So, some of you might have caught him while he was in town yesterday, working his skills on the decks and watching partygoers tear up the dance floor to his sick, freshly baked beats. We hear it was a mad NSFW Special party up at Vertigo Club.
But way before anyone hit the club, and right before he rushed off to get his soundcheck done, we whisked him away to a cozy little cafe for a soundcheck of another kind – with us, of course.
When DJ Craze first walked in, he seemed like any other average person. Dressed in a simple blue button down collared shirt and a black cap, he looked..well, neither “gangsta” nor hip hop. Ah, the moment he speaks, however, all good vibes and energy flooded the space that we were in. He’s one chatty dude, that’s fo sho!
Hello! How is being world champion DJ treating you so far?
“It’s been pretty good! It’s great. Because of the DMCs I’ve been able to travel the world consistently since 1998. So, I’ve made a career out of it just because I won the DMCs. It’s pretty cool.”
You’ve won the DMCs five times now. Have they banned you from entering? Well, because you keep winning!
“I won the DMCs three times on my own and two times as a team. There was a rumour about me and this guy named DJ Cubert..that we’ve won so much that they kicked us out. But it’s not true. I could enter any time but I’ve decided to stop battling after I’ve won it three times. Quit while you’re ahead!”
So you worked with Kanye West previously on his 2008 tour. Is there anyone in the whole wide world that you’d like to work with, or share the stage with someday?
“I would love to share the stage with Eminem. With Kanye I was more like part of the band. Unlike A-Trak who was literally with him on stage. So yes, I would love to share the stage with Eminem for sure.”
After winning so many titles (& congratulations btw), what’s the next big thing that you are going to try to “command & conquer”?
“Producing. Because that’s the natural progression with being a DJ. Like, once you’ve done everything with DJing, you have to get into music, gotta get into producing. That’s where my love is at. I really love being in the studio and creating music, and I really like that feeling when you play a song that you made and people go ‘Wow! What is this!’ and the kids go crazy, you know?”
Be completely shameless and honest, and tell us what your biggest music guilty pleasure is.
“My guilty pleasure uh, I used to really like that Afrojack song (starts singing “I want you to take over control”). I really did! When it came out I was like, wow this ain’t bad. Because I saw the reaction in a club once when a DJ played it and I was a little tipsy and, it ain’t bad. The people were going crazy! Right now my guilty pleasure is that Justin Bieber song. Boyfriend.”
Any weird or crazy fan moments?
“There was this one time, I think was like right after I won the second DMCs..I went to Japan to judge one of the DMCs and it was in Tokyo. Kids surrounded me! They were just touching me and I didn’t understand what they were saying but they were just freaking out. That was my first time getting that reaction from people and my manager had to get me outta there because people were grabbing my clothes and one guy was grabbing my hat..yeah. But it was cool haha!”
Ahem, well, we hope nobody grabbed at you last night, DJ Craze! Special thanks to our friends at Livescape Asia for organizing the exclusive interview.
Oh, and don’t forget to hit up DJ Craze’s Facebook page!
