Jam Master Jay Quotes

I was DJ'ing house music way back when - I'm not like a new house guy.

I used to do this one club called New York Sound Factory where I played house, hip-hop, and dancehall. I was one of the first DJs in the South to play everything.

There is a scene in the movie with DJ Cutkiller, one of the biggest European DJs from France, and he was scratching like crazy. When I saw that, I was 14, and I was like, 'Yo that's what I want to do. That's crazy.'

I had also done a little disc jockeying.

People book me because of the songs I write, not because of the sets that I play, per se... I'm sure I'm going to be moving to a laptop really soon, but I was one of the last guys to let the vinyl go. I was crying. In my room, I still have thousands of records. I still pull them out and play them all the time.

I was the little white kid who rocked the turntables.

The art of DJing is sharing music with one another... The technology's definitely taking it into a new direction to where it's really becoming performance-based.

For me it all started with two turntables and a mixer.

Then I just moved into being a DJ when that turned into the hottest thing.

DJing is how I got into So So Def.

I begged and begged, and my uncle gave me his old turntables. It was one hi-fi and one old Stereo Lab turntable and a rusty mixer. I was really chuffed. I kept that for five years - that's where I learned to mix.

I would always have turntable elements in my records even if it was just one scratch.

I wanted to be a disc jockey.

I remember the first time I dropped a couple of house records, someone threw an Air Force One in my face.

My uncle, who gave me my first turntables when I was ten, also gave me records to mix, but I never understood house music. I thought it was boring until I was old enough to go to a club and feel it, the fact that it actually makes you just want to dance.

That's just what I call myself when I DJ: Mexican Wrestling Association.

I started DJ-ing in the '90s. DJ-ing is in every record I do. When I make records I make them for DJs.

DJs are the new rock stars.

DJing is an art that I have the utmost respect for, and I've been practising it since I was 17 years old. Doing Tom Cruise wedding-type things becomes the focal point of every interview, and you realize that you have to cut it out if you don't want to be answering questions about that.

Everything I make as a producer, I visualize it as a DJ first. And all those beats, I test them as a DJ.

I made my name and reputation DJing in hip-hop clubs in New York. 'Celebrity DJ' is a term that I hated. To me a celebrity DJ is someone that's on 'Big Brother' or in some kind of B-movie who gets a gig to DJ even though they're not talented enough to do it.

I named myself Flash many years ago, as I loved the cartoon. Then my own fans said that I should call myself 'Grandmaster,' because of the way I operate turntables. I put the two together and that was it.

If the music in a groove fits with what you're playing, then play it; if not, then you can play it backwards. If that doesn't work, you try it at a different speed. If it really doesn't work you just break it. The whole ritual to put a record on a turntable just to listen to it, I don't do that too often.

I love DJing, and I love rocking out.

I knew that as a DJ from 1970 on up that I would eventually come with this sound. I brought out all these other break beats that you hear so much on a lot of these records.