In the world of turntablism, there are few that inspire awe and adoration like DJ Craze. Firmly established in the upper echelons of the quick-wristed hip-hop warriors, the Miami born deejay has been one of the undisputed heavyweights of the scene since winning the DMC world championships an unprecedented three times in a row between 1998 and 2000.

Since then he’s carved himself an impressive niche as one of the few djs to break out beyond the scratch circuit into the domineering club world, setting music fans alight with his turntable trickery backed up with an impressive gauntlet of eclectic music. So gathering his views on the state of play in the modern music environment would always prove to be a worthy read.

Hooking up with the DMC dj wasn’t quite as simple as hopping on board a plane and meeting up in the states, the life of a website interviewer doesn’t stretch to the bling bling culture we aspire to just yet. Fortunately however, the modern advancements of technology meant that lengthy telegram communications were not the only available opportunity. Which made things considerably easier. With the next time Craze touching down in Liverpool being at the Scratch pervert’s Beatdown room in the courtyard of Chibuku’s nation party, we thought it’d be mildly appropriate to touch on this issue as the first point of call for our questioning. With Craze being the only non British member of a line-up boasting the spoils of Hip-Hop and drum n bass in this country, it was pleasantly re-assuring for him to gush about the state of our country’s scene, pointing out the talent on offer and the . But does he enjoy playing here?

“The UK is one of my favourite countries to play in because for some reason they're open to anything I play. I never question myself on what I’m playing out there. I feel free to do whatever I want”. It’s this kind of inhibition that made Craze what he is today, but within turntabilism there has been a move towards less musical offerings in favour of the technical side. We decided to press him about whether this had led to djs forgetting about the fact that their job was to make people dance, and we were hit pretty much instantly with a response from him.

“Well, my job wasn’t to make people dance as a battle dj, it was to entertain them with my skills. But yeah, I would think right now the scene is definitely suffering, and that’s ’cos most of the technical djs don't understand that they need to be more entertaining and musical.” This is one of a worrying numbers of developments in Hip-Hop that have took forward over the few years, plenty of them being easily posed to Craze, but time restrictions meant otherwise. Despite a rather ridiculous urge to ponder the reasons behind why Liverpool football club had created a berth of hip-hop talent, I opted for the more obvious notion of the corporate massacring of the genre. Predictably, he had more to say on it than the importance of the Anfield rap.

“I think hip hop is waaayyyyy to corporate. The bad thing about that is that it dictates what kind of hip hop is forced on us everyday by radio and TV. It also hurts the creative side of hip hop because people making the music start to feel like they have to make a certain kind of song so they can sell records or have the backing of a huge corporate entity. This is not what hip hop is about, so the message started by people like Bambatta and Kool Herc is kinda lost. There are still people making hip hop from the heart and it shines through when you hear it, people like Kanye West are doing this.”

The Kanye reference seems pretty appropriate, and when I make the point that the Roc-a-fella artist is one of the few people to inject a bit of balls back into Hip-Hop, it’s met with fervent approval from the Miami native.

“Good point man! My view on that is that people nowadays don’t wanna think. For them it's better to ignore the REAL problems of the world and just have fun with the right here and now. The political side of hip hop aint as important as it used to be because the people who listen to hip hop now have changed. Back in the day Hip Hop was more of a reality check but nowadays I feel like it’s escapism for the people. People nowadays don't wanna be "bothered" with the problems we face in everyday life. All they wanna do is get crunk”

Escapism indeed, Hip-Hop’s full circle evolution from club music for the discos to political anger and back again is pretty much summed up by the crunk explosion, but Miami bass back in the late eighties and early nineties was a similar one, even if it 2 Live Crew provoked outrage amongst authorities for lewd sex shows (and amongst any hiphop fan for their awful lyrical wordplay). Seeing as Craze was from the city, putting it to him about the popularity of the music came back with a pretty incisive eye into the culture of America’s most southerly tip

“Miami is "Home Of The Bass". Being that Miami has a large percentage of Hispanic and Caribbean people, the music that we listen to out here is Bass heavy. Whether it be Salsa, Merengue, Soca or Reggae it's all bass heavy. I think that's the reason why Miami-Bass thrived out here. Some of us don’t care what kinda of music it
is as long as it has Boom.”

As much as I wanted to test the water for a very tentative Fresh Prince link, time was again running at a precedent. After hearing Craze talk about the current hip-hop scene, the reasoning behind the Miami music culture and kanye shocking mike myers, there was only one reasonable alternative left. Seeing as he’s proven himself to be pretty much unassiablbe in the battle arena, did this contribute to a feeling of immortal unfathomable aura, or was there anyone he was scared of? And who did he consider peers in his world?

“The djs that most inspire me are A-Trak, Q-bert and I-Merge, but simply there's no one I'm scared to battle. Not because I think I'm the shit, it's just that I'm one of the deadliest djs to batle against. I've studied all the best battle djs up and down and I know what it takes to win a battle, and I’ll do what it takes. Every time.”