It was only a couple of years ago when the Bay area was on the map as long time veteran E-40 came out with a hit. “Tell Me When To Go” was smashing the charts from E-40’s damn near classic album My Ghetto Report Card bringing the Bay to the limelight of the masses and what they have to offer in the game. Time goes fast and now it seems as though the whole hyphy movement has died down. What happened as to why it’s not shining like it did only a couple years back?

Maybe on a national level it’s died down, but if you take a trip there the music is still in the home. Mistah F.A.B. is one of the new-comers from the area willing to keep the light bright along with the legends E-40 and Too Short, but hip-hop always goes back to the DJ to get the records are broken and heard in the first place.

DJ Vlad is one of the major DJ’s in the industry and will always continue to support what’s from his hometown. Known as 'The Butcher' to many, Vlad is here to chop it up with Sixshot.com why it’s no place like home. Coming out with a new DVD on his hometown ritual titled Ghostride The Whip, Vlad wants to show the history of the Bay hip-hop scene so the masses can see what’s really good. From the music, the current state of hyphy, Mac Dre’s legac y, all is let out from the man who most of the time keeps to himself.

Everybody knows your one of the top DJ’s in the music industry today, but what it took in that whole grind to get to that level and why DJ Vlad will stay on top?

You just enjoy yourself or whatever it is you working on. A lot of people that do want to get into DJing, filmmaking, they kind of want to do it on the side like a hobby. At the end of the day that usually doesn’t work, because to really be something on a world class level you kind of really got to devote your life to it. As a DJ I just felt I had to put time into my craft and that’s with the filmmaking too. That’s pretty much the advice I would give for anybody that’s trying to do it.

You're from the Bay area which always had a pretty solid hip-hop scene, The Luniz with Numskull and Yukmouth, E-40, Too Short, but do you ever think the hip-hop scene in the Bay gets overshadowed by L.A. sometimes?

Yeah I think it has a lot, because when you mention the Bay lot of people think the Bay and L.A. are minutes apart [laughs]. Most people think that and put it all together. L.A. has got a lot of exposure the whole Dr. Dre and Death Row Thing. Yeah a lot of it has got overshadowed, but when you come to the Bay it’s a lot out here. You go back to Too Short, MC Hammer who had one album that sold over 10 million, and you know Tupac started in the Bay area. A lot of people know him in being associated with L.A., but I always associated Pac with Oakland.

A lot of people know the Bay area for the hyphy style in hip-hop, but many said it has died down. Do you agree with that?

I think it died down in terms of a national audience as far as the spotlight. Just like the spotlight was on Houston, Texas for a while and now is sort of isn’t. The Bay kind of had the spotlight and once that spotlight moved it was like I guess hyphy’s over. Internally in the Bay it’s still here and I’ve done shows recently and it was packed [laughs].

Being a DJ from the area how involved were you with the hyphy scene, were you ever skeptical of it?

I’m always supportive of anything that goes on in Bay, I grew up here. When it was first coming about I was happy like “Wow finally” [laughs]. It was good to see that other areas were interested in the Bay, because a lot of artists are independent. Too Short and E-40 have major deals, but it’s always been a mass majority that are independent artist. They own their own stuff, they make their own money, own their own houses and cars, whatever.

How do you feel the hip-hop scene in the Bay areas had involved, because I’m feeling Mistah F.A.B. right now I think he’s crazy!

I think what hyphy really represented was it was a shift from the real art form like, gangtsa which was known as Mob music which really focused on drug-dealing, killing that type of shit. It kind of went into a circle and got back into the dancing which was already around in the 80’s with MC Hammer. I was happy that hip-hop became fun again. If you count how many rappers that got murdered in the Bay is ridiculous. I think it might be the biggest region in the world where rappers got murdered. At the end of the day the music does affect people you know.

Can you talk about the influence Mac Dre has had on the Bay area?

It was huge, but the thing that people don’t understand with Mac Dre was that before he died he was very underground. The radio wouldn’t play his songs and you would never hear a Mac Dre song on the radio ever. I think right before he died he had his new album was out and it was starting to get some play, but it wasn’t like a E-40 who for years always had something on the radio, video on MTV. It was a very underground thing, but when he died all his music that he wrote was suddenly getting out and it was an interesting phenomenon. It’s unfortunate that he died and blown up the way he died, but it was a huge influence. It was a huge influence and everywhere you go someone is wearing a Mac Dre shirt it was really a big deal. It was kind of like how Biggie died in Brooklyn.

Aside from talking about the hyphy scene in Bay area hip-hop we all know that ya’ll do ya’ll thing with ghostriding the whip. You have a new DVD coming out called “Ghostride The Whip” which is another hustle for you, but tell me what’s so big about ghostriding over there?

It’s just something that become popular out here and when E-40 dropped the song “Tell Me Where to Go” he started saying Ghostride The Whip. A lot of people never seen that before and you got dudes out here that really taken that to an extreme level. I got footage on my movie Ghostride The Whip on a major bride shutting down traffic where this dude is just ghostriding his car and it’s some real crazy shit. It’s this other thing called “Sideshows” in east Oakland where cars would start spinning out in intersections, doing donuts in intersections. Next thing you know it would be hundreds of cars and people that would just takeover a freeway entrance [laughs] and shit like that. It’s just a crazy ass party that’s created out of nothing. The ghostriding was kind of an offspring of that where people would overdue themselves with the sideshows and then started ghostriding.

Has DJ Vlad ever been ghostriding before?

Nah man I’ll leave that to the youngsters [laughs]. I’ve seen to many crazy fucked up things happen, people wreck their cars, I’m a leave that to someone else.

I hope your not lying to me [laughs]!

Nah man I’m good [laughs]. If I did you would see me in the movie ghostriding for real.

What made you decide to do the whole DVD thing in the first place?

I’m from the Bay and I remember on MTV I was watching this thing called My Block: The Bay. It was the first time I ever saw a TV special about where I came from and it just got me thinking. It was really cool to really go into the history of it to actually do the story of the Bay area. The movies starts in like the 1950’s and goes all the way to the present. It’s not like it’s just here’s hyphy and here is everything about hyphy. We actually start off on how people actually migrated to Northern California and how the whole jazz scene formed. We go into the whole Black Panther story, how crack affected Oakland, the whole hippie culture, and it shows all the parallels of back then and what’s happening now.

I was on your myspace page earlier today and I would like to know why you call yourself DJ Vlad “The Butcher”?

I just be butchering up those beats and I really mix a lot of things. I chop up a lot of beats, chop up vocals, and everything. People just started calling me The Butcher and it just kind of stuck.

Your doing your thing on the mixtape grind and everything, but what do you look for when you give an artist a spot on the mixtape?

The song has to be one of those songs I keep rewinding over and over again. Or if the artist is really building up his own buzz like if I heard of you before I actually hear your music that’s always a good sign. It shows that the artist is on the grind and is doing things. It will always benefit to be a mixtape, but it’s not always the whole pie there. It’s not like I’m going to put you on a mixtape and from there your going to get a record deal.

If your already grinding and then I put you on a mixtape that just helps out which your already doing at the end of the day. You have the music world and people who hobby. Most of the people on myspace are hobby artists, they have some other job and their not actually generating any money off it and their not supporting themselves often. Then you have the dudes that are serious about it and I’m trying to work with the people who are serious about it as a career.

Are there any other big time DJ’s in the industry that you talk to on a regular basis?

Green Lantern is, we kind of have a link because we’ve done some key projects together. We may not talk like every week, but we always stay in touch. Dirty Harry is cool too, he produced Alicia Keys “No One” which won a Grammy and I was really happy for him. Green Lantern produces a lot of shit, he produced for Jadakiss, Ludacris, and he’s doing things. Those are probably the two DJ’s that I’m close to. I don’t roll with a lot of DJ’s.

So DJ Vlad keeps a small circle?

Yeah man when I walk around I walk around by myself. You won’t see me going to a party like ten deep, I usually come by myself and I leave by myself.

This interview was conducted and written by Quinton Hatfield for Sixshot.com