DJ Vadim hails from London, U.K. and has roots deep in Hip-Hop as far back as the 80’s. The British DJ has had an extensive career in Hip-Hop working with the likes of Talib Kweli, Red Man and Method Man, Missy Elliot and an onslaught of others. When he’s not mastering the art of spin, Vadim is working on new music with his new Hip-Hop collective The Electric where he lends his hands to the beats and rhythms. This veteran DJ sat down with HipHopWired to give us an international opinion on how he’s seen this business grow and change, why he’s known as “The Terrorist” and how he battled it out with the FCC to stop the ban of one of his songs.
Origin: St. Petersburg, Russia
Current Location: London, UK
Top Ten List
The Roots – Tipping Point
Reflection Eternal – Reflection Et
Rakim- Microphone Fiend
Big Daddy Kane- Set It Off
BDP- Criminal Minded
ATCQ- Love Movement
Jungle Brothers- Done By The Forces Of Nature
Common- Like Water For Chocolate
Outkast- SouthernPlayalisticCaddilacMusic
Busta Rhymes- Break Ya Neck
Brother Ali- Us
Raekwon- Only Built For Cuban Linx
Dr. Dre- The Chronic
HipHopWired: Tell me how you got your start DJing.
DJ Vadim: I’ve been DJing since 1988 and I was just buying records back in the day and I just really got into it. I never thought to myself, “Oh my god, this is gonna be my career.” It was just something that I enjoyed doing but it just kept happening more and more and it became my profession.
HipHopWired: Now I heard that in addition to your DJ name, DJ Vadim, your nickname is the terrorist. Is that true?
DJ Vadim: (Laughs) Who told you that? Oh my god, we’re on terror alert somebody’s probably listening right now. (Laughs) I made a song about twelve years ago called “The Terrorist” with an emcee from Oakland called Motion Man. I make songs all the time but sometimes it’s hard to know why certain songs are more popular than other songs. This song took off for me but it had nothing to do with terrorism the way it’s defined now. The word meant something totally different ten years ago than it does now. It’s more of about being free, easy and being yourself. It’s a play on words that means something other than killing people. Unfortunately the FCC didn’t like that and it caught people’s attention. In some ways that’s a song I’m most known for.
HipHopWired: Is that like your song “Your Revolution” that was banned?
DJ Vadim: “The Terrorist” and “Your Revolution” were on the same album, it was also banned by the FCC. I had a bit of bad luck back then…
HipHopWired: Why was that one banned too? Was it the lyrics?
DJ Vadim: For the people who’ve never heard it. You’ve got to hear it. All I can say comparable to that is to ban one of Obama’s inaugural speeches. It’s comparable to the insanity of saying that what Obama’s saying needs to be banned because it could be against the best interest of the country. Really if you listen to the lyrics of “Your Revolution”, it’s talking about the misogyny and lyrics in Hip-Hop against women and she basically quoted a lot of emcee’s lyrics. It was okay for men to want to have Beyotches and sluts and hoes, but if a woman said she wasn’t gonna be that, the song gets banned. There’s a bit of irony in that. You can say Beyotches, Beyotches, Beyotches but if she says, she wasn’t gonna be that, then it’s a very big problem for the FCC. You have to look at that and say what’s that say about the FCC and how they’re trying to control certain communities. What kind of message are they trying to say? It’s called for Black music to be putting down people and to be in a certain way meaningless. It’s okay to drink 40s and “ghost ride the whip” but as soon as you try to say something suddenly it’s not cool. That’s the only thing I can think of that made it get banned. We took the FCC to court and we had English professors come in talking about prose and verse and the judgment was overthrown so it’s not banned anymore.
HipHopWired: How do you feel the U.S. music scene differs from the music scene in the UK?
DJ Vadim: I think in the U.S. it’s very much based on what’s on MTV or music television and in general most people don’t have a respect for what’s old or classic, especially in term of urban music. People don’t really wanna hear Big Daddy Kane, people don’t wanna hear Kool G Rap, if they played them in a club it would probably clear the dance floor. If you ask the average person in the average Hip-Hop club who Big Daddy Kane is they probably wouldn’t know. I would be surprised if they even knew who Rakim was but they would know Soulja Boy or whoever’s current. I think that’s the difference in the U.K., people know old and new stuff. There’s also much more of a respect for what came before. In that sense artists who have more depth in their art field can do shows as opposed to what’s big on the radio. That’s why a lot of artists who’ve been pushed to the wayside by commercial radio come to Europe.
HipHopWired: Is that then why you found yourself working with more artists like Talib and Ghostface?
DJ Vadim: You know one thing people always ask me is what do you think of independent or commercial. When I got into music I didn’t think, “Yeah I’m gonna listen to indie.” When I started listening to Hip-Hop in ’84 there was no thing as indie. I didn’t hear about indie until ’94, ’95 until then it was just Hip-Hop and some of the records were bigger than other records but not necessarily better. Were RunDMC better than the Mantronix or T La Rock? Well the album might of sold more but I remember when T La Rock came out and that might’ve been bigger than Run DMC, it wasn’t about sales it was more of people having respect for the art form. Now it’s like if you’re into independent Hip-Hop you can’t like that because that’s on TV, that’s on the radio. You can’t like Will.i.am because he’s in the Black Eyed Peas and they’re all over the radio and the TV. For me it’s not like that, I don’t care if the Roots sold 1 record or 100 million albums, I’ll always be a Roots fan.
HipHopWired: What’s the latest thing you’re working on now?
DJ Vadim: Right now I have a project called the Electric. I make the beats, we have a keyboard player called Ste Keys, a singer called Sabira Jade and Pugz Atomz, an emcee from Chicago. The keyboard player’s from Jamaica, the emcee’s from Chicago, I’m from the UK and Sabira’s from the UK also. We’ve recorded a debut album called Life Is Moving, we’re releasing that at the end of October and I’ve started my own label called Organically Grown Sound, OGS Records, and we’re going to put it all out through that.
HipHopWired: If someone were looking to get in contact with you to get more info on you or your record label what would be the best way to do that?
DJ Vadim: I’m all over Facebook, Myspace or go to DJVadim.com
HipHopWired: Any last words or shoutouts you wanna give?
DJ Vadim: Shout out to the A.
