Friday, April 21

Beta Lounge, April 20

"DJ Design Raises Two Million US$ for Kosovo Relief Fund (and Bill Gates foots half the bill)".

No kidding: a certain MP3 portal donated a buck for every download on a Design track, and the world's richest man chipped in. This experiment in global wealth re-distribution didn't make headlines, but tonight at the Beta Lounge, DJ Design mixed underground bay area hip-hop with classic grooves, to remind the world why hip-hop still matters in the Y2K.

DJ Design has been rocking two turntables, a sampler and sequencer for over ten years, representing the other side of the Bay Area Hip Hop community. Preferring to sample 60s soul rather than creating the instrumental funk of his gangsta peers, Design builds tracks from the bits and pieces of a record collection inherited from his father who spun records during the Vietnam War.

During his Beta Lounge set DJ Design focused on the work of a few key producers such as Pete Rock, A Tribe Called Quest and Jay Dee, knitting the classic early nineties sound together in a skilled execution of the low end theory seasoned with the complexity of Bay Area scratch styles. Look for his solo album, Gather 'Round, on Stone's Throw Records as well as his group Foreign Legion ("Full Time B-Boy") on Grand Royal, Insiduous Records, and ABB.

Check the Beta Lounge for a live mix of tracks that'll jar your memory and make you bounce http://www.betalounge.com/stuff/lounge4-20-00.ram

Click here to listen to one of DJ Designs past sets http://www.betalounge.com/stuff/lounge11-5-98.ram