Beat4Battle TV: Japan – Episode 3

We return for 2010 in full effect with our roving scratch reporter Yoshi and his Beat4Battle TV series. This is episode 3 of the Japan series, which sees Yoshi hooking up with, and filming, a selection of the best, and often slept-on, Japanese turntablists.

For episode 3 he went all the way to Tanashi (actually not that far, it’s in the suburbs of Tokyo) to film DJ Rockhill, a seriously talented guy who I think most people definitely aren’t really up on – I know I wasn’t, even if the name was a little familiar from my time in Japan.

As with our previous episodes B4B TV is brought to you in .m4v format, optimised for iPod and iTunes viewing but viewable on all media players and computers. If you have any problems we recommend updating your codecs before anything else. This episode is 9 mins long and comes in at 105mb in size.

Many thanks to Yoshi for his work and time and to Rockhill for coming through. A seriously tasty show to start us off in 2010!

Look out for a series of special joint Turntable Radio and Rhythm Incursions podcasts coming up later this month and focusing on the Japanese scene once more, this time featuring both producers and scratch DJs that appeared at Ken One’s ‘Skratch Evolution’ party. This series will feature both audio and video podcasts.

For now though, sit back and enjoy Rockhill’s freestyles. You can stream the episode above and download it below. And if you don’t want to miss another one than we suggest you sign up to either our RSS, iTunes feed or email newsletter to be informed everytime a new podcast goes out.

Download Beat4Battle TV:Japan ep 3 (right click and save as)

Beat4Battle TV: Japan – Episode 3
Featuring: DJ Rockhill
Filmed and Edited by Yoshi. Filmed at Rockhill’s studio, Tanashi, Tokyo in September 2009.

Beat4Battle TV: Japan – Episode 2

We return to the B4B:TV Japan series after a little hiatus, and this time we bring you footage of some of Tokyo’s finest, including Turntable Radio friend and favourite Naoki.

Episode 2 was filmed at the August 2009 Scratch Day event, a freestyle scratch event which Yoshi has been organising in Tokyo over the last couple of years. Following his recent move to Europe he has moved the event from the Vestax PACO shop to what is possibly Tokyo’s most appropriate location: Miyajima’s scratch school in Tachikawa (which is located in the suburbs of the Japanese capital). Regular listeners and visitors will remember Miyajima from our Japan special podcasts, as well as from his appearance at DMC in 08 and in various DVD documentaries about the Japanese scratch scene. It’s fair to say that for many, including some of the country’s best scratch DJs, Miyajima is seen as the best freestyle scratch DJ in Japan, a real purist who approaches scratching with the same rigorous mentality some people approach martial arts. And yet he’s still friendly and approachable and far removed from scratch nerds – he’s just someone who takes what he does seriously. Scratch Day events are now organised everytime Yoshi goes back to Japan. The latest one took place last week and we should see footage from that in the near future. Anyone interested in finding out more about the events or taking part should drop Yoshi a line via the site’s contact page or any of the social networks.

For this episode, Yoshi’s chosen to feature 5 of the DJs who took part on the day: Shintaro, Audace (a French DJ and producer who we’ve also featured on Rhythm Incursions recently), LAN, Naoki and Samu. This time he has gone for a tighter edit highlighting each DJ and their cutting in more detail. The footage also gives a nice view of Miyajima’s school and what the day was like. Definitely reminds me of the couple of live sessions I organised while in Tokyo, with a similar, relaxed vibe.

So that’s it, sit back and enjoy episode 2 and look out for the next one coming this way soon.

This episode is 10 minutes long, and comes in at 109mb. As with all our video podcasts it’s optimised for iPod and iTunes (.m4v file) viewing but can be played with all standard media players as long as you have the latest codecs.

You can preview/stream it above and download it right below. To make sure you don’t miss an episode subscribe to our podcast feed on iTunes or in any feed reader/aggregator/podcatcher.

Download Beat4Battle TV:Japan ep 2 (right click and save as)

Beat4Battle TV: Japan – Episode 2
Featuring: Shintaro, Audace, Samu, Lan and Naoki
Filmed and Edited by Yoshi. Filmed at Miyajima’s school in Tachikawa, Tokyo in August 2009.

Beat4Battle TV: UK – Episode 1

Following on from the sneak preview we gave you last week, we kick start our brand new Beat4Battle TV: UK series with episode 1 and the fine talents of DJ Switch and IQ, two of the youngest and brightest in the UK. Switch is the recent DMC World battle for supremacy champion while IQ is a veteran (despite his early years) of the battle scene of sorts and currently working with MC Asaviour and others as a producer.

As explained in our preview post, here, Beat4Battle TV is directed by Yoshi, the newest member of the TTR fam, and focuses on the various local scratch scenes worldwide, starting with the UK. Plans were made to go to France for a couple of weeks unfortunately legal issues have meant that Yoshi is stuck in the UK for another 2 weeks before returning to Japan, therefore the next European series will most likely be later this year when Yoshi returns. In the meantime you can look forward to some Beat4Battle TV: Japan action in the coming months.

Back to the matter at hand, the current line up for the Beat4Battle TV: UK series is as follows:
EP1 – Switch/IQ
EP2 – Tigerstyle/Muzzell/Mr Brown/Silk Kuts/AO
EP3 – Fidel Cutstro/Blood 1/Ideal
EP4 – DissCuss/Manipulate/Maroon/2Tall
EP5 – Clix
EP6 – Mikey

Additionally Yoshi will be repping TTR and Beat4Battle at this week’s UK DMC Finals, so if anyone is reading this is going to be there Thursday and fancies being filmed then please get in touch with him or myself directly (yoshi / laurent at turntableradio dot com).

For now though sit back and enjoy 14 mins of fresh new footage. Preview/stream below and direct download link underneath. As usual all videos are optimised for iPod/iTunes viewing and can be opened with any media player using the latest codecs. File type is .m4v, file size is 161mb.

For more info on Switch and IQ hit up the myspaces.

Download the Beat4Battle TV UK Episode 1 right here! (right click and save as)

Beat4Battle TV: UK – Episode 1
Featuring: Switch and IQ
Filmed at IQ’s studio. Filmed and edited by Yoshi.

Beat4Battle TV: UK – Preview

We return with the first video from the latest member of the Turntable Radio family, Yoshi, featuring some of the UK’s finest tablists – Tigerstyle, Muzzell, Mr Brown and Silk Kuts. More on that in a minute though.

Hailing from Japan, Yoshi recently got in touch with us as he’s visiting Europe on a mission to try and document the freestyle scratch scene around the world. We met up at the weekend and it was a pleasure to see you a young man, all of 18 years, passionate about scratching and the artform and equally passionate about wanting to document it and share this with the world at large, with little preoccupation for trying to cash in.

I’ve got to be honest, meeting Yoshi was also great because it reminded me of just how I was about 7 or 8 years ago when I started my own attempt at documenting the scratch scene at the time. Over the years I’d slowly despaired that maybe I, and others like Mr Trick before me and Mark from Skratchworx, was a little weird in wanting to do something like that for nothing other than self-fulfillment, pleasure and the ‘glory’ as they call it. It’s nice to know we’re not alone.

Yoshi is an independent film-maker who hosts an open turntable event called “Scratch Day” at the Vestax Tokyo HQ every three months under the name Beat4Battle JP. The event has featured some of the best established scratch DJs in Japan, like TTR friends Ken One and Human Rhythm, as well as many upcoming/unknown scratch kids from the Tokyo area. You can check videos from Scratch Day Japan on Yoshi’s Youtube channel.

Some of you might recognise the Beat4Battle name, originally from France it’s an online scratch community which developped around a forum in 2005 and has since grown to incorporate regular freestyle scratch and beat battles, both online and in the real world, as well as free compilations released online. Check their site for more info and links.

So back to the matter at hand. We hooked up with Yoshi and had a chat, and the decision was made to invite him on board here at Turntable Radio to bring you fresh, video content regularly from his travels as well as regular events in Japan.

The first such video is a preview of the Beat4Battle UK series. Yoshi has been in the UK for about 10 days during which he’s hooked up with some of the country’s best, and still active, scratchers: from established names like Tigerstyle and Muzzell to younger DJs like Switch and IQ. Everytime he’s filmed them doing what they do best and the results will be broadcast here in downloadable glory as well as on his youtube (and maybe on TTR’s own streaming channel once we’ve sorted that out).

First up is a 10 mins preview featuring Tigerstyle, Muzzell, Mr Brown and Silk Kuts, 4 of the UK’s most established scratch DJs and who we’ve not heard of for a while, so it’s a pleasure to be able to bring you this video. The video is sponsored by the good people from Dephect Clothing, who long-time listeners will remember as we featured them on the site about 4 years ago when they first launched.

As always the video has been optimised for iPod/iTunes viewing, and can also be watched using any standard media player as long as you have the latest codecs. The video is available on our feed, via our iTunes feed (subscribers should have received it by the time they read this) and via direct download for the lazier among you (see below). File type is .m4v and file size is 128mb.

So that’s it for now, a big and warm welcome to Yoshi as well as a big thanks for his hard work. Look out for much more from him coming regularly on the site. Next up is episode 1 of the Beat4Battle UK series with Switch and IQ, and then more including vids with the Community Scratch guys which are being filmed tomorrow. After that Yoshi will be heading over to France to film people there and hook up with the Beat4Battle people, before returning to Tokyo for more. In the future we’ll also be hooking up more videos with our Japanese connections, so stay tuned for news on all this.

You can preview the video on youtube (below) and download link is right after!

Download the Beat4Battle TV UK preview right here! (right click and save as)

Beat4Battle TV: UK – Preview
Featuring: Muzzell, Tigerstyle, Mr Brown, Silk Kuts
Sponsored by: Dephect Clothing
Filmed at Mr. Brown’s house in Harrow, UK on 26th June 2009. Filmed and edited by Yoshi.
Beat by J-One from “Wildstyle Looper 2″ available for download at YourLooper.com