Rob Principe '95
It’s the first day of a new round of
classes at Scratch DJ Academy in Manhattan, the world’s first
school for hip-hop deejays. Rob Principe welcomes sixty students
of all shapes, sizes, and ages with one thing in common—enthusiasm
for making music with mixers and turntables.
Principe opened the school with the late Jason Mizell, better known
as the hip-hop legend Jam Master Jay, from the rap group Run-DMC.
Mizell’s murder in a New York recording studio in October
was the kind of blow that could have destroyed the fledgling business.
But Principe, twenty-nine, has kept it alive, unwilling to let
the violent tragedy dim his dream.
In the sixth-floor studio, a welter of sound fills the room as
the students, ages twelve to sixty, practice behind a bank of dual
turntable systems. One of New York’s hottest deejays demonstrates
how to manipulate the vinyl record across the needle to create
the scratching sound that’s central to hip-hop. As a photographer
from The New York Times snaps photos for an upcoming feature, the
deejay also shows the students how to work the high-tech equipment—two
turntables with a mixer—to seamlessly blend songs from different
records.
For Principe, Scratch DJ Academy has become the most visible part
of a growing enterprise called Scratch Media Productions. In less
than a year, Scratch Media Productions has produced an instructional
DVD, sponsored performances at forty colleges, and begun developing
a Broadway musical, detailing the history of hip-hop through Mizell’s
life. Scratch Media now has six employees, including David Perpich ’99,
the academy’s director of operations.
With little written about deejay technique, Scratch had to develop
a manual that details deejay techniques. Principe has also harnessed
the energies of some of the industry’s top deejays to teach
classes, including I. Emerge and Mista Sinista. “It’s
like learning a forehand from John McEnroe,” says Principe,
who played on Duke’s tennis team.
Principe worked in the entertainment field, with stints at USA
Networks and SONY Online Entertainment, following graduation. One
night, at a party in Manhattan, he observed how a masterful deejay
could whip up a crowd. “He flipped a crowd of 1,500 and made
them go bananas. That’s an art form, and I wondered how people
learned to do it.”
He discovered that there was no place that taught it. He found
that deejays operated on word-of-mouth and experimentation at a
time when $1,500-deejay consoles were outselling guitars, and music
lovers were spending millions on deejay-driven CDs. He knew that
starting a business in the highly competitive music industry would
not be easy. But Principe, who listened to Run-DMC as a kid in
suburban Long Island, had a few connections and the strength of
a good idea.
His youth tennis coach, Reg E. Gaines, writer of the Broadway hit
Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk, joined as Scratch’s
co-founder and poet-in-residence and toured with the DJ Academy
to college campuses, where he would moderate workshops on the nascent
art form. Gaines says that Principe’s cool temperament and
confidence has helped him persevere.
“
He can walk the fine line between being a good businessman and
a real human being,” Gaines says. “These deejays can
be the most irresponsible bunch of knuckleheads. Rob is stressed,
but I’ve never seen him yelling.”
Principe’s confidence paid off when he put his business plan
together and approached Mizell, the world’s most famous deejay. “I
had a short list and Jay was at the top,” says Principe. “His
reputation was flawless, he had incredible name recognition, and
he had pull.”
Principe laid out his plan to Mizell’s manager, who invited
him to the Green Room of The David Letterman Show. Mizell was getting
a haircut when Principe made his pitch. Principe brought along
a prized photo of him and Mizell, taken backstage at a San Diego
concert in the mid-1980s. Mizell embraced the idea and joined on.
“
There’s a huge demand by those who want to deejay,” says
Principe. “And just like learning an instrument, it takes
focus and discipline as well as listening skills and creativity.”
www.scratch.com
--David McKay Wilson
Wilson is a New York-based freelance writer.
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