Quality vid!!
Need to spend more time scratching too! Been cheating and just scratching with the “aaah” vox and not records haha
Which has also been a waste of a deck, thus far!
Also, do you generally use the EQ’s? Obv with EDM it’s of paramount importance but not sure it’s possible/worth it with such short transitions…
And again, thanks!
Really helpful post, thanks for that!
This. I played my first hip-hop focused set about a month ago and prepping for it as an EDM guy was a mess at first. Instead of trying to work some makeshift mixing around traditional turntablist hip-hop style, I took what I know and made the tracks work for my own style.
The linked article is a bit oriented to dance music, but the basic concept is well-covered. A phrase is exactly that, a phrase within the song. Whether its a chorus, and lasts for 8 bars, or if its the way a drum break wraps around with a sample to make a loopable piece in a hip hop song, its a concise unit that makes sense on its own, and in context, within the song.
In hip hop, you can end up with very short phrases (ie, the Beastie Boys’ line “Duuuuhrrrrop!” can work as a phrase) and slightly longer ones like say Rakim’s line “I was a fiend, before I became a teen…”
Even though those aren’t complete verses, or even half-verses, they are able to work in and out of context, and you can use those as linking elements in a mix, scratch DJs sort of laid the groundwork for that way back in the day, and thus there are some immediately recognizable pieces that are just in the hip hop vernacular now, everyone knows them, they are fun, and they immediately say to the audience - this is real hip hop. In the DJ AM video that was posted, he used this style a lot to link up the tracks in his mix, and both Z-Trip and DJ P are masters of that technique, but no one really owns that style, as its kind of the backbone of early early hip and definitely the hallmark of many of the most respected golden era producers as well, so don’t feel like you’re biting anyone’s style if you do end up mixing that way.
You should check out Jazzy Jeff too… arguably the best hip hop dj ever. Here’s an excellent mix he did out here in LA not too long ago and the track listing. There’s a bunch of youtube performances with him too that you can check out.
http://iknowtheledge.com/hip-hop/dj-jazzy-jeff-live-at-the-do-over-mix
jim
Hip Hop edits can be useful under specific conditions, but with systems like traktor I dont think they’re necessary. For example instead of making an edit with an extended intro and outro here’s what you can do.
Song 1 is playing on Deck A
Duplicate Song 1 on Deck B
When the verse on Song 1 ends on Deck A transition into Deck B cued to a loop of an instrumental section of the same song.
Cue up your Song 2 on Deck A and mix it in over the loop on Deck B.
You now have an extended outro edit without having to go through all the effort in ableton! You can do this to extend an intro too! You have instant doubles whenever you need them, when we had to rely on vinyl thats how you had to do it! There were no edits we could play lol.
Another trick I have been trying is to have a button mapped to jumping back a cue point. Since I have a cue at the start of my chorus I can just jump back to start it over. So if the song im bringing in has a 16 bar intro and the hook on the outgoing song is 8 bars then I can hit my “back” button at the end of my 8 bars to double it and get 16. It can be a little messy if there was a little overlap of vocals at the start or end of the hook but most times its not that big of a deal.
So in my opinion edits are okay but they are really a crutch to establishing your skills.
Jim
AAAND… I’m glad to see some hip hop heads pop up in here! I thought I was alone with all the EDM crew! Hip Hop Represent Represent! lol
Jim
Oh man, now I feel bad for not mentioning Jazzy Jeff (and I have no excuse, because I was just listening to Hip Hop Forever II last night!).
Shortee Blitz is another hip hop DJ that I feel epitomizes the classic hip hop mixing style, rocking doubles, dropping in phrases, great transitions, the whole package.
No argument here. Absolute legend.
Gonna have to check out some Shortee Blitz, too.
Some more solid advice! Cheers!
Been having more success with it all, it’s defo all about the timing and placement!
Noice advice too Jim, want to concentrate on getting me skills up first, then getting on the edit tip! Have been making some original beats the last few days for transitions. Also been scouring for decent vocals and hooks to use for drops. (Cheers Ben)
Also like the idea of using shorter pieces as phrases and slamming those in! Seen that Craze does this quite abit!
Also been using the EQ’s I find it sounds better when sculpting the sound slightly!
One thing that is bothering me though is how to remove the old track! I have been finding just a smooth fade is better at the mo (better than I was doing) but should I be slamming it out more? Or is it horses for courses?!
Good mix by Jazzy Jeff too, thanks for the linky 
Liking Shorty Blitz too! Will have to study these videos later on!
Another technique (I’m not sure if it was mentioned earlier) I use is looping one bar before a chorus or verse on the incoming track with the mids and sometimes the highs cut and at the beginning of the chorus of the out going track dropping the incoming track in (stab or baby scratch or another simple scratch) and reduce the outgoing tracks bass. Then once you hit the last bar of the chorus on the outgoing track release the loop on the incoming and slam the mids up and slam the mids down on the outgoing track.
Hopefully that made sense 
I was going to start a thread for this as well as I played live for the first time in front of a real crowd last weekend and when hip hop was requested I was highly confused as to how to transition.
I brought this up in the DJTT chatroom as well, however I was going to post a great post I found on the forum under a new thread but I got smart and used the search function and saw this 
. ← Mods you’re welcome! 
I found this after digging for a while. It’s an awesome awesome awesome post.
This may hopefully help a lot of you!
That truely is an awesome post! Thanks for sharing it! Gona work through that later on!
Aye Bkag that does make sense! Gona give that a bash also, been using a variant of that. But with a cue, just to make sure it’s hits back in on time!
Thankies
Prohibited could you jus do me a small favor? The forum prefers it if people would just simply add a hyper link to their SoundCloud rather than having an actual player in the signature!
Sorry if this isn’t my place, jus saving mods sometime!
And you are very welcome! 
Yeah man no dramas, will get on that now
Awesome! Thank you !
Wait a minute, you’ve only played out once? You’re all over this forum giving out all kinds of advice on how to DJ, equipment choices, etc… What’s up with that?
Here’s my take on mixing hip-hop, just in case someone wants to call ME out lol
hahahaha…wow called out…I don’t know of any of his advice posts but i guess just because he may not be experienced in playing out doesnt make him unqualified to answer some questions, but it def puts things in perspective…I would say its a reminder for me not believe everything I read on the internet
Hey Prohibited I dont have any hip-hop mixing demos anymore since I changed PC’s a year ago…I do have a couple mixes I made for a promoter friend of mine that was for her personal use…def not as clean or creative as i would put out as a demo, but maybe thats not a bad thing. let me know bro
I get what you mean about removing the old track. Don’t fade it out! If your phrasing is on then you should be able to cut the outgoing track out without loosing energy.
One thing to look out for though is your levels. When you overlap two songs your volume is going way up so you need to compensate making room for the incoming track. You can bring in the new track at a lower level, lets say at 5 (out of 10) then bring up the volume to 8 but bring down the outgoing track to 7.5, then finally go bring the volume all the way to 10 on the incoming track and take out the outgoing track. There’s no formula for doing this but just be conscious of your volume increasing when both are playing out loud.
You can do this with your eq work too.. bring the new track in without any bass, then bring up the bass of the incoming track and cut the outgoing bass. Lots of creative ways to do this and it can be different for every song!
hope this helps man!
jim