DJs' unique turntable style spins crowd
Stacie Calhoun
Issue date: 9/17/09 Section: Culture
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"World music is exposing people to new interpretations of music around the world," Allen, IT Analyst II at UTC, said.
Allen also said he has been producing music since 2001 and has been a DJ since 2007. He said most of his music centers around a style called "nu jazz," beat-driven music and a combination of afro beat and Latin.
"I think a lot of people can kind of relate to it now because it's filtered into the mainstream, some through artists like Kanye West," Allen said.
Allen was able to bring the World Town event to Chattanooga with the help of a grant.
"This is part of my 'Make Work' grant that I got here, and the whole grant is centered around exposing our local community to global music culture," Allen said.
This inspired the tagline "Local Based, Global Minded" for his event.
Allen said that he found DJ Rupture on the Internet and picked him to be a part of World Town because he uses turntables as instruments and that is something that a lot of DJ's do not do.
"I think it's awesome," Lauren Haynes, a junior from Chattanooga, said. "He's definitely an inspiration for musicians around here."
DJ Rupture said, "In 1995 or '96, I was really struck by music from London and the UK based on elements of sped up hip hop, reggae and amazing beat and percussion work."
DJ Rupture said he has traveled to over 30 countries playing world music by putting a "spin" on other music and recreating other people's texts and sounds.
DJ Rupture refers to himself as a "turntablist" because he uses three turntables to recreate music, but he said he was "never interested in producing the familiar" so he never got into traditional hip-hop scratching.
"I like to play with people's comfort zones by playing elements of pop songs mixed with something else," DJ Rupture said.
