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features /  music feature
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dj iq
dj iq interview and mini-mix
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Street smart.

Radio DJ at 15, Junior DMC champ at 17, DJ IQ could be forgiven for being lost in turntablism, a martyr to the cause of 'crab' or 'flare' scratches. It was, after all, this potential for deck pyrotechnics that turned the North Londoner's head to hip hop when all around were losing theirs to garage. "I got bored [of garage and grime DJing] really quickly," he recalls, sitting in his mum's Dollis Hill flat. "Once you can beat-match and blend, what else can you do? When I saw scratching and beat juggling, that's a next level, a real skill. Also, you're making music as opposed to just mixing it, and I was into the creative part of it; not just being a jukebox."

Now 21, IQ is less fussed about the esoteric art as an end in itself. "Turntablism is a skill and I love it, but it's a limited genre and it needs to stay musical and stay entertaining," he says, acknowledging the late '90s era of DJ Kraze, A-Trak and the Scratch Perverts that's now seen as scratching's golden age. He can still be found tearing up clubs, but DJ IQ's focus these days is on producing his own music. New CD Live From The Sofa (the second, swiftly following last year's Brainfood, to feature IQ's beats alongside a host of guest MCs) is an "album/compilation/mixtape/whatever," and is among the tightest sets to emerge in a lean year for rap.



Highlights include 8 Bars Of Fire, a 7-minute posse cut, and 9 To 5, Dubbledge's recognisable and funny reflections on the daily grind. While the material is almost uniformly strong, it's surprisingly trad for such a young producer, being built the old school way with dismembered samples rather than cheap electronics. IQ insists he has plans to branch out, citing a completed album – The A Loop Theory - with rapper Asaviour. "We're messing with a lot of synths and electronic stuff and it's all about us being scientists of sound. It's about the versatility of being able to sample and to play."

Either way, the self-confessed former nerd, who credits his technical prowess to a two-year period of "geeking out", has no interest in clinging to purist definitions, insisting that grime and hip hop are kinfolk. "Look at Dizzee Rascal, he's just a youth with a cap on, a mic and a DJ. That's hip hop, to me it's all the same thing. No matter who you are, you've just got to make good stuff and not be chasing the sound, trying to emulate someone else. UK hip hop is a very small scene and one I don't feel all that connected with. I just want to make good music."


Steve Yates 23 August 07
Live! From The Sofa, released 10 September 07 on Mancan Music.
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