Photo by: Joe Dantone

Interview by: Justin Rossi

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What is DJ Nappy up to these days? Coming back hard I assume.

I’m just catching up with what’s been brewing during the past 3+ years in dubstep and sorting out which tracks I’m going to refix. Working some rough mixes and seeing what sounds appealing. Also linking with producers, emcees, singers, and dj’s for collaborations. I need others to properly operate, and the input is way more important than the output. Movement is slow but precise. Been watching old episodes of ‘The Wire’ and Jersey Shore. That Snooki…. she’s so crazy!

Haha the Wire is pretty dope. I actually just started watching it a couple of weeks back. I still have a bunch of seasons to view. I could see you kicking it with snooki… that would be a hilarious tv show! Speaking of jersey, where did you grow up?

A little town called West Windsor, but I spent most of my time in Princeton as a teenager and young adult. It’s the next town over and there was a lot more trouble to get into in Princeton.

” Thugstep works best in clubs in my opinion. I have some r&b and underground hiphop cats on Dubstep beats, and it doesn’t feel right to me. I’d prefer to hear Snoop than Murs with this type of production. The ignorant rap over complex bass and drums and synths seems like the perfect blend, and you can take a shitty Soulja Boy song and make it fun with a dubstep track behind it.”

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

So where in Jersey did you grow up?
Monmouth County, Eatontown.

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How did you get involved in the hardcore scene?
Like a lot of kids who get into hardcore, especially kids from down the Jersey Shore at that time, I found music through skating. Prior to high school, I mainly learned about hardcore from skate magazines. I’d read the “Notes” section of Thrasher, which gave the run down on bands. I hung out with this kid George and he’d give me his old Thrashers. I bought or copied tapes when I could. Some years later I got into high school and some of the kids from the adjacent towns were part of the school. That’s where I met Josh Grabelle who later started Trustkill Records. Josh was the one who knew everyone in the area. Through him I met a lot of people who were into hardcore and about upcoming shows. I also met a fellow named Rich Flanagan, who I went to my first show with freshman year. A year later I met Carl Severson who later started Ferret Records. Carl was basically an Army kid from Fort Monmouth and I met him the first day of sophomore year of high school. I was wearing a Gorilla Biscuits shirt and he leaned over and was like ”DUDE! The Gorilla Biscuits.” And that was how it all started.

“Back then I just wanted to absorb everything skateboarding related. In that Dogtown documentary, Henry Rollins explained how he did the same thing. He waited for Skateboarder Magazine every month. You would get to see those pictures and you got snapshots of what was going on.”

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THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE ART OF STORYTELLING MAGAZINE ISSUE #1.

I found a video of you doing a live set with Morcheeba from England. That bugged me out. It got me so amped up because I would never have expected seeing that combo. A lot of times artists stick to what they know and are too scared to do collaborations with artists outside their genre. To see a rapper from Newark, NJ doing a collaboration with a lounge band from England was refreshing to see. You seem to link up with a lot of unexpected people.

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You know what I’m into Big Joe? I’m pursuing entertainment. PERIOD. So any big entertainment figure I see, I introduce myself, I introduce Green and from that comes a lot of, “What you doin? Why don’t you rap on something?” In the case of Morcheeba, they actually sought me out because of the Fugees album. They said they liked the Fugees album and they are kind of like the Fugees over there. So they contacted my manager in England and we did it. I did a whole UK tour with them. We did Italy, Portugal, the whole thing.

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If I could go back in time I would try not to have met Eminem. I wouldn’t have met him and been his friend……Not this time, just straight business.

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You, Animal BMX, and Skavanger BMX also seem to have some strong ties. You rock their gear in your videos and they use a lot of your tracks and Mr. Green’s tracks in their videos. How did that come about?

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