DJ SPS WINS THE ENTIRE USA DMC SUPREMACY !!! WTF!!

Thanks to all who came out to the 2008 DMC East Coast Finals, U.S. Battle for Supremacy and Team Competitions on Wed. night, July 23rd.

Legendary first female emcee for Kool Herc: Pebblee Poo of the Herculoids was in the building as well as first Latino DJ in Hip Hop: DJ Disco Wiz; Rockin' Rob of the Mean Machine Crew (aka father of Flawless); Cutmaster DC (Brooklyn's in the house); Greg Nice and many more stopped by.

Props to Fat Fingaz who did a great and zany job as the host. He really put in work. Imagine trying to be entertaining and hype for that many hours - and he did! Marilyn came in as my assistant and really helped wrangle all the DJs and put them in battling order. She did such a great job! I can't wait til she organizes her own battle! The notorious Glenbrowski was so excellent, picking me up with all my boxes of mixers and stuff, loading in, setting up and helping all of the DJs.

Thanks to our super supporting sponsors Rane & Serato who put in the seed money to throw this battle. Without them, I don't think I could have pulled it off. Major sponsors include Technics and Ortofon. Special thanks to Justin of DJ Pro Audio for bringing in the turntables and setting up and helping us tear down after the battle. He stayed there the whole night - now that's taking being a sponsor seriously! Remix magazine helped out too on the ad trades and doing a last minute e-blast on the day of the battle!

Thanks to our series of rotating judges for the night: since it's exhausting to judge straight through, we were switching up between battles. Judges for the evening included: Billy Jam, DJ Scratch, GrandWizzard Theodore, DJ IXL, Marcus, Precision, Roc Raida, Roli Rho, Spictakular, Steve Dee and Sugarcuts (who had a healthy bag of Flud watches too!)

2 minute prelim performances from:
Etronik, DJ A.J.Scratch, D-Official, Solo, SPS, Dre Mayes, Free-B, Swan...John Swan, Lodus, Moppy, Abyss1, Esquire, Fascinate, Courtney, Dyllemma, Mafia Princess, Jazzemoto, Steel, Shu-T, Coffee, Shmeeze, Emm Are, Baybe KDL, Digress, Syruz, Flawless, Dope-Man, Teddy King, D187 and the top secret champion that I would not reveal: DJ Slyce!

Of those who battled in the prelims, DJs who received anywhere from 1 vote to all 5 unanimous votes to advance to one or both battles included:

Swan...John Swan, Esquire, Fascinate, Flawless, Jazzemoto, Shu-T, Solo, Syruz, Etronik, Free-B, GrandMaster Supreme, Lodus, Shmeeze, SPS, Coffee, Steel, Dope-Man, Slyce, Teddy King, D-Official, Dre Mayes, Emm Are and Courtney.

Teams battling included:
Stone Kutters: Axis, Mikestir, Machine and Mirandom
Warrior Krew: Habit, Quantum, Jays One & Hoeks One
The Angry Exs / Drunks Crew: Lodus and Etronik

The Angry Exs/Drunks Crew (Lodus and Etronik from California) won the unanimous vote of confidence from the judges to rep the U.S.A. at the World Finals in London and try to win that $10,000 (is it in pounds or dollars....hmmm). They were upstairs in the backstage area so they didn't really hear or realize they won and when they did they lost it! They were so happy and hyped! Apparently they rocked a party in Cali the night before, flew straight to NYC without any sleep, came for the battle and had to get back on a plane for 7am back to L.A.! They intended to do some more partying after the battle and before the flight. They are going to have so much fun in the UK! Thanks to all of the teams who entered. Every one was so cool - to the point of staying in the audience most of the prelims so that I didn't even know they were there, LOL! Was the the Warriors who were so kind as to lend their cable/s for the Stone Kutters to use? "That's DJ love" as Jazzy Jeff would say!

Judges for the US Battle for Supremacy included: Marcus, Roc Raida, Roli Rho, Precision and Spictakular.

DMC USA Update (Part 1) Footer
DMC USA Update (Part 2) Header
DMC USA Update (Part 2) - 28/07/2008

DMC USA Update (Part 2)
The Top 8 US Battle for Supremacy Competitors included:

1st round
SPS vs Shmeeze: SPS advanced
Flawless vs Supreme: Flawless advanced
Etronik vs Esquire: Etronik advanced
Solo vs Swan...John Swan: Swan...John Swan advanced

2nd round
SPS vs Flawless: SPS advanced
Etronik vs Swan...John Swan: Swan...John Swan advanced

Final round
SPS vs Swan...John Swan: SPS took it!!!!

SPS out of Orlando FL will be flown round trip + hotel to London to battle in the DMC World Finals on Sept. 26 & 27th, courtesy of Ortofon, to compete in the 2008 DMC Battle for World Supremacy and the chance to win $10,000, also courtesy of Ortofon.

Note: If there could have been a 9th DJ in the head to heads it would have been DJ Fascinate who had impressed several judges in the prelims. I am including this to encourage him to keep battling! On another note: one DJ mentioned that they "survived John Swan" which should be made into a shirt. His battle tactics are unorthodox at best!

Judges for the East Coast Finals included: Sugarcuts, Spictakular, Marcus, Roli Rho and Precision.

Judges for the prelims actually voted in eight DJs who all had equal but highest scores so the East Coast battle actually was going to show the top eight at 6 minutes but then Shmeeze reminded me that he only wanted to battle in the Supremacy and Swan...John Swan decided that he would rather just have fun after all of his antics in the Supremacy battle. So we went with the top 6 and here they are:

Top 6 East Coast Finalists:

1st: DJ Slyce: The 97 DMC USA Champion is Back!
2nd: Emm Are
3rd: DJ Solo
4th: DJ Esquire
5th: DJ Steel
6th: DJ Etronik

DJ Slyce will rep the East Coast at the 2008 DMC US Finals on Aug. 30 (Knitting Factory NYC) and DJ Emm Are (runner up), DJ Solo (3rd) and DJ Esquire (4th) were invited to battle in the US Finals as well. For the West Coast battle on Aug. 8 in Seattle, the winner will be flown to NYC roundtrip + hotel and the 3 DJs who placed under the West Coast champ will also be invited to battle on Aug. 30 (so get your sponsors together!)

Slyce took home a brand new Serato Scratch LIVE, courtesy of Rane, but also a hefty Ortofon record bag, Ortofon MF7 needles, slipmats and more. Both Lodus, Etronik and SPS also received Ortofon record bag packages plus round trip flights & hotels in London for the World Finals on Sept. 26 & 27 in London.

Special thanks to the inventor of the scratch, GrandWizzard Theodore for some extra special party rocking and seamless mixing! The dancehall set was bananas! DJ Scratch quite generously treated the crowd to a bit of an audio feast!!!

Extra special thanks to Mark Carranceja of www.noisemakermedia.com for archiving the event on HD!

Thanks once again to everyone who supported! There's still time to sign up to battle in the DMC West Coast Finals in Seattle on Aug. 8 for the opportunity to rep in the 2008 DMC US Finals in NYC at the Knitting Factory on Saturday night, August 30th! Hip Hop culture on a Saturday night at a main club in NYC! That's not so common these days!

Peace & blessings!
Christie Z-Pabon

http://www.myspace.com/dmcusa
http://www.myspace.com/toolsofwar

Well done that man! The DMC Champs in London are wicked, went twice back in the day and it's drink and drug fuelled madness. Walked out of Brixton underground station and must have been offered weed twice in 30 yards walk.

Seriously though, big up SPS for holding it down, and all the best for the championships... I wanna see SPS with some of those gold technics!

CONGRATS SPS MUCH DESERVED!

CONGRATS SPEED! ONE OF THE BEST DJS OUT THERE WITHOUT A DOUBT!

Congratulations!