This is the third and final installment in the Roc Raida memorial interview series. Here Raida’s longtime X-Men/X-Ecutioner partner Rob Swift remembers their time together.

How did you first meet raida?
I met Raida at the 1991 preliminaries for the East Coast DMC regional battles. Basically that was the first competition that I was getting into so I walked up in there with my mentor, the guy that helped me prepare for that years battle, Dr. Butcher, who has worked with the likes of Kool G Rap, Akineyele, so on and so forth. So I was entering my first competition and all the X-Men [were there] you had Steve D, Johnny Cash, Diamond J, Shawn C, other friends of theirs were there with them as moral support and Roc Raida. And the thing that I found really interesting about Raida was that everybody at the preliminary battle, all the X-Men, they were all loud and drawing a lot of attention to themselves, laughing, joking, just being really loud. And Raida was just really quiet. I remember he was the quietest one out of all of them. That really intrigued me and he stood out on that way. He was really quiet. And then when he went on stage and went up for his slot to try to place it was like watching another person. He went from this quiet guy who wasn’t drawing any attention to himself, that was really observing what was going on, to this beast on the turntables. That was the thing about Raida that struck me the most. (more…)

The second in a series, Percey Carey pka MF Grimm speaks on his history with the late, great Roc Raida:

Noz: How did you first meet Raida?
Grimm: We met when we were teens. I met him through Lord Sear, I grew up with Lord Sear and I wanted a DJ. I said I needed the best DJ in the world. Lord Sear was like, well then you need to meet Roc Raida. And that’s how we got together. I had to actually battle to be Raida’s MC. It wasn’t a walk in the park. But were friends ever since. We were teens and we knew we were the best at what we did, you couldn’t tell us nothing. He was a brother to me, more so than music. Music was just the medium. (more…)

Better late than never, I recently wrote a short feature about the life and unfortunate passing of DJ Roc Raida over at NPR. As with the Bun B piece, I wanted to highlight a few of the interviews I conducted here at CB, to get a little more in depth into Raida’s legacy. First up is Raida’s friend and fellow DMC champion DJ A-Trak.

Noz: How much of an influence did Raida have on DJing?
A-Trak: Raida was a huge influence on DJing especially battle DJing. As a battle DJ he was one of the DJs with the best stage presence. [He had] an air of confidence that when he was doing his routines it looked so easy. He was so fast and it looked like he was just sort of born to do this thing. He brought back a lot of the classic New York hip hop battling, boombastic attitude. On a more technical level he advanced the art of beat juggling a lot. The way that he would freak two copies of a record and make a new beat out of it was really advanced. He was doing a bunch of stuff – playing records backwards, flipping records on 45 and making a whole new beat out of it. That’s a lot of the progress that he brought. (more…)

Roc Raida died today.

The word legend gets thrown around a lot on this site and probably a lot of those times it’s undeserved, but Raida was a goddamn legend in the fully italicized sense. There really was not a more inspiring figure on the turntablist circuit. The above routine made me want to be a DJ and the news of his death stings much harder than I ever would have anticipated. I imagine anybody who ever put masking tape on a copy of of Bionic Booger Breaks is feeling the same way right now.

Update: A statement from Roc Raida’s family -

“Anthony Williams p/k to the world as The Legendary Grand Master Roc Raida has passed away unexpectedly today Sept 19 2009. He is survived by his wife, 3 lovely daughters, mother and friends. Raida was recently in an mixed martial arts accident, something that he has been practicing for several years. Although he had under gone 2 surgeries with great success, was released to an inpatient physical therapy facility and was in great spirits the past few days. This morning he started to have complications and passed. The family asks for privacy at this time.

Update: Roc Raida Memorial Service details after the jump – (more…)