This weeks spotlight artist is DJ Shadow, born Joshua Paul Davis on June 29, 1972, in Davis, California. He is a music producer and DJ and was a major figure in instrumental Hip-Hop. His debut album Endtroducing….. gained him much recognition and today his personal record collection consists of over 60,000 records. In the game since 1989, DJ Shadow began experimenting with a four-track recorder in high school. He became a DJ for the campus radio at UC Davis, KDVS. From there his career kicked off and he began working with various labels and artists.
Early on he worked with London-based Mo’ Wax record label. His “In/Flux” single was described as “trip-hop,” a term coined by Mixmag’s Andy Pemberton. His style was a blend of genres such as funk, rock, Hip-Hop, ambient, jazz, and soul. Starting off, he was using bin-found records and still killing the game bringing in a style of music to the U.S. that was heard in London clubs. More recently DJ Shadow revealed to Billboard, 2015, that himself and a trap producer, G Jones, were the artist behind the mysterious group Nite School Klik that released a popular single “Posse” on his label Liquid Amber. His early work was vital to the progression of alternative Hip-Hop today even though it proved to be hard to categorize.
By Kianna Woods for RAPstation.com
