tamberg's Blog

Side Projects (Hiphop)

This post is part of a series on side projects. All of the following projects are related to Hiphop. The enabling tools were two Technics MKII turntables and a DJ mixer, important places were the record stores Get, Six Pack and Hum in Zürich, as well as the Kalkbreite squat. The person that was central to most of those projects is my friend and ex flat mate Goran, and a common driver was the Hiphop philosophy of spreading knowledge and creativity.

Daffodil Entertainment – a mixtape label based in my bedroom (ca.1996). The label Web site (one of my first) included Java applets looking like DJ faders that allowed visitors to play short snippets of recorded beats with some serious scratch action by Kratermann, my Hiphop DJ alter ego, whose mix tapes 6/96 and 3/97 still make up the entire catalog.

Quiet Records – a record label (2001 - present). Founded by my friends Goran and Nino, the label's releases cover a broad range of styles from underground Hiphop to emo punk. It features local artists and international collaborations, most of them on vinyl. But to be honest, my contributions to running the label were rather marginal.

Search – a radio show (2001 - present). Hosted by Goran, with Kratermann on the decks, this biweekly radio show "promoting artists who've got an original approach to what we call Hiphop" has been on air at LoRa 97.5 FM for over ten years now.

Somewhere Between – a concert label (2004 - present). Another branch of Goran's Quiet imperium. Starting with a legendary Buck65 concert at Bogen 13 in Zürich, a large number of quality underground Hiphop evenings were held at various squats, bars and alternative venues. As you can see in my collection of flyers, those events make up a good part of my recent DJ engagements.

Teaching programming at a youth prison (2011). Together with Bea, an art teacher I met through a common friend (who knew we both were into Hiphop), I went to a local prison. There we tried to teach programming Scratch to juvenile delinquents. I hesitate to call it a success, as for reasons beyond our influence the participants did change every time, but at least some of the kids seemed to like the lessons.