Welcome to Spin Class at U.C. Berkeley

It may have started out on the streets of the Bronx, but hip-hop has now entered a new realm: the classroom. In Berkeley, a city nicknamed "B-town" for its plethora of b-boys and b-girls, turntablism class is officially in session. U.C. Berkeley juniors Rodney Sino-Cruz (DJ Icewater) and Micah Muraoka (DJ Mpact) are setting the pace with "Introductory Turntablism," a pass/fail course developed through the university's DECAL (Democratic Education at CAL) program that allows its students to devise and run their own class.

This is the second semester Sino-Cruz and Muraoka have been teaching their two-unit class. For two hours every Wednesday evening, the two DJs teach their peers the basics of hip-hop music and its components, emphasizing the concept of rhythm and music structure. "The class is a pretty simple concept," Muraoka says. "Most people who start DJing never learn the basics of music that are necessary, and without these, you're like a fish out of water for a few years. Trust me, I went through it: I had no clue how to mix. But once I became more familiar with the music, I became a much better DJ. That's what told me, we have to teach these kids about the music first."

"Introductory Turntablism" is structured like any other university class: lecture, lab section, combined with a written midterm and final exam. And while both Sino-Cruz and Muraoka are comfortable with their competence behind the decks, they admit to being mere novices in relation to some of the Bay Area's more famous DJs. Thus they don't allow intermediates into the class.

"We're not teaching the class because we're the world's greatest DJs," Muraoka insists. "I know there are guys who can do a better job than us, but we're doing this because we love to teach."

The Rise of the Turntablist

One of those guys is DJ QBert, who has been involved with the scene since the late 1980s. He and his San Francisco mobile crew, the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, have moved turntablist culture forward byfurther developing influential scratches like the "crab" and the "tweak."

"The turntable is the newest musical instrument, and I'm proof that what turntablists are doing is slowly being accepted," says QBert, whose scratching prowess has earned him gigs with artists like Kool Keith (a.k.a. Dr. Octagon) and DJ Shadow.

Turntabilism is a part of hip-hop that is not fully understood by fans of more mainstream popular culture. While Grandwizard Theodore's creation of the scratch back in 1977 changed the face of hip-hop, it didn't alter the accessibility of that sound to outsiders. And while hip-hop's best known element -- MCing -- has grown in popularity, the DJ remains the domain of the initiated. Perhaps that is due to the fact that it took the record industry longer to release albums by DJs. But the times are a' changing -- witness album projects by Rob Swift and his ilk -- and the idea of using turntables to manipulate sounds and create a whole new sound and rhythmic composition is slowly becoming more accepted. The central tenet of turntabilism -- creating culture collages from bits of existing media -- is also the central tenet of all of hip-hop's elements.

The Bay Area has become significant in the growth and nurturing of turntablist culture. An important member of this DJ community is David Paul. His label, Bomb Hip Hop Records, was the first label to release a hip-hop battle DJ compilation. Return of the DJ Vol. 1, exposed new fans to innovative turntable with techniques such as scratching and beat juggling. And through the foundation laid by the Skratch Piklz San Francisco has also become the headquarters of the International Turntablist Federation (ITF), an organization founded "to promote the turntablist as the future of what was once called the disc jockey."

Institutionalizing Turntablism

Across the bay, fearful that the enrollment might be too large, the location and time of "Introductory Turntablism" is left off the class schedule. "We just e-mailed the first 20 people who emailed me [about taking the course] and gave them the information, but magically 50 people show up," Muraoka laughs. While the class this semester is limited to 20 students, the two instructors allowed 13 more pupils to enroll. But that's the cap. Even after classes had officially started, students are still approaching them pleading to get in. "It's grown so popular now, that in just one day I had to tell 14 students no," Muraoka admits.

While the class may be a favorite for students, the administration has never shared that sentiment. Even after they found a faculty sponsor in the music department, they were still faced with bureaucratic red tape.

"They're always decking out on us," Muraoka moans. "We turned in our papers to the DECAL department and started holding class. But a few classes in, we still hadn't been put up on the DECAL webpage. I email [DECAL director Murray Powers] and he writes back saying, 'I'm sorry but your class was not approved. It does not meet the requirements of a DECAL class.' He essentially said that if they allowed classes like ours into DECAL, the program would no longer exist because it would be laughed at. According to him, it was not progressive enough and had no educational value."

This, the two thought, was because the faculty had no idea what encompasses turntablism. DECAL, Sino-Cruz says, pictured the class to be nothing more than a bunch of kids playing records. Muraoka responded to Powers with an e-mail politely pointing out why a class in turntablism would be valid for DECAL:

"The use of a device created and used for years to play back recorded media as an interface used to create revolutionary new sounds and rearrange others is truly progressive and out of the ordinary. Turntablism is not simply DJing or playing records. [It] involves manipulating records so that sounds are altered and rearranged to create truly new and original musical phrases. A great turntablist is as captivating as a great guitarist. It is so progressive that the general public is just beginning to hear about it."

He concluded the letter by offering to come in with his turntables to prove his point. The next day the class was approved.

Turntablism 101

The notion of teaching turntablism in a formal environment is nothing new. Three years ago, Rob Swift of New York City's famed X-ecutioners (formerly known as the X-men) also took this street-smart art to the academy. Swift and fellow crew members Roc Raida, Mista Sinista and Total Eclipse have taken body tricks to a whole new level and brought turntablism into the vocabulary of music history books.

I feel that for the most part that the DJ, and especially the turntablist, focuses more on practicing, improving body tricks, and performing for people, and doesn't spend enough time on education," Rob Swift laments. "There aren't enough of us out there actually speaking about what we do and educating people about the turntable." He and fellow X-ecutioner Total Eclipse also spoke on turntablism at Tufts University where a music class spent a week visiting the elements of hip-hop music.

To get a better understanding of the classroom phenomenon of turntable education, look no further than 22-year-old Sung Kim of Vassar College. According to Sino-Cruz, Kim's six-week course, "Turntablism 101," was the first of its kind to take place in a prestigious university setting.

Sino-Cruz and Kim traded notes, with Kim giving his West Coast counterpart ideas on how to structure the Cal class. They also discussed the ethics behind the whole issue of breaking down turntablist culture into an accessible easy-to-learn formula. Kim asked Sino-Cruz whether he felt it ethical to teach this integral part of hip-hop culture to a group of rich kids.

"At times I feel a bit funny seeing students who really had no prior involvement in hip-hop getting their parents to buy them a whole set-up after just one or two weeks of class," admits Kim, who has been teaching the class for six semesters. "I don't really know ... It's a difficult thing to say. On one hand, it's cool that kids are so excited about it. But on the other hand, it seems unfair to all the DJs who had to scrape for their first pair of BD-10's and Radio Shack mixer."

Sino-Cruz told him not to worry. "My take is that you teach whoever wants to learn, no matter rich or poor," he says.

Selling out has been an argument of opponents of institutionalizing turntablism. After Sino-Cruz and Muraoka came up with the idea for their DECAL class, they solicited reaction on the Internet from hip-hop fans. "A bunch of people said they thought it was unethical to teach DJing," Sino-Cruz says. They would argue, "You need to pay your dues," "no one taught Grandmaster Flash how to DJ" or "Why do you want to teach rich university kids how to DJ?"

"But why not?" asks Rob Swift, who grew up in a working-class family in Queen's Jackson Heights neighborhood. "Rich kids have just as much a right to learn about what it is we do as minorities. Learning how to flare or transform shouldn' t only include a certain crowd or race. Whoever is interested in music should become involved in what we do with turntables."

QBert backs him up. "I don't believe in selling-out," the scratchmeister says. "The guys who say that just don't want other people to know about their art, these people are selfish and want to own turntablism. But it should be for everyone. There's no color-line here."

Biting Styles

As an ever-evolving discipline based on ingenuity and style, turntablism is forever getting a facelift. Every year in DJ battles like the DMC or ITF, new techniques are created and become much more difficult to master. Turntablism's lack of rigid guidelines have given the turntablist a lot of room for originality and developing his own style. Both the Cal and Vassar classes command just the foundation of turntablism, not because the instructors feel they lack the skills to teach a more advanced class, but share a common concern that teaching such a class might result in students unintentionally biting the teacher's style.

"I think you'd run into that road block when you do try to teach advance techniques," Sino-Cruz says. "It becomes too much of a biting issue. There is a point in turntablism ... you can only teach so much, and the rest of it is up to the other person. You can't teach style, but you can teach fundamentals, and that's what we do."

But not everyone agrees. Biting, Rob Swift says, is just a necessary part of advancing the art. "Technically we all bite," he states. Rob Swift, who is famous for his beat juggling skills, points out that it was in fact Steve D who created this technique.

"In a weird way, I'm a biter. The point is that once you learn something, as you change it, you make it better, you improve it, you add something to what you learned to make it unique. And that is why people respect me."

The Return of the DJ

Next year will see the graduation of Berkeley's two turntable instructors. But hopefully it won't be the end of their course. Many of the TA's who teach their lab sections are DJ friends of Sino-Cruz who are a year or two younger than him.

"That's the reason we have these TA's," Sino-Cruz says. "Not only do we want to teach these students how to deejay, but we want to teach these DJs how to teach. We give them the opportunity to teach, in hopes that after we graduate they'll carry on the tradition. We want more people to be involved. We want to keep this course alive.'

For Kim, the problem is more immediate. He just graduated, and has yet to find a replacement.

While it may be deemed as "musical appreciation" on the college level, teaching turntablism to the younger student has other educational benefits. Rob Swift looks back at the semester he taught at Robert F. Wagner Institute of Technology, a high school in Queens. "All of [my students] were involved and asking questions, because this was hip-hop," he states. "A lot of kids in the class I taught were Hispanic and black, and hip-hop is part of their culture. And, as they teach music in school, why not throw in hip-hop? School is about learning, and it is about learning about yourself and your culture. This is something that is real to them as opposed to fucking Beethoven. This was one of the classes that the kids never missed."

Entering the Next Millenieum

Nowadays kids are learning more quickly how to manipulate the tables. The Internet has given turntable enthusiasts easier access to teaching themselves tricks, step-by-step. Videos like the Skratch Piklz's Vestax Turntable Mechanics Workshop and their Turntable TV series, not to mention DJ battle videos, have given today's hip-hop aficionados an accelerated edge.

"When I was coming up, I had audio tapes," Rob Swift recalls. "I didn't have a VCR at the crib and it wasn't like tapes were circulating a lot amongst DJs. I would be forced to listen to the radio and tape Red Alert spinning on a Friday night, and try to learn what he was doing with the records and stuff. Now you've got video tapes out, so you can just watch someone perform and learn."

With the upgrading of technology, the sound of the turntable is also changing. Advancements have been added to the turntable itself, like new digital speed adjustments and quick start-stop time that have revolutionized the way music is played. New needles such as the Stanton Discmaster are now designed specifically for DJ battling, and a new series of mixers put out by Vestax like the latest PMC-07-PRO are designed by professional turntablists like the Skratch Piklz.

The electronics industry is eager to cash in on the popularity of DJing. "From turntable prices being twice of what they were five or six years ago, to people paying $750 for their first mixer, something is not right," Kim complains. "I feel like hip-hop culture should be accessible to everyone, not a privileged few who can afford to buy the equipment. It's changing the whole demographic of hip-hop culture."

On the other hand, the new face of hip-hop has given rise to the greater appreciation of the turntablist DJ. Turntables are finally being regarded as instruments; one need look no farther than DJ Swamp, who creates brand new sound compositions with existing vinyl, for proof. They are now increasingly collaborating with traditional musicians, from DJ Apollo's work with jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis' band Buckshot le Fonque to Skratch Piklz's Mix Master Mike jamming with the Beastie Boys.

"I think as long as people push themselves, there will always be kids who will be coming up with new approaches that I probably wasn't able to tap into," Rob Swift says. "It's like with basketball, where people now are asking 'Damn, will there be another Jordan?' Well, there probably won't be another Jordan, but there will be another person who will shock and impress the basketball world.

"The same goes with turntablism. I'm pretty sure there's some kid is his bedroom right now, just practicing, who no one knows about. And a year from now we're going to see him in some battle and be like, 'Wow. Now there's the new person.'"

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