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Molek FMDJ Nu-Mark: Schooled By Uncle Nu
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You grew up with tangible media, vinyls and CDs, but now everything is digital – you can fit anything into a single thumbdrive – do you feel like something is loss there?
At some point. But I’m not one of these DJs who bashes technology. I hear a lot of DJs going “Oh, that guy is just on a laptop, he’s just a piece of sh!t.” That’s his instrument, y’know. So if a drummer just uses his snare drum and not his whole drum kit, he’s wack? No. All the people are there seeing him, he’s got a sold out show, and everyone seems to love him, hats off to him. He gets my thumbs up. That’s how I look at it; he found a hole and he ran through it. Good for him. I actually congratulate the kind of guys who are winning doing that. Yeah, it might not be skilful, but that doesn’t mean anything at the end of the day. Good doesn’t mean anything right now, it used to mean something. I’m just saying what people want right now. For instance in the ‘80s, if I took one of your ideas, it was called biting. You’d get dissed on records for doing that! People would call you out. Nowadays it’s acceptable – almost rewarded – to take someone else’s sound. It’s not really about being good, I can be the best scratcher in the world right now and people wouldn’t really care. They are rewarding pop music right now and the look. You got crazy green hair and orange fireworks coming out of your forehead – and [people] would want to see that live. That’s what’s happening right now; good doesn’t matter, it’s about presenting a show, can you entertain? Which is another reason why I like Red Bull, they are making the DJs move the crowd, they have to entertain. It’s interesting times.
But wouldn’t entertaining a crowd be a skill and a good quality in itself?
It’s a great quality. As long as they are entertaining, hats off to them. It’s just adapting to that change that makes it tough on those DJs, and that’s why they talk shit about their equipment. A lot of people don’t like change, but in the immortal words of Bruce Lee; be like water man, you gotta flow.
Could how easy it is to DJ now contributed to their feeling that way? Used to be about hardware, now it’s all about software.
Trust me I know. It’s crazy my man. The difference between then and now, it’s drastic. We used to DJ house parties with our own set of speakers, amplifiers, turntables, 7 crates of records, mixers, and the whole thing. We were sweating when we get there, we were sweating when we played for 5 to 6 hours, and sweating packing the equipment up and putting it together. It was much harder being a DJ back then, it was harder collecting records and playing 2 of everything. But now with Serato, you immediately get 2 of every record. You can trade with one guy in one day and automatically have 500 records in your collection, y’know? I can see why guys who are in the old school and middle school are bitter, makes sense. They did all these works and then technology came along, and suddenly all that sh!t they did were meaningless. But you gotta ask yourself, is that DJ you’re dissing entertaining the crowd? Yes or no. It’s not about whether he’s dope, is that dude killing the crowd or not? You don’t have to kill the crowd like he’s killing the crowd but you gotta find a way to getting into that pocket. If you want to be one of those famous DJs that is, if you wanna be an artsy-fartsy dude, just DJ in your bedroom, museums, and sh!t, that’s cool too.
As a DJ you can’t be self-serving, entertaining the crowd comes with the job description. If you want to make art, then be a producer. You agree with this sentiment?
There might be a niche for that. And I’ve seen DJs with a niche, I have friends who ignore the crowd! (Laughs) They have a fanbase, not a huge fanbase, but I have friends who don’t like playing music for people. They play what they want to play. Some people could pull it off, most people can’t. The trick is to walk the fine line of playing something that feeds your soul as a DJ and you know that someone in the crowd, all of them, can connect to it as well. There are a lot of songs like that, music is vast.
Is that what you are doing now with your career?
Yeah. On one hand playing toys and swing and samba music isn’t commercially appealing, but on the other hand if I throw in an ODB song, people would know it. It’s all about combining the yin and yang. Contrast is important in any art.
Anything new you’re doing now?
Just dropped my debut album Broken Sunlight. It’s doing really well actually! It’s called that because I broke it up into 6 pieces. Each single is a 10-inch single for the vinyl heads out there. I put up the whole album plus a DVD of how I created this album on a USB drive in the shape of a DJ needle. I noticed that people are having a hard time listening to 20 songs in a row, people would buy that one song on iTunes or watch that one video. People’s attention span is starting to shrink a bit, so what I did was released 2 songs a month in 2012 and it did really well for me.
What contributed to our collective shorter attention span now?
I’d say the birth of YouTube and the internet have shortened the attention span of the average listener and viewer. They’re telling you on YouTube that your videos should be 2 or 3 minutes long or you’re gonna lose your audience. You could put up a 10-second clip and they’d only watch it halfway through. It’s a weird time. That’s how I went into the album, 2 songs a month, give them bit by bit, and it worked for me. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It was one of the best moves I ever made in my entire career.
Oh wow, so the album is selling well on all media?
Technology is confusing now. Some people want it just on a USB, some people want it on a CD still, some people are pure vinyl heads, some people just want the digital download, which is on iTunes. I gave [the album] to them on every format. I think that’s what helped me this year. Diversifying the way I release and how I release my material.
In the spirit of Red Bull Thre3Style, what are 3 genres that gel together well?
It could be anything. The more contrasting the genres are, the more wings they will have – no pun, Red Bull got wings. I think if you blend swing and punk rock or trap, and somehow manage to marry one another, I think that’s cool. It could be anything.
DJ Nu-Mark spun at Red Bull Thre3Style Showcase on Friday 22 February ’13. Red Bull Blue & Silver (Product of Europe) has had a major presence in Malaysia for a while now, keep yourself updated on their latest happenings at www.redbull.my.
More on Uncle Nu at www.unclenu.com.
