DJ Jazzy Jeff Interview
The Jokers Wild

Throwback DJ Turned human punch line, the legendary DJ Jazzy Jeff gets the last laugh

Words by jon caramanica

There’s not a rapper in sight, but he’s still very much the DJ. It’s a few hours before the Illadelph Xperiment – an all-star Philly musical gathering – sets off, but onetime Fresh Prince compadre DJ Jazzy Jeff is already in search of the perfect beats. He’s digging for jems in the seemingly endless run of record crates on the floor of his Philadelphio studio. His collection has more diversity than a transexual.
Vintage hip-hop rests next to a pile of house music imports. Dusty jazz sits on a shelf by the far wall. Then, without warning, he turns to the decks and morphs his casual record-flipping session into an all-out club set, minus the club. He pulls together a string of classics – EPMD, Eric B. & Rakim, Nas- before veering off into more obscure climbs: German house producers Jazzanova and Afrobeat king Fela Kuti. All the while, Jeff works the 1200s like a pro, beat juggling and cutting with precision. When a freshly opened pair of A Tribe Called Quest repressings persist in skipping, he tosses them aside disdainfully, bothered that he cant bring his musical narrative to life. Indeed, this man doesn’t need a master of ceremonies to do the damn thing.
“The music I’m making now is the music I grew up listening to,” says Jeff, coming off his turntable high. “My brothers were playing Chick Corea, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chicago, and I got to know songs and basslines, and how you could change emotons with music.” On the other side of the room from the decks is a professional mixing board, as well as a slew of instruments and countless unmarked tapes and CDs. It’s but one space in a cavern of offices, studios and recreational areas that once housed renegade label Ruffhouse Records. Now it is the home of A Touch of Jazz (ATOJ), the production company Jeff founded more than a decade ago.
For several years after the dissolution of the DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince partnership, ATOJ flew under the radar, working with local artist and subsisting off of the money Jeff saved from his pop exploits, “When I was trying to get ATOJ off the ground, no one was liking it, so I’m doing The Fresh Prince of Bel Air because it pays me a lot of money,” Jeff remembers. “I’m making $10, $12 thousand an episode. I’m bringing that money back and buying equipment, making sure the guys are cool and doing tracks and keeping the lights on. I didn’t get a new house and a bunch of cars. I sacrificed, ‘cause it was something I believed in. It wasn’t a question of if it was going to work. It had to work.”

Jeff Townes used to be the baddest DJ in all of Philadelphia. Before the City of Brotherly Love produced a rapper of note – Schooly D, Steady B, Three Timea Dope – it was a DJ town. Cash Money, Miz and Jazzy Jeff ruled the decks and, by extension, the city itself. Then came the Fresh Prince. Says Jeff, “When I hooked up with Will, I was doing all these crazy things on the turntable, and he could narrate everything that I was doing, explaining it simple so the people could get it.”
The two formed a partnership, performing at local parties and cutting demo songs – “Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble,” “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” and “Summertime” – were overwhelming successes, but they really served as a springboard for the Fresh Prince to become a franchise unto himself: America’s biggest young black star. His aw-shucks attitude, earnest intelligence and ready-to-please demeanor made him a favorite of mainstream America.
All the while, Jeff laid in the cut: “I always felt that if I got someone that’s gonna absorb most of [the attention] and take it off me, then I’m cool with that.” In their musical partnership, Jeff was always the shy, retiring one, content to make music and resign to the shadows of Smith’s ever-growing fame. When Will was offered his own sitcom, Jeff was ready to bow out. “I didn’t want to do television at all,” Jeff insists, “And I didn’t care about my role. I was like, “Oh shit, I’m Jeff from west Philly and I’m on a fucking TV show! What the fuck is this?”
While Smith starred in the show, Jeff played his oddball foil, awkard and a bit slow. Often, his appearance alone served as a punchline in a scene. “I wasn’t as much of a buffoon as they made me,” he says, “To me, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was just DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince on screen. The kind of funny I am in day-to-day life was different than what was on the show.”
As the grinning Fresh Prince became more and more of a boldface name, Jeff retreated to Philly, the city that nurtured him. “People ask me “How’d you feel when Will left you?” [They act like] we were married and got a divorce or something,” he jokes. Indeed, Jeff had extensive production credits on the first two Will Smith albums and still stays in regular contact with his former partner of rhyme. “People didn’t understand that what we’re doing right now is what we always talked about. The day before the first album came out, we sat in the park and he said “I’m going to do movies’ and I said “I’m going to do music for movies.” And here we are.”

“I’ve had people tell me that I’m one of the dopest, deepest musicians they’ve ever been around, and I play nothing, no instrument at all,” says Jeff, amazed. “It’s hard being musical and not being able to play. There’s no way I could get whats in my head out through my fingers. That’s the most frustrating thing in the world.” Part of the ATOJ model was to bring in young, talented musicians who had the mechanics to complement Jazzy Jeff’s instincts and create a virtual laboratory of soul music. When the group was running at full speed, three studios would be operating simultaneously, with different producer-artist combos trying out new sounds.
“We’d be working three songs at once,” says Jeff. “Someone would walk by one of the rooms, hear something, then go in and start playing along, seeing what happens.” Early ATOJ alumni include Vikter Duplaix, the internationally-respected house music producer, and James Poyser, who’s best known for his work behind the boards with Bilal and Erykah Badu. This collective of talent had been toiling away in obscurity for many years, but they were thrust into the limelight following the sleeper success of Jill Scott’s debut album, “Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds, Vol. 1. Suddenly, the so-called Philly sound was very much in demand, and Jeff’s team of young talent became the avatars of the new style.

Since then, countless big names have made their way through the ATOJ studios: Glenn Lewis, Musiq Soulchild, Darius Rucker. “It’s mostly word of mouth,” says Jeff, “We own the studio, so [people] stay as long as it takes. We’ll put you in a room with somebody and see how it comes out. Creativity isn’t on a clock.”
But time is money, and last year saw the simultaneous defection of ATOJ’s six top in-house producers, reportedly over financial disputes. “It’s a natural evolution,” says Jeff, “What ATOJ is like more than anything is school. If you talk to any of those guys, they’ll let you know what they learned down here. Theres always an issue of “we should make more money.” It’s not like I was making money and those guys weren’t. Those guys wanted to make all the money.”
“It was a growth issue,” explains Ivan Barias, one of the recently departed six, “We hit a glass celing there. There were a lot of times that ATOJ wasn’t making money, but he was footing all the bills. You gotta take the sweet with the bitter, you know? We did a lot of the work, he gave us the blueprint. But it’s like a parent situation; ultimately you gonna leave.” When asked whether he should have made more money at ATOJ, Barias responds without hesitation, “Absolutely,” then begs off the question of whether the in-house producers were appropriately credited for their production contributions, conceding,” Jeff is gifted. He knows how to put records together with a good ear and a very meager means.”
But is Jeff, so long the goofy second-in-comand, a vindictive leader who abuses his newly acquire power? Says Jeff, “I’m a very honest person. One thing that I do with anyone that’s been through ATOJ is try to explain the business to them. When you break up with your girl, sometimes its not her fault or your fault, but it gotta be someones fault to ease the pain. Fact is, I’m cool with every last one of them guys.”
“Jeff is still hugs and kisses with the guys, but it’s for show,” says Natalie Stewart, one half of the Brit singer-songwriter duo Floetry, who were responsible for penning Michael Jackson’s recent hit “Butterflies.” The two were meant to be the first act on Dreamworks-distributed ATOJ imprint. But bad blood related to the split between Jeff and his producers led to the dissolution of their relationship with Jeff. The rift turned nasty according to Stewart, with Jeff threatening legal action if the duo didn’t return a TV they’d borrowed from the studio. He also threatened to have the ATOJ car they were using reported stolen if it wasn’t returned. Says Stewart, “They sold us on the family pitch, that everyone was part of one team. But it got to the point where certain people[at ATOJ] wouldn’t talk to us. He gave us the studio time in the beginning, and we’re forever grateful for that, but on our next record, we’ll be working with those producers, not ATOJ.”
With Floetry out of the equation, Jeff’s Dreamworks imprint was bare, and he’s now “in the process” of ending that relationship. A similar partnership with Columbia was dissolved two years ago over irreconcilable musical differences, namely, the label’s concern over whether Will Smith was going to appear on the album. “I’m not happy with record companies right now. I don’t think they’re fair to artists. It’s like, you’re gonna make us change the way we make music to make more money for the record company. So you’re fucking up the music and the money too? No thanks.”
The only label situation that’s appealed to him of late was the offer to contribute to BBE’s producer series, a lineup that already includes contributions from Pete Rock and Jay Dee. Jeff’s entry, The Magnificent, is an exercise in soul-influenced hip hop. The trademark reflective ATOJ sound is there, but instead of just being applied to R&B, it’s paired with top-notch underground hip-hop, including turns by J-Live, Freddie Foxx and the Last Emperor, Says Jeff, “This shit was gumbo. We had a sample, somebody playing live bass, somebody singing, somebody rhyming and I’m cutting on top. Instead of saying you can’t do it, I didn’t want to limit myself. Now that it’s over you go back to making these controlled records. But I’m at a point where I don’t know if I can do that anymore.”

Later that night, once hes made his way to the aprty, he shows just how exciting breaking the mold can be. After seducing the VIP room crowd onto the dancefloor with a series of sure things – DR Dre, Carig Mack, Diamond D – Jeff takes it underground, dropping Medina Green and kardinal Offshall cuts. Then he mixes up a KRS classic with some Musiq Soulchild, and, just as the floor is peaking, breaks off into a disco and house set that brings even the laziest thugs off the couches that line the room’s walls. Head bopping furiously throughout, and his diamond-encrusted saxman pendant bouncing up and down against his chest, Jeff smiles, kowing he’s won. There’s no larger-than-life rapper to compete with, no in souciant producers to share credit with. Right now, he’s just the DJ. And to him, DJ means move the crowd.