In 2009, I began research for my dissertation and eventual book, in which I chronicle the role of hip-hop DJs in the evolution of products that catered to their culture. I spoke with some of the key players in the DJ product industry and in DJ culture itself, and asked them something simple: “What do you think is the most important technical innovation in the history of DJing?” As you might imagine, most suggested products like the Technics 1200, digital vinyl systems, and sharp, contactless crossfaders like the one invented by DJ Focus in the late 90s.
Their answers make perfect sense; these products disrupted the industry and advanced the culture by allowing DJs’ ideas to come to life in new ways. But these answers only tell a part of the story. Consider, for example, the answer that Bay Area scratch legend DJ Quest gave to my question: “The thing that has advanced the most,” he said, “has been the hand.”
Quest’s answer is central here and to technocultural synergism as I present it. A common misconception is that technical innovation leads to innovations in technique. With respect to hip-hop DJing, I have found that it’s the other way around: Technical innovation follows innovations in DJ technique, or as Quest puts it, “the hand.” Whether finding new ways to use existing machines, or designing, inventing, and engineering their own equipment, DJs have participated in an ongoing feedback loop that shapes new technologies. Technical innovation is in a sense a product of the culture, not something external to it. Seen this way, hip-hop DJ culture provides a rich site for exploring innovation as a cycle, a dialectic, and a network.
Technique and technical innovation are grounded in memory as well. For technique, it’s muscle memory and sonic memory, and applying these memories via practice. For technical innovation, these memories codified through DJ technique are encoded in products, and through use, these mixers are given meaning and develop a unique cultural and historical importance.
In what follows, I present a number of case studies that illustrate the synergy between hip-hop performance techniques and product development, specifically that of DJ mixers. While most writing about technological advancements considers the ways that technical innovations affect people, I want to flip the script and show how the development of new DJ mixers were influenced by DJ techniques themselves.