Inspiration

One good thing about music

when it hits you you feel no pain

hit me with music

hit me with music now

Trenchtown Rock, written by Bob Marley, performed by Bob Marley and the Wailers

Music

is what we like to play

yeah yeah

yeah yeah

all day all day all day all day all day

to soothe your soul

All Day Music, written by S Allen, H Brown, M Dickerson, J Goldstein, L Jordan, C Miller, L Oskar, H Scott, performed by War

I built in other types of records and I started getting a name for master of records.  I started playing all forms of music.  Myself, I used to play the weirdest stuff at a party.  Everybody just thought I was crazy.

Afrika Bambaataa

Well we stemmed from being diversified and playing a lot of different music, that's what drew our different type of crowd ... being as I had the master of records in my corner, his whole thing was that you had to come with something different that everybody else isn't playing.  It felt good to play something different, it was like it is today with everybody playing from the same script.  They're playing the same hip hop records in the same clubs - you go from one DJ to another and you're hearing the same records and the same ones on the mix tapes.  People become almost programmed into thinking 'Ok I got to hear these songs and these songs only, or I'm not going to dance.'  Whereas back [then] the crowd would actually just be waiting for us to play something new.

Jazzy Jay

The Loft had a real vibe and they were playing records that I had bought and was really into, but  I used to get a lot of trouble for playing.  People would come up to me like 'What are you doing?  This is stuff you play at your house.'  I almost started to believe that and had to second guess myself  and play a little safer.  Once I went to The Loft I thought 'Wait a minute, these exact records that I love are the peak records there.  I gotta stop catering to these other people and concentrate on what I'm into'.

Danny Krivit

If you could see my collection, you'd know I like all music - you'd think it belonged to four different DJs.  And because of this I found myself taking things from here, things from there - reggae, pop, disco, jazz, blues - and using lots of things as a base to take things from.

Larry Levan

I love playing different music.  Even when I do the techno/rave clubs or big functions I just draw on everything and throw it at them - hip hop, funk, go go, heavy metal - and they just go crazy.  People think, or they get programmed thinking, that all everybody at a rave wants is techno techno techno techno, or at a house club they want house house house, or at a hip hop jam hip hop hip hop hip hop ... but there's a lot of different music these people should be listening to as well.

Afrika Bambaataa

We were there to listen to all eras' music, you could just mix it together.  It was really something.  It was weird, but it sounded good.

Charlie Chase

We need DJs to start pushing progressive music back out there and get people feeling good again.

Afrika Bambaataa

I came from an era when a DJ played everything.  I've been DJing so long, it wasn't as segregated as it is now.  To be a well rounded DJ you had to know your soul records, you had to know your house records, you had to know your disco records and your classics and your hip hop, and you just put it all in the pot and you played everything.  When it came to a point where people were just hip hop DJs or house DJs it was a little weird for me because there were times when I remember making trips to the record store and you took hours just listening to a certain genre of music just to get abreast of it ... You put it all together and you did a mixture.

Jazz Jeff

You've got to remember we're all intergalactic humans now.  Sooner or later we're going to meet up with the aliens, and then who knows what will happen.  They're gonna have some real different beats.

Afrika Bambaataa