Rob Swift's 10 Scratch Commandments

If you've had any interest in the art of DJing over the last twenty years, you should at least have a passing acquaintance with DJ Rob Swift. As part of the legendary X-Ecutioners turntablism crew (along with the late, great Roc Raida and fellow wax destroyers Mista Sinista and Total Eclipse) he set new standards for what could be done on the wheels of steel. He's also released a string of solo albums and DVDs. More recently he's turned his focus towards giving back to the art form that has given him so much, becoming an evangelist of the craft as a teacher at New York City's Scratch DJ Academy and The New School. Swift is steadily laying what he feels is a proper foundation that future leaders of the culture can build upon and carry forward.

To this end, he has posted what I feel is a very important manifesto on his website: The Ten Scratch Commandments. You can (and should) read them in their entirety there, but I told Rob on Twitter that he should boil them down to a series of one-liners and put them on a t-shirt. I liked the idea so much that I figured I'd dust off my typing fingers and do it right here. Here they are, fresh off the wax tablets that they were almost certainly inscribed upon by the vinyl gods themselves.

Ten Scratch Commandments

1. Acknowledge Kool DJ Herc as the Father of Hip-Hop
2. Acknowledge Grand Wizzard Theodore as the Creator of Scratching
3. Study the Craft of DJing
4. Idolize Nobody
5. Master One's Self
6. Respect the Turntable
7. Practice, Practice, Practice
8. Be Styleless
9. Be Humble
10. Teach

I think Rob cheats a bit here, as #9 actually combines two concepts: being humble, but also honoring the DJs that came before you and paved the way. For my money you could combine #1 and #2 into a single rule honoring both Herc and Theodore (something like "Acknowledge the Pioneers") and then split #9 out into two rules ("Be Humble" as a general rule, and then "Honor the DJs that Came Before You" as another rule). But hey, I'm splitting hairs here. These are a great set of rules for all DJs to follow, and in my opinion they should be as ingrained a part of DJ culture as the "four elements" concept is to hip-hop at large.

Kudos to Rob for shepherding the culture and moving things forward.

What Now, Falcons?

Once the bitterness of the Falcon's 28-24 NFC Championship loss to the San Francisco 49ers wore off, I was left to ponder where the team goes from here. The Falcons are the kind of team that, as a fan, you both cherish and dread: the really good team that, for some unknown reason, just can't get over the hump and achieve greatness.

Everybody knew going into the playoffs that the Falcons had flaws, among them being an anemic pass rush, a sub-par rushing attack, and spotty pass coverage. What nobody anticipated were the offensive struggles the Falcons would have in the second half of both the Seattle and San Francisco games.

In both contests, the Falcons came out blazing and looked like they were going to blow their opponents out of the water. However, after sprinting out to respective 20 and 17-point leads in the first half of each game, the offense went into a shell in the second half. Against Seattle the defense also collapsed, resulting in a last-minute desperation drive that salvaged the game thanks to Matt Bryant's clutch field goal kicking.

You can talk about conservative playcalling on Dirk Koetter's part, or perhaps chide Mike Nolan for not coming up with a scheme to contain Zach Miller or Vernon Davis, but I think the problem goes deeper than that. For some reason the Falcons just don't know what to do with success. As a team they seem to fall asleep at the wheel when they're ahead, only waking up at the last minute to steer themselves clear of the oncoming cliff. It was just a matter of time before their luck ran out, and against the 49ers it finally happened.

The team's inability to put together a full sixty minutes of football became a disturbing pattern throughout the season. Time and again you would hear "We haven't played a complete game of football yet" from the Falcons locker room. After yesterday's game, we're still waiting.

This particularly troubling team characteristic was evident from the season's very beginning, as Atlanta jumped out to a 20-0 lead on Denver with six seconds left in the half. Denver promptly outscored them 21-7 the rest of the game, resulting in a closer-than-necessary 27-21 final.

The ebb and flow of that game was not alarming in and of itself, but the problem was that the collapses kept happening. In a game eerily reminiscent of the NFC Championship, Atlanta went up 24-14 on the Carolina Panthers only to let them claw their way back to a 28-27 lead. It took a miraculous 59-yard completion to Roddy White in the final minute to get them within range of a field goal and a 30-28 victory.

And on and on it went. The dreadful Raiders were allowed to tie their game at 20 with forty seconds left, only to watch Matt Bryant kick a 55-yard game-winning field goal as time expired. The Dallas Cowboys crept to within three before Bryant's foot secured a 19-13 final. A 10-point lead against the New Orleans Saints was squandered in an eventual 31-27 loss. A 17-point cushion in the late-season rematch was nearly surrendered as the Saints rang up 13 straight points. It was official: the Falcons offense got leads, but the Falcons defense blew them. And when that happened, the Falcons offense couldn't turn it on again.

So who's to blame? Certainly some of it falls on Matt Ryan. Just when you figured he had finally graduated to the level of a Brady or a Manning, he would do something so deer-in-the-headlights that it made you wonder if you were wrong all along. Every once in a while you would see cracks in the façade - a poorly-thrown duck of a pass here, an interception thrown into triple coverage there - that would make you question everything. His fumbling away of a snap in the NFC Championship game was only the latest in a line of occasionally baffling plays that make you wonder if Matty Ice can really deliver against top competition when it counts.

Of course, a lot of the blame can be placed on the head of Mike Smith. At the end of the day he's the one that has to keep the team prepared, and more importantly, focused. Their inability to stay focused seems to be the team's Achilles heel at this point, and that's not something that can be easily fixed. Critics say that Smith is too passive and his team reflects that, which I don't necessarily believe. But their second-half disappearances against Seattle and San Francisco indicate that there's a definite issue with the team putting it in cruise control when things are going well.

That's Smith's problem to solve. And if he can't do that, Arthur Blank will be forced to find a coach who will.

The Lawsuit That Killed Hip-Hop

The hip-hop music that I fell in love with back in the mid-to-late 80's had a certain sound that you just don't hear in today's rap music. At the time everybody was sampling James Brown, and groups like the Beastie Boys went well beyond that, sampling even the Beatles and Led Zeppelin for their 1989 opus Paul's Boutique.

The ability to combine samples from anywhere and everywhere led to some of the most interesting and creative hip-hop and electronic music in the history of the recording industry. There was one little problem, though: none of the sampled artists were getting paid, despite the fact that other artists were making money off of music containing snippets of their songs.

That's when the lawyers stepped in. And you know that's always a bad sign.

Once dismissed as a fad, hip-hop was generally considered a cultural backwater for most of the 80's (despite the successes of Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Whodini, and other artists). It took the meteoric rise and spectacular mainstream success of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice in 1990 to make the rest of the world realize that rap music could make big money. As it became more popular, the recording industry became increasingly aware of the fact that many rappers were laying rhymes over other people's music and selling it as their own. It was a legal powderkeg waiting to explode, and in 1991 it finally did.

Biz Markie was a member of Marley Marl's Juice Crew, and a well-known player on the New York hip-hop scene. While best known these days for "Just A Friend", a classic tale of lost hip-hop love, the song that got him into trouble was a hard-luck story from his album I Need A Haircut entitled Alone Again. The song itself was nothing out of the ordinary, aside from its sampling of the Gilbert O'Sullivan song Alone Again (Naturally). O'Sullivan caught wind of the song being used without his permission, and Grand Upright Music, Ltd. - to whom O'Sullivan had signed over the rights to the recording - immediately filed a copyright infringement suit.

Biz Markie really never had a chance in court. The ensuing trial revealed that Warner Bros. Records had actually tried to get permission to use the sample but were denied, making its use in Markie's song even more damning from a legal perspective. Markie's lawyers also defended the sampling by stating that the use of unauthorized samples was rampant in hip-hop, a veritable "everybody does it so it must be okay" defense that no judge was going to buy. Grand Upright won the suit, and future copies of I Need A Haircut had the song omitted.

The outcome of the lawsuit drew a clear legal line in the sand: all hip-hop samples must be cleared, and the original artists had every right to sue rappers and their record companies if their work was used without permission. This shook hip-hop production to its very foundations. Sample-heavy production, which at the time was being pushed to its outer limits by production crews like The Bomb Squad and The Dust Brothers, came to a halt; most records were limited to two or three samples at most to avoid excessive clearance costs. The more clever producers like Dr. Dre began using "interpolation" - getting studio musicians to replay original music - in order to pay only the songwriters (as opposed to also having to pay the original performer and their record label). Rap music would never be the same.

However, the story isn't over yet. In the midst of coming to grips with the recent death of founding group member Adam "MCA" Yauch, the Beastie Boys have been hit with a lawsuit filed by recording label Tuf America regarding the use of samples of the group Trouble Funk. The label contends that samples of the Trouble Funk song Drop the Bomb were used without permission on Beastie songs The New Style and Hold It Now, Hit It from Licensed to Ill, and Car Thief and Shadrach from Paul's Boutique. They also contend that the group continues to profit off of this illegal sampling by re-issuing the albums, spurring new record sales.

The problem is that both of these accusations are 100% true. At the time that these seminal albums were recorded, sampling was a legal grey area. Beyond general copyright law, there was no legal precedence to govern sampling prior to 1990, so it has long been assumed that these sample-laden albums were "grandfathered" in to the newly-litigious era of sampling and would remain unassailable in court.

This lawsuit has the potential to change all of that. If Tuf America wins the suit and the Beastie Boys are forced to pay up, there's nothing stopping The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the dozens of other artists sampled on their albums from coming after the group to get their cut. And in a broader sense, there's nothing stopping other sampled artists from going after 80's rap stars either. It's a scary proposition, and one that could retroactively take classic hip-hop records off the shelf, denying future fans the chance to learn about the history of rap and its influential production practices.

Some sort of accord needs to be reached in order to end these sampling wars. Artists that get sampled need to get paid for the use of their work, but they shouldn't be able to outright refuse the sampling of their music or be able to price it so high as to effectively prohibit its use altogether. While they most certainly own their music, they shouldn't be able to stifle the creativity of other artists just because they disagree with the concept of sampling. Their music also shouldn't be prevented from being shared with new generations for fear of legal repercussions.

A standardized industry-wide sampling pay scale based on the popularity of an artist's music would work wonders to remove this contentious atmosphere. Today's open sampling market creates nothing but a mish-mash of legal wrangling, with some artists being friendly towards sampling (Parliament) and some artists absolutely despising it (The Rolling Stones). Meanwhile, music fans are denied the great sample-based music that would undoubtedly be made if a more sensible payment system was in place, one that made sampling more universally accessible and affordable. In the end, the only ones that really benefit from this mess are the lawyers.

And you know that's always a bad sign.

The Lessons Taught by the 38 Studios Debacle

Living up here in Boston, it's been hard to avoid coverage of the implosion of 38 Studios. It's simply a bad situation all around. Bad for 38 Studios and the game it was creating, bad for the people that worked there, bad for the state of Rhode Island and its taxpayers, and bad for gamers, who will likely never see the MMO known only as Project Copernicus.

Putting the headline-grabbing drama aside, I think it's useful to look at the mistakes that the company made. I'm sure Harvard Business School will have a field day with this whole episode, inserting case studies into its curriculum as soon as it can get them off the presses, and with good reason. There's definitely some lessons to be learned here. Let's examine them one by one.

Don't attack an entrenched market leader with a nearly identical product. Although we'll never know for sure as it was never shown to the press, it's difficult to envision Copernicus being anything but an extremely well-done clone of World of Warcraft. Company founder Curt Schilling is an admitted WoW fanatic, so putting him in the driver's seat of what was surely intended to be his "perfect game" would probably result in something akin to what he already considers to be near-perfect: World of Warcraft. The problem with this approach is that you can't out-WoW WoW, just like Google Plus can't out-Facebook Facebook. MMO after MMO has tried to clone WoW and its achievements, with results ranging from moderate success (Star Wars: The Old Republic) to relative failure (Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning). If there isn't a big differentiation between your product and the top dog, gamers aren't going to migrate.

Start small. Blizzard didn't get to where it is overnight. In fact, it took more than a decade for it to reach its current pinnacle. It started as a three-man operation doing ports of existing titles, eventually finding success on the SNES before moving on to the breakout PC title Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. id Software started much the same way, as have many other successful game companies. While I admire 38 Studios' swinging for the fences, they would have been much smarter to start off with a more modest single-player game instead of a gigantic MMO (Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning doesn't count, as the MMO studio didn't create it). Instead, they bet the farm on a game genre subject to development cost overruns, significant ongoing operational costs, and a vocal, unforgiving playerbase with a voracious appetite for new content. While 38 proved that, given enough money, you can throw enough people in a room to make a top-flight MMO take shape, what you can't buy is the ability to execute on such an endeavor in a cost-efficient manner. That can only be bought with significant time investment and a team that grows together.

Hire Young and Cheap. The most successful game companies hire young and hungry coders, artists, and designers, letting them grow along with the company. Then, once the greenhorns have matured into veterans, they bring in the next generation to create a potent mix of youthful ambition and experienced leadership. This allows an organization to get the best bang for their buck in terms of staff, while also resulting in a team that really loves the company they work for, since they "grew up" with it. One of 38's big mistakes was going out and hiring a virtual who's who of staff from the MMO industry, along with top-shelf creative folks like Todd MacFarlane and R.A. Salvatore. While this looks good on paper, it costs a ton of money, and may not necessarily result in the product being any better than what's already out there. If you hire the audio designer from this game, the UI designer from that game, and the combat designer from the other game, chances are your game is going to look like a combination of all of those games (that are already on the market). Sometimes it's best to roll the dice on new blood with new ideas, instead of going after industry veterans to the exclusion of anyone else.

Involve the press as early as you can. 38 Studios' top PR priority over the last year was getting the hype train rolling for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, with good reason. It was their first release as a company, and was thus critical to their establishment of a foothold in the industry. However, there was nothing but years of baffling radio silence surrounding Project Copernicus. The first video of the game wasn't released until May 18th 2012, weeks after the faltering company had missed its May 1st loan payment to the state of Rhode Island. R.A. Salvatore later claimed that the game was deep into its development process. If that was the case, why wasn't the press shown anything but screenshots? The public can't miss what they don't know about, and can't rally around a project that they've never had a chance to get attached to. Copernicus has now vanished, but nobody is going to miss it...because it was never really there to begin with.

Never take public money. There is no better way to turn the whole world against your company than to accept, and then squander, taxpayer dollars. The game industry is volatile; companies are bought and sold at a steady clip, employees are laid off constantly, and a significant number of game studios shut their doors each year. These events matter little to the average taxpayer, as game developers are typically small and private, or large and publicly-traded, just like any other company in the entertainment industry. What they are not, however, is funded by public money. Sure, some may get tax credits from certain states, but the kiss of death for 38 Studios was the fact that it became a government-subsidized business thanks to its $75 million state loan. This made every man, woman, and child in the state of Rhode Island financially liable for the failure of the company, regardless of whether or not they even knew it existed. There's no easier way to have an entire state's population hating you than to pull money directly out of their pockets for no reason other than your company's inability to stay solvent.

The 38 Studios story isn't done yet, as the developer has yet to officially declare bankruptcy. But given the fact that it laid off all of its employees on May 24th, even a best-case scenario - in which it secures private equity and is able to continue operations - leaves the company in dire straits. The original group of employees would be impossible to reassemble, with many already in the process of moving on to more stable companies in the area, or some even moving out of New England entirely.

Furthermore, even if Project Copernicus was to be finished and released, it would be viewed as damaged goods by the gaming public. MMOs face an uphill battle in the best of circumstances, with much of a new release's early traction riding on the perception - good or ill - that players have in regards to its long-term prospects. Because MMOs require such a massive time investment on the part of players, they are often hesitant to involve themselves in a title that they consider to be a lame duck. With 38 Studios' history of instability, gamers will be rightfully skeptical of its ability to keep a modern MMO operational and updated with content. In short, the industry will expect it to fail, and as a result most gamers won't touch it with a ten-foot-pole.

The fall of 38 Studios only further proves that you can't buy your way to a successful video game company. No amount of money can make lightning strike. It takes a lot of hard work, ruthless money management, excellent timing, and a great deal of luck.

At least 38 Studios can say that they worked hard.

The NFL Draft Has Come and Gone

Well, the NFL draft is done. The Colts and Redskins got the quarterbacks they wanted (in what was probably the quickest 1-2 picks ever), and the Falcons finally concentrated on their offensive line. Hopefully Peter Konz turns out to be a bit more solid and dependable than Sam Baker. Lamar Holmes already has a foot injury, which is great...but at least Bradie Ewing looks to be a promising replacement for Ovie Mughelli, who was just released for salary cap reasons.

Am I optimistic about the upcoming Falcons season? Sort of. I think the Falcons will be at least a 10-win team, but with the roster they now have that's not really the criteria I'm judging them by any more. They're solid enough across the board to have a winning season every season, so the measuring stick now becomes playoff performance. So far they've been abysmal in the playoffs, scoring a measly 2 points last year against the Giants. I don't care if the G-Men went on to win it all...they aren't superhuman. Not even scoring an offensive point against a team in a playoff game means that you were either outcoached (possibly), or your team had such glaring weaknesses that the other team exploited them all day (likely). When it came down to it, the Falcons couldn't run the ball all that well, and they couldn't rush opposing quarterbacks that well either. Hopefully their draft-day additions will pan out and allow them to do both of these things better in 2012-2013.

It'll also be interesting to see how Dirk Koetter and Mike Nolan fare as OC and DC. Koetter made something out of nothing in Jacksonville, and Nolan's defenses have historically been quite good. I don't think these were bad coaching hires, but it remains to be seen if they can get the Falcons over the hump. I always thought Mike Mularkey and Brian Van Gorder were a bit overrated, to be honest. Let me put it this way: I never came away from a Falcons game saying, "Boy, the Falcons sure did outcoach the other team." If anything, it was completely the opposite.

I remain cautiously optimistic. Hopefully they can make something happen this year!

Falcons Off-Season Thoughts

Following his team's 24-2 loss to the New York Giants in last year's playoffs, team owner Arthur Blank came out and stated that the entire organization would be reviewed top to bottom, and that nobody was safe (I believe the phrase was "there are no sacred cows"). This set the stage for sweeping - perhaps shocking - changes, the likes of which the franchise hadn't seen in years.

Fast forward to the present, and whether or not that promise has been fulfilled is still up in the air. There has certainly been turnover on the coaching staff, with both offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey and defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder replaced with Dirk Koetter and Mike Nolan, respectively, but personnel-wise there hasn't been a whole lot of movement. In fact, the Falcons seem to have either stayed the same or gotten worse at several positions.

The Falcons' "new" free agent signings up to this point have been questionable. Linebacker Lofa Tatupu didn't play last year due to injuries, has had a career-long history of knee and concussion problems, and while he's made the Pro Bowl, it was in 2005 (way back when Shaun Alexander was tearing up the league at running back, to put it in perspective). In football that's a lifetime ago, yet we're supposed to believe Tatupu is going to replace Curtis Lofton (who is considered all but gone at this point)? That doesn't seem at all likely.

They also added Vince Manuwai at guard, but he's another player that spent last season away from football. Of note is the fact that no other team tried to sign him this season. Sure, Dirk Koetter knows him and what he can do from their time spent together with the Jacksonville Jaguars, but this is another move that doesn't fill me with confidence. It looks like the play of a team up against the salary cap that can't afford anybody else (like super-guard Carl Nicks, who ironically went to division rival Tampa Bay).

And then there's John Abraham. He's been resigned to a three-year deal, which is great, but he's 34 and Father Time looks to be catching up with him. Sure, he had 9.5 sacks last season, but 3.5 of them came in a rout of an awful Jacksonville team led to their doom by Blaine "The Terrified Statue" Gabbert. Any reasonably talented defensive end could have gotten a sack or two that night. Against the rest of the league, the "Predator" wasn't much of a terror at all; two other sacks came against Chicago in the first game of the season, leaving Abraham with only 4 sacks spread over the other 14 games of 2011. In nine games he was shut out of the sack column completely. It remains to be seen if he can regain his past form in Mike Nolan's new scheme.

Harry Douglas was another notable re-signing. He's a solid third receiver that can take some of the burden off of Julio Jones and Roddy White, and could potentially grow into the clutch slot receiver that the Falcons really haven't had recently. Tony Gonzalez has been Matt Ryan's safety blanket as long as he's been with the team, but it would nice if somebody with more speed (and less mileage) could fill that role.

Backup quarterback Chris Redman was also re-signed, seemingly out of habit at this point. I'm sure he's a great mentor for Matt Ryan, but it's no secret that the Falcons aren't going anywhere if Ryan goes down. Redman is exactly what he should be: a solid backup, nothing more.

Aside from the seemingly inevitable loss of Lofton, another notable departure is kick returner Eric Weems, who signed with Chicago. Weems wasn't very high-profile, but he was a legitimate return threat who always managed to gain some great yardage to secure good field position. He'll definitely be missed. I expect the Falcons to draft a kick returner in April in the hopes of finding a special teams replacement for him.

In terms of pending free-agent pursuits, rumor has it that Falcons representatives will be visiting with San Diego left tackle Marcus McNeill this coming week. Hopefully they can sign the big guy, as having more help at that position would be a major step forward. I'm sure Matty Ice would appreciate it.

While the Falcons certainly didn't require a roster overhaul this off-season, more talent (and youth) at key positions was definitely needed. I don't really think they've addressed either issue so far, but hopefully the players they have can be "coached up" to a level at which they can start winning playoff games. If not, things are going to get really interesting in 2013. The franchise's moves so far seem to indicate that they thought that offensive and defensive coaching was the problem last year. Let's hope that they're right.

Good Job, Redskins

Well, it looks like the Washington Redskins went out and got themselves a franchise quarterback. They just handed their first-round picks in 2012, 2013, and 2014, as well as their 2012 second-rounder, over to the St. Louis Rams for the second overall pick in this year's draft. With that pick they're expected to take Robert Griffin III out of Baylor, who had a spectacular workout at the recent draft combine.

There's a lot of people out there who think that the Redskins gave up too much to get Griffin. I don't think that's the case. What you have to remember is that, without a franchise quarterback to build around, those other picks don't mean anything. Sure, the Redskins might have used them to pick up some good - possibly great - players, but if they still had Rex Grossman, Kyle Orton, or any other C-grade passer at the helm they weren't going anywhere anyways. At a franchise level it's much easier to recover from two years of missing first-round picks than it is two years of mediocre-to-terrible quarterback play.

Having a legitimate franchise quarterback has many more benefits than simply making a team better at that position. It makes a team more attractive to free agents, more marketable overall, and it also energizes the team's fan base. What do you think excites Redskins fans more: the possibility of having RG3 at quarterback next season, or the possibility of having three years of first-round picks that may wind up being busts anyways? The answer is pretty obvious.

The Redskins do have one other ace in the hole, which is the mind-bogglingly large bank account of billionaire owner Dan Snyder. He's shown in the past that he's willing to spend stupid amounts of money on "top-flight" talent in order to field a competent team (see Haynesworth, Albert), which means dipping into the free agency market can soften the blow of those missing first-rounders to a certain degree.

Of course, this is all moot if Griffin turns out to be a bust (I'm looking at you, Ryan Leaf). Even if that turns out to be the case, drafting a franchise quarterback is the one thing in the NFL that's actually worth gambling on, because the payoff can be huge. Just ask the New York Giants, who similarly bet the farm on Eli Manning and now have two championships to show for it.

Good job, Redskins. You made the right call.