Graham Reid | | 3 min read
Being disciplined and focused, that's what it's all about, says British-based, Brooklyn-raised Dee-Jay Punk-Roc.
It's a refrain you hear often enough from the hip-hop community but 27-year-old Charles Gettis is talking about the United States Army, in which he spent five years.
"Yeah, it cleans you up, puts you in the right direction and it's about purpose and discipline," he says of his years in boot camps in Germany, Japan and England.
But it wasn't all No 1 cuts and square-bashing, he says. In the Army, through friends and armed-forces networks, he picked up on a swathe of musical styles he wouldn't have otherwise heard if he'd stayed running with the wild pack on the streets of New York and heading for trouble as the youngest of six kids in a household where the Isley Brothers, Barry White and cool jazz weren't far from the family turntable.
The Army, he says, kept him out of trouble, gave him a sense of purpose which enables him to do what he's up to now, and put him in touch with guys his own age whose backgrounds and listenings were very different from his own.
Out of the Army now these past six years, and styling himself Dee-Jay Punk-Roc, he has returned to his musical roots where he DJed at block parties as a kid.
Back in New York he picked up the turntables again, cut a track, My Beatbox - a fizzing blend of police sirens and break beats - which landed on an Airdog
Recordings compilation and within a year had his own album out, DeeJay Punk-Roc Presents Chicken Eye.
The album, he says, is a clear representation of where he's been and where he's at. It bristles with block rockin' beats and scratching, loops in samples from cartoons and soundtracks, and, somewhat unexpectedly given his nom de stylus, is shot through with jazz samples and refrains.
"Yeah, I got that before, during and after the Army. It's always been a part of my thing. And my desire to learn and include different styles just keeps you pushing forward."
With a record collection of 15,000 albums to draw on, a debut album which has won praise from media as diverse as Mixmag ("if you don't dance to this, you've had your legs amputated") to Melody Maker ("an album that explodes like the greatest block party you've ever dreamed of"), DeeJay Punk-Roc (who boasts the dimensions of a beatbox, all that military fitness training no doubt) is well positioned to be a Big Name in Hip-Hop.
This is not the least because he's a transatlantic animal with his roots in Brooklyn, who is now stationed in Liverpool where his record company is ("no hassles here and it's just a couple of hours from anywhere in Britain") and has a reputation for shaking small rooms as well as blasting a Prodigy audience of 15,000 with his phat beats and vicious breaks.
So for the boy who went from mean streets to military service and cut his first tune in a basement with a friend only five years ago, it's been a meteoric rise.
"Right, I've seen places I never thought I would have seen, been with some of the best people and done things I never would have guessed. I mean, I never thought any of this would have happened. It's been great.
"Hey, what are the women like in New Zealand?"
It's a refrain you hear often enough from the hip-hop community but 27-year-old Charles Gettis is talking about the United States Army, in which he spent five years.
"Yeah, it cleans you up, puts you in the right direction and it's about purpose and discipline," he says of his years in boot camps in Germany, Japan and England.
But it wasn't all No 1 cuts and square-bashing, he says. In the Army, through friends and armed-forces networks, he picked up on a swathe of musical styles he wouldn't have otherwise heard if he'd stayed running with the wild pack on the streets of New York and heading for trouble as the youngest of six kids in a household where the Isley Brothers, Barry White and cool jazz weren't far from the family turntable.
The Army, he says, kept him out of trouble, gave him a sense of purpose which enables him to do what he's up to now, and put him in touch with guys his own age whose backgrounds and listenings were very different from his own.
Out of the Army now these past six years, and styling himself Dee-Jay Punk-Roc, he has returned to his musical roots where he DJed at block parties as a kid.
Back in New York he picked up the turntables again, cut a track, My Beatbox - a fizzing blend of police sirens and break beats - which landed on an Airdog
Recordings compilation and within a year had his own album out, DeeJay Punk-Roc Presents Chicken Eye.
The album, he says, is a clear representation of where he's been and where he's at. It bristles with block rockin' beats and scratching, loops in samples from cartoons and soundtracks, and, somewhat unexpectedly given his nom de stylus, is shot through with jazz samples and refrains."Yeah, I got that before, during and after the Army. It's always been a part of my thing. And my desire to learn and include different styles just keeps you pushing forward."
With a record collection of 15,000 albums to draw on, a debut album which has won praise from media as diverse as Mixmag ("if you don't dance to this, you've had your legs amputated") to Melody Maker ("an album that explodes like the greatest block party you've ever dreamed of"), DeeJay Punk-Roc (who boasts the dimensions of a beatbox, all that military fitness training no doubt) is well positioned to be a Big Name in Hip-Hop.
This is not the least because he's a transatlantic animal with his roots in Brooklyn, who is now stationed in Liverpool where his record company is ("no hassles here and it's just a couple of hours from anywhere in Britain") and has a reputation for shaking small rooms as well as blasting a Prodigy audience of 15,000 with his phat beats and vicious breaks.
So for the boy who went from mean streets to military service and cut his first tune in a basement with a friend only five years ago, it's been a meteoric rise.
"Right, I've seen places I never thought I would have seen, been with some of the best people and done things I never would have guessed. I mean, I never thought any of this would have happened. It's been great.
"Hey, what are the women like in New Zealand?"
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