By Chloe McCloskey
Celebrating The Almighty DJ Craze…

Germany’s DJ David may have been the first DMC competitor to take the title in two successive years back in 1990 and 1991, but seven years later something unprecedented happened: DJ Craze burst out of Miami and put a lock on the world title for three years in a row…

Prime Cuts: “I would say that Craze’s ’98 US final routine is the all-time classic DMC routine. I think a lot of things peaked there – there was a lot of creativity going on at that time, and at the hands of Craze it was the ultimate routine.”

Klever: “I think the craziest routine was, honestly, Craze’s in 1998. The Art Of Noise section is a total classic – it should be framed and boxed away.”

DJ Spinna: “Honestly, watching DJ Craze perform was the one that made me give up scratching and battling for a while! You just couldn’t compete with him around that time. Everything about him in that era was hitting, and so precisely.”

DJ Craze: “1998 was my hunger year, where it all started for me with the DMCs. But my best DMC memory is winning the third time. The first time felt great, but I beat A-Trak and it was more about who fucked up the least. We both fucked up – our routines were horrible. His shit, the fader flew off; my shit, like I tried a new routine and it sounded wack.

“For the second title my daughter was supposed to come out the day of the competition and I was a wreck, I was having anxiety attacks, I went to the hospital a week before my girl because I thought I was dying…

“But the third one was the coolest shit, because my whole fam flew out and my mom and brother hadn’t talked in years and that day they were really happy for me. I remember looking to the side and they were all crying.”

(Check out more on the mighty DJ Craze in HHC Digital 004 – available by clicking here.)