If you know Just Blaze, you know he's much more than the producer behind iconic hip-hop records for Jay Z, Kanye West, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and more. Although frankly, songs like Kendrick's "Compton," Jay Electronica's "Exhibit C," and Cam'ron's "Oh Boy" are more than enough to give him legend status.
Justin Smith, who got his start as a DJ in Paterson, N.J., is someone who "gets" music in a way beyond genre classification or limiting himself to just producing. Recently, he's come full circle in his career by hitting the stages at electronic music festivals worldwide as a DJ, a move that some can't really understand without knowing the scope of Blaze's influences. And when he's on stage, he's taking listeners on a journey through all of his musical influences, from deep house to breakbeat and reggae, like he did at his Red Bull Music Academy Tokyo DJ set on a bill with Marley Marl and Zebra Katz.
At this year's RBMA Tokyo, the first wave of 30 participants—who are a range of producers, singers, rappers, and instrumentalists from all over the world—have had Just Blaze as a mentor on Red Bull's "Studio Team." In our interview with him, we learn his stories about coming to Japan over the years, his teaching approach, why he's DJing festivals, and whether there would be a Jay Z without a Mozart. Listen to his set from Harlem, Tokyo's hip-hop hub, below.
When the people realized that I was there in the booth, they all surrounded me and watched. I had never seen anything like that before.
How long have you been coming to Japan?
This is actually my 10th year coming to Japan.
Was it for work?
Actually, it was almost 10 years ago to the day. I forget the exact date, but it was some time in the month of October. I had stopped DJing in clubs in the late ’90s, because I was producing full time. Some Japanese associates of mine reached out to my office and wanted to set up a DJ tour throughout Japan. I hadn’t DJed in a club in years. I could still do it, but it wasn’t what I was doing, especially at that time.
But then I realized it was a free trip to Japan. Well, it wasn’t even a free trip; I was getting paid to come to Japan and play some of my music. So I did it, and it was my first exposure to, at least at that time, how Japanese audiences differed from American audiences, in terms of their reverence for the DJ. It’s even greater when the person playing is from the States or someone who’s part of the culture they love.
My first stop wasn’t actually in Tokyo, it was in Osaka. I landed in Tokyo, stayed here for a day, then went to Osaka, and then came back to Tokyo. My first show ever in Japan was in Osaka in a really big club. I remember walking in and seeing a stage where the resident DJs were DJing. And then there was a DJ booth, which was actually on the same level as the dance floor. I was thinking that I would be on the stage, but they were like, “No, you are in the DJ booth, because that way more people can see you,” and I was like, “But can’t they see me on the stage?” They were like, “No, we have you set up in the booth.”
Long story short, the openers stopped their set, the residents stopped their set, and it was time for me to go on. When the people realized that I was there in the booth, they all surrounded me and watched. I had never seen anything like that before. I was wondering why they weren’t dancing or partying. They were just right there watching me like it was a science experiment almost, or that’s what it felt like at the time. To them, it’s a respect and admiration thing, just watching me. That was a little strange for me, because I just wasn’t used to it.
But by the time I got back to Tokyo, and when I played at Harlem for the first time, that was different. That was more like a party because it was a really big club.
That was my first experience DJing in Japan, and from there I went to Tokyo and Kyoto, which was beautiful. It was supposed to be a week-long tour, but I ended up staying for three weeks and just hanging out.
How was your set at Harlem last week with Marley Marl?
It was fun. I’ve played there a few times since that first trip. Harlem is always fun. It was an interesting night because I was supposed to play from like 2 to 3:30, and I ended up playing until 7 a.m.
After I finished my set, we all went upstairs, and the DJ there was totally in a deep house zone. I was like, “Yes, this I can have fun with.” When I play my sets, it’s cool, but part of the problem—I guess, not from an egotistical standpoint—is when you’re an icon in a certain field or generation, people look to you, especially when you are overseas. They know you from “that one thing” that you’ve done before, and if you step out of that zone, they kind of look at you like, “What are you doing?”
So I give them the show that they want and expect to see, with a few twists here and there. Then we went upstairs, and this guy was playing deep house—which I grew up on just as much as I did hip-hop—and I was just like, “Yo, this is what I actually want to play.” I went up to the DJ, and I was like, “Dude, let’s go back to back!” So I ended doing a three-hour back-to-back thing upstairs after my show, and that was cool. We played some hip-hop, a lot of electro, deep house, afro-beat, and reggae—a bunch of fusion.
It wasn’t until someone opened the door behind me, and I saw that it was like full-on daytime, like 7 a.m., with people going to work, and the owner was walking around with bottles pouring people drinks. I was like, “It’s time to go.” So, I stopped around 7:20 in the morning, but yeah, Harlem is always fun.
why wouldn’t I [play festivals]? Why would I, at 15 years into my career, want to still be just sitting in the studio making records?
Are you getting sick of people asking you why you’re playing all these festivals?
No. I mean, why wouldn’t I [play festivals]? Why would I, at 15 years into my career, want to still be just sitting in the studio making records? Not that I don’t want to do that, but why would I make it the only thing I do? I’ve been DJing since I could walk, literally. The role of the DJ, and the position of the DJ, which is what my passion is, is completely different from when I started.
Nowadays, the DJ is the superstar, from a hip-hop standpoint, or just an electronic music standpoint in general. I consider hip-hop to be electronic music; it’s made with electronic shit, so it’s electronic. Then, the artist was the star, but at a certain point, the producer became the star. Now, the DJ is the star. I never had the aspiration to be an artist in terms of a performer, in the traditional sense. But why would I not want to bring things full circle, and share my music, my art, and something that I am passionate about, with 20, 30, 40,000 people, since DJing is where I started? You know what I mean? Who wants to just sit in a studio all day and do nothing else?
Have you worked with all of the participants here at the Academy?
Not all of them. It’s interesting. I feel like sometimes I intimidate some of the participants. Someone was like, “I didn’t really know how to approach you!” And I was like. “Well dude, I’m here....”
Programs like Red Bull Music Academy are awesome, because you get to really interact hands-on with some of the most talented young people in the world.
You were like, “This is it! You have two weeks with me!”
Yeah, like, come say hello! I haven’t worked with all of them, but I’ve worked with some of them. What I encourage them to do is just get together and jam with each other. I just come in and give them guidance here and there. I don’t like to be the guy who’s constantly in their face like asking them what they’re doing. I encourage them to go ahead and do what they do, and I’ll just pop in and play Yoda every once in a while—give them a couple pointers here and there and keep it moving.
Both here and elsewhere, what have you learned from being a teacher? I guess, in addition to DJing, it’s another way of coming full circle in what you do.
Well, I never had a teacher. I learned everything by trial and error, firsthand, on my own. I didn’t have anybody to show me anything when I was younger. Because programs like today’s didn’t exist, it’s cool to be a part of something like the Academy where you get to pass on your knowledge and experience.
A lot of people from my generation didn’t have that. We learned by listening to radio, especially when it came to DJing. There was no Internet. It was really about listening and trying to emulate what people were doing and finding your own way through that. Programs like Red Bull Music Academy are awesome, because you get to really interact hands-on with some of the most talented young people in the world. And they get the experience of being able to hang out, commune with, and learn from people like myself, and those from generations way before mine. They’re not just connecting as artists, but connecting as people. And as time goes on, certain participants connect as people, learn each other’s stories, and get inspired by them.
For a lot of us, the inspiration goes both ways. Over the years I’ve met participants who were super geeked out about meeting or working with me, but once I sit down with them, I get inspired by them, because there’s a new, young, and fresh energy with a different take on what we all do that I might not have gotten to experience otherwise.
What are your thoughts on Internet collaborations versus in-person? I feel like the participants I’ve spoken to are part of a culture where they’ve already become very accustomed to, maybe even exclusively, working together over the Internet.
The Internet makes things that never would have previously been feasible, possible. You’ll have a kid out in Ireland collaborating with a kid in South Africa, which pre-Internet, would not really have been possible. They may have actually discovered each other’s music on the Internet.
I do believe that the best collaborations come about when all parties are in a room, in person, bouncing ideas off each other. The vibe is different. That being said, the Internet is the next best thing. I’m a firm believer in, “If you can get everybody in a room, then do it.” But don’t shy away from collaboration just because you can’t get in the same room. The Internet makes it possible for people who might not have ever gotten a chance to collaborate to do so. Whatever works, just get the job done.
I am the amalgamation of everything I grew up on and everything that I love today. I don’t have a particular favorite song or production of mine or anybody else’s.
I read something where you said that Marley Marl is someone you admire as a mastermind of machines, not just because he is a producer but also because he is an engineer. Do you encourage producers, here or elsewhere, to also know engineering?
I always say that when it comes to production, a lot of the time, the beat is...I don’t want to say the least important thing…but the most important part of being a producer is knowing how to deliver a vision.
Whether you play all of the instruments, or program all of the machines, or not, your role at the end of the day is to deliver a vision. Sometimes that’s making the beat or playing all of the instruments. Sometimes it’s getting somebody else to make the beat and knowing which musicians to bring in. It’s also the psychology aspect of knowing how to pull the best performances out of the artist you are working with, or the person you are collaborating with it. One of the last things is knowing all aspects of the machines you are working with in the studio, in terms of engineering—knowing how audio signal flow works, and knowing how to manipulate sounds when they are running through the console.
Most times the producer is not the engineer. They’re two different people, but in terms of communication, even if you’re not the guy mixing or mastering the record, you as the producer, whose job it is to deliver that final product and vision, need to be able to communicate with whoever is engineering, even if you are not doing it yourself. The engineer is there to deliver what the producer needs, but even if you’re not engineering yourself, you need to be able to understand the language of engineering so you can communicate to the engineer what it is that you want. If for some reason, the communication or translation isn’t going well, and the engineer isn’t giving you what you want, you need to be able to politely push them to the side and do it yourself.
Do you have a top three of favorite records that you’re DJing out right now?
No, I don’t do top favorites of anything. I thought it was just me, but having had this conversation with a lot of creators in general, what we feel is our “favorite” changes from day-to-day. It can change from minute-to-minute. You think you have your favorite, and then someone brings something else up, and you’re like, “Oh shit, that too.” Next thing you know, you have a list of like 50 favorites.
For me, in terms of inspiration, I am the amalgamation of everything I grew up on and everything that I love today. I don’t have a particular favorite song or production of mine or anybody else’s. I feel like that’s almost a discredit to music in general. You’re really going to say that there’s one thing that’s better than everything else? That train of thought doesn’t register with me.
For sure. How would you explain this amalgamation of your background to someone who’s only familiar with you in the context of hip-hop?
They would have to look at hip-hop in general. It’s not like somebody woke up one day and said, “All right. This is hip-hop, and this is where it is, and I’m going to invent it today.” It’s something that evolved over the years, because it pulled from any and every other genre that had something that resonated with us—disco records, reggae, soul music, rock music—anything that had a drum break or had a groove that worked with other things that we were rapping on at the time.
I grew up on just as much jazz music as I did soul music and pop music and disco and dance music and house music. I mean, there was a point in my life, in the early ’90s, when I wasn’t even playing hip-hop. I was just spinning at techno raves and playing early breakbeat, which is eventually what drum and bass became, and playing a lot of hardcore rave stuff from Belgium or Rotterdam.
It’s funny, especially in the past few years that I’ve been playing festivals, I’ve befriended a lot of the guys I grew up idolizing, like Todd Terry, Armand Van Helden, Kenny Dope, and even some of the younger guys like Skream. Some of them don’t know my background, but they’ll be like, “Yo, there’s this thing you did on this record that reminds me of an old rave record from ’93.” And I’m like, “Yeah, that was on purpose.” They’re like, “How do you even know that song?” And I’m like, “I grew up on everything.”
I was blessed to have a pretty diverse background. I grew up around people who exposed me to a lot of different things that all resulted in what I’ve done over the past 15 years.
I remember having an argument in the studio at Baseline. Someone asked, “Would there be a Jay Z without a Mozart?”
That reminded of when Richie Hawtin was here lecturing earlier today. Someone asked him what inspires him outside of techno, and he brought up Miles Davis. He was like, “Free-form jazz has a direct connection to how I want to DJ.”
That’s the thing. You can be inspired by something, and make something that sounds nothing like it, but it resonates with your inspiration to take how that song makes you feel and encapsulate it into something else. Even though they sound nothing like each other, and they are completely different genres, there’s a common link through all music.
If you really want to get scientific about it, you can hear a breakdown in how somebody like say Mike WiLL or Mustard has their style. You can trace that all the way back to Beethoven, if you really wanted to. I remember having an argument about that in the studio at Baseline. Someone asked, “Would there be a Jay Z without a Mozart?” The less forward-thinking people were like, “No. It’s two different things.” They were trying to argue, but we actually sat there for like an hour and traced the musical lineage, and by the end they were like, “Oh shit.”
There’s a common thread throughout all music, and what Richie was saying doesn’t surprise me at all. There are times when I’m outside, and I’m not listening to anything, and a train goes by. The particular frequency that the train alarm is hitting inspires me to make a whole song from a train alarm. You never really know where inspiration is going to come from.
