Say Uncle

The trio of DJ Eleven, Ayres & Cosmo Baker based in NYC, have been some of the most prolific DJs on the planet over the past decade. Hip-hop to hip-house, r&b, disco & more. Here’s a Q&A with Eleven & Ayres before a recent show at Black Sheep. Rest of the interview below

How did the Rub crew come together?

Eleven: The first party I did after moving to New York, which was a couple years before The Rub started, was with Ayres. Ayres & Cosmo knew each other through On The Go Magazine. And Cosmo & I met through ending up on each other’s email lists. When The Rub started, Ayres & I played the first one, Ayres & Cosmo played the second one. The rest has been like a fairy tale.

The Rub are some of the first cats to consistently play a wide variety of music in your sets. Has it always been that way for the crew?

Eleven: Playing a wide variety of music throughout a night was what we’d all done individually. So, once we started working together a lot, the range of what we could all play well complimented each other nicely, and as a crew we could go pretty far with music.

Ayres: Yeah that’s what drew me to Eleven and Cosmo. They were playing all sorts of stuff. We always learn a lot from each other, to this day. When we started out, we would literally have 12 crates of records on the stage with us.

You guys have put out stacks of mixtapes in the past, have you changed your approach with the internet’s fast-food zshare and free giveaway market?

Eleven: We’ve all slowed down with the amount of mixtapes we’re producing for sale. No one is buying CDs in the way they used to and everyone’s numbers are down. But, we haven’t stopped. We’ve just changed our approach.
We do two internet radio shows: 1) one monthly for Scion, which you can check at www.scion.com/channel2; and 2) one for www.BrooklynRadio.net. Between the two of those, as well as downloadable mixes and the smaller numbers of physical CDs we’re pumping out, we’re still cranking out mixes at the same pace, if not even faster.

What are ya’ll up to production-wise, any original material coming from the crew?

Eleven: Of the three of us, Ayres is definitely the heaviest on his production game, which I’ll let him explain further. In addition to that stuff, we also have a ton of joints up for sale for www.CrooklynClan.net, which is more club mash-up/remix type of stuff. I’ve also released a couple digital EPs through Gigacrate.com. And, I’m sure there’ll be a whole lot more in the future.

Ayres: Yeah I’m doing more production work. Last year I started getting some paid remix work which is great. Coming out soon I have a remix of Young Chris & Emynd, one for Ursula 1000, some more bootleg dance stuff and T&A Breaks 2.

Ayres, definitely feelin’ most of the releases on T&A records, are you going to stay in the same direction of party tracks & remixes?

Ayres: Yeah definitely. I mean I do have my slow weird remixes like the Slim Thug one and the PRGz one, but the fast ones are the ones DJs can play in the club so they have more reach. With T&A we’ve had a really good two year run with the Baltimore Club records. Tittsworth (my partner in T&A), put out an album of original material with vocalists like Pitbull, Nina Sky, Kid Sister, Pase Rock, etc, and we would definitely like to keep it going in that direction. One of our artists, Dave Nada, has been doing some really hot housey stuff with Matt Nordstrom, their group is called Nadastrom and we’re going to being doing some more stuff with them on T&A. They’re unstoppable right now. So we want to keep growing it and start branching out into other dance styles besides Baltimore Club. Like ABB, Always Bigger and Better!

Have you been to Miami outside of WMC? Give us a few memories and top spots to explore around the city?

Eleven: In the spring of ’06, we were doing a weekly residency in Miami [at Studio A] so I’ve been down there a bunch of times. But, unfortunately, it was usually for about 12 hours. Matter of fact, in all that time, I only stepped foot on the beach once. Since then, I’ve gotten to check out the city more. These days, when I go down I always try to grab some good Cuban grub and stop thru ATC (http://atcmia.com/blog/) to grab some new shoes.

Ayres: Oh man, I’ll never forget the first time we played during WMC, and I know you said “outside of WMC” but this was definitely off the beaten path. We were in Little Havana, playing at this random indoor / outdoor restaurant, and I think 20 people showed up. It was so weird, and we were staying way up the beach in like a Holiday Inn. We had one room and I remember having to share a bed with Cosmo. That sucked! Then when we had that residency, we were staying in this super nice condo but it had no furniture in it so we were sleeping on air mattresses. Now it’s The Raleigh or bust.

Any South Florida artists you’re checking of late that are getting rotation in your club sets or I-Pods?

Eleven: Other than his politics, Pitbull is always a favorite. South Florida rep and NYC sometimes resident Michna is also a favorite. Funnily enough, last time I hung out with him we went to a club in NYC and saw Rick Ross, another South Florida favorite. I’m also feeling most of the Grind Mode joints I’ve heard. Plies is also a great guilty pleasure for me.

Ayres: Definitely the boss, Rick Ross. I want to get a big tattoo of Rick Ross’s head on my chest but it won’t fit. And 2 Live Crew are the greatest of all time as far as I’m concerned. Are PRGz from Florida? Maybe Alabama. I should probably know these things.

You guys travel around the world DJ’ing, what are some of your favorite cities to rock?

Eleven: I love playing in the Bay Area, Brooklyn, London & Helsinki. Always great crowds!

Ayres: Malmo has the crazies party ever, The Rumble. I’ve played it twice and I want to go back again. And Sydney, Australia was super fun. Opening for me, they had the three biggest DJ crews in the city battling each other like ten minutes each back to back to back for an hour and a half. The crowd was going apeshit at 10:30 PM. How am I supposed to follow that! They’re bringing me back in the spring so I guess I must have done ok.

Eleven, you’re originally from the Bay area, what music did you grow up on out there?

Eleven: A lot of Bay Area hip hop, plus a lot of hip hop from the South and, of course, the East Coast. A lot of Parliment, Cameo, Zapp & Roger. A lot of punk rock. And, a little bit of a lot of other stuff.

Being from the famous Oakland era, you think they should let Mark McGwire into the Hall of Fame?

Eleven: From the moment he left Oakland for the Cardinals, he was dead to me.
Ayres: I have mixed feelings. It’s a slippery slope.

Ayres, we read you went from Mississippi to college radio in upstate NY and then right into the competitive New York DJ scene. How did you get your break?

Ayres: I think starting out in New York, it was so competitive, but you also could get noticed by people who could really get you on the fast track if you were doing cool shit. For me personally, there weren’t as many DJs back then who played everything, so that got some peoples’ ears. I met DJ Eleven through friends when we both played at the same loft party ten years ago and that friendship has obviously opened some doors. I went to college with Scott Sasso who does Ten Deep clothing and we did seven mixtapes together that were distributed in all the early streetwear shops all over the world and that got my name out. One of those mixtapes won the Scion mixtape contest and I get a lot of work through them. This DJ named Mikey, he heard me at a bar and liked what I was doing so we DJed together a bunch, then he opened Southpaw and we started The Rub. Another friend started a band called Fannypack, and I opened for them in New York. Dave 1 from Chromeo heard me and had me open for them, when Chromeo first started doing shows. Then his brother A-Trak and I played the album release party for Chromeo, and A-Trak liked me and that lead to Cosmo and I going on a six week tour with him. I met my last booking agent and my current booking agent on that tour, through A-Trak. It’s all little things like that, just having people hear you and then want to help you out. Once things got moving they snowballed, but it took grinding away in obscurity for about five years for things to take off.

How much of the music you came up on do you try to incorporate into your sets now?

Eleven: As much as possible.
Ayres: I find that I’ll go in little cycles where I’ll forget about something for a while, then hear an old song and be reminded of it and bring it back out in my set. We’ve been doing this so long, and we have so much music, that there always tends to be old stuff we can somehow make fresh again.

Give us three new albums you’ve been bumpin’ lately?

Eleven: Jake One White Van Music, Scarface Emeritus, Anthony Hamilton The Point of it All.
Ayres: Wow those are good ones. You messed me up! I would add that the Santogold album was my favorite album of 2008. I’ve been playing a lot of dance music lately and that is more single driven, so I would say the Nadastrom “P*ssy Soul” EP.

Without giving away too much, let us know a couple of your go-to records/ remixes?

Ayres: If the question is about records we made, then:

DJ Ayres “Work It” from the Hear Nu Evil 2 EP
Kid Sister “Pro Nails” (DJ Ayres remix) from the I Like Make Dance EP
Paul Johnson “Get Down” (DJ Ayres edit) from the Quarter Water EP
If the question is about records in general then:

Blaqstarr “Get Your Handz Up” (Nadastrom Remix).
Farley “Jackmaster” Funk – Love Can’t Turn Around (Boys Noize Remix)
Rob Threezy “The Chase”

Any records or artists getting play right now that you are really not feelin’?

Eleven: “Pop Champagne”
Ayres: I like that one! For me, I can’t fuck with Lady Gaga. And LMFAO – I’m not mad at them per se, it just seems like it’s something a marketing dude dreamed up to sell music to the streetwear generation.

Couple of your favorite mixtapes?

Eleven: The Rub “Best of 2008, parts 1 & 2″. (Shameless self-promotion!) I also like Ayres’ “Best of Young Jeezy” and Cosmo’s Raphael Saadiq mixes as well.
Ayres: Recently, PRGz x Diplo x Benzi “Fear And Loathing in Hunts Vegas.” J-Rocc “J-Rocc James Brown and Friends 2.”

If you weren’t a DJ what would you be doing?

Eleven: Running a chain of burrito restaurants.
Ayres: Copy editing children’s books.

Any jobs outside of music?

Eleven: While not as much as I used to, I still do some writing for music magazines. I write a monthly column for an English rap magazine called Hip Hop Connection and an occasional piece for Wax Poetics. All the other non-DJing/production side hustles fell away since things have been so crazy with the DJing.
Ayres: Stay at home dad!

There are more DJs around now then ever before, any advice to the up and comers or people just starting out?

Eleven: Keep working. A huge part of winning is to outlast everyone else.

Ayres: Do something new and different that will get a lot of attention. Brilliantly combine two things nobody has ever put together before. Support your DJ’ing with some other income so you can afford to be a little pickier with your gigs and do really cool, fun parties that might not put as much bread on the table. And don’t sleep.

Give us a famous trio that you would compare the Rub to: actors/ rap groups/ lounge singers?

Eleven: Rich Porter, Alpo and AZ or Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short.
Ayres: Haha the Three Amigos! Yes.

What’s the first thing you think Obama should do when he gets into office?

Eleven: Rethink the U.S. approach to Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East.
Ayres: Raise taxes on the top 5% and use the money to help fix the deficit. Begin work on nationalized health care and renewable energy. I guess that’s three things.

Eleven, we know you’re about 6’6”, you think you can take Barack on the basketball court 1 on 1?

Eleven: Nah. I’m sure the Secret Service would shut the game when they saw my superior bow throwing technique. Haters.

For more on The Rub visit the following links:
www.itstherub.com
www.djeleven.com
www.djayres.com

Download The Rub’s Best of 2008 Recap Two-part Series
http://www.itstherub.com/news.htm