National Public Radio Music Profile - Roc Raida: A Grandmaster Gone

Yesterday Andrew Noz of NPR put together a dope write up on the late Grandmaster Roc Raida, who recently passed away very suddenly...Noz describes the DJ's accident that served as the pre-cursor for his passing, his trademarks as world renowned trick DJ and the last time his fellow X-Men and friends saw and spoke to him....

-BIG D O

November 3, 2009 - In the last few months, DJ AM died of an apparent drug overdose, while a heart attack took the life of New York radio pioneer Mr. Magic. But the least publicized in a tragic and eerily timed trilogy of DJ deaths was that of Anthony Williams, better known as Grandmaster Roc Raida. On Sept. 19, the 37-year-old turntablist legend and father of four died of complications stemming from an unlikely martial-arts accident that had taken place a few weeks earlier.

All Hail The Grandmaster

The Harlem-bred DJ's fingerprints are all over the golden era of New York hip-hop. He toured with Kool G Rap, Lord Finesse and Busta Rhymes, and provided scratches for the refrains of underground hits such as OC's "Time's Up" and The Artifacts' "C'mon Wit the Git Down." Rapper Percy Carey (formerly MF Grimm) brought Raida in as his touring DJ when they were both teenagers.

"I said I needed the best DJ in the world," Carey says. "[Mutual acquaintance and radio host] Lord Sear was like, 'Well, then you need to meet Roc Raida.' "

But Raida would be best known as a competitive DJ. As a member of the acclaimed collective X-Men, Raida spent the first half of the '90s working the battle DJ circuit. Turntablism, as it came to be called, was a composition- and performance-oriented form of DJing. Where scratching was once used to augment songs, turntablists used it as a primary instrument. New rhythms and even melodies were crafted in real time out of record fragments. Raida's routines, in particular, were as physical and personality-driven as they were musical. He performed rhythmic body tricks with absolute finesse, scratching with his nose or catching a record after performing a full body spin. He would eventually be crowned DMC World Champion in 1995.

Full NPR Article:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120030709&ft=1&f=1039