CRATERY 70: Skeme Richards

Skeme Richards once told me that he’s not afraid of a real job.

He’s not afraid of rolling up his sleeves and departing the DJ life that takes to him places like Germany, Switzerland, Amsterdam and Tokyo year round.

He wouldn’t be upset about not being able to shop in all the best record stores around the world.

And he wouldn’t shed a tear over losing his frequent flyer miles.

Because as much as he loves DJ’ing, he loves his creative freedom much more.

That’s why he doesn’t play records he doesn’t want to.

Skeme is only in this music shit as long as it’s on his own terms.

If you’ve ever been on hotpeasandbutta.com, you know how he does.

It’s a celebration of funk, old and new, from all over the world, with a healthy dose of cultural nostalgia, like the neighbourhood game that his site is named for.

We were thrilled to find out Skeme was a Cratery fan.

Because we also don’t give a shit what people think. We do this for us.

So it was logical that we connected to record an episode when he was in town (audio below).

I also had the chance to sit down and chop it up with Skeme about everything from Octopus breaks to the origin of the transformer scratch.

Hey Skeme, I got news for you. As long as you’re doing it, dj-ing will always be a real job.

On his beginnings as a DJ:

The first time I had actually seen two turntables and a mixer up close was in 1981 at the age of 11. I had just moved to the neighbourhood and I started hanging out with cats that I was going to school with who had older brothers with turntables. We would go to their house after school and I would watch them for a bit and then started trying it myself. This was in the early stages, it’s not like now where the turntable is more popular than a guitar. Although it was very slow and archaic, I thought they were fresh because they were mixing and rocking doubles of breaks. Christmas the following year came around and I got my first turntable and a mixer. I was already buying a few records at that time, stuff like Kool Kyle The Starchild, Treacherous 3 “Body Rock”, Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5 “Super Rappin No. 2” and other stuff. But the gold standard for me back then was OCTOPUS BREAKS. I started getting copies right around the ’82 mark and remember paying $2.99, which around that time was the standard price for a 12”. I would save my lunch money for a few weeks and then go out to buy records on Saturday afternoon from places like Gola Electronics, Funk-O-Mart and Sound of Market. Then I started buying the OG’s like Big Beat and Mardi Gras. I think the first real OG break I ever bought was Mardi Gras.

On Philly OG DJ Groove:

DJ Groove is my OG. He was like the Bambaataa of Philly. He was the dude I wanted to be like. Most people were rocking popular disco records that might have had a break in it, but he was rocking that other shit. He knew records like (Esther Williams’) Last Night changed it all and Jeanette ‘Lady’ Day (Come let me love you). For years, people used to refer to “Last night” (changed it all) as the “telephone break”, but DJ Groove, he had that shit, he knew what it was! That was instant respect. Groove was signed to Word Up records, which is owned by Dana Goodman (Brother to Lawrence Goodman of Pop-Art records fame). He was Will Smith’s second DJ. Him and Will had a group called the Hypnotic 3. Prince Will Rock was his name then, this pre-dates the happy go lucky comedy Fresh Prince era. DJ Groove actually had a lot to do with that first album but doesn’t get credited for it. And also did stuff for a few other people that he doesn’t get credit for either but we’ll save those stories for when we come to Canada and rock a party together. Aside from his DJ skills he was nasty with making beats. He had every drum machine when they were new and was one of the very first people in Philly to have the original Emu SP12 which he later gave to me in 1989.

On the real story of Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince:

This dude named Lorenzo Penn h