Isaac's Favorite Cuts - Part IX

Back in 1997, my friend Ben Wynn (aka DJ Rockwell, aka Deru) and I were working on our first mixtape together in Madison, WI.  I went to his dorm room one day, and he had a couple of new 12"s, including one called the Overcast EP by Atmosphere.  Even though I'd been going to hip hop shows in the Midwest since the early 90s (including up in Minneapolis), I hadn't yet heard of Atmosphere.  This EP blew my mind.  "Independent" hip hop was still relatively new to me in the mid-90s -- I was mostly still listening to golden age shit.  But the stuff I would hear from Atmosphere and the Rhymesayers camp over the next few years really opened my ears up to newer hip hop.

In 1998, Ben and I (and I think my friend Allison) hopped in his tight Honda Civic and drove from Madison over to Milwaukee to catch a Rhymesayers at a bar called Y-Not II.  As it turns out, this was the first Milwaukee appearance by the Rhymesayers (I think the Milwaukee legend Jay-Bee put that show on).  The show was as amazing as the Overcast EP was, and I especially remember both the freestyling by Slug and the scratching by DJ Abilities.  In fact, I remember telling Ben on the way home that I might as well quit scratching, because Abilities was so epic.  Ben basically told me I was an idiot.

So anyways, DJ Abilities is the focus of the 9th installment of Isaac's Favorite Cuts.

I don't know if it's just me, but Abilities has a very unique sound to his cuts.  If I was to hear him cutting and didn't know who the DJ was, I feel pretty confident I'd know it's him.  He's not the most technical DJ (especially given how far battle DJ standards have evolved since he was in that "scene" in the late 90s/early 2000s), but he is accurate and his hands are lightning quick. Also, in the handful of conversations I've had with him, he was ALWAYS talking about scratching -- pretty much nothing else.  So he's thoughtful about how he cuts, and what he cuts.  But no matter what he was cutting for -- whether it was for a battle, a mixtape, an Eyedea (RIP) & Abilities or El-P record -- there were always a couple of signature scratches/styles that let you know it was him.

Let's check out some snippets.

The first is from Milwaukee hip-hop group the Rusty Pelicans and their song "All I Have".  Abilities provided the cuts (and the song featured Slug from Atmosphere).  I think this was released in 2000, and I remember the intro of the song caught my ear with crisp cuts in an interesting pattern:

To be honest, I still don't really understand if he's just transforming here, or if that's a chirp or something.  That's one thing about Abilities, the few scratches that are staples in his arsenal are a bit mysterious to me, and I've always thought they were awesome.

The next sample is from the song "Star Destroyer" off of the "E&A" album.  A whole mishmash of cuts in this one, but I really love how it hops over the beat and has a groove to it.  Up and down, and quite a few slow pull-backs.  I feel like this short snippet shows a lot of Abilities's cutting styles as of 2004:

This super short snippet is just a chirp, but Abilities regularly used this scratch (with it's varied speed) as a transition from cut to cut.  Even though every DJ uses the chirp, this particular use of it always makes me think it's Abilities cutting.

The final sample here is from El-P's song "Dead Disnee" off of the Fantastic Damage album.  You can hear use of the transitional chirp (explained briefly in the sample above), as well as another one of the cuts that he regularly uses (the ultra fast one in this clip).  I honestly have no idea what this scratch is.  Some scratch nerds out there would laugh at my old ass for not knowing it, but I don't feel like I ever hear anyone else do it.

Anyways, another long-ass post.  At least it's only one per year.