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They used to clear out when DJ Z-Trip would drop Pink Floyd into his sets. Now they won't leave the dance floor.

By Cristina Diettinger

WHO: Z-Trip
WHEN: 5:15 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31
WHERE: PlayStation 2 Tent

The original DJs 'played all kinds of music all night, and that's what became hip-hop,' explains DJ Z-Trip of his all-inclusive style, 'the DJ playing the records in the succession that he played them in to make the party get off.' Photo courtesy Kerry Black/Superfly Productions

DJ Z-Trip's 2001 album, Uneasy Listening, has the claim 'This is the best CD I own' printed right on it. In a way, it is, no matter who you are. Unlike many hip-hop DJs, who pride themselves solely on their ability to flip only the rarest and dustiest breaks, Z-Trip adds familiar rock and pop records to the mix and does so shamelessly ? in the name of rocking the party. His sets encompass the best of both worlds: a backdrop of beats for the vinyl cognoscenti to play 'Name That Tune' to, and sing-along songs slapped on top for the rest of us. As a result, a Z-Trip set can include anything from a '70s groove-jazz break under Bruce Hornsby's 'The Way It Is,' to a techno mash-up of Jay-Z's 'Izzo (H.O.V.A)' and Jane's Addiction's 'Jane Says.'

  Somewhere in the '90s, it became terribly uncool for hip-hop DJs to play well-known tracks. That was something that Z-Trip had to rebel against in order to set himself apart from the dominant trends of the day. His live sets and recordings began to cock ears and turn heads, at first in disdain for his almost blasphemous decisions to play, say, a Cyndi Lauper vocal sample in a hip-hop club, and then later in appreciation for his lack of pretense and sheer nerve. Z-Trip's skillful mixes have also won him appreciation from far beyond the ever-expanding circles of electronic music fans. He's now a rock festival staple, a well-known name, and one of the most popular DJs in the world, resting comfortably just one tier below international DJ giants Paul Oakenfold and Fat Boy Slim. In 2002, he earned a 'top music moment' mention from Rolling Stone for Uneasy Listening, and Spin ranked him among the top 10 turntablists in the world. Z-Trip is currently spending time in the studio working on his major-label debut on Hard Left/Hollywood Records, due out next year. A crossover artist with roots in the early New York City underground, Z-Trip is a testament to the notion that oftentimes, the more obvious choice can get the best response, and that people generally react better to what they already know.

It's not like Z-Trip hasn't done any digging. Born Zach Sciacca and growing up in Queens, New York, Z-Trip cut his teeth in the late '80s, before hip-hop's mainstream heyday, shopping for records obsessively and spinning at all sorts of events, from house parties and family weddings to school gatherings. Now in his early 30s, Z-Trip has spent 16 years developing his style. He admits he wasn't always as nervy in his record selection, and that there was a time when he played 'straight hip-hop' like everyone else for fear that his choice of a well-known rock song might strip away his street cred.

  'Earlier on, I got a lot of shit for it,' he recalls by phone. 'I used to play in hip-hop clubs where all they wanted to hear was funk breaks. Every so often, I'd throw on a Van Halen record or something, and it wouldn't clear the floor, but I'd have people turn their heads and give me cockeyed looks.'

  Especially in the early to mid '90s, underground hip-hop circles took on an elitist air. Hip-hop was getting bigger and bigger on the mainstream market, and many of its devotees believed it had been cheapened by its crossover into pop radio. The 'real' hip-hop, many people thought, came from the street, not from corporate offices. This presented a problem for Z-Trip, who considered himself no less hip-hop than the next DJ, and maybe even more so, because he was into all kinds of music. 'At home, I would listen to Public Enemy but I might turn around and listen to Pink Floyd the very next record. I knew that if I played PE at a show, it would go over big, but the minute I dropped into Pink Floyd, I would lose everybody.'

  At some point, Z-Trip decided it was time to play all the music he knew and liked, that everybody liked. It seemed silly to shun popular rock music from his sets because it was hipper for a DJ to show his knowledge of obscure funk and jazz. Rocking the party, he thought, was far more important than proving that he was better than other DJs.

  Back then, I knew a lot of DJs who went out to clubs and battled with other DJs,' he recalls. 'I never shied away from them, but that wasn't where my head was at. I was always more like, let me get like eight crates of records to take down to the party. That way, wherever the party goes, I'll be taking it there.'

  Since its inception in the '70s, the art of turntablism has spawned scores of styles, subgenres and techniques. But before the medium realized its inherent multiplicity of possibilities, it was simply about keeping people on the dance floor at parties, and popular music was an integral part of that. Z-Trip is emphatic about the fact that the use of familiar rock tracks is nothing new in hip-hop turntablism. He's quick to deny the notion that his choice-of-records philosophy is entirely original.

  'This isn't a new concept,' he says, 'This is what the original hip-hop DJs did. They played all kinds of music all night, and that's what became hip-hop, the DJ playing the records in the succession that he played them in to make the party get off.'

  Citing seminal hip-hop artists Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa as inspiration, Z-Trip plays whatever he thinks the party needs. Through years of experience, he's found that the best crowd response often comes from the more familiar record. 'I have spent 30 or 40 dollars on the rare jazz record, but sometimes, I'll throw on the Zeppelin record I found in the dollar bin and get a better reaction.' Z-Trip also testifies that familiar tracks can draw more appreciation for the DJ's skills than tracks that most of the people in the crowd don't know. 'When you're flipping around the record that nobody knows, they can't hear what you're doing to it, and it can exclude people. So if I drop the Scorpions or AC/DC, they can follow the way I'm remixing it on the fly.'

  Sometimes, Z-Trip's sets hold surprises or aural 'puzzles.' His set at Galactic's 2003 Mardi Gras party, 'Carnival Electricos,' had the crowd at TwiRoPa rocking from front to back, highlighted by an intense medley of Run-DMC hits interspersed with rare grooves. Eventually those hits and grooves flipped around vocal samples saying 'J.M.J., R.I.P' Much of the set, it turned out, was a tribute to Run-DMC DJ Jam Master Jay, who had been murdered a few months earlier. The club's mood turned nearly spiritual as the crowd realized that the now-deceased hip-hop giant had supplied many of the beats and breaks that rocked the set. In a sense, any DJ set is a celebration of the artists who made the original records.

  But anyone who thinks that quality turntablism is merely about having a great record collection is missing the other half of the equation. Z-Trip asserts that it's not only what you play, but also when and how you play it. And, he says, there is no cut-and-dry formula to getting a party rocking. 'The set has to be balanced,' he says. 'I've seen kids try to emulate some of what I do, and I see them missing the idea. Just because you're chopping up a familiar song, doesn't mean that it's the right time of the night to play it, or that you mixed it the right way.' Successful DJ-ing, says Z-Trip, involves a lot of psychology, and a bit of ESP. Every party has a vibe, and that vibe can change at any moment. The best DJs are ready for the shift. A knack for reacting with the right record, in the right mix, at the right time is a skill that has taken top-tier DJs to superstar status, Z-Trip included.

Z-Trip has earned the reputation of being somewhat of a 'rock god,' or at least he keeps company with them. This summer, he shared a bill with the Rolling Stones at Toronto's SARStock benefit concert, which drew 450,000 attendees. He's become a rock festival fixture, appearing at the 2002 and 2003 installments of Tennessee's Bonnaroo Music Festival, where he opened for The Dead, spinning tracks from A Tribe Called Quest and Tool in front of a crowd of 70,000.

  'When you look up and you're staring at that many people, you can't wrap your head around it,' he says. 'You can't be like, oh I'm gonna rock this crowd of 450,000 people.' In large-scale performance situations, his method is simple. 'I just take a hard look at my records and try not to f?k up,' he says.

  Despite the limitations of outdoor festivals and massive crowds, Z-Trip often finds ways to make large shows intimate. At Bonnaroo 2002, he pulled what he now proudly refers to as 'the lighter trick.' As dusk fell at the end of his set, he asked the crowd to put their lighters up. When the crowd of 70,000 was peppered with flames, he told them he was making a wish, and when he blew into his microphone, the massive field went black. 'Sometimes, I can't believe where DJ-ing has taken me,' he says. 'I've gone all over the world, played with people like James Brown, the Dead, and the Stones, and everyday, I think, I can't believe DJ-ing has come this far. And it's going further.'

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