My first thought before writing this was, “The stalker community will have plenty of golden ammo on DJ Dopeshoes after they read this”. Not that I’m giving out her exact latitude and longitude coordinates. Rather, she dabbles in so many activities outside of DJing that a creepy bridge troll is bound to put 2 and 2 together to make for a classic stalker martini. But hey, I figure if public figures didn’t put possible stalking into the equation then they would go ahead and brew up some tasty pink lemonade, start pursuing that librarian degree and call it a grand ‘ol life.
So, DJ Dopeshoes, first impression: I'm curious to know where the name originates from and will I ever have a chance to share a piece of pie with her? Second impression: This Sole Food tape would be a perfect backdrop if you time lapsed a summer's day into one hour. She slyly educates on this mixtape by dropping the sampled version of songs followed by the original version. By the time you're in the middle you completely forget you're listening to a mixtape and just enjoy the tape as a whole piece instead of 36 separate tracks conducted into one package. I wonder if this was her intention. Either way, I put my hands together rapidly like a seal – bravo, standing ovation. My personal favorite transition in this mix is when Donny Hathaway's "Little Ghetto Boy" welds with Jeff Lorber Fusion's "Rain Dance".
After some stalking of my own, it was interesting to learn that DJ Dopeshoes was raised in Seattle, started DJing when she moved to San Diego in 2004 and has been calling Brooklyn, New York home since summer 2010. This kinda, sorta, tempted me to bust out a vintage map, put a toy airplane on it and make a little Indiana Jones flying across the map fun. In Dopeshoes' 8 years of DJing she has dropped a collection of impressive mixes. My very favorite being Bad Things Come in 3's (not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good): Episode 1 followed by Pass The Peas Vol. 1 (in which she passes mixing duties to fellow DJs Jaba One and Felt 1). Her continuous dropping of great mixes eventually earned her an invite to join one of California's premiere turntable collective Homegrown Blends. During her short stay in New York, she has already secured a position at world famous Turntable Lab and writes for Time Out New York. Check out this informative Q&A piece she did on on J*DaVeY. I also stalked my way into finding a short lived "Who you callin' a bitch" video project Dopeshoes was working on in 2010. The project is an honest insight into the infamous, misued word. Here's a sample piece from the series:
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/11931185[/vimeo]
What more can I say? DJ Dopeshoes – the mixologist, the traveler, the writer, the videographer, the "bitch" word insight conductor, the interviewer (and hopefully the soon to be Earmilk.com interviewee), the owner of 3 Ken Griffey Jr. rookies cards (I made that up, but can only hope it's true) and the party rocker. Oh, by the way, I did mention that she rocks parties live too, right? You are correct, I didn't. That's why I saved it 'til the end to tell you to catch her live every last Thursday of the month at her Whatever Works night at Trophy Bar in Brooklyn. If you're not the party type, then do it for our homey L.D. I mean, look at him. He's practically begging you on the flyer.
Haven't had enough Dopeshoes talk to fill your stalker stalking yet? Welp, follow her at @DJDopeshoes and be sure to scan your eyes on her newly minted New York Minutes blog where she shares her random adventures in the city that never sleeps…cause sleep is the cousin of death…and death once had an episode on Family Guy where he liked the girl at the local pet shop. Then he killed her on their first date. I chuckled a bit. I like turtles.
