DJ Kutfather
Kutfather plays Thursdays at I-Spy's Wicked & Wild Reggae, Sundays on 90.3 KEXP's Street Sounds, and he usually pops up in two or three other places around town every week. He's a very busy man.
Of all the nights you play around town, which one do you enjoy the most? Which has been the most successful? "My favorite night to play as well as the most successful has got to be Wicked & Wild Reggae, Thursdays at I-Spy with [DJ] Soul One. Reggae music is my inspiration in so many different ways, even more so than hiphop in the sense that reggae is the father of hiphop. The whole idea of DJs, MCs, and sound systems playing for people has been a reggae mainstay since the early '50s. [DJs] Kool Herc, Grand Wizard Theodore: The inventor of scratching and countless other contributors to hiphop are of Jamaican descent, and reggae was what they started playing alongside rare break records."
I noticed at Wicked & Wild that you "toast" during the show, which (they say) is the root of rapping. Do you also rap? "Yes, I am an MC and have a couple of records out right now. One of which is a solo record on a label out of my native San Diego called Certified Records, and the name of the record is actually a double single: "Hardcore" with "Transmission" [on the b side]. Also I had a couple of singles on Conception Records out of Seattle, and a collaborative effort with a Canadian hiphop group called Swollen Members and an artist out of L.A. named Buck Fifty. Toasting is the father of rap for sure."
You also hosted the Battle of Bumbershoot this year. How do you think it went? "For the most part, the Battle of Bumbershoot was as organized as the promoters and contributors could keep it... I felt that the DJ battle was kind of biased in the sense that there should have never been a third round, but the MC battle was the best part of the whole competition. I think they should have left it up to the crowd and let that option help in the judging of the talent at the contest."
