DJ Shadow

Some Lesser Known Facts About DJ Shadow

• Does DJ Shadow smoke?: Not Known

• Does DJ Shadow drink alcohol?: Not Known

• Shadow’s connection with the music began when his mother moved to a remote area of California to get away from her husband. He spent a lot of time listening to the radio in their car.

• The light in his eyes for music sparked during the disco era. The music then sounded to him more synthetic and futuristic.

• His first experiment with music was with a $99 Sears home entertainment system, which had a turntable, radio receiver, and a dual cassette deck. He initially experimented with Charlie Brown’s children record to see how many times he could echo out Lucy’s voice.

• He had to spend his pocket money for a year to buy back his brother the Archie comics collection, that the latter lent him, and Shadow gave them away to an older kid.

• The music that he produced when in association with Mo’ Wax, a UK based record label, carried covert meaning. He was, at that time, working as a DJ for KDVS, an American student and community radio station, owned by the University of California, Davis.

• His remixes were released on ‘Hollywood ABC’ a short-lived rap/hip-hop subsidiary label of Hollywood Records, between 1991 and 1992.

• He was a part of the creation of ‘Solesides,’ an underground hip-hop label, in early 1993. The first 12″ release on this new imprint was titled ‘Entropy.’

• Shadow’s first full-length album, ‘Entroducing,’ released in 1996, bagged him the Guinness World Record for ‘First Completely Sampled Album,’ in 2001.

• Rafael Rashid’s 2005 book, ‘Behind the Beat’ has a mention of Shadow’s home studio. It has a brief description and a couple of photographs of twenty notable hip-hop producers and their studios.

• Time Magazine named Entroducing as one of its ‘All-Time’ 100 best albums, in November 2006.

• Shadow has a personal collection of over 60,000 records.