DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Premier, DJ Riz and DJ Eclipse Pay Tribute to DJ AM in Las Vegas.

via DJ Premier Blog

DJ AM died on Monday supposedly from an accidental drug overdose. I know very little about AM, but this quote from ?uestlove’s eulogy stuck out to me:

that night i was jaw dropped at how [DJ AM] found a common thread between michael jackson, herbie hancock, alan thicke’s "different strokes theme", a diplo Seinfeld remix and james brown.
that night changed my life forever.
and im not the only dj to tell this story.
those not in the know can scoff "blah blah nicole ritche" [sic] all they want"—dude was a maverick in the highest order.
i changed my entire approach to djing and my approach to how i listened to music. yes you’ve heard me use that quip before when describing the late great j dilla as well. but that is using all music to create music. now i have to use all my knowledge of music to SHARE music.

The comparison has often been made between DJs and hip-hop bloggers. We bloggers spend all this time posting about the songs we like because of a mysterious urge to expose others to our favorite music. Though the above quote refers to DJing, I wonder if what ?uestlove learned night can’t be applied to our medium of sharing music.

I already heard people are trying to hate like he wasn’t important, like he wasn’t a dope DJ. Let me tell you something…he is the fuckin’ shit. This dude’s a fuckin’ maniac on turntables, for real. You have to experience this dude’s tactics on turntables, he’s sick with it. And if I cosign it, fuck any DJ who disagrees. You either haven’t seen him spin…and this dude’s history, his knowledge of music was intense…I’ve known this dude for over 15 years so I bear witness to seeing him get busy. So any DJ that feel different, fuck y’all, man, y’all don’t know the dude, and I know him. So fuck all of y’all, fuck you.

DJ Premier on DJ AM

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