Interview: Jazzy Jeff
Sunday, 31 October 2004
Jazzy Jeff: DJing Is The Nucleus Of Everything
“From starting out with two turntables and a mixer I ended up on a television show; I ended up in a hip hop group, I ended up being a producer and I ended up a company owner putting out records; all of these things came from DJing. DJing inspires everything else.”
Still best known as Will Smith’s partner in 80s TV sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Jazzy Jeff is also rightly recognised as one of the pioneers of hip hop, going on to sell over ten million records as well as establishing a highly successful record label (a Touch Of Jazz’ based in his home town of Philadelphia. More recently, however, he’s refocused his attention on DJing, spinning the wildly varied house style he first embraced in the 80s.
“When I started out a DJ played everything from rock, hip hop, jazz, funk to soul, whatever; if a record fitted in and it made people move, then you played it,” he points our.
“But in recent years I noticed that if I played a house or dance set, people would look at me and say ‘but you’re a hip hop DJ’. I’ve always considered myself just a DJ, I was DJing before hip hop was around playing all different styles,” he says.
And to prove his point unequivocally, he’s recently mixed a highly eclectic soulful house compilation for UK funky house label Defected, which is the project he’s promoting today in a London penthouse hotel room. Though the suite’s elevated five star, his demeanour is impeccably grounded, reflecting his highly unusual humility developed through a lifetime of experience.
“I can tell you I had three million dollars in the bank then two years later I had 30 dollars in the bank, it can happen,” he reveals.
“Things don’t last for ever, especially in this business, it’s like a big giant wave. What you have to learn to do is you have learn how to live when everything is down, because if you learn to live and maintain yourself when everything is down, then it’s a cruise when you’re going up.”
As well as promoting the album he’s spent the afternoon lecturing a class of music students where he’s been sharing more of the wisdom he’s picked up along the way.
“Everybody has different reasons for doing things, some people DJ for the money, others for the fame or the love, and some people for a mixture of all of them,” he explains
“I didn’t have any of this planned out; I didn’t have a business plan, it was all on the job training that you learned as you progressed. I told the kids in the school today that I got a job and saved my money to buy equipment to put on parties for free. I spent money to do this, whereas today I know people that get into DJing just to make money,” he continues.
“My love made me do this and when money started to come I started to look at how much money I was making off of this and I almost forgot my love. So then I found myself chasing every dollar and I became unhappy. It took about five or six years of being unhappy for me to understand. I was making money but chasing something that I’d never catch. I always tell people, if you chase money you’ll never catch it, you’ll grab it you’ll be right on its heels but you’ll never catch it.”
“It made me understand that my happiness lies in me being happy and the happiest moments I had had absolutely nothing to do with money,” he adds, not that he’s become judgemental.
“As time passes you change your perspective because you mature and get more comfortable and start understanding that it’s cool to change your mind,” he continues.
“and that’s what I tell people; if you want to do this for money, don’t feel ashamed, just understand. You may start doing it for money then realise that you really love it and say hey I’m doing it for love. Or the other way round, it doesn’t matter. The beauty to me of what we’re doing in the entertainment industry is that there’s absolutely positively no right and wrong. It’s entirely up to you.”
Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Starting with the new house compilation, your track selection varies from the Temptations to Barry White and Kenny Dope, how did you choose the tunes?
Jazzy Jeff: “I picked a lot of them from my heart, these were records that moved me and sparked a idea. For example, I watched a movie last year about the Temptations and they played Papa Was a Rolling Stone in one scene and my fiancé said ‘you should play this’. Then she stopped and thought about what she’d said and added ‘this sounds like a house record’. I was like ‘you know what, this is one of those records that influenced a lot of people, it’s a four on the floor record from before the time when people started categorising music. Two days later I was in London and threw it on right in the middle of a set and everybody went crazy. That just proved to me that you can get people primed so that when you’re in the right environment you can play them anything. It all depends on when you play it and how you present it. I’ve played hip hop clubs and ended up playing a full blown up house set with everybody dancing, and people have been looking like ‘how did he get here?’ If you present it in the right way, you can do it; I don’t know too many people who only like one type of music.”
Skrufff: How much time are you spending in London these days?
Jazzy Jeff: “I’m over here a lot, I love the open-mindedness of lots of the people here in London when it comes to music. In The States, we’re very commercially trained and that was one of the things that really started turning me off. I remember going in the record stores years ago when you knew the guy and you’d say ‘What have you got new?’ and he’d play me stuff while I was going through the racks. If I liked something he played I’d put my hands up and he’d put it in a pile and I’d grab it at the end- whatever style it was. Now it’s so commercial that you almost need the validation of radio especially in the States, for people to say whether they like something. It makes me feel like people have become more robotick, like we’re living in The Matrix, that people don’t have opinions of their own. And I’ve realised that it’s worse in the United States than anywhere else in the world. It’s like that in the UK too but there are a lot more open-minded people here.”
Skrufff: you must have loads of different commitments between producing, DJing, running your studio in Philly and travelling the world, how are you prioritising?
Jazzy Jeff: “I’ve taken a little break from the production side, there are times when you need a break or you need to change your head space to make some music and the best way to do that is to go out and play for people. What I do as a DJ is remix records live, in front of people. So many times blending two records together will give me the inspiration to make these two records into one record when I go into the studio. It’s almost impossible to juggle all these activities simultaneously so what you have to do is slide something to the side, then something else to the side. It’s easier for me to keep on doing the DJing with the production but for the last two years I’ve really been concentrating on the DJing the most.”
Skrufff: Why DJing in particular?
Jazzy Jeff: “Because of the demand. When I started back out again the initial idea was to do a couple of shows, get some inspiration then go back in the studio, but then the bookings never stopped coming and it reached the point when I understood the DJing thing was a lot bigger than I’d ever imagined. The need for people to have a really good time has never been greater, also given the times that we’re living in, when there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world. If I can offer two hours of a sanctuary for people to get away from all of the **** that’s out there now, to just have a good time, then I’m cool with that.
It’s amazing how after 9/11 so many things have taken a very bad hit, with the economy, for example, whereas demand for my gigs has taken off, which showed me that people need an outlet. The production work virtually disappeared, people suddenly stopped wanting records, the music industry went through this crazy turmoil but every day I was getting calls saying, Can you come to China? Can you come to Japan?’ I did some research into previous recessions and found out that what thrived the most was music, because people needed to be entertained.”
Skrufff: When you’re travelling abroad do you see yourself as an ambassador for America?
Jazzy Jeff: “I don’t really look at it in that way, I’m more an ambassador of music and spreading good will through music. I don’t believe in all the beliefs and values that the government of America believes in, so I can’t say I’m an ambassador for the United States. I have more control over what I believe myself and want and don’t want when it comes down to music than I do over any of the government issues. I just think we’re in the state at the moment where we have some control but it’s very limited and everything is so global nowadays that everybody realised at the same time that we don’t have the control that we thought we really had. It’s not about me being an American, I can talk with someone from the UK and we have the same views and values, where we’re both trying to make a change.”
Skrufff: US style gang culture with shootings and murders is increasing in the UK and like in the States, some commentators blame hip hop, how do you see the role of gangsta rap in violence, for example?
Jazzy Jeff: “To me influences can come from music or television, wherever, though it’s funny that no one ever talks about the Untouchables or the movies that glamorise killers, it’s always urban killers. I don’t know anybody in urban society that has controls to bring guns into the country or drugs for that matter. It’s always somebody in the upper echelon that has that control. To me it’s about the corporate structure, no-one ever takes the blame for bringing the guns in, they blame it on the rap videos. I believe that a lot of the blame that goes onto hip hop and also on the garage scene here in the UK, is just a smokescreen to hide who’s really responsible. If you killed the garage scene or the hip hop scene, you’d still have the same problems.”
Skrufff: More and more Americans are becoming fundamentalist Christians, are you religious?
Jazzy Jeff: “Yes I am but I’ve always had very different views on religion. To me religion and politics are two things that start wars, they’re two things that are very opinionated, where everybody has their own views. I like to call myself an ‘individual-ite’, I have my own views and values which no-one else has to understand or believe in, if they work for you, they work for you. It’s really hard when you’re talking about faith to get someone to change. That’s why you have wars. If I grew up and my mother has instilled in me who God is then you come along one day to tell me my mother is wrong, then I’m willing to fight you for that. And, my mother could very easily be wrong. The only thing that makes her right is the fact I love her. So you can have generation after generation after generation of wrong. A lot of times I’ve kept my religious beliefs to myself. I’ve always believed in a higher being, a higher power, I believe that he knows all and sees all and if I need to talk to him I can talk to him one on one, I don’t need to go to a specific place or have a go-between. As long as I’m on the right page that’s OK.
Skrufff: Why did you stay in Philly instead of moving to New York or LA?
Jazzy Jeff: “It might have been a little bit of a superstition. My musical inspiration came from Philly, from how and where I grew up, the people around me and I always felt that if I went somewhere else and changed the input of data I was getting from living in Philadelphia that it would change my music. It wasn’t until recently that I understood that the input of data is internal, that it doesn’t matter where I go. For a long time I was stuck on never leaving there. Nowadays though I love travelling and also now that I’m older and more mature I no longer need a lot of the things that I used to feel I needed. I was in Australia last year and I fell in love with the country to the point where I felt ready to relocate to Australia, it’s quiet the people are friendly, everything is two steps slower, you can breathe and live. In places like New York and Philadelphia you’re always rushing to get somewhere.”
Skrufff: What were some of the wilder scenarios you experienced at during your fastest times?
Jazzy Jeff: “My spending sprees used to be crazy because they were spending sprees on equipment. I’ve never been the guy saying ‘I’m gonna buy a $25,000 watch’, I’d rather buy a $25,000 television that can turn itself on and off- I’m a gadget fanatic. That’s where I put my money. Will (bandmate turned Holywood superstar Will Smith) was somebody that wanted seven or eight cars whereas I was like, give me one car, but give me a $50,0000 sound system in that car that has everything you can ever imagine.I wasn’t thinking of having the big mansion on the hill I wanted the first cellphone and the first national pager.
There was no one to pull your coattail because I was the first person in my family to ever make a million dollars and that meant I had no-one in my family to educate me about what to do with that million dollars. It’s really hard because the people that are trying to give you advice have never gone through what you’re going through, you don’t have someone to fall back on. That’s where a lot of African American entertainers struggle, they really need a role model who can give you really true and honest advice; someone that can tell you ‘Hey man you need to pay your taxes’.
Skrufff: What financial problems did you have?
Jazzy Jeff: “I can tell you I had three million dollars in the bank then two years later I had 30 dollars in the bank. It can happen. Things don’t last for ever, especially in this business, it’s like a big giant wave. What you have to learn to do is you have learn how to live when everything is down, because if you learn to live and maintain yourself when everything is down, then it’s a cruise when you’re going up. I’ve watched so many people not do that. If you make 3 million one year and 30 million the next, don’t buy a 30 million house; don’t look at it as if $30milliion is where you are, look at it as if $3million is where you are, because you can very easily go back to that level, and if you’ve got a $30million level house that’s hard to maintain.”
Skrufff: Did you feel like a failure when you lost your money?
Jazzy Jeff: “You have a million feelings inside you because what you’re perceived as isn’t what you are. The biggest issue that so many entertainers and athletes go through is looking in the mirror. You can you into the fanciest restaurant in the world and they want to give you food for free, not realising that you may not actually have the money to pay for it. But then when you look in the mirror and you’re one on one with yourself, that’s when you have to answer those questions about who you really are. It’s OK to be playing a role like you have the money when you don’t but when you get up in the morning and you’re washing your face you’re thinking ‘Yo, what kind of life am I leading?’ Something’s going to happen sooner or later and I’m not going to be able to cover it? Then you’re worried about how people will look at you if they find out you don’t have this or that. I’ve seen a lot of entertainers not know how to deal with that situation.”
Soulheaven presents Jazzy Jeff In The House is out on November 1 on Defected Records
http://www.defected.com
Interview by:Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
