DJ Shadow

Trip Hop guy who writes amazing cut-and-paste mini rap-influenced masterpieces. He has released two albums: Endtroducing and Preemptive Strike, both of which are amazing.

Shadow is on the Mo Wax label.

On DJ Shadow's 1996 album Endtroducing, not a single noise was recorded specifically for the album. Everything was a sample.

This masked man, aka Josh Davis, takes his work so seriously that during performances, he hardly ever looks at the audience, prefering to bury himself behind the turntables.

Real Name: Josh Davis
Born: 1973 in Hayward, CA

Josh Davis grew up in Hayward, CA, a predominantly lower-middle class suburb of San Francisco. His first exposure with Hip-Hop was through The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa, from that day forward i think it's pretty safe to say he was hooked.

Davis had already been fiddling around with making beats and breaks on a four-track while he was in high school, but it was his move to the nothern California cow-town of Davis to attend university that led to the establishment of his label as an outlet for his original tracks.

Hooking up with Davis' few b-boys (including eventual Sole Sides artists Blackalicious and Lyrics Born) through the college radio station, Shadow began releasing the "Reconstructed from the Ground Up" mixtapes in 1991 and pressed his 17-minute hip-hop symphony "Entropy" in 1993. His tracks spread widely through the DJ-strong hip-hop underground, eventually catching the attention of Mo'Wax. Shadow's first full-length, Endtroducing, was released in late 1996; Preemptive Strike, a compilation of early singles, followed in early 1998.

Discography

Albums

• Endtroducing (1996)
• The Private Press (2002)

Compilations

• Preemptive Strike (1998)

EPs, Singles etc..

• Entropy EP (1993)
• Lost and Found (S.F.L.) (1994)
• What Does Your Soul Look Like? EP (1995)
• Hardcore (Instrumental) Hip-Hop EP (1996)
• Midnight in a Perfect World (1996)
• Stem (1996)
• High Noon (1997)
• What Does Your Soul Look Like? Remixes (1998)
• The Number Song/Painkiller (1998)
• Camel Bobsled Race (Q-Bert Mega Mix) EP (1998)
• Dark Days (2000)

Collaborations

Shadow has collaborated with numerous other artists on a number of projects. Here is my attempt at a list.

• Various Artists - Basic Beats Sampler (1992)
• Zimbabwe Legit - Zimbabwe Legit (1992)
• Paris - Sleeping with the Enemy (1993)
• DJ Krush - Meiso (1996)
• Noise Box - Beginning (1997)
• Original Soundtrack - End of Violence (1997)
• U.N.K.L.E. - Psyence Fiction (1998)
• Handsome Boy Modeling School - So...How's Your Girl? (1999)
• Bombay The Hard Way: Guns, Cars & Sitars (1999)
• Blackalicious - NIA (2000)
• Various Artists - Solesides Greatest Bumps (2000)

A little fact that no one will really care about, but I feel strangely compelled to post is that there is only one set of sounds on Endtroducing that was recorded specifically for the album. The female vocals in Mutual Slump were recorded for that track specifically, though Shadow chooses not divulge who is the owner of that voice. This goes along with DJ Shadow's general philosophy of non-disclosure when it comes to the sources of his samples.