User:Djpht/sandbox

DJ Daddy Phil (born Philip Thorne) is an American DJ, film maker, and music producer born in Philadelphia to West Indian parents from the Island of Grenada. Thorne says before I was even one my mom took me home in her words to show me off to the family. That was the first of many summer trips to Grenada as well as other Islands throughout the Caribbean. I remember hating going to Grenada because I wanted to be in America where hip hop culture was, but later in life I came to appreciate my collective experiences spent on the Island of Spice.

At the age of five my family moved to Mt. Airy, which was the beginning of my exposure to all kinds of music, other than Calypso, Reggae, (which I hated) and Classical. There was a piano in the home as well as a record player, and my instrument of choice would became the record player. I was forced to take piano lessons on the weekends, which I hated but the music theory would become invaluable again later in life.

Across the street from my childhood home was the Germantown High School Stadium and of course the sounds of the Germantown High School Band. I always looked forward to the high school football games and hearing the different bands perform. The beat of the drums spoke to me, however the thing that truly captured his interest was seeing one of the older kids in the neighborhood setting up his equipment outside and DJing. I didn't have any equipment other than the family all-in-one music console, but I had an uncle from Trinidad who played drums, and he had DJed equipment, so I liked going over to his house. I think it was on his block where I first saw kids with cardboard on the sidewalk breakdancing. I was never athletic so that wasn't for me but I was into art so I got myself a black book and just copied what I saw in the movie Wild Style and the book Subway Art.

At the age of 16 having saved money from a summer job working for the Philadelphia Urban Coalition, Thorne bought his first turntables and started DJing house parties in his neighborhood, and it was around this same time that the hit record Mt. Airy Groove by Pieces of a Dream was released. He remembers a few of guys from the neighborhood who wanted to be music producers having heard a song on the radio about our hood.

Up on Stetson Ave., the Muslims were out in their long white robes, via their influence everyone used to say "yo what's up Ahk." The Ave was also the place where the music heads got together, and some would show of their new gear. Thorne says he remembers seeing the Boss Rhythm Dr-110 and the Roland TB-303 and thinking to himself that he wanted to produce hip hop music and ditched the piano lessons, and the choir.

Thorne started collecting cassette tapes from hip hop battles in NYC, the classics from Harlem World, and his favorite group the Cold Crush Brothers, anything he could get his hands on in Philly some 90 miles away from the birth place of Hip Hop Music. The guy who used to hook me up with the tapes was selling his 1979 convertible Mustang, it was my favorite car. I remember going straight home and asking my mom to buy the car for me. Her response was no, you want me help you kill yourself. I didn't even know how to drive, nor did I have a learners permit. Anyway I pleaded with her and she still said no. I said I'm not even going to drive it buy and put it in the garage. That didn't work out but somehow I knew as a youth that the car would become a collectors item.

He loved going to visit family in NYC, and looking out the window of the car driving through Bronx on the Cross Bronx Express Way and seeing graffiti, burnt out buildings, and stripped down cars sitting on cylinder blocks, on the way to Hollis Queens.

Thorne says that from his aunt's basement in Queens he'd make pause tapes of Mr. Magic's Rap Attack, but having grown up in Philly he says that he was heavily influenced by what came to be known as the Philly Sound, which laid the foundation for disco. With the flip of the radio dial you could go from rap music on WBLS to disco mixes on 98.7 Kiss FM. One year one of my cousins took me out to Coney Island and we rode the subway, and I remember seeing Kieth Haring's drawings on the subway platform. All formative years that would reflect back in his life years later.

After graduating from the prestigious preparatory school (I was the only student of color in my classes) Germantown Academy in Fort Washington PA, Thorne went on to college for film and tv production at the Rochester Institute of Technology. I had only applied to two colleges RIT and USC. USC was my first choice and I had been accepted but my parents never showed me the acceptance letter, they didn't want me going to the other side of the country. Ironically Thorne's parents moved to Florida the same year he left for college. My first semester was very rocky, I quickly learned that you have to stay within certain boundaries and that freedom of expression only went so far.

My roommate was weird so I ended up crashing in the dorm room of two of my fellow film students. When they decided that they were going to join the pledge the Fraternity TEK they asked me to pledge with them, I knew that wasn't for me, so I moved back to my dorm room and shortly thereafter put in a request to move to Unity House a dorm for students of color. I went home for winter vacation and I returned with my DJ equipment and some records and moved into the only dorm room left in Unity House. It was right off of the student lounge and I had no room mate. I used to set up my speakers in the lounge close the door to my room and mix away.

There was a girl from who lived on the floor who said that I need to meet her boyfriend who was a DJ from New York, I jumped at the opportunity. I wasn't sure how it was going to go the NY/Philly dynamic but we met and that was the beginning of a life long friendship between myself and Rick Kittles. We were like the dynamic duo, where one was the other wasn't far behind. One night while listening to the college radio station 89.7FM WITR we heard what was supposed to be a Hip Hop show named The Unique Beat. We decided to go down to the station to find who the "DJ" was. We introduced ourselves to the young lady who was the host of the show, and we told her that we are DJs. Rick got on the turntables and as hit went to scratch the record the tonearm jumped and scratched across the surface of the record. He decided to be on the on air personality and leave the mixing to me. We became CODE II productions and rocked the airwaves of Rochester every Saturday night.