DJP on Winning Master of the Mix

Daniel James Phillips, aka DJP, is an award-winning DJ who grew up in Springfield and pioneered a style known as 'mashup' which takes two seemingly unrelated musical pieces and combines them into a creative synthesis of sound. I heard about DJP for years before I first met him for an interview into his sounds and style.

So, the last time that we spoke was in the Fall of 2011. When did the Master of the Mix come in?

Actually, I had a friend in Atlanta, Georgia call me and say ‘hey, my wife and I are watching this show. You should definitely be on this. I think you could win.' And he said it’s a reality show on DJing. And I was like ‘I’m not going on any reality show doing what I do. It’s just not gonna happen.’ And about 6 or 7 months later a friend in Portland, Oregon calls me and tells me the same thing.  “Hey you gotta check out this show. They’re having auditions for the second season of Master in the Mix. “And I kinda blew it off and forgot about my friend telling me about it six months prior.

When about was this?

Right at the beginning of 2011, somewhere in there. Before they were starting to shoot for the second season. And I said, “yeah I heard about it, and I’m not really interested in it.” And he said, “Kid Capri is the judge on there.” And I thought, “wait a minute.  Kid Capri’s a judge? If he’s a judge then it has to be somewhat legit.” Then I found out there were appearances by other people on the show like DJ Revolution was on the show. Then I got interested and flew out to Atlanta, Georgia for the auditions and the rest is history.

What was the audition process like?

A lot of long waiting. I know there were guys from like 8:30 or 9 in the morning til probably 5 in the evening to get an audition. Somehow, I was lucky. I showed up and I got in within an hour. They had two different rooms. Their first room, you had to go in and audition in the first room. And you had to be on a certain level to get to the second audition room, which is where Kid Capri, and guys like that were in there. I didn’t have to go to the first room. Apparently, someone knew who I was. I got recognized when I got out there. There were some other DJs who were like ‘whoa, that’s DJP.’ One guy came up to me and was like, ‘what are you doing here?’ I was like, ‘I’m here for the same reason that you’re here!’ So, I went right in front of Kid Capri. I guess the word was out, ‘hey this guy is here.’

You were pre-auditioned!

Yeah. Rock Steady Crew….Rich Medina happened to be in there that day, and he’s in Rock Steady. I never met Rich Medina-not like to make it sound like I had any favors cause it wasn’t like that at all. I only met Kid Capri once, and that had been years before. I don’t think that he even remembered me. It was just showing up there an getting to go in front of the judges and doing my two-minute set best I could. And it paid off.

And you got chosen for the show?

Yeah, they called about 2 months later and were like, ‘congratulations, you made the show.’ And I was like ‘awesome.’

How long was the show? Taping and stuff like that?

           

The show was, for me, on and off close to two months. It was a month and a week solid that we were on the road filming, and then I came back for a couple of more shoots after that. We were on a bus; we started in LA.. They split us into teams. The first challenge in Vegas. My team won, so we got to fly to Charlotte, North Carolina while the other team had to drive on a tour bus from LA to Charlotte, which is quite a haul! It started there in LA to Charlotte. From Charlotte to Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. to Chicago. Chicago to New York. New York to LA again.

Wow.

Yeah. When we all got to Charlotte, it was all bus from there.

I caught a few of the episodes. To someone not familiar with it at all, this was a reality competition to find the best DJ, right?

Exactly. It was putting DJs in an uncomfortable situation by taking them out of their own element to see if they could pull of these different challenges. And the weakest link would go home. Sometimes they would even send two people home. I know they did that on the second challenge. That’s basically what it was: if you were the weakest and you didn’t meet the challenge, you went bye-bye.

So, it had to be stressful!

Oh yeah, man. The most stressful thing that I ever did in my DJ career was that tv show. Cause you gotta remember that you’re on camera for a national tv show. You don’t know what they’re gonna make you look like. You don’t know what they’re gonna make you say. Not that they’re gonna make you say anything. But, it’s really easy to edit something. Just like this interview. You could make me answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to something that’s completely different…..than the actual moment that they were taping. But luckily things worked out for me. The only people that really looked like clowns were the people who were clowns.

And you had an advantage, from what I gathered, in that you had the true DJ artform down. You didn’t rely on electronic DJing.

The part that you have to remember is that, at a point, I had to use digital. They came to us and said, ‘hey, here’s a new list of longs we just approved. And these songs have to be the songs you use. ‘ Well, me and DJ Wicked who brought records were like, whoa. We’re in Charlotte, North Carolina going, ‘we don’t have this on vinyl.’ Coal-miner’s Daughter and Love you Down. So, we had to find these records. I thought, ‘there’s a reason why I brought my computer. ‘ I brought Serrato cause I knew it could go down. Wicked had brought his, too. So, it just ended up being one of those challenges where I had to use the computer. I got through it, you know. I got through it. Then, in Chicago, Illinois I had to use it again. And I didn’t like it. It’s just not the same. There’s a lag time in Serrato if you’re not careful. Like when I played in Chicago, for some reason when I was moving my pitches for the records to catch up, it wasn’t reading it quick enough. That was very irritating. I had a pretty rough set in Chicago. Everyone pretty much got booed in Chicago. But you know, they threw a song list at us 30 minutes before we went on. And it was like wow, man!

So when you played these competitions, you had somewhat of an audience? Or was it just the judges?

Oh no. We had a full-on audience. They had people there. Packed clubs.

Were these extras or do you think they were just people off the street? 

          

It was people off the street. It was real. And these people were there to dance and  hear us and boo us and cheer us. It was stressful, man. It was.

And you won that [Master of the Mix]. You won it! I saw the interview where they talked to your folks and your dad was like - it seemed like the very parental thing to say to prepare the son for a rejection or whatever. And they went back to you, and you were like ‘well, I think I got a pretty good chance of winning this.’ Were you confident at the point?

Well, my whole attitude towards the thing was I didn’t go on the show to win a quarter of a million dollars. I mean, yeah, the money’s nice. But I just wanted to get on national TV and get the publicity of what I do. Because there’s very, very, very few DJs who ever really did what I do: the live mixing with vinyl, before Serrato, before all the digital technology. We had to dig deep for all the accapellas and instrumentals. And for me to go on national tv and say ‘hey everybody, watch this. I’m not even gonna use a computer. I’m gonna use real records.’ Because everybody’s pretty much sold out to the digital world. That was what I much wanted to do. I wanted to say, ‘hey, this is it.’ I’m known for taking a style of mixing that’s now worldwide known as ‘mashups.’ That’s what I wanted. In my mind in my heart, I was like, ‘if it’s meant for me to win then I’ll win. ‘ And it paid off.

Cool! And the money, it was a contract more-or-less? You had to do performances for who?

Smirnoff. There the ones who sponsored the whole tv show. And I did very few things for them actually. They didn’t make me do much.

So it was pretty much one lump sum then?

Yeah, they just paid me that. Most of the stuff I did was appearances at Sam’s Club, just signing bottles. It was kinda odd. I didn’t do any major clubs or any stuff like that. It didn’t really bother me cause those gigs didn’t pay anyway. It didn’t really bother me cause you got the money, then you did whatever appearances that wanted you to do. So, the only thing that would have benefited me was more publicity through appearances. But, what’s that when you’re sitting at Sam’s Club and half the people who walk in there see the display don’t even know what it was?

I remember that a couple of the guys [contestants], you just gave them some money. Why was that important to you? You think those guys had the art….had the right attitude?

Yeah, they’re younger guys, coming up. And they’re good. I’m not trying to sound like I’m better. There’s things they can do that I can’t do. And there’s thing I can do that they can’t do. But they’re both good DJs[…] it was the fact that they were just real dudes. They were cool, pretty humble through most of it. Them being younger than me, I had already pretty much been there and done that. Going to Vegas then touring with MTV. I knew what it was to make a lot of money, and I knew what it was to spend a lot of money. Basically, I was just telling them, ‘if you win this, be careful cause it can go real fast.’ At the end of the day, money’s not everything. I didn’t get into this culture for money. That’s one of the things that I wanted to put out there, that this culture was never based on how much money you had. It came from the struggle. And so many people are just talking about how much money they make doing it now, you know, and it’s all about money. And those are the people who are just clowns in my book. Money’s great and all, but at the end of the day, where’s your heart at, man? Do you really love what you do or are you just doing it for the money? There’s a prime example, the people who are just doing it for the money. Go listen to them: they suck. They’re horrible DJs making big money. And that’s the thing we’ve come to. We’ve got Pauly D from Jersey Shore. You got Paris Hilton DJing. You got all these people on these reality shows, and they were already rich kids, and they were able to make themselves even more rich just from being rich, using our culture to spin music. Whether they’re using vinyl or CDs or Serrato, they’re getting what they don’t deserve. That’s not my opinion. That’s just the reality of it.

So, they’ve already filmed the third season? [Master of the Mix]. Did you make any guest appearances?

A lot of people thought I was gonna be on the third season. I thought I was, too. See, VH1 took it over from BET. And they just did it totally different. It was way more corporate this time. They filmed it all in one room. They filmed it in two weeks from what I was told.[…]As far as being on the actual show, I never got a call.

So, you weren’t a judge or anything like that?

No. I was not a judge or anything. It got totally […] more corporate.

Do you feel like the publicity did pay off in terms of the show?

Oh yeah. I mean […] I was already working a lot. I was already pretty well-known and established as a DJ. But, yeah definitely there were more things on my plate after the show.  And even now.

So, what’s next? You’re still doing quite a bit of touring. You’re still making quite a few appearances. I know that you’re traveling out to Portland via Seattle this week. Why don’t you talk about that a little bit just to get it on the record.

Right, my next gig is the day after tomorrow, up in Seattle, Washington-Tacoma area. We’ll play up there on Friday. Then I’m gonna play in Bend, Oregon on Saturday. Then on Sunday I’ll be in Portland, Oregon, which is my favorite city. I love it, the music culture; it’s just really awesome up there.  And just laid-back, great people.  I lived up there for two years.  So, I’m doing that then I’m just taking bookings here and there. I’ve got a thing coming up soon[…] it’s a kid’s show in the working. Then, really just producing. Making my own stuff and chopping up beats. The DJ thing has been cool, but I’m trying to take a different angle on it. Because it’s just becoming a joke. There’s too many quote-unquote DJs out there with their computers doing this for 50 bucks a night or cheaper. And I just think a lot of the newer music sucks anyway. Call me old. Call me whatever. I think it’s really time to focus on production and producing.

Do you have anyone that you work with, or are you talking about producing your own music?

Yeah. Producing my own. But also working with other guys making beats. I’ve got some friends here, local, that are doing pretty good, making stuff. So, it’s just a matter of getting it out there.  And that’s where I come in. I’ve got a lot of connections. If I’ve got a song that I feel like is something, I’ll call up the right people to get this marketed. I’ve got those connections. Knowing music and having the ear for it, I’m not just gonna make music and throw it out there. Cause that’s what a lot of people are doing. You’ve got to know that you’ve got something.