Today we have the luxury of talking with one of the legends of the Los Angeles underground scene, Erik Villalpando aka DJ Dope_E aka Nuklear Prophet
Hi Erik, it’s a pleasure to have you here at 1051 Magazine, thanks for taking the time. We always like to talk a bit about the origins of the artists. In one of your biographies we have read that you are from Los Angeles and that you grew up in the downtown area, being your first musical influences the records your mother had. What are those first songs, those first records, the first ones you bought and how did you start listening to the music styles that later became your passion?
Hello and thank you for having me.
I was introduced to my mother’s 45 collection at the age of 9. She had a lot of goodies ranging from James Brown – Funky Drummer to Lipps Inc. – Funky Town she also had all her Mexican artists such as Pedro Infante to Los Ángeles Negros to Los Bukis. I remember I would spend hours playing her 45’s listening and wondering how the music was playing out of a vinyl disc. My older sister was into music, I was introduced to the sounds of Prince/ Egyptian Lover/ Depeche Mode/ Lisa Lisa and The Cult Jam etc. Our small family used to jam out on the weekends listening to music all day whilst having to do our cleaning chores around our small apartment. There was always a variety of tunes playing on the weekends.
The main genres that really caught my ear were Hip Hop, Rap, and especially Electro. For me Electro has it all, melodies, booming drums, dope lyrics and sometimes dope scratching, Electro to me is and always will be the future and outer space. Kraftwerk most definitely blew me away, Numbers was my favorite track of all time along with Cybertron’s R9, that track was most definitely from outer space. I really believed Kraftwerk and Cybertron were Aliens. Those two records were one of the first I owned and they are definitely my favorites.
As a teenager, your love for vinyl, turntables and scratching began to grow. You joined a crew called The Hardcore Junkies to party in the neighbourhoods of the city. What were the first turntables you had, what records come to mind from those days, those parties, their set-ups, etc.?
The first turntables I had were Lineartech Belt Driven turntables… I’m so happy I had those tables as I was able to learn to be gentle on the platter while scratching, this helped greatly because I was able to work on any table I would encounter while playing at parties. I also had a cheap Radio Shack mixer that only had up and down faders. It had two phono/line switches that I would attempt to transform on but I mainly learned how to chop up music on beat. I went by the name Dj Dope-E.
I was living in Glendale, CA back in the 90’s and at my Junior High school I met Steven Castro aka Boy Blue, he was a super wicked dj, his scratching was super precise and he was a challenge for me. Stevie also had a pair of Technics turntables, I remember feeling like I lost my virginity the first time I got to touch them, I was in heaven! Stevie and I became good homies along with two other dope dj’s by the names of Manuel Villasenor (Manny Groove) and Chris Kalev (Dj Fever). I was into Gabber, Hardcore and Electro, and they were mainly into House and Hip Hop we eventually formed a crew and we called ourselves Dreamland Productions.
When Dreamland started playing out at local parties and it was my turn to get on, I would always use the traditional Al Nayfish –The Soul and Cybertrons – Clear. I would cut those records up at the beginning of my sets to display my scratching skills and then I would get into some Rotterdam Records Hardcore and Gabber. I would play stuff like Holy Noise, Euromasters, Neophyte, Dj Paul Elstak etc.In those days house music was really big in the party scene. I wasn’t really big on house. I would always disrupt the party with my skills and Hardcore. Some people hated me (mostly the girls cuz they couldn’t dance) and some people loved me (the Head strong). We would mainly play out at backyard boogies and battle other dj’s from other neighborhoods, occasionally ducking 40 bottles being chucked during fights to bullets flying from suckers that were pissed cuz they got kicked out of the party. I really didn’t care for playing these backyard parties as they were always shit and were guaranteed to be broken up by fights or the cops.
Back in 1996-97 I stopped going to those parties and started focusing more on putting together battle routines using hardcore. Around this time my best homie Mike Hernandez aka Mike Hemp which was my upstairs neighbour who was also a battle DJ that would play Hardcore and Gabber started coming around, we would study countless hours of DMC videos and DJ Qbert vhs tapes. We would eventually call ourselves the Hardkore Junkies (Mike Hemp and Dj Dope-E) We would practice our routines constantly and our focus was the L.A. warehouse rave scene, we wanted to play those so bad. Mike and I would hit up those raves and we would always say “damn these dj’s suck” how the hell are we not playing these? We eventually started getting gigs in late 98 and we took off playing Gabber battle routines. We definitely crushed a lot of raves with our skills.
What is evident is your absolute mastery with two turntables and a crossfader. Proof of this are your awards in the World Records DJ Competition in three of its editions, in Astro’s Music – Across The Fader and participations in other similar competitions. We have been able to see some of those videos and we can see a transition in your style, at the beginning it was more Hardcore / Gabber and then it became more Electro. What can you tell us about this transition, about this musical trip through the years?
I fell in love with Techno in 1990 while listening to a local radio show by the name of Power tools that was hosted by Richard Humpty Vision. There was another station that had the Saturday Night mix show with Tony Largo. These two stations exposed me to the techno sound. I was introduced to the sounds of artists such as Intellect, The Prodigy, Human Resource etc. I absolutely loved the hard breakbeat sounds and darkness. One night towards the end of the Power Tools show there was a local DJ that went by the name of R.A.W, he was playing some fast hard banging drums that I had never heard before. I was blown away! After that Richard Vision came on the air and said that music he was playing was called Hardcore Gabber. I was sold and that would be the genre I would dive into. Back then I really loved some of the hip hop influence you would hear in those hardcore gabber records, there were some tracks that I could hear hip hop patterns in. A lot of the homies would be banging their heads but I would catch myself rocking back and forth as if I was listening to a dope hip hop beat.
Being that I was heavily influenced by the battle culture and hip hop I would incorporate those skills in my Hardcore sets. I had many years of fun playing Hardcore until about 2006. I was starting to get bored with the long breakdowns in the newer Hardcore tracks that were coming out and I began to search for something different. I had always been down with the Electro sound but I just never got too deep into it. One day while surfing the web I found an artist by the name of Anthony Rother and I listened to his track Hacker, this track was amazing. I remember I got goose bumps while listening to the track. At that point I knew I had once again found a sound to love. I have been collecting Electro music since then.
You decided to start making music when you were eighteen years old, taking on the challenge with a Vestax multitrack and an Akai S20, and then expanding the family with some synths and improving the sampler section. I imagine you started at home and then moved on to the studio. How were those first sessions in the studio? What was the first record you released and when, on what label?
Originally, I had bought the Vestax and Akai so that I could make some wicked intro’s to the tapes the Hardkore Junkies were releasing. I would move on to make my own music which was mostly Gabber and Trip Hop type of beats. In 2005 Omar Santana from H2OH recordings hit up Mike and myself to work on a Hardcore Sample record along with three hardcore tracks. The sample record consisted of samples and long tones for DJ’s to scratch while doing routines. We were then invited to Omar’s studio in Silver Lake, CA to work on the tracks for the record. From then on I knew the studio and production was for me. I learned so much from Omar and his engineer Dre Hectic during those sessions, I never wanted to leave. The record was called Weapons of Mass Destruction by Omar Santana, Mike Hemp and Dj Dope-E. Although it was not my own release it was my first record and I was very proud of it.
It’s been a while since then… today we talk about your forthcoming release, the album titled Prophecies 11:21, as part of the relaunch of the legendary Dutch label U-Trax. How did you get in touch with them (or they with you) to release the advance EP and the album?
I remember driving home from work one day and I got a Facebook message from Richard aka DJ White Delight. He had mentioned that he had put together a playlist of some of my sound cloud tracks that he was interested in releasing. At first I thought it was bullshit but then he set up a face to face meeting via the internet and from there I knew he was serious about it. Huge shout out to Richard for this opportunity.
There is a story about the origin of L.A. Rockz (the track from the advance EP and the one that opens the album) and your relationship with Krazy Dee, a Mexican MC who collaborated with N.W.A. on some of their recordings. We’d love to know how you met Krazy Dee and when and how the track was born…
Krazy Dee is my brutha from anotha mutha!! I had always known that Dee had worked on NWA’s Panic Zone as he has production credits on the 12 inch of that track. The way I met Dee was via Myspace back in 2004. I wanted to get working on some Electro type tracks. I reached out to him and he responded, he came out to my lab the following weekend and we hit it off. I played a bunch of tracks for him that he was feeling and we took off from there.
I was living in Whittier, CA back in 2006 or 07 and Dee was living up the street. I started working on L.A. Rockz at this time, I had all the sounds and melodies mashed together with myself rapping on the track. I did not want to rap; I just added the lyrics to help put the track together. I called Dee over one day cuz I wanted him to rap the track by himself and I needed him to write some dope lyrics for it. Dee was loving the track however he felt it needed to be structured right so I put on some steel toe boots and he began toe stepping to the max! The end result was dope and we decided to keep my raps on the first and second verses and Dee would take the third verse. During this time Dee was working with a female MC from the Valley that went by Nasim. Dee thought it would be a good idea for Nasim to rap my second verse. We gave her a shot and it sounded dope. The track was finally done but we never really moved forward with it. It would sit on one of my hard drives for many years until recently when Witte Genot selected it for the record.
In the album there is a remix by Egyptian Lover, a key figure in West Coast Hip-Hop and Electro. How did this collaboration come about? Did you know each other, did you have contact before this remix?
Egyptian Lover is one of the kings of the Los Angeles Electro sound. I have always been inspired by him, I love the longevity of his career and the fact that he has never changed his style and keep it true to the old skool Electro Funk sound is really dope to me. I speak to Egypt here and there when I see him at his shows. I mainly ask him for pointers on using the 808.
When Genot asked me if I could have someone remix L.A. Rockz who would it be? the only name that came to mind was Egyptian Lover, why wouldn’t I won’t an L.A. legend to remix a track about L.A. ? I am glad Genot made it happen and I am super happy with how the remix sounds.
The album will be released on December 3rd via U-Trax, and it´s full of great Electro, but not just that… there are some other tracks with different flavours. Please, tell us about the process of the recording of the album. And about the mix of inspiration and styles we can imagine listening to and reading the titles of the songs
As far as the recording process goes, I usually come up with melodies as the bones to the track and then I build around them. I am currently using Logic Pro X for sequencing and recording. I use a Roland TR 808, Access Virus TI and Sequential Circuits Prophet 6. Occasionally I’ll bust out the MPC 2000 to get some old skool flavors as I did with one of the tracks on the album – Doctorz Of Crime that was done on the MPC 2000 and then I added some extra editing in Logic.
Yes, this record will have many styles ranging from Electro, Footwerk, Trip Hop and Hip Hop. These tracks are inspired by different moods I have been in. Now that I have been in the music game for so long, I feel like I can always tap into different styles. The only formula I strive to keep in my tracks is melody. A melody can take you somewhere, for me melody is an emotion. I am a very emotional person maybe it’s because I am a Cancer but I always make my tracks based off of my emotions. This record will definitely take you on a journey through my styles. I hope everyone will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making these tracks.
Thanks again Erik for your time and for these amazing stories from the L.A. underground scene!
Prophecies 11:21 will be released December 3rd here on vinyl, digital and cassette, now available for pre-order.
L.A. Rockz is already released and it´s available here
