In a galaxy not so far away, there is a coalition of DJ’s. This coalition pledged an oath to keep it funky and fresh for the rest of us. They were to protect us from falling into boring trends and make sure that the art of turntablism advanced and flourished. That coalition is the World Famous Beat Junkies. Founded in 1992, the group of DJ’s has gone on to win world championships, tour the world, and produce for some of the biggest artists (Dilated Peoples, Madlib, Cypress Hill). And now they’re pushing the envelope even further by joining forces yet again for a record pool that has never been seen before. They’ve gone deep into their crates to assemble an online resource of custom edits, remixes, and rare acappellas that you can access for $35 a month.
To help celebrate this service that they’ve set up, D-Styles created a 25 minute mix Jazz, Hip-Hop, Funk, and Dance music. We also asked Rhettmatic a few questions about the record pool, which you can check out below. After all of that, there is also a short video from the Beat Junkies, further explaining the record pool.
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Is there a larger project or end goal that you guys have when you decide to share your libraries of music with the world? Was this the goal of the pool?
Coming up in the music industry record pools have been around since the 80’s. We all have at one point been part of a record pool. It was a great opportunity for records labels, independent and major, to break music and promote their artists to the public using the DJ as key tastemaker before the music is released. Since the climate in the music industry has changed over the years, you have to keep up with the times and learn how to navigate with the changes while being able to stay true to what you believe in. For us, to start a digital record pool was the next most logical step to add to our legacy as well as another evolution for our music careers. We truly felt that with our combined history, experience, and vast musical knowledge, that we can offer little something different with our record pool for the DJ community. The record pool is just an extension of the Beat Junkies as it relates to our stamp on DJ culture. We have launched our new website www.beatjunkies.com, in a effort to educate those who are not familiar with DJ culture, but have taken a liking to the DJ world. Of course, it will have everything related to the Beat Junkies, what’s new with us individually, or as a group. The goal is to have a website dedicated to our fans and those who love music culture
Are any of you holding back some personal stashes of samples or break beats that no one can ever get their hands on?
Babu, J.Rocc, D-Styles, Shortkut, Melo-D, Mr. Choc and I do original production, remixes, and what not. So some of personal stashes we still like to keep for ourselves to use before anyone can. This gives us the chance to work our magic first! We would probably let them out in the pool eventually once our production work is officially released to the public. We still like to keep something for ourselves and have a little something up our sleeves, ya know? Can’t give all the goodies away… Haha!
In terms of samples, we’re just providing classic breaks for DJ’s. This is a digital record pool that is more catered towards the professional DJ’s that either spin at club, radio, and industry events or want to get their scratching on. The pool is not specifically for producers/beat makers to use samples to make beats, but if they hear something that catches their ears, why not!
Was it hard to convince some of you guys to part with some of your favorite, bread and butter tracks in your libraries?
Maybe at first we were a bit hesitant, but then it wasn’t really difficult after really sitting down and brainstorming; you have to remember, all DJs will eventually have the same records. What makes a DJ stand out from next DJ is being original with his/her style, their skill set, and how they’re able to arrange and present the their music palette, even if it’s the same songs as other DJS. We’re still DJing, creating, flipping and always diggin for music, whether it’s traditional vinyl records or virtual diggin. New and old it never stops for us. This is why we always update our pool database everyday by adding new songs, different genres and try to make sure we keep our record pool fresh for our subscribers.
Are you hoping to also educate some new DJs and musicians on the roots of some of their favorite genres?
Yes, with the record pool we hope to shed some light and share some knowledge with new and old DJs, with the selections that we have in the pool.
What’s your favorite aspect about this pool?
For me personally, I like the fact we have a little bit of everything, different genres, a little something for every DJ that’s either a club DJ that spins EDM, Trap, Pop, to the traditional Hip Hop DJ, all the way to the Turntablist/Scratch/Bedroom DJ. I also like the fact that our very own peers such as DJ Premier, DJ Numark of Jurassic 5, DJ Tony G, DJ Spinbad, DJ Day, to name a few, contribute their own work to our pool to share as well as being members of the pool. Like I said before, we’re just trying to add and make a contribution to the DJ Community in only a way the Beat Junkies can “Beat Junkie Style.”
Bryan Hahn hopes that the next generation of Beat Junkies is already working on a killer set with this record pool. He’s on Twitter (@notupstate).
