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In the next of our “Smirnoff Inspire” DJ Q&As  DJ Green Lantern (Aka “The Evil Genius”) addresses the phenomenon of microwave DJs. The world-reknowned DJ and producer has made hits for Busta Rhymes and Ludacris as well as toured with Nas and Jay-Z as their personal spin doctors.

Urban Daily: Who inspired you to want to DJ, and why?

DJ Green Lantern: I would probably have to say a few different people. Like Kid Capri and Craig G. Just seeing the excitement that they was bringing at parties, and the reaction when people would hear them DJ live… Also, like Ron G on the mixtape side of things. Ron G was taking accapellas, flipping beats underneath it, doing different things, as opposed to just having the song play—which was good. That was one level. Me personally, it’s like if I can take something and make something different out of it I’m always probably going to lean more towards  that than just playing a song. That was an influence. The whole school of early guys like that, like the TDK’s, The G-Bo the Pros, Double R, Juice, those [guys] the early pioneers of the creative lane in the mixtapes.

…”95 Live” from Doo Wop, after that Tony Touch “50 MCs”, all those things made a lot of noise in the sense of it got people really excited. That was a whole ‘nother chapter, of the live freestyles from artists that was popping “performing” on your tape, but all of those tapes even like S&S “Get Your Swerve On” ’95 and Clue’s going to always have a place obviously as the king of the exclusives. He flipped the game on its head with the “Holiday Holdups,” and “Springtime Shootouts,” like those were the days man! Then it transitioned to freestyling on the radio. Stretch and Bob. Then Flex, getting people to go in. Man all of that inspires. Everybody influences everybody. I definitely wanted those moments. Just as far as like being able to touch the masses, really being creative. I was already producing. That’s what I was doing first. I was making beats already for at least three years and I actually kind of fell into DJing. I had a [SP] 1200 to sample from and I had a mixer and stuff like that so I my aim was to take what I was doing and apply it to DJing. So I approached [DJing] the night even in the live sense like it was a song I was producing, like in the general sense of build up and climax. Just in the general sense of producing, not even adding original beats to songs, I wasn’t doing none of that stuff. I was willing to keep it familiar just to get that reaction but in a general sense, I was kind of “producing the night.”

What advice would you give aspiring DJs on the come up?

Somebody asked me that the other day… I had to think about that for a minute. With technology being so crazy there’s a million DJs that ain’t really DJs, but anybody with a computer with a program can call themselves a DJ. It’s not the closed society that it was before. Where you had barriers like equipment and things like that. People had to have commitment to buy those things man, you had to have a certain level of love for the game, well not the game but love for it period. Right now, I would just tell somebody what I would tell somebody all along: Just be original. Be different. Totally different. Bring something new to the table. Because doing something that everybody else is doing, you’re just gonna be like everybody else. So don’t look at what anybody else is doing, if that means you gotta re invent the wheel then by all means go ahead do it.

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