1.) I had the pleasure of traveling to Albuquerque to visit Deejay Sek Uno who originally lived in Chicago, can you speak on Platter Pirates, your influences and the crew Chicago Tribe?
I’ll start with my influences, I’m 34 going on 35. Was introduced to djing by my cousins Omar and Jose at the age of 9. My family was my first influence. Growing up I had 4 cousins and my brother that were djs. Outside my family the first djs I looked up to; Bad Boy Bill, Tim Spinnin Schomer, Qbert, Spryte One, Kico, Presyce, ISP, Beat Junkies and my crew Dirty Cuttin Scoundrels(BrownRoyal,Deecompose, Big Once). The Platter Pirates I first heard when I had been a sophomore in high school. A friend had the mixtape Scratchatory Rape, I was hooked when I heard Spryte One scratch. Fall of 2000 I met Spryte and Kico, my crew DCS was invited over for a session at Spryte’s house. Having sessions with those guys was amazing, they would tell so many stories of their travels to dj battles. Spryte showed me how to do the orbit scratch, flare chirp and how to do a fading flare on the volume upfader and it took me about 2 weeks to learn those scratches. I first heard of Chicago Tribe in 99, they came to a battle in Aurora that took place in the basement of a church. The crew TBA had thrown this bboy battle and I remember seeing some of the members with their shirts, and in April 2000 I went to Chicago vs Milwaukee that was thrown by Check-It and was spun by the platter pirates. In 2002 my friend bgirl Soula started dating Check-it and that’s how I started seeing the crew regularly. At the time I was with a non-profit group YSS that did work in the bboy community and did CvC3 and CVC4. 2005-2006 I was officially put down with the crew. I had been hanging out a lot with the crew, going on trips, chillin with them outside of the bboy world. So when I was asked I was surprised because they were all bboys but made sense since I had been doing a lot of the bboy battles and I had remembered that Spryte had been with Tribe at one time so I never felt out of place in the crew. Now that I have another member in Tribe that djs, that made Tribesgiving so much more fun when me and Sneeks battled.
2.) What has been the scene out there Albuquerque for you? Were they welcoming?
The scene here in Albuquerque is very different from what’s in Chicago. The women here have a strong presence and some are not afraid to call out the djs when they mess up either. Hip hop has a strong presence in the scene, you have graff writers and emcee’s that actually come out and support the bboy scene. Albuquerque has a lot of veterans in the scene that are still very active and those are the ones I had to kinda show that I’m not some toy but I got to know some of them and they were pretty welcoming. I have had the chance to DJ their biggest and longest running event Breakin Heartz and the New Mexico state fair and that was pretty dope.
3.) What are your thoughts on the Turntablism scene before you left Chicago 4-5 years ago?
At the time I was leaving the scratch/battle scene seemed to have died. The DMC had stop coming and only a few battle djs were still left actually competing. When I had left, my old crew mate Big Once had just won the Redbull Threestyle USA finals and placed 2nd in the world. The scratch academy came to Chicago after I had moved away, I’m glad that a crew like CTA has came about and brought new interest to Chicago by winning a few battles. Little salty the scene wasn’t like this when I was living there, I could barely manage to get my old crew together for a session. But I am glad that there is a scene and Chicago has made some noise again.