Ohio boy Mick Boogie has been climbing the ranks in NYC since his move here over a year and a half ago. With beginnings in radio, this DJ with a marketing degree is establishing his brand in the big city, but with collaborations with Talib Kweli and Eminem behind him, it's no surprise that he has taken to the hottest DJ booths in town with ease.
Niteside caught up with the Mick Boogie after his set at Stylecaster's NYFW farewell party at GoldBar about his love of vinyl and Brooklyn, and how technology has changed the DJing game.
So when did you move to New York? About a year and a half ago -- I still have all my old records at my parents back in Ohio, but when you move to New York it's like you can't bring s---. We got off the train one day in Brooklyn after looking for place, and we were like, 'This is it.' You really have to identify with where you live, and a lot of cities don't let you do that. In New York, it's so amazing because you just make qualifications of what you want and then you find that neighborhood and you hope you can afford it. I love it. Brooklyn's amazing
How did you get hooked up with the Stylecaster event? I'm really cool with the Stylecaster people, so I really enjoy doing a lot of work with them. I think their site is going to be one of the biggest things -- and I'm not saying this just because they're, like, my friends but, like, when I first met them and saw the site and everything I was like, 'Wow, this has a chance to really be one of the most innovative things to hit fashion/media in a long time.' So I'm always happy to be a part of their stuff. It sounds politically correct, but I mean every word of it -- their s---'s really dope.
What kind of music do you usually spin? I still do a lot of hip hop stuff. The thing that's great about DJing now is that almost every DJ in the world learned how to DJ from hip hop -- that was basically the thing that invented DJing. And we all grew up as hip hop DJs and now because of the way technology has advanced and Serato has advanced and genres have blended, people can really finally play everything they grew up listening to as opposed to just like what's on Hot 97 right now. Or previously, in the past, you could only play what you could go to the record store and buy on 12" singles.
I remember growing up in the Midwest, I would come to New York and go to Rock and Soul and Beat Street and buy crazy records and pay hella money just to get them home -- because you had to. You were limited to what they had to offer. Now, not only do you have everything on iTunes that you could buy, but you have everything on the blogs that you could steal. And then you have everything that you can make, edit or create, and it becomes this infinity of music that you have to play. For the music lover, it's absolutely dope.
With the new generation of DJs, a lot of people are trading in their records for iPods. Where do you stand on that spectrum? I'm a vinyl guy. I learned how to spin off records. I tried the CD thing for a while and it was silly, so I went back to the records and then when Serato came out with their technology it pretty much eliminated the reasons to go to anything else because now you have the capacity for using the truest element of DJing -- which is two turntables and a mixer -- but with a digital arsenal behind you. I think the people who invented Serato really messed up, to be honest with you. Because they could charge $3,000 for their technology instead of $450.
