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Origin: Atlanta, GA (Decatur)

Top Playlist:

1. Big Bank Black – “Try It Out”

2. Waka Flocka – “Let’s Do It”

3. Plies – “Becky”

4. Nu Boyz – “Ur A Jerk”

5. Dorrough – “Ice Cream Paint Job”

HipHopWired: How’d you go from being an engineering major at Tuskegee to where you are now?

DJ Scream: It’s about doing what you love, not what you like to do. I like math and engineering and I like the idea of making a lot of money doing it, but I didn’t love it. My theory is if you wake up in the morning and you’re not enthused by what you have to do then you’re not doing the right thing.

HipHopWired: When you were with the Hitmen DJs did you feel pressure to compete with other DJ teams?

DJ Scream: For me, I don‘t compete with anyone. I wake up everyday, I pray and I’m blessed to be in my situation. It’s not so much competing for me, it’s just doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t worry too much about the next person, I mean obviously I might see somebody doing something and I might say oh this person’s doing their thing, I need to turn up the juice but I’m not with all that competing. As long as nobody’s trying to jump in my lane, which has happened before, I had some problems with some of DJs…

HipHopWired: You had problem with Smallz (DJ Smallz) before, right?

DJ Scream: Yeah, we’re cool now. We’re cool, we talk all the time, that’s my dog.

HipHopWired: Speaking of squashing beef, what do you think about Drama and Jeezy and what’s going on with them right now?

DJ Scream: I really don’t have no place to comment on that. I wish they would get it together man. I’m for my city…Atlanta. They did some spectacular things together that opened up doors for me on the mixtape circuit.

HipHopWired: So what do you think about people that call DJs irrelevant because they aren’t really breaking records anymore?

DJ Scream: We’re still breaking records. Over here at Hood Rich we’ve been breaking everything that comes out the city. “Swag Surfin” came through this camp, Big Bank Black’s “Try It Out” came through this camp, the list goes on man. The DJ is not irrelevant. The one thing the DJ has to have is music, so the artist have to do their part and make good music so we can do our thing. I’m not a rapper, I have no desire to, ya feel me? You have to have music. Right now music is at an interesting place, album sales are down, it’s not how it used to be a few years ago. Everyone is just trying to put negative thoughts in the atmosphere.

HipHopWired: So you do break a lot of these artists out here like F.L.Y., do you feel like you get the recognition you deserve?

DJ Scream: I can’t even take the credit no more, when I was younger I was everywhere, I felt like I could do everything and I was there. Crime Mob’s “Knuck If You Buck,” Trillville’s “Neva Eva,” the “Laffy Taffy”…That kind of started out of my hands, but now I got a team. That “Swag Surfin”… F.L.Y. I’ll be honest, they brought that through my young DJs, Pretty Boy Tank and Spinz. I thought it was a very interesting record but they told me, I’m telling you this is the one. Next day you know, boom. I have to give them credit for that. Now at Hood Rich we take credit and I jumped on to help them take the record to another level.

HipHopWired: Right, so what do you think about people that are saying southern rap is killing Hip-Hop? They’re saying that it’s not real Hip-Hop, it’s all “bubblegum,” it’s all just dance records…

DJ Scream: It’s the first thing I always say man, Hip-Hop is fun. Hip-hop started with the Hip-Hop, hippity it to the hop, rapper’s Delight…It was fun! It was also conscious, but understand where Hip-Hop is now. I’m from Atlanta, I represent the south. I came up on UGK, Outkast, Eightball & MJG, all the above but I knew at some point even as a youth, if I’m going to be a part of this then for me to hold a conversation with certain people, to respect me then I’m going to need to know Hip-Hop. So me personally I went back. I can tell you about DJing, the essence of it, I can tell you about the essence of MCing. That’s just something I took upon myself, I wish that more artists in the south would do that. KRS-One brought Soulja Boy on TV and said, “This is Hip-Hop. We got a lot of sour people out there. Don’t be sour, work harder. Now when we get a dance record, “Crank That Soulja Boy,” “Swag Surf,” “Stanky Leg” and all that bullShyte, it’s still Hip-Hop, and no disrespect to nobody.

I Fawk wit these records but when Ron Brownz turns on the auto-tune and “aaaah champagne” and all this Shyte, then it’s cool. Same thing, it’s fun music. It started being fun and in Hip-Hop we had this time where we came through this Reagan era, where everything was just fu*ked up and the streets were crazy and I give credit to Kool G Rap. Kool G Rap said I’m not rapping about this happy Shyte. There’s some real Shyte going on in my hood I need to rap about. So he started rapping about some serious street Shyte and I’m not saying there wasn’t anyone before him but I credit him for opening up doors to another side of Hip-Hop. So at the end of the day, this is our biggest source of communication as an urban community. It’s just how we express ourselves. Whether we’re happy, whether we’re distressed, whether we want to put across a positive message, whether we want to put across a freaky message like Uncle Luke. Whatever the case is; it just is what it is.

HipHopWired: It’s a form of expression.

DJ Scream: And everyone’s going to use it in a different manner. The West Coast got tore down the same way. Oh the West Coast, that Shyte ain’t real. Hip-hop, I don’t even think it’s a sound. It’s a feeling. I wish that we could just all get it together and a lot of that comes from bloggers too and this, that and the third. In New York City last year I was in the club and I was just chilling. I promise you a Soulja Boy record came on and this is the same city that was trashing Soulja Boy, they went fu**ing crazy! It was Soulja Boy, they were “Yooing,” and I said hold up…ain’t this the same city that was just trashing this dude?! End of the day man, you in the club and the hit come on… Are you gonna walk around and tell everybody, hey don’t dance to that…it’s not real Hip-Hop? That’s corny.

HipHopWired: Okay, so let’s switch gears here. Let’s talk a little bit about your mixtapes…

DJ Scream: Mixtapes, that’s my addiction. It’s a gift and a curse. A lot of people thought that since I always do mixtapes, I couldn’t do parties and radio but that’s cool. I’ve grown a lot in the past couple of years. I really started letting people know hey, I started out doing parties. I’m a DJ for real, not just some mixtape DJ.

HipHopWired: You recently put out the Hitlist Vol.4 with Shaq and Whoo Kid. Tell me how y’all linked up for that one.

DJ Scream: Whoo Kid’s my big bruh man, I’ll be honest with you. I came up listening to a lot of DJs and there was a point when Whoo Kid was popping when he first came out, I was blown away. He didn’t have the same formula as other DJs but he really made some crazy Shyte. I used to run Whoo Kid mixtapes into the ground. I thought it was so clever because he was so innovative. He would have a Hollywood superstar hosting his mixtape, way outta element. Then he got his satellite show and his satellite show is from 10 to 6 and you’ll be cracking up the whole time. It’s fun man, I look up to him because he’s doing what he has to do and has fun with it. So when he reached out, it was really an honor for real. You don’t even have to explain to me what you want me to do, let’s just do it. Then we got the Shaq situation involved and we put that out so hopefully we’ll be doing more. That’s pretty much it man, that whole project took like 24 to 72 hours. For music for me, when comes to doing stuff and two people wanna do it, let’s just do it.

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