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Posted by Dave
Rap News Network
11/14/2005 4:42:03 PM
Tags and topics realted to this article include Cypress Hill.
DJ Muggs is a hip-hop icon.
He has touched dance floors all over the world. He produced House of Pain's hit ``Jump Around.'' And he was the DJ for the first big Latino hip-hop group, Cypress Hill.
Now he has gone independent, teaming with Los Angeles underground rap stars Self Scientific on a joint venture, Angeles Records. It's a part of Fontana Distribution, an independent music division of Universal Music Group.
His first releases on the new label are ``Change'' from Self Scientific and ``Grandmasters'' with GZA/Genius of the Wu-Tang Clan. Muggs and GZA will be performing at Slim's in San Francisco on Saturday night.
``I just feel like making records I feel like making, and giving to my fans,'' he says. ``I know I could be ultra-successful on an independent label, selling 100,000 on an independent versus on a mainstream label where they spend so much money and be so abusive.'' A major label would look at such sales as a failure, he says.
Muggs describes his work as ``a nice boutique, a great restaurant that's in the corner of town, where there's only like five seats there. You know the food is great every time, as opposed to these pop groups who are like McDonald's. There may be more of them, but the food isn't as good.''
He calls himself ``an artist's artist,'' someone who makes ``unadulterated, raw hip-hop music.'' But his tastes run to the eclectic, including such groups as Led Zeppelin and the Beatles.
But a rap album about chess? That's the subject of his new collaboration with GZA.
``When I work with an album with an artist, I try to tap into their personality and what they're about, and he's an avid chess player,'' says Muggs, who has worked on four projects with GZA. ``I play moderately but he plays a lot, so I thought it would be a good idea to make this record a chess theme. . . . Our vibes are good. We're fans of each other. Our stuff is almost tailor-made for each other.''
Besides GZA, Muggs has worked with such hip-hop notables as Ice Cube, Goodie Mob, KRS-One, Mobb Deep and RZA, another Wu-Tang Clan member. Fans can also hear Muggs on Sirius satellite radio, on Eminem's uncensored hip-hop channel, Shade 45, on Mondays from 10 p.m. to midnight.
It's a ``rock/hip-hop hybrid show with original bootlegs and remixes,'' he says.
Born Lawrence Muggerud, he first got into hip-hop because he liked the lifestyle.
``I was into sports and stuff, and I never really related to rock because all those kids had long hair and the style, it's more the lifestyle that lures you,'' says Muggs. ``And hip-hop was something where I came from, something brand-new.
``It was like our culture and our lifestyle and our thing, and turntables . . . the way we turned, we were into tricks and turntablism. It was more like a sport to me -- deejaying -- being able to be acrobatic with the turntables.''
Since his success with House of Pain, Muggs, now 35, has seen the genre explode.
``When I got into the game, it was a subculture, only a few people were in it. Now it's become the ultimate form of pop music internationally,'' Muggs says. ``It's taken over the world, everything, from being this little thing in the corner, where nobody really did it, from being in the club where nobody is a rapper. When I go out now, everybody's in the business. There's hardly no fans anymore; everybody's in the business.''
GZA/Genius and DJ Muggs, Swollen Members, I Self Divine, M EightyWhere: Slim's, 33 11th St.,
San Francisco, (415) 522-0333
When: 9 p.m. Saturday
Tickets: all ages, $23; tickets.com
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