Paths of Rhythm (Formerly Once A DJ)

Dean Bryce grew up in a council house in Catford where his dad played records so loud the single-pane glass would vibrate. His dad ran a sound system called Observer and was close to Saxon, the South London sound whose cassettes travelled so far that Wyclef Jean learned English from one in Haiti — thinking they were American. Dean spent his weekends bored in Saxon's Brockley studio while records were being made around him, and it was that DIY world — pirate radio, your own label, boards pulled off boarded-up houses to build speakers — that shaped everything he's done since. He found his own music in jungle at 13, at Jungle Magic in Peckham, then garage, then a job on Deptford market bought purely to fund records. A conversation over the HMV counter with a stranger buying an MJ Cole single turned into a job in artist management the same week he met him, and from there it's been Talking Loud, BMG, sync at the height of the Cadbury's Gorilla ad, Ninja Tune, and Boiler Room. He signed Speech Debelle and won Ninja Tune their first Mercury Prize, DM'd Peggy Gou on SoundCloud and met her for a coffee in a Pret in Old Street, and set out to make Ninja Tune a label he'd actually buy records from. He now runs Don't Sleep — a label, a management company, a club night and a CIC teaching young people the parts of the industry nobody shows them — and he's back DJing with intention, because he thinks too many people playing right now aren't really DJs at all.
In this episode we get into:
Growing up in a Jamaican household in Catford, and a dad with thousands of records
Red Records in Brixton, and why he ended up living there
His dad's sound system Observer, and being raised around Saxon
How Saxon's cassettes reached New York, Jamaica and Haiti — and taught Wyclef Jean English
What actually wins a sound clash: dub plates, or sheer power
Building speakers from the boards off boarded-up houses, and where his independent streak comes from
Jungle Magic at Laserdrome, Peckham, aged 13 — and jungle as the first music that was his, not his dad's
Tape packs, happy hardcore, and jungle splitting off from breakbeat hardcore
Buying garage from 96, and where house stops and garage starts
Why the girls were all in the garage room
Learning to mix on unbranded belt-drive decks with no pitch control
Pirate radio as the real goal — Upfront FM, and why it was "the internet"
Working Deptford market to buy records, and never making it to the shop before closing
Meeting MJ Cole's manager over the HMV counter, and a marketing meeting on day one
Tuse, Roots Manuva, and hearing Witness the Fitness on cassette in his flat
Sorting MJ Cole's Kiss promos into three piles — and pulling out an early Streets white label
BMG in the Hey Ya era, and the OutKast party that hired out the whole London Eye
Sync, the Cadbury's Gorilla, most favoured nations, and why a low fee isn't always a bad deal
Signing Speech Debelle and winning Ninja Tune their first Mercury Prize
Making Ninja Tune "the label that I would buy records from" — FaltyDL, Peggy Gou, Actress
The SoundCloud DM to Peggy Gou, and a coffee in a Pret in Old Street
Why A&R is all soft skills, and leaving no fingerprints on a record
Boiler Room from iChat messages to a 50-person company, and the lockdown moment they missed
Don't Sleep, the Doja Cat email, and building a home for artists who get slept on
Infinite Coles, Sweetface Killa, and handling a record people read as a diss
Artist development against the TikTok microwave
Coming back to DJing with intention

This week I'm joined by DJ Melo D — a beat junkie, a world champion, and one of the most technically gifted scratch DJs to come out of Southern California. Melo D was born and raised in Cerritos in the early 1980s, right as hip hop and electro were landing on the West Coast, and he grew up hooked on KDAY airchecks, pause-button mixtapes and a friend's older brother's turntables. He got his first Technics 1200 for Christmas 1987, taught himself to scratch by ear on his dad's home stereo, and cut his teeth doing high school dances and quinceañeras as a mobile DJ before linking up with DJ Curse, Rhett Matic and J Rock — the crew that would become the Beat Junkies.
While studying sociology at UC Irvine, Melo D was quietly stacking up battle titles: a Vestax USA and World Championship, a DMC USA final with Babu, and an ITF World Championship with the Beat Junkies crew. That same run of form landed him a job as Quincy Jones' on-air DJ for the late-night talk show Vibe — a gig he says he only got because he had the nerve to force a James Brown routine on Quincy after his first set of battle routines fell flat. Alongside years on LA radio with Julio G at 92.3 The Beat, Melo D went on to co-found the Beat Junkie Institute of Sound with his crew, where he still teaches today.
We get properly nerdy in this one — the maths behind scratch technique, why J Dilla's swing breaks DJs, how the crab scratch was actually born in a Tokyo hotel room, and what it's like being handed a job by Quincy Jones on the spot.
In this episode we cover:
Growing up in Cerritos during the first wave of West Coast hip hop and electro
The KDAY Mixmasters and the birth of the West Coast mix show
Getting his first Technics 1200 for Christmas 1987 and teaching himself to scratch
Mobile DJing quinceañeras, high school dances and SoCal house parties
Linking up with DJ Curse, Rhett Matic and J Rock and forming the Beat Junkies
Balancing a sociology degree with Vestax, DMC and ITF world titles
The golden era of turntableism and why vinyl forced so much creativity
The origin story of the crab scratch, told first-hand
Becoming Quincy Jones' DJ for the Vibe talk show
Building the Beat Junkie Institute of Sound and what's hardest to teach beginners
The vinyl renaissance and the case for BPM-labelling your records

Paths of Rhythm is a Remote-CTRL production. If you're looking for audio or video production, then check out https://remote-ctrl.co.uk to see how they can help.
Other ways to support the show
Follow the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Any feedback or questions? Hit up https://www.instagram.com/pathsofrhythmpodcast/

This week's guest is a Yorkshireman I'd heard whispered about by more than one person in the scene before I ever got him on the mic — David Piccioni. Born to an Italian father and South African mother and raised in Huddersfield, David got his real education in a punk scene that had him sneaking into soundchecks before he'd even worked out he wanted to DJ. A few years later, economics and politics at Liverpool University led him straight into throwing his own parties and playing American import records at Liverpool's Wednesday night club nights — and by 1986 he'd saved up for a one-way flight to New York with £300 in a bag and no contacts waiting for him.
What followed is the kind of story you can only get firsthand: getting schooled at Paradise Garage under Larry Levan, soaking up David Mancuso's Loft, and becoming one of the biggest DJs in the city within two years. When he came home to London, David co-owned Black Market Records with Nicky Blackmarket — the shop that helped break UK jungle and drum & bass upstairs while he ran the house side — before founding Azuli Records, a label that got away with pretending to be American for years, broke Afro Medusa's "Pasilda" and Spiller's "Groove Jet," and put out the Late Night Tales and Choice compilation series. When digital killed the vinyl business, David didn't look back — he moved to Ibiza and built a restaurant instead. This one's full of stories you won't find written down anywhere else.
Topics covered:
Growing up in Huddersfield and sneaking into gigs during its punk scene
Missing the Sex Pistols at Ivanhoe's on Christmas Day
The move to Liverpool University and falling into DJing by accident
Saving up for a one-way flight to New York in 1986
Getting schooled at Paradise Garage by Larry Levan, and David Mancuso's Loft
Coming home to co-own Black Market Records with Nicky Blackmarket
Building Azuli Records — and the fake American label trick that fooled the industry for years
Breaking Afro Medusa's "Pasilda" and turning down Spiller's "Groove Jet"
Curating the Late Night Tales and Choice compilation series
Why Azuli couldn't survive the shift from vinyl to digital
Trading the dancefloor for a restaurant on a clifftop in Ibiza

Paths of Rhythm is a Remote-CTRL production. If you're looking for audio or video production, then check out https://remote-ctrl.co.uk to see how they can help.
Other ways to support the show
Follow the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Any feedback or questions? Hit up https://www.instagram.com/pathsofrhythmpodcast/

This week I'm sitting down with a guy whose name might not be as famous as the records he made, but whose fingerprints are all over some of the most important hip hop of the last 35 years: Scotty Hard.
Scotty grew up in Vancouver on a diet of classical guitar, jazz camp and free jazz shows, then fell hard for punk, no wave and the Ornette Coleman school of harmolodic funk before Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions convinced him New York was the only place left to go. He landed at Calliope Studios — the 24-hour home base for the Native Tongues, De La Soul, Stetsasonic and Queen Latifah — with almost no formal engineering training, learning by the skin of his teeth on sessions that ranged from editing Tone Loc's mink-coat 900-number ad to filling in on De La Soul Is Dead when the regular engineer didn't show. That one shift turned into a decades-long run with Prince Paul, which led him into the orbit of Gravediggaz, RZA and the Wu-Tang Forever sessions, New Kingdom, the Stereo MCs and PM Dawn.
We talk about how he found his footing as the guy trusted to give creative input rather than just push faders, the eleven-minute Lisa Stansfield remix that became bigger than anyone in the room expected, and mixing the second Gravediggaz record and Wu-Tang Forever in neighbouring rooms at the same time — including the day RZA walked in and asked him what exactly he was doing in there. We also spend a good chunk of the conversation on his long, deeply loyal relationship with Ka, one of the most singular and uncompromising voices in hip hop, and on the accident that left Scotty with a spinal cord injury and how he's kept making some of the best music of his career since. We close out talking about his new record with Steven Bernstein, Ultra Resonance / Resonation Trio, which takes the hip hop chop-and-flip approach and applies it to acoustic jazz.
This is a long one and every minute of it is worth your time. Topics covered:
Growing up in Vancouver: classical guitar, jazz camp, and opening for Ornette Coleman
The no wave and punk funk scenes that pulled him toward New York
Landing at Calliope Studios and learning to engineer with zero formal training
His first-ever session: editing 2-inch tape for a Tone Loc ad
Getting the call to fill in on De La Soul Is Dead and starting his run with Prince Paul
Making beats on the SP12 and S900 synced to 24-track tape
Knowing when to offer a creative opinion and when to just be the engineer
The Lisa Stansfield "Been Around the World" remix that blew up bigger than anyone predicted
New Kingdom and being "too ahead of its time"
How Gravediggaz came together and meeting RZA
Mixing the second Gravediggaz record and Wu-Tang Forever at the same time in LA
What actually made Gravediggaz sound so dark and eerie
The challenge of mixing records you didn't record yourself
His parallel life in jazz: Teo Macero, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Sex Mob
Working with Ka on Days with Dr. Yen Lo and why Ka refused to compromise his art
Remembering Ka and the Legacy Open Studio celebration of his life
His car accident, his spinal cord injury, and adapting his life and work around it
Surprising mic choices that worked for rappers who didn't have "perfect" voices
His one piece of outboard gear he'd tell any beatmaker to buy
His new album, Ultra Resonance / Resonation Trio with Steven Bernstein

Paths of Rhythm is a Remote-CTRL production. If you're looking for audio or video production, then check out https://remote-ctrl.co.uk to see how they can help.
Other ways to support the show
Follow the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Any feedback or questions? Hit up https://www.instagram.com/pathsofrhythmpodcast/

This week I'm joined by KnowleDJ — and this is a slightly different one for the show. He's the first Canadian I've had on since about episode two, and he's built a career that doesn't really look like anyone else's. He grew up in Kelowna, a small city in British Columbia, started out as a hip hop promoter to pay his tuition, and got talked into DJing by a club owner who wanted him to do college nights. He was a "hip hopper for life" who couldn't stand the idea of playing anything else — until the money, and then the music, changed his mind. From there it's cruise ships playing to wildly diverse crowds, an economics degree feeding into how he thinks about the whole game, and eventually opening for the Backstreet Boys, Ice Cube and Ariana Grande, and running the after-parties for No Doubt's Sphere residency.
What I really wanted to get into was the thinking underneath all of that. We talk about cultural deference and why you have to prove you've done the digging before a crowd trusts you. We get into ADHD, diet and the idea of conscientiousness as a cheat code. He walks me through the worst gig of his life — a Vegas set he says was sabotaged, which blacklisted him for years — and the fate-tipping opportunities that came after. There's a genuinely moving stretch about Fat Man Scoop, who mentored him and passed away the very night Knowledge told him he'd played "Be Faithful." And we finish on the economics of it all: why he built himself a "category of one," what blue ocean strategy and ikigai have to do with DJing, and why, with his book The DJ Diaries on the way, he still believes music is the answer.
In this episode we get into:
Growing up in Kelowna and going from hip hop promoter to open-format DJ
Reading diverse crowds on the cruise ships, and learning that people hear music differently
Showing cultural deference — proving you've dug deep before a crowd trusts you
Rebuilding the No Doubt set from scratch, and the real story behind "Don't Speak"
ADHD, diet, and conscientiousness as a cheat code (the OCEAN model)
The brain science of doing hard things, and telling yourself a realistic story
Learning the mic, the art of the warm-up, and getting over stage fright
The worst gig of his life and being blacklisted in Vegas
Opening for Ariana Grande, Backstreet Boys and Ice Cube — and reading GA crowds
Fat Man Scoop's quiet, huge influence on hip hop — and a tragic full-circle moment
The economics of DJing: supply and demand, a "category of one," blue ocean strategy and ikigai
The DJ Diaries, what's next, and the idea of the "otrovert"