DJ Yoda’s legendary blend of technical expertise and party-starting knowhow has made him one of the most unique and loved selectors around for the best part of two decades now. With new single ‘Click’ recently made a Track Of The Day on 6Music, his production continues to go from strength-to-strength too.
Given his none-more-eclectic nature, we thought he’d make a great choice for our Lucky Seven feature, where DJs pick seven of the biggest tracks from their sets across their career. Here’s what the Jedi warrior picked out.
Double Dee & Steinski – Lesson 3
If I had to pick one record that got me into DJing, it would have to be this. Steinski was the architect of the ‘Cut & Paste’ style of hip-hop production. He would sample classic b-boy breaks, then layer on audio samples of everything from 1930s Marx Brothers movies to 1950s commercials, excerpts from musicals… anything he thought was cool. That’s how I’ve based my whole style, and year-in, year-out I always play this record when I DJ.
Sugar Bear – Don’t Scandalize Mine
When I first started listening to hip-hop and DJing, this was the club banger! My very first memories of being in a club where in London around this era. I was way under-age, and the clubs were pretty tacky, but this was the kind of thing that was getting played. Comes under the same category as things like King Bee’s ‘Back By Dope Demand’.
De La Soul – The Magic Number
A year or two later, hip-hop started getting much more clever, fun and sophisticated. De La Soul were at the forefront of this, and like Steinski and all my heroes, they sampled from absolutely anything they thought was cool. I used to play this alongside the original sample by Bob Dorough.
A Tribe Called Quest – Award Tour
By the mid-90s, the ‘Golden Age’ of hip-hop was in full swing, and this was the era I played nothing but rap. This is the epitome of that for me. I remember everything about this record coming out: the anticipation, the excitement of hearing it for the first time, and then religiously playing it whenever I had the chance to DJ around this era.
DJ Zinc – Super Sharp Shooter
As the best period of hip-hop started to end, my ears were open to a lot of other genres of music. I guess drum & bass was the next genre of music I really started playing in clubs. This era was so good for jungle. I was playing stuff like LTJ Bukem, Adam F and Photek – but this was the biggest tune by far. Still smashes a dance floor today!
DJ Yoda – Wheels
Bit of a jump forward to 2006 when I had my first artist album released. It was a big deal for me to be able to play my own productions in the club, and I designed this track around the kind of thing I would do in my DJ sets. A chunk of ‘80s pop, mixed in with scratching and some tougher beats.
Mayhem & Antiserum – Brick Squad Anthem
2015 and music has changed a lot. I play everything in the club from 1930s swing, through 1950s rock & roll, 1970s funk, 1980s pop, 1990s rap, 2000s every genre of dance music imaginable. This is just a trap thing from last year that built around a hip-hop track from Waka Flocka Flame. It sounds immense in the club, and is typical of the more current stuff I might play!
Click here to enquire about DJ Yoda via the MN2S booking agency.
Click here to see Terry Farley’s Lucky Seven.