INTERVIEW: What Is A Looper? Turntablist Doc Jeezy Clears Things Up
Now loopers have been around since ohhhh 2003 or so, well that is what my good friend Doc Jeezy has told me anyway. I personally have been using Loopers for about 4-5 years now and even have a couple that were specially designed for my crew The Sleeprockers and I. Most Recently it has come to my attention that although Loopers have been around for almost a decade, there are still a lot of DJ’s and Turntablist out there that are not familiar with them and in fact some folks don’t even know what Loopers are.
With that said, I decided to hit up my long time friend, The looper guru himself, Doc Jeezy for a quick history lesson and break down on Loopers. Now pay attention kids, because class is in session.
(The above sound bite and the rest that follow are loops, NOT loopers, for the definition of a Looper, keep reading.)
So what exactly is a looper? According to the good Doctor Loopers are “A flash based program that allows you to play loops or sounds infinitely until it’s turned off.” That’s how it was explained to Jeezy when he was first introduced to them.
Now when I was first introduced to loopers a few years back they were described to me as digital skratch breaks or beats that Dj’s use for Skratch practice or long session with fellow shred headz.
Now that we have a better idea of what a looper is let’s take a closer look at one of the most well know producers behind these flash based programs and pick the brain of Doc Jeezy.
Doc Jeezy has been cutting up since 1999, making beats since 2001. On the producers side, he has produced for indie groups with releases on root70 lounge a japanese label and Bomb Hip hop. Jeezy was also featured on the last return of the dj vol VI from bomb hip hop. On the dj side, Doc has done the party rock thing for a while, but recently he’s been more into abstract sample heavy sets or spinning rare groove 45′s.
When it comes to Loopers Jeezy has about 38 under his belt, you may recognize some of his handy work on the Escape from new york looper, Cobra Kai looper, Sleeprockers looper Vol 1 & 2 or maybe you recall his first looper titled Brisco County Jr. There is no stopping the Doctor as he plans on creating many more as long as there’s kids out there cutting it up fresh; making loopers is something that he say’s he will always do.
So, what drives someone to dedicate so much time into creating Loopers, I mean after producing the beats you gotta create the art and then lace the coding and then upload your final creation to a willing website. Man, that sounds like a ton of work for something that is downloaded for free. Well, Jeezy put it like this. “I just wanted to add to the scratch scene, and at the time I was making a ton of loops and the homie hooked me up with swishmax and the rest is history. I never really expected to get anything out of it other than people scratching over my loops and getting fresh. That to me was worth more than any monetary amount you could receive.” I guess you could say that Doc Jeezy simply does it for the love of skratching and skratch culture.
With all this Looper talk, the question comes up what the heck is wrong with Wax, are heads too cool to skratch to beats laced on vinyl anymore?!? Jeezy says “I guess it all depends on the situation. I’d say I usually rock a 50/50 split, sometimes it’s loopers sometimes it’s wax/serato. There’s some beats that I wanna cut to that just aren’t on wax and vice versa.
Now if you ask me, when it comes to practicing my skratches or brushing up on my cuts I tend to use records, but when I host skratch sessions with the crew I’m prone to putting on one of my favorite loopers, but at some point in the session we always go back to wax. I mean it’s not like you can practice drumming or turntable band techniques with a Looper or can you!?!
If you are just now discovering Loopers or maybe you have already experienced these handy programs, then I suggest you hit up www.Yourlooper.com & www.Tablist.net where you can download as many Loopers as your HD can handle. For more info on Doc Jeezy head on over and check him out at www.Soundcloud.com/Docjeezy
Happy Skratching!!
Originally written by DJ Nocturnal and published on www.thudrumble.com, founded by DJ Q-Bert.
DJ Nocturnal is a turntablist based in Scramento, California. He is the Co-Founder of Sleeprockers, DJ for ARG (Another Rap Group) and has traveled the country, competing, touring, and more.
In other words, DJ Nocturnal is a chief party rocker.
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