DJ Shadow

DJ Shadow (born June 29, 1972) is a prominent musical producer and turntablist. He is most noted for his experimental and abstract style of hip-hop as well as his insightful outlook on his profession and the hip-hop scene. DJ Shadow's first full length album, Endtroducing....., is featured in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the "First Completely Sampled Album".

From the documentary Scratch

 * "Being a DJ, I take the art of digging seriously...it has almost a karmic element of, 'I was meant to find this on top.' or, 'I was meant to pull this out because it works so well with this.' So it has a lot of meaning for me personally."

On Sampling

 * "Cutting and pasting is the essence of what hip-hop culture is all about for me. It's about drawing from what's around you, and subverting it and decontextualizing it."


 * "Producers like Organized Noize mix samples and live instruments really well, but for me, it almost feels like a cop-out, because I'm a collage artist. It's like, 'Damn, if only I could find this one part. Well, maybe if I just had somebody paint it, and then I'll put it out.' That almost feels like cheating. Lots of times, I have trouble finding bass lines, because it's not very often on a record that there are good open bass lines. Sometimes I wish I could just have somebody come in and do what I want him to do on a bass line. It would be so easy. But what I do just keeps things much more challenging, I guess."