Guess who's coming?
It takes confidence, guts and an ego to open a debut album by introducing yourself as "just your favourite DJ saviour". In most cases, it ends up making you look like another over-confident member of the crowded hip hop scene. However, Josh Davis pulls it of by following it with one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the mid-90s.
Best Foot Forward is a collage of samples, each line from a different source. It starts with a apparently random sample of speach, before running into a brief sample of cheesy electronic funk. This abruptly cuts out - "Hold up... before we get started..." - and a rapid succession of vocal samples begins. In usual DJ Shadow fashion the samples are obscure and the scratching frantic.
Opening albums with a short, slightly jokey track is a regularly used idea. De La Soul opened their debut album, 3 Feet and Rising, with a mock quiz show which is revisited throughout the album. However, this track is more than that - it is a mission statement, a manifesto. "Usin' and confusin' beats that ya never heard" sums up much of the work of DJ Shadow; the album has only one track including any previously unrecorded material. Most of the musical samles are unidentifiable and many are obscure, although this is not always the case - The Number Song samples Orion by Metallica.
And yes, he is my favourite DJ saviour.
Bob....Bob Wood - national programme director
of the chum group - worked with us in producing...
Hold up, hold up... Before we get started:
Guess who's coming
It's...
Guess who's coming
It's...
Guess who's coming
*DJ SHADOW*
Ba...Ba........Back again
Who is he?
Just your favourite DJ saviour
Us..Us....Us..Usin' and confusin' beats that ya never heard
...1990, put a smile on your face like ultra-bright
You're just fessin' man
I don't even wanna hear about it
You're just fessin'