Nino Brown & Nick Toth: Blaze Of Glory.

Sydney based hip hop and R&B DJ Nino Brown is at the peak of the scene in Australia, holding down the main residency at Sydney’s R&B Superclub in Fox studios, which packs out each weekend with upwards of 2000 punters. On top of this the man is sponsored by Ortofon and Ecko, has supported the likes of Puff Daddy, DJ Rectangle, DJ Ca$h Money, Kurtis Blow, Snoop Dogg, Naughty by Nature, Company Flow and Bone Thugs and Harmony, and has toured through England and Europe three times now. It’s no wonder that when Universal needed someone to mix the more commercial disc from their new compilation Blazin’ that they went straight for Nino Brown.

Disc One by Nino is an excursion though gangsta style hip hop an R&B, without cashing in on too many big hits (though Nelly’s wicked Ride Wit Me does make it in), while Disc Two is mixed by ex-Metabass and Breath DJ Nick Toth and hits the underground side, with some Aussie tracks to boot. Both are mixed wickedly, to the point that I was fooled that Nino’s disc was done with FX. But he was quick to point out my error of judgement.

“Nah man, it’s all live with turntables, it’s all two copy tricks. I did some editing once, if you want a bit of nerdy input on the mix. Everything is with turntables, all live. On one of the mixes at the end, the track Unfoolish by Ashanti, the sound quality of the recording was terrible. So at the end of Exhibit X, the second last track, I scratched X, X, X, X, and then when I let Ashanti play the sound quality was absolutely terrible. So the dude in the studio spliced in the CD for the chunk of the track. When you hear the tricks, the quality doesn’t really matter that much, back in the bulk of the trax you need that sound quality. For that last scratch though it lost time, so he dropped in Exhibit X off CD, did an echo effect on the X at the end and whacked in Ashanti. But apart from that it’s all real time on two turntables.”

“The whole of the CD is done with two copies, that’s really my thing, and that’s probably why they got us to do this CD, cause it’s not your normal run of things and it’s out of the ordinary. Mixing with a bit of a difference. It’s all live, and it’s just what we do.”

So the set was planned out from the start?

“To an extent, but not totally. I knew that I needed that Fatman Scoop and Eve track at the start for the impact of them, but after that it all really just flowed out. Once I know what I’m doing it doesn’t really take me that long to get a direction and just go for it.”

How’s it working with Nick Toth?

“Nick and I really do quite different things. We’ve been doing instores recently and it’s great to see our skills up against each other. My thing is two copy tricks and beat juggling, but Nick totally murders me with cutting, he’s got a bit of a scratch nerd in his personality really.  So I’m doing these instores and I’m watching him going god damn on his scratches, and he’s watchin me beat juggle going shit man. It’s great.”