Like legendary treasure-hunters, Amir has spent the past twenty-five years excavating record bins finding gems to pierce ears with. Fortunately, everyone gets to share in the riches of his labor; Long forgotten musicians are now getting their proper dues and appreciative audiences are being turned on to some amazing music.

Since first putting it down with partner Kon in 1997, Amir has co-released a total of eight albums; six On Track installments of critical acclaim, another album called The Cleaning, and most recently, an album appropriately titled, The Kings of Diggin’ along with DJ Muro from Japan.

Because of his status as an A-List DJ, it's hard to imagine a time when Amir lacked the authority to choose what music he wanted to listen to. As the youngest in his family, Amir didn’t get to decide on what music the family listened to on the weekends. He begrudgingly absorbed his father’s jazz collection, his mother’s gospel and his older siblings' disco. It wasn’t until he was old enough to listen to the music of his choice, hip- hop, that he fully appreciated the soundtrack of his youth. In early Run-DMC and The Treacherous Three songs he recognized many of the samples used on the beats from his family's music library. When he heard samples he couldn't identify, he would investigate until he found the original source. This came to be his passion; to map the sonic lineage of hip-hop.

Thousands of hours, dollars, and record stores later, Kon & Amir are ready to bring five more expertly compiled double-albums to the forefront for us to enjoy. They have managed to salvage some of the greatest music you've never heard. Audiences who are tired of being force fed sub par music will thank them for providing an alternative. As Amir puts it, "We made this for the neglected audience, for people who are looking for mature music. Simply put, these treasures are food for the soul."

Jon Oliver (eastvillageradio.com) Jon is a true DJ commando. His resume counts over 35 venues played just in the 5 boroughs and good deal more sprinkled across the globe from Houston and LA to Sweden and Estonia. On his spare time he hosts a weekly show on eastvillageradio.com and blogs tales from the trenches at jonolivermusic.com Particularly entertaining are his posts under "How Not To Request a Song"

http://www.jonolivermusic.com

http://www.jonolivermusic.com/category/how-not-to-request-a-song/

http://across110th.com

OP! has joined the ranks of the respected cadre of tastemakers and bootyshakers in the New York underground scene. Homegrown in Brooklyn, his path began there, but along the way has taken him halfway around the globe, from the US to Africa, and back again.

Growing up in the golden age of hip-hop, OP! first caught the dj bug from listening to Kool DJ Red Alert and Marley Marl on the radio, and dj battles on Ralph McDaniels’ seminal pre-MTV Video Music Box (little did he know that he would soon be working in both radio and television himself). In high school, a friend of a friend, a dj at a local college, took him under his wing, and soon OP! was djing on that college’s radio station… while still in high school. He went on to become the Hip-Hop Music Director there, and a major musical force on the campus.

After college, honored with a Watson Foundation Fellowship to research hip-hop and radio in South Africa, an opportunity to work at the first, and newly formed, commercial youth-oriented radio station there arose, and soon OP! was on a (long) flight to Johannesburg. YFM 99.2 exploded onto the scene (the station has well over 3 million listeners now) with OP! (formerly know as Absolut) eventually working on three ongoing shows, including his own mixshow, one of the first hip-hop mixshows in South Africa. After two years, having become a well-known and respected hip-hop dj there, OP! came home to Brooklyn.

He spent the next years cutting his teeth in the industry at TVT, 88 Hip Hop, and then Sub Verse, where he played a central role in the then emerging solo career of MF Doom, overseeing the re-release of KMD‘s shelved sophomore album, Black Bastards, and Doom’s groundbreaking first solo effort, Operation Doomsday.

With his feet firmly planted in the industry, OP! turned his attention back to the turntables. This move has seen OP! spinning at such notable events as Rich Medina’s Connect the Dots Loft Party, the RMFRP event at WMC 2005 in Miami, the RMFRP event in NYC, the Black August Building Sessions, and the Escape 2 Brooklyn parties.

And on the live side, OP! has shared the stage with legends like The Roots, De La Soul, Poor Righteous Teachers, Executioners, and Hieroglyphics, and future legends from Alice Smith to Tortured Soul.

Anthony Khan The Twilite Tone has been electrifying dancefloors since the early 90's in Chicago where he walked the well defined lines between House Music and Hip Hop. Whereas Tone's first release was house 12" "Under the Cherry Tree" & "Just Like Heaven" under the group title 3:26[the alias and numbers to the address of the legendary club The Music Box]. He is credited as bringing a wide variety of music as well as Hip Hop to the mainstream Chicago clubscene which was dominated by House and Techno. Also known as Ynot, He produced and performed on Common's first three albums which includes the classic "Resurrection" LP.

In 2005, Tone and friend Lee Douglas [Rong Music] teamed up under the moniker Great Weekend to produce the critically acclaimed "How Do You Feel" single which was featured on the BBE release Prince Language-"Real Music For Real People".

In 2008, Tone relocated to New York where he hosted his Great Weekend w/The Twilite Tone event to APT in the meat-packing district of Manhattan on a monthly basis. In 2009, he joined forces with DJ Duane[Other Music/Bimmark/NegroClash] to produce Tha Get Up Great Weekend w/The Twilite Tone and DJ Duane event every first friday at APT. In addition, Tone is a weekly resident at the Mister Saturday Night party at Santos Party House.

Scribe fell in love with music at an early age and never fell out. "I used to march around the house with my grandfather banging pot lids together as cymbals." His interest progressed, quite naturally, from pots and pans to violin to piano to synthesizers to samplers to turntables. Inspired by Public Enemy and The Pharcyde (among others), in the golden age of hip-hop that was the early 90's, he began collecting records. "Hip-hop, especially at that time, was unique in the history of recorded music, because for every new record that came out, there were three more you got educated about through the samples. My music knowledge and my collection were moving forwards and backwards through time simultaneously. I got hooked." Hip-hop (along with the dancehall reggae and acid jazz of the time), led him back in time to soul, funk, disco, r&b, roots reggae and jazz, and would later expand into a musical repertoire spanning afrobeat, house, broken-beat, latin, and his beloved 80s pop childhood roots.

Without turntables of his own, Scribe taught himself how to mix on live radio on WOBC FM at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he then began to cut his teeth as a dj at house parties and campus events, eventually opening for A Tribe Called Quest in front of 3,000 people. It was the first show of their groundbreaking Low End Theory Tour. Back in NYC after college, Scribe dabbled in hip-hop production under the guidance of Russell Simmons' RUSH Producers Management, and deejayed part-time, opening major concerts for A Tribe Called Quest again, and Digable Planets.

Fast forward to present. DJ Scribe has been spinning full-time since 2002. In that time, he has developed numerous notable and acclaimed residencies in NYC: Love Revolution at Joe's Pub, a freeform soul night that often featured Tortured Soul playing live, and guest djs such as E-Man, Carol C. of Si*Sé, Will "Quantic" Holland, Qool DJ Marv, and Ian Friday; Tag, in partnership with Wax Poetics Magazine, whose unique format featured Scribe alternating every other record all night with such legends as Yam Who?, Kool DJ Red Alert, Justin Strauss, Jazzy Nice, Prince Language and Rich Medina; Stone Soup in conjunction with BBE Records; Soulnado, at the world-famous Knitting Factory, a joint effort with DJ Busquelo, fusing the headsnapping broken beat drum tracks of London's underground CO-OP scene with classic dancefloor jazz (another UK staple) played live and fully improvised by rotating top-notch instrumentalists; and one of the most respected parties at Miami's annual Winter Music Conference since 2006: the Raw Fusion Miami party, which has featured the best of the best djs, Spinna, Karizma, Simbad, Daz-I-Kue, Benji B, Phil Asher, Mad Mats, Freddie Cruger aka Red Astaire, Karl Injex, and many more. Raw Fusion is a 12-years-running party in Stockholm, Sweden, founded by Mad Mats.

In 2006, Scribe and partner OP! (Suite 903) founded Nu-iSh, a multifaceted venture dedicated to representing, supporting, and exposing the best new music. Nu-iSh, partnering with a who's-who of quality independent labels around the world, began as a monthly party at Element, a weekly music review column on Coolhunting.com, a concert presenter for emerging artists like Heavy, and more.

Then, in 2008, Scribe and OP!, under the Nu-iSh umbrella, launched the monthly instant smash Raw Fusion NYC, the New York arm of the Raw Fusion franchise, at APT, one of NYC's top dj venues. Raw Fusion NYC has featured guest djs such as Simbad, Daz, 7 Samurai, Probe DMS, and live performances by Muhsinah, Kissey Asplund, Taylor McFerrin, TK Wonder, Zaki Ibrahim, Stephanie McKay, Daru, Erik Rico, Cecilia Stalin, and Ivana Santilli. Raw Fusion moves to nyc's best soundsystem, Love, in July 2009.

And most recently, in May 2009, Scribe founded I Love Vinyl, an all-vinyl party, with six resident djs. himself, Ge-Ology, Anthony Khan aka The Twilite Tone, Amir (Kon & Amir), OP! and Jon Oliver. The first party, at Le Poisson Rouge's Gallery Bar, was packed and jumping. In conjunction with the party, Scribe started a vinyl appreciation page on Facebook which attracted 10,000 fans in 10 days (now 14K+), and is also launching a line of I Love Vinyl merchandise with the logo, by popular demand.

Scribe has shared the marquee at live music venues like the Highline Ballroom, Le Poisson Rouge, SOB's and Joe's Pub with Floetry, Roy Ayers, Black Eyed Peas, Scratch of The Roots, Omar, Eve, Dwele, Les Nubians, Stephanie McKay, Antibalas, Little Dragon, Chin Chin and others; moved the crowd all over Western and Eastern Europe; and traveled extensively within the US and Canada, including multiple appearances at the annual Candela Art and Music Festival in Puerto Rico, Winter Music Conference, and the Detroit Electronic Music Festival.

A socially/politically conscious and committed individual, Scribe has done benefits with such organizations as Green Drinks, Third Wave Foundation, Active Listening, Paper Tiger TV, and Momentum Aids Project; and has also done major industry events for Gen-Art, and The Fader, Esquire, Details, Talk, and Elle Girl magazines.

In 2005, Scribe founded the DJ Collective, a forum for musically-oriented djs in NYC to develop resources and address the concerns of the dj community. The group also produced a number of benefit events, including a fundraiser in conjunction with Turntables on the Hudson at NYC's Cielo for rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Scribe has also done extensive studio work with DJ Spinna, including mixing remixes he did for Michael Jackson and Shaun Escoffery, and The Beyond Real Experience Vol.2 album for Spinna's Beyond Real label; as well as producing and mixing much of Tortured Soul frontman Christian Urich's soul project Cooly's Hot Box's album Take It, on Dome records, including the UK classic "Make Me Happy".

As of 2005, Scribe runs the stateside offices for Mad Mats' Stockholm-based Raw Fusion Recordings, as US Label Manager.

DJ Scribe spins dynamic sets from the heart, ranging from deep soul to dancefloor killers. acoustic jazz to glitch-hop and techno. coming to a dancefloor near you.


Q and A with I Love Vinyl Party founder, DJ Scribe