cinqque5tion with 4Korners
cinqque5tion with 4Korners
Keep knocking they say. This is awesome. As you may or may not know, I am also a Toronto Raptors Fan. So, I thought to myself, who would have a bird’s eye view of the game and can tell me more about the 2019 NBA champions. 4Korners, that is who. So I contacted him. I hope he knows that I am a huge NBA fan. I have been watching the NBA since I was a kid. My favourite team growing up was the Chicago Bulls. Michael Jordan was my hero. Year after year, he would challenge everyone, anyone and would always come out on top. It was so exciting. The landscape changed in 1995. Toronto welcomed the Raptors. I have been watching and cheering ever since. Alright, let’s drop a beat 4Korners.
1. How did you build a relationship with the Raptors?
This right here has been a crazy ride. I’ve been a Raptors fan since the beginning. I was a kid when the franchise began and I was actually at the NBA Draft event when we picked Damon Stoudamire in 95′. Skip ahead to 2004 and through a series of events the team decided they might be into having a DJ and I was the one they selected as the prime candidate. 15 years later, here I am! Still with the team, and now an NBA Champion!! That’s a super simplified version of the story, but “How I became the Raptors DJ” is the 2nd most asked question I get. (The first being, “Do you know Drake?”). Sooooo much so that I made a YouTube video about it. Peep it here, it’s should answer everything to do with that ->
2. Favourite player of all-time past or present from the Raptors and why?
My hands-down favourite Raptor of all time is Air Canada aka Vinsanity aka I’m hoping we pick him up this season so he can end his career back in the 6 aka the one & only Vince Carter! He was literally a game-changer & in my opinion, arguably the spark that lit this entire Toronto cultural Global flame! Have you seen the documentary “The Carter Effect”? It’s as real as it gets. But beyond that, I just remember watching NBA basketball & knowing that the most exciting player in the sport was on our team. That was a real moment and he is one of a kind!
3. Where did you learn how to produce and edit music?
I, like a lot of other DJs, have been making edits for years. Self-taught. Having our own custom made edits of hot songs has always been a great way to keep our DJ sets fresh. As for actually producing original music, that evolved along the way. I started with remixing back in 2011 with the homie Joe Ghost, who I learned a lot from. We remixed a song by Belgian superstar Stromae, with whom I had met through my guy Jay Psar in Brussels, which became a local Toronto club hit. We even won “Remix of the Year” at the Stylus Canadian DJ Awards for it. I continued on, taking a stab at some more remixes & original songs after that but nothing really caught on.
Then, completely by accident, back in 2013 an edit of a David Banner classic called “Play” I was working on took a life of its own and I, along with NYC duo TWRK, decided to release the track WORK as an original song on Soundcloud. It blew up and was a major moment in the start of what became known as “twerk music”. Guys like DJ Snake, Diplo, Skrillex & more were playing this track heavily and it was then that I realized I was onto something. Since then I’ve been digging in things that are finally rolling! I’ve started my own imprint JN SHPPRD and release 2 songs in the past month, “Something I Do” and “No Time.” But even before that this year I’ve dropped 3 other tracks with collaborators Neon Dreams, Kevin Rolly, Kyngs, Natra & DJ Overule. Making music is my new career focus & I have so much more coming soon!
WORK – 4Korners
4. How did you feel when the Raptors won the championship?
In all honesty, this is something I cannot even describe in words. If you were there, what you felt, multiply that by infinity then quadruple that. That’s me!
5. Just for fun. Name a song that makes you happy?
A song that’s making me happy at this very moment is a record I wrote with a couple of homies called “Give It Up!” It’s all feel-good vibes and I’m really beyond excited to release it into the universe & watch people sing & dance to it. I’m jamming to it as we speak! You guys are all gonna have to wait until 2020 for this energy!
About the Author
Jovin Tardif
Press/Media What On What’s Good
Storyteller, Conversation Starter,
Writer, Reviewer, Interviewer
and Social Media
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