by Marcella Ortega
Daily Lobo
After years of battling, turntablists Ohm and Kiddo decided to join forces as Five Oh Fresh.
The duo will perform March 15 at the Launchpad at 618 Central Ave. S.W.
Ohm said the rivalry began at turntable battles in Albuquerque because the two would often compete against one another in the final round.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"It created some unnecessary tension," Ohm said.
When Kiddo came back from a Disco Mix Club battle in Denver, he asked Ohm if he wanted to form a group.
"None of the outsiders made it (to the finals)," Kiddo said. "It was all locals. I got fed up with the politics. We needed to put more of our energy into putting Albuquerque on the map, rather than into battling each other."
The Disco Mix Club is an annual worldwide DJ competition held throughout the U.S. It was founded by Tony Prince in 1983. Kiddo said the competitions are judged on skill, technicality and originality.
"With these battles, there is a lot of ego behind them," he said. "If you're not acting like you're there to win, you probably won't. It's just back and forth insulting and backing your skill with your hands."
Kiddo said the club started as a disco mixing competition but evolved into hip-hop and turntable contests.
"Back in the day, they didn't have the skill, the means or the thought process to do what we do today in terms of technical music composition," he said. "All they had was performance, props and just your showmanship."
Kiddo said turntablism evolved when DJs learned methods to produce sound.
"On a mixer, you have a switch that basically turns the sound on and off on one table or another," he said. "They started figuring out that if you have one guitar riff, and you turn the sound on and off really fast while pushing the (record) really slow, you get a stutter effect. If you pull it back and use a different movement, you get a wah-wah (effect). From that, people like Q-Bert and Mix Master Mike started taking that technique and figuring out specific patterns that would generate a specific sound."
Kiddo said other advances such as records called battle tools, some of which are filled with insults, can take away from a turntablist's performance.
"It's not as visually entertaining," he said. "Back in the day, you used to have to dig to get that specific sound. You'd see a turntablist flip though a hundred records."
Kiddo said a common misconception among people is that DJs and turntablists are the same thing.
"DJs continuously make one piece of music," he said. "Some DJs scratch, but it doesn't make them a turntablist. A turntablist controls the music with his hands using dexterity. It's like the turntablists use the turntable as a drum machine."
Ohm said he became a turntablist in 1999.
"I had a friend in Los Angeles who showed me how to do it," he said. "When I got back to Santa Fe, there was nothing more to do than practice scratching. I used to steal some of my uncle's old records - like Donna Summer - and practice."
Kiddo started experimenting with records when he was 11, after he went with his uncle to a rave.
"It was really cool to see the DJ control everyone," he said. "I used to play cheesy Chicago house, DJ Irene-style, but it started to evolve with a hip-hop flavor."
Kiddo said DJ Craze, a three-time Disco Mix Club champion, was one of his biggest influences. Kiddo met DJ Craze at a battle before Craze won the Disco Mix Club championship.
"They call him the Michael Jordan of turntablists," he said. "He's a maniac. When DJ Craze rolled out, he was all visual. That opened my eyes. He busted out a routine that words can't describe."
Kiddo said he is burnt out from traveling, but he supports Ohm by telling him which turntablists to watch out for and what to expect. For now, Ohm will be the only one competing out of state.
"It's nerve-racking," Ohm said. "You only get a certain amount of time to prove that you're the best."
The duo will continue to perform together at clubs and battles in Albuquerque, and in the future, both will perform out of state.
"It's a band, and you need to make time to meet up," Kiddo said. "When we have more time to collaborate, we're going to put
Albuquerque on the map."
