From Mixtapes to Airwaves: DJ Topspin and Seattle's Early 90s Hip Hop Radio Culture
Photos provided by DJ Topspin
By Emma Schwichtenberg
Kids of the 80s, brought up on hip hop and MTV culture, were influenced by the likes of MC Hammer, witnessing firsthand how hip hop and R&B converged. These same kids watched and began to wonder how music was produced, inspiring an entire generation of music producers. Barry Gayle, better known as DJ Topspin aka Blendiana Jones, was one such kid.
Topspin was brought up in a Seventh-Day Adventist household where gospel was played, and chords were more than just sound — they were emotional, they assigned a mood.
“When those chords met the choppy breakbeat nature of hip hop production, it really opened my ears and eyes, and I started buying records,” Topspin said.
At home, he had a large cabinet stereo system with a horizontal design that featured a sunken turntable at its center. He watched scratching happen on television, trying to figure out how it might work in his mind.
“I just started tinkering with that system, scratching records on top of other records, not really knowing about slip mats or how they create that surface,” Topspin said.
He experimented by scratching records and messing them up, not even using a fader to cut out sounds, teaching himself the mechanics of DJing without a two-turntable setup. At the same time, he listened to KFox Fresh Tracks and Nasty Nes on the radio.
"Growing up in a musical household, having access to turntables in various forms, I tried to piece together what I observed during the day and recreate it with what I had around me,” Topspin said.
He would put a record on top of the system, set up a kick drum, and record a version of the show. Then, he would tweak it, punch over to the turntable, and create a new version of the radio show, imagining himself in the DJs' positions.
Around '91, he began producing music through cassette mixtapes.
Using his Walkman and a collection of records, Topspin improvised with connectors and adapters from RadioShack. He would often sample drums from rap cassettes, compensating for the lack of a sequencer by manually hitting the downbeats precisely. He integrated iconic breaks like James Brown’s "Funky Drummer" into his sampler, utilizing its line-out with another Wi-Fi adapter to monitor the output while recording onto cassette tapes. This process, known as "pause tape mixes," involved layering samples and beats from random jazz records, creating intricately crafted mixtapes filled with diverse musical layers and rhythms.
“Shortly after I started making & selling my mix tapes in local stores like Music Menu, Beverly's Records & Tapes, Lil Record Mart, Another Record Store, and Tower Records,” Topspin said.
That same year he started Tribal Productions with DJ Vitamin D.
“Vitamin D already had a rap group,” Topspin said. “He had actual techniques and turntables, unlike my basic setup. I saw him perform with Ghetto Children at Garfield in '91; they were a more polished four or five-person group compared to my early beats. After meeting him and showing him my work, we developed a friendship and eventually started Tribal Productions together.”
Tribal Productions was an umbrella collective, inspired by groups like Wu-Tang Clan. It encompassed several groups including Topspin’s group, Sinsemilla, and Vitamin D’s group Ghetto Children. They grew as friends and creative collaborators, influenced by the emerging hip-hop scene and groups like Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics.
Topspin graduated from Garfield and went on to the University of Washington (UW) on a scholarship. However, his passion for music began to overshadow his studies.
“I was flirting with my interest in music,” Topspin said. “That was kind of taking me away from my studies. You know, I'm trying to go to out-of-town artist conventions in pursuit of our elevation, but I also ended up DJing.”
It wasn’t long before he started DJing at KCMU at UW, which later went onto to become KEXP.
“Sunday night was the night for hip hop shows, with many radio stations giving hip hop a slightly off-kilter slot,” Topspin said. “Sunday night was known for this.”
His years listening to Rap Attack inspired Topspin to create his own radio station through mixtapes, calling it 101.1 KTOP. FM, where FM stood for "Fat Mixtapes."
“It sounded like an actual radio station, because I was basically trying to create the station I wished existed,” Topspin said. “At that time, the radio stations were kind of flip-flopping, trying to be Nirvana one second and rap the next. There was really no place consistently outside of the Rap Attack show where you could hear real hip hop.”
Around the same time Tribal Productions began to gain traction, opening for major artists like Jeru the Damaja, DJ Shadow, and Nas.
“In my mind, we were just as good as these people we were looking up to; we were just not signed,” Topspin said. “The radio show concept for the mixtapes started with the idea that it sounds like you're looking for a station, and then it lands on this station that doesn't exist, KTOP FM, and I would host it."
He had 90 minutes on tape, with 40 to 45 minutes on each side. He acted as the host, interviewing folks and members of Tribal Productions. He believed they were just as good as the artists they admired and that they needed a vehicle to showcase their talent.
“During that time, I ran into the reality and naivety of thinking that radio stations wanted to hear our story, when in reality, they were more focused on commercial interests,” Topspin said.
His DJing started to take off around '94-'95, and he continues to DJ to this day.
During his time in the industry, Topspin joined the Robert Glasper Experiment as a spontaneous band member, showcasing his musical prowess in live performances.
He has gone on to tour the East Coast with Chimurenga Renaissance, placing him among the select few DJs who have showcased their turntable skills on the esteemed stage of Carnegie Hall.
At a KDAY concert in the Bay Area, he collaborated with T-Pain to debut the 'Can't Believe It' Freshcoast Remix before an audience exceeding 10,000 people. He has also ventured into dance music by producing original compositions for renowned dancer Jade Solomon, contributing to the intersection of music and dance
Looking ahead, Tribal Productions is actively working on a new compilation titled "Recalculate," following up on their influential mid-90s release "Do The Math."
Catch Topspin on Bandcamp or keep up with him on Instagram @topspinstagram.
