West Coast Instrumental

East Coast turntabalist crews are perhaps more influential, and the international pool of DJs and instrumental producers may be thicker, but West Coast DJ culture has been deeply engrained into that region’s hip-hop culture since the beginning. Electro funk of acts such as The LA Dream Team, The Egyptian Lovers and The World Class Wrecking Cru played a pivotal role in the development of West Coast hip-hop and were largely instrumental. While craze died out when the G-Funk of Dr. Dre became increasingly popular in the early to mid-'90s – ringing in an era dominated by Death Row and their G-Funk brethren -- Mobile DJs from out-of-the-way places such as Daily City continued to churn out party rocking sets. One of these DJs was the now-legendary Q-Bert. A young Philippine, in 1991 Qbert became the West Coast and U.S. champion of the Disco Music Conference (aka the DMC), the highest honor afforded a DJ. During the early '90s, the Daily City native continued to dominate the competition, sharing the world title with fellow Bay Area DJs Mixmaster Mike and Apollo from 1991 to 1994. By 1995, the DMC officials sought to give the rest of the world's DJs a fighting chance, and declared the Bay Area DJs ineligible. Inspired by their unprecedented success, Qbert, Mixmaster Mike, Shortkut, D-styles, Disk, and Yogafrog formed Invisible Scratch Piclaz in 1996. Under that banner, the crew helped transform turntablism into a subgenre by performing as a fully integrated band, with one member laying down the rhythm section as the others took turns soloing. It was a frantic, jagged sound in which rhythms were stripped, flipped, and slipped beneath a steady procession of scratches. This is the truest form of turntabalism, and in the group’s wake, an entire generation of turntabalist emerged. During this time, another DJ from the Bay Area would make a tremendous international splash. With his 1996 debut, Entroducing , DJ Shadow culled fragments of jazz, hip hop, '60s psych, pop, rock, and everything in between to create a series of desolate musical narratives that were as haunting as they were thrilling. Shadow's sound was simply revolutionary, and inspired various sub genres that still dominate the medium to this day.