually on tape, (on his) answering machine and he heard it and then it went BEEP and he was like, “What was that? What was that? What did I just hear? I need to release that. I want to release that on my label. What is that?” And that was basically the message that he left Dave Tompkins. Basically Dave, the writer connected Bobby (DJ Faust) with Dave, ‘Bomb Hip Hop’ label owner. And that is how Bobby got connected with Bomb and released MAN OR MYTH, his first album on Bomb Records. That’s how he got signed. And also how I got my first time on record, and Craze’s first. It was actually everyone on the album, it was everyone’s first time on vinyl. So it was a big deal for us. And it was released in 1998.
You can hear the whole interview on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, Pocket Casts, or Tune In.
Or, just say “Alexa, Play Aspirin Regimen Podcast”! If it doesn’t seem to work, Alexa might think you said ‘regiment’, so make sure you leave off any ‘t’ on ‘Regimen’.
