As New York-based trio The Rub, DJs Eleven, Ayres, and Cosmo Baker have, over the past decade, proven themselves to be some of the most prolific turntablists on the planet. We're not talking about just production credits and mixtape awards. There are also two monthly radio shows, a critically acclaimed monthly party in Brooklyn, tours with artists from Big Daddy Kane to Bun-B, more than a hundred mixes among them, and more passport stamps than the U.S. secretary of state. No, they don't get much sleep.
Black Sheep will be jumpin' this Saturday as Eleven and Ayres bring their unique brand of party rocking and remixing. The sounds will go everywhere from dirty South to disco-house to R&B classics without filler at the new and improved South Beach venue. New Times recently spoke with two-thirds of The Rub crew.
New Times: The Rub includes 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 complemented 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. 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 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: one monthly for Scion, which you can check at scion.com/channel2, and one for 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 you up to production-wise. Is there any original material coming from the crew?
Eleven: Of the three of us, Ayres is definitely the heaviest on his production game. In addition to that stuff, we also have a ton of joints up for sale at crooklynclan.net, which is more club mashup/remix type of stuff. I've also released a couple of 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.
Read the full Q&A online at CrossFade, New Times' music blog, at blogs.miaminewtimes.com/crossfade.
