The night begins at eight, with Mr Thing as the hot-pick warm-up DJ. But really it’s clear that Cargo is going crazy for Z-Trip. He's known as one of the best DJ's in the world - and is about to prove it. At ten, when his set's due to start, the room is full of quiet anticipation; by the end as the clock strikes twelve the crowd are hysterically singing the Z-Trip Song, completely enraptured. ('Z-Trip… Z-Trip… Z-Trip').
As soon as he kicks off there's nowhere to hide from the intense audio and highly technical scratching. He takes you everywhere, leading you down unpredictable avenues and together you're gonna see it all. Like a new couple in the submerging, suffocating throws of young love, there's the innocent excitement of the unknown. Z-Trip makes plans with you and this musical journey is lusty...
He warms the crowd with ad-libbed pep and shows his card as a complete entertainer. (He loves London. He really loves London). Fuck superstar DJ, this is a super-hero DJ, mixing anything from drum 'n' bass to G-funk and slotting it together like the panels of a comic. BAM! King of Rock. POW! Effin' Led-Zep. BIFF! Tribe Called Quest. 'Oh what's that? Depeche Mode?' KRASH!! 'Just played it...' I just can't get enough of it and thankfully Z-Trip's virtuosity is relentless as his set follows this logistic without hesitance. He hits you with these styled snippets of classic and commercial, playing everything you wanted to hear - you just didn't know you wanted to hear it. He is a master at knowing when and where to give a song some juncture and when to jolt it on after a 30-second cameo. Z-Trip knows.
You can scorn the nature of the turntablist, and on what level the art fits into music's fickle world, but wherever it rests, Z-trip's top of the sub-genre - not just on his obvious supreme talent - but his endearing and humble integrity too. It's all like, 'Dude, I'm just mixing other people's songs, throwin' in some scratching, tryin'a give y'all a good-ass time...' But, really, it's so much more. Z-Trip is blessed and I want more.
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