DJ Sol Rising, the winner of last month's
Bay Area Regional DMC DJ Battle - the first Bay Area DMC battle to be held locally in six years, may have thought his battling days were long over: his last battle been eight long years ago. Back in both 2003 and 2004 the DJ, formerly known as
Skwint, made it as far as the
DMC US Finals, placing 2nd in the US Supremacy in 2003,
Vinyl Kombat US Finals in 2004, and winning
Scribble Jam in 2002. In fact the DJ had absolutely no desire nor any intention of ever returning to the DJ battlefield; at least was not until fellow Bay Area turntablist.
Snayk Eyez invited him, in March of this year just a few weeks before the April 7th DMC Bay Area Regional battle, to showcase at
Skratchpad - the monthly scratch party that Snayk Eyez is a part of along with founders
Deeandroid and
Celskiiii and others.
"I was really hesitant as I hadn’t practiced routines in years. But I guess it planted the seed," he said of DJ set he did at Skratchpad just weeks before the DJ battle that most entrants practice for all year long beforehand just to enter and do their short well-studied routines.
But still the Oakland based Sol Rising, who was born in Canada and grew up in the MidWest before relocating to the Bay some years ago, said he had absolutely no intention of entering the DMC battle this year. But then he changed his mind because of a dream - literally. "A week before the battle I had this crazy vivid dream about battling at the Bay Area regional. The next morning I woke up earlier than usual and just started messing around on the turntables before work. The whole day at work I couldn’t wait to get home and practice. In the evening I created two scratch routines and then came up with a beat juggle a few days later. So I came up with three usable routines in less than a week which would have taken me several months if not a whole year in the past," he said of the winning routines that qualified him to travel to the DMC US Finals in New York in August to represent the Bay Area. "Everything was super accelerated. I honestly can’t say that competition
is the path I’m on but I feel the universe guided me to compete for a reason that has yet to be revealed." After this intriguing sharing I felt compelled to follow up and interview Sol Rising further for the Amoeblog on his career as DJ and his take on the Bay Area DMC battle that he won (second place was
DJ Cocheze from SF and third was
Primo from Santa Rosa) in which in the first round he did a two-minute routine and, in the final round, he did a six minute routine.
Usually DJ Quest goes to Amoeba but last week it was the other way around when the Amoeblog visited the Mission District home studios of the legendary San Francisco turntablist (video below) who has done several performances at Amoeba Music over the years including a record release set for his 2008 album Questulous and another with the DJ youth group the The DJ Project, that featured youth DJs from Horizons Unlimited and the Quest School of DJ Arts, where he mentors at-risk youth to gain arts education as well as the employment and entrepreneurial skills to help get them music-related careers. Throughout his two-decade plus career DJ Quest has always been as much of an inspiration and educator to aspiring DJs as he has been an artist/performer - using the turntable as a tool and sort of text book to educate and inspire. Last summer accompanied by talented young DJs he went down to Monterey County, CA where, as part of the Monterey County Free Libraries' (MCFL) Summer Reading 2012 program at several branches across the county he hosted several well-received 
scratch/hip-hop DJ turntable performances and Q+A seminars. 
he had just done his stunning six minute winning routine of the heated, high caliber DJ battle.
ious Five featuring Melle Mel
The renaissance in the turntable arts and all it entails, including skratch music and hip-hop DJ battles, that began in the past couple of years - following a bit of a lull for close to a decade - continues its resurgence in San Francisco this weekend when, for the second year in a row after a noticeable six year absence, the prestigious DMC (now celebrating 30 years) DJ battle returns for a Bay Area regional battle. And considering that the Bay Area has long been viewed as one of the main epicenters of turntable culture and battle-DJing this is a most welcome return. 
rs (BPSH). At that time the BPSH crew made history by releasing the first DJ battle record, Hamster Breaks, something no doubt that will be on DJ Cue's mind on Sunday.
place at Le Poisson Rouge in the Village. The winner of this anticipated DJ battle will go onto London, England next month to represent the US in the 
X-ecutioners. Meanwhile DJ Spictakular of the legendary Allies DJ crew will be doing a long partyrocking series of sets throughout the day long event that begins at 2pm and ends by 930pm tomorrow. 
