Ever since Clive ‘Kool Herc’ Campbell dropped the needle on a dusty piece of wax at his first party in a Bronx project building recreation room back in the 1970s, the art of Hip-Hop DJing has been in a constant state of evolution.

From the early eclectic sets of pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, to the swift cuts of Philly’s DJ Cash Money, and on to the complex symphonies of chaos constructed by the West Coast’s DJ Q-Bert, the once relatively straight-forward act of manipulating vinyl using two turntables, a mixer and your imagination has moved on in leaps and bounds since its humble beginnings at old-school BX b-boy jams.

Whilst many DJs have come and gone over the years, Queens, New York native Rob Swift is someone who can pretty much claim to have dedicated almost his entire life to the science of turntablism. Introduced to music at a young age, Swift’s career officially began in 1991 when he was asked to join legendary NYC DJ collective The X-Men, a formidable crew of turntable terrorists that counted the likes of Roc Raida, Steve Dee (inventor of the beat-juggle), Kool G. Rap collaborator Dr. Butcher and Sean C amongst its ranks (yes, the same Sean C who recently co-prod uced a hefty chunk of Jay-Z’s American Gangster album).

The crew was notorious throughout the Rotten Apple’s five boroughs for their near-flawless battle routines and razor sharp scratching skills. In 1992 Rob won the coveted East Coast DMC DJ competition, that same year he would also perform cuts on fellow Queens resident Akinyele’s debut Interscope album, the Large Professor-produced “Vagina Diner”.

As the 90s went on, original members of the X-Men moved away from the battle scene to pursue other career aspirations, leaving Swift and Roc Raida flying the flag alongside new member Mista Sinista and the upcoming Total Eclipse. Keen to carve out a new niche for themselves in the DJ world, the foursome combined as The X-Ecutioners, dropping the critically-acclaimed album X-pressions in 1997, an ambitious project that saw the group making good on their promise to take turntablism to the next level of artistry and exposure.

A subsequent deal with Steve Rifkind’s Loud Records led to the crew releasing their sophomore set Built From Scratch in 2002, from which came the rock / Hip-Hop crossover hit “It’s Goin’ Down” with Linkin Park, a single that elevated the X-Ecutioners to new levels of success that included MTV rotation and advertising deals. The album also featured appearances from heavyweight Hip-Hop names such as M.O.P., Pharoahe Monch, Xzibit and Big Pun.

However, soon after the group’s third full-length effort (2004’s Columbia-released Revolutions), Rob would choose to leave the X-Ecutioners amidst a blur of industry politics, strained personal friendships and creative frustration. Having already tasted life as a solo artist with album projects such as 1999’s The Ablist and 2002’s Sound Event, the down-to-earth deck-wrecker was keen to explore new directions in which to take his talents, unhindered by the demands of recording for a major label. The result was War Games, a unique album blending socio-political themes with cutting-edge turntable techniques, proof that DJs really could speak with their hands when they wanted to make a statement.

Given Swift’s previous group experiences, it might be surprising to some to see him coming back out as a member of Ill Insanity, a three-man DJ unit that also includes former X-Ecutioner Total Eclipse and newcomer Precision. Forming last year due in part to a shared determination to reinvigorate what many see as a fading turntablism scene, the trio recently released their debut album Ground Xero on New York’s Fat Beats label. A sturdy collection of boom-bap beats and on-point turntable tactics, Ground Xero evokes the unpredictable spirit of the X-Ecutioners’ late-90s debut, whilst still establishing Ill Insanity as a group with their own musical identity intact.

Here, Rob Swift talks about his career foundations, gaining new fans, and the impact of technology on the DJ game.

What initially drew you towards DJing?

I grew up in a family of DJs. My dad was a DJ and so was my older brother. I kinda just picked it up from being around them. As the young one of the family you naturally want to follow in the footsteps of the people you look up to, so my dad was the person who actually introduced me to the art of DJing, but it was my brother who introduced me to the whole culture of Hip-Hop. I was very lucky and fortunate to be around that at such a young age and that was pretty much the beginning of it all for me.

Was it primarily the musical aspect that interested you in DJing or was it the personal connection between the DJ and the crowd?

I guess it was the fact that as a DJ you’re controlling people’s moods and how they feel. Seeing my dad control a room of two hundred people with music, I think that’s what attracted me to it. Plus, as I was around DJs, it was an innate thing that I picked up kinda easily, so naturally you stick with what you do best and I stuck with DJing.

You initially made your mark in New York’s early-90s battle scene. What was that like in terms of the level of competition between everyone at the time?

It was definitely intense. At that time we didn’t have YouTube, DVDs and stuff like that, so everyone was forced to really master their craft and be creative. I think the fact that there wasn’t the accessibility to the technology younger DJs have now, it forced us to be more original.

Nowadays you can watch a DJ on YouTube instantly, like an hour after they might have just done their routine at the DMCs or something. Basically that means you can study what they’re doing and learn it right then and there. The DJs in my generation didn’t have that luxury coming up, so we had to figure a lot of things out for ourselves and really try new things, which I think made for a lot more creativity.

To me, having to delve into yourself like that was one of the best things about coming up in my era, and that’s what has helped me maintain the longevity that I have. When I was younger, aside from my dad and my brother, I was the only DJ in my neighborhood, so my exposure to other DJs was through listening to people on records of the time like Jam Master Jay and Jazzy Jeff.

I can remember hearing Jazzy Jeff do the transformer scratch for the first time back in 1987 on “The Magnificent Jazzy Jeff” and I really couldn’t understand how he was making those sounds.

That was the fun of it back then, trying to figure out what someone was doing to create those scratches you were hearing on people’s records. In a sense, that helped bring out your creativity and originality, because in trying to learn what other DJs were doing you’d come across different things as you practiced that you could then perfect in your own way. Now you can go straight onto YouTube and see exactly how someone’s performing a particular scratch or beat juggle, so it kinda makes it easy to learn and therefore isn’t as challenging because you’re not having to push yourself as much.

But that being said, I think technology’s great, especially with me being an underground artist. It’s great knowing that even though MTV isn’t necessarily going to embrace a project like Ill Insanity’s Ground Xero album, I still have avenues like YouTube and MySpace to reach the fans and promote what I’m doing. So yes, technology does make it easier for people and takes away some of the nuances of DJing, but at the same time, it definitely helps to bridge the gap between the fan and the artist. There are pros and cons to it all.

The X-Ecutioners made a huge leap between the crew’s first and second albums from being an underground Hip-Hop act to a globally recognized group with a lot of mainstream exposure. In hindsight, was it a shock for you when that success came and how did you deal with the transition on a personal level?

On the one hand, our whole goal as The X-Ecutioners was always to reach the next level of notoriety. We felt like the artform of turntablism was so creative and so special that we wanted people beyond the underground scene to see it and be exposed to it. So we always had intentions to make it big and bring the artform into homes all over the world. But at the same time, as much as we wanted to accomplish that, in my opinion we weren’t really prepared for it when it actually happened. Having to deal with the new responsibilities and pressures that come from being well known, like dealing with major labels, being expected to sell a certain amount of records, making music videos and stuff like that, it created a lot of tension within the group because it wasn’t so much fun anymore, it became like constant pressure.

I mean, when we first came together and started working on music, we didn’t care about selling a million albums, we just wanted to make good music and for people to hear us doing our thing. That’s why I feel like Ill Insanity is a return to that feeling of having fun with the music. Now that we’re free of the pressures of album sales or making records for the radio, it’s like we’re having fun again and have also found a brand new appreciation for the artform of DJing. Yes, we’re still trying to push the art and expose it to people, but we understand that we have to do it on our terms and we can’t let a label be in charge of what we do creatively because it’s not going to come off the right way.

Last year you released a DVD project entitled “As The Tables Turn” which dealt very openly with the reasons behind the X-Ecutioners break-up and your decision to leave the group. Was that something you felt you had to do before you could move on with your career?

That’s exactly what As The Tables Turn was. It was a way for me to bring closure to a part of my career that everyone had questions about. People would see me and be like, ‘Why’d you leave X-Ecutioners? What happened to Roc Raida? What’s going on with Mista Sinista?’ I obviously had a lot of feelings and opinions about what happened and making the DVD was a way for me to get a lot of that out of my system, put it behind me, and then move forward.

So with that said, some people might be surprised to see you coming back out as part of another group rather than continuing to pursue a solo career.

Well, here’s the thing. I left X-Ecutioners in September 2004 and dropped As The Tables Turn in April 2007. So I was actually a solo artist for three years, redefining what my goals were and kinda reinventing myself. For me, As The Tables Turn was a way of putting an exclamation mark at the end of that part of my career. Once I’d done that I was open to whatever new opportunities were gonna come at me.

The funny thing about Ill Insanity is that we really came together because of that DVD. I scheduled a release party in New York to promote the DVD and I had plans to invite Roc Raida and Mista Sinista to perform with me at the party because they’re in the movie and I thought it’d be a great way to show people that none of us have harbored any ill will towards each other because of the X-Ecutioners break-up. But Raida had moved away to Maryland and Sinista had moved to Virginia, so the only people I had near to me were Total Eclipse and Precision, who was a protégé of mine at one point. So I asked them to join me onstage to perform at the release party and we went from deciding to just improvise on the night to then deciding to rehearse something to give the people a really good show.

As we were rehearsing it started to feel like back in the X-Men days with everyone practicing together, having fun, motivating each other, no-one arguing about anything. It just felt right, so we decided to get the whole group thing going again because, for one, it felt good, and for two, we felt the artform needed it because there’s a wide consensus amongst a lot of DJs that the turntablist scene is dead or it’s dying. We’re of the opinion as Ill Insanity that, instead of complaining about it, we should all try to do something to breathe life back into the artform. So forming Ill Insanity and releasing the Ground Xero album was our way of trying to reignite the scene and get this whole thing going again because we love what we do too much to just let it die.

Other than the line-up of the group, what would you say are some of the biggest differences between The X-Ecutioners and Ill Insanity?

Obviously there are some differences, but there are also some similarities. Difference-wise, I feel like right off the bat there’s a freedom the three of us have that we didn’t always have with X-Ecutioners because of the pressure to sell records and stuff. In turn, that’s made the chemistry in Ill Insanity a lot tighter and we’re more in synch with each other’s ideas.

The group hasn’t even been together a full year yet, but in the eleven months we have been together we’ve done tours in the US and Europe, made an appearance on ESPN, we were on Rap City, and we’ve dropped an album. Most groups can’t even record an album in eleven months, but we did that plus more.

I feel that the fact we’ve managed to accomplish so much in such a short space of time symbolizes how much we all see eye-to-eye as a group and that we’re ready to make moves. But then you can also see the X-Ecutioners influence when we’re onstage performing in terms of some of the routines we do.

In a recent interview, you said that one of the reasons you feel like you’re starting over again with Ill Insanity is because the original X-Ecutioners fan base isn’t really out there anymore. What exactly did you mean by that statement?

Even before Ill Insanity, after I left X-Ecutioners I noticed that the majority of people who’d come out to see me spin were kinda there either by chance and they didn’t really know who I was, or they’d kinda heard about turntablism and were just curious to see what it was all about. There’d be small pockets of people who came specifically to see me, but it just seemed like the fan base started to change.

Maybe it’s because our original fan base have gotten a little older and have families and work commitments, perhaps they’ve gradually lost interest in the art form, or maybe they just don’t have the time to keep up with it anymore. But I’m seeing this change happening right before my eyes, and now it’s to the point where pretty much ninety percent of the people that come out to see Ill Insanity have never heard of X-Ecutioners. Or perhaps they’ve vaguely heard of X-Ecutioners through a friend or they’ve seen a video on YouTube, but they don’t own X-pressions or Built From Scratch.

Is it disheartening to see almost an entire generation of fans falling by the wayside?

It’s definitely disappointing because I feel that those fans really supported the whole movement during what I call the golden years of turntablism. Back then you could drop a turntablist album and easily sell 80,000 to 90,000 copies because the fans went out and supported your shit. You could do tours back then with an all-DJ line-up like Z-Trip, Mixmaster Mike, Rob Swift and The Beat Junkies, and it would be sold out from front to back. The fans at that time really helped the artform to grow, but now the majority of those fans aren’t around anymore.

With music and entertainment being so fast moving nowadays it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. So we’ve gotta start over as Ill Insanity and convince people all over again that our album is worth the twelve dollars it’ll cost to buy it or that it’s worth the price of admission to see us perform. So it’s really like we’re starting from the beginning again, which I’m cool with because I’m all about exposing the art to new fans, but at the same time it’d be good to still have that old fan base there to help us.

I mean, today it’s hard enough trying to get someone to download one of your songs from the internet for ninety-nine cents, whereas back in the day fans would physically go to the trouble of going to a record store to buy your album. It’s just a different time now.

With that said, what’s the response been like from the younger crowds who’ve been coming to see you perform on the recent Ill Insanity tours?

As much as I’d like to see some of the older fans supporting more, the reaction we’ve been getting from the new people we’re reaching on our tours has been positive, man. I get people coming up to me after shows who’re amazed like, ’I’ve never seen anything like that before!’

People just seem to always be impressed by the fact that we’re really trying our best to entertain the crowd, we’re not just up there playing music, we’re actually performing. This new generation of music fans hasn’t seen something like that before, so they’re just astonished by it, and I’m convinced that maybe in another year or two, if other DJs follow in our footsteps and do their part to help the art grow by recording albums and reaching more people, then we’ll be back in another golden-era of DJing.

There’s been a lot of debate in recent years surrounding the technology that’s entered the DJ game such as Serato etc, which, amongst other things, has led to people not having to use vinyl anymore when performing. How do you balance the organic spontaneous feel of old-school DJ techniques with taking advantage of the benefits technology can offer?

I think that what you have to do is apply the same values that you hold about the music to the technology. You shouldn’t let the technology change the way you view the music. I mean, after we finish this interview I’m going to go record shopping in Manhattan, but that said I now do shows with Serato. The technology hasn’t changed the fact that I still love going digging and the feel of vinyl, but when I get home tonight, I’ll digitize the music I’ve just bought on vinyl and transfer it onto my Serato.

What that then means is that instead of taking crates of records on tour, paying huge excess weight airline fees and worrying about my records getting lost, I can travel with all my music on my laptop.

It’s all about adapting. I feel that a lot of DJs now actually let technology change them, so instead of still going to the record store to look for vinyl they’ll just download the track they’re looking for.

Do you get tired of constantly having to justify why you’ve embraced some of this new technology to die-hard vinyl-only turntablism fans?
 
I don’t get tired of it necessarily, but it does frustrate me because I feel like that guy sitting on the internet saying that I’m a sell-out because I use things like Serato, he’s probably never stood in front of a ticket agent at an airport having to pay two hundred dollars to check in records. That guy’s not having to lug eighty-pound crates around all over the world or having to replace that special piece of rare vinyl that was damaged or lost on tour.

So it’s frustrating because a lot of the people who might criticize DJs for using the new technology that’s available don’t see the other side of what we do. But I don’t get tired of explaining it to people because that’s also a part of what we do.  DJing isn’t just about performing; it’s also about being willing to break down your theory on things and educating people as well.

So where would you like to see turntablism go next?

I’ve been saying this for years now, but I’d like to see artists like Ill Insanity and other DJs who’re releasing music being acknowledged at award ceremonies. I’d love to see a Best Turntablist Album category at the Grammies. It’s my dream to see one of us walk onstage with the tuxedo on and accept a Grammy for turntablism. I think we’ve made a lot of strides forward as DJs over the years, but I still don’t think the artform receives the respect it deserves.