“Ass. Titties. Ass n’ Titties. Ass, ass, titties, titties, ass n’ titties.” That’s how DJ Assault’s Detroit booty anthem ‘Ass N’ Titties’ starts out.
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DJ Assault is immensely creative and intentionally funny with his music. He single-handedly invented Detroit booty music and many of his songs have become party favorites and stripclub bangers, enjoyed for their booty bass and hypnotic drone effect. These are “tracks to make ur panties wet.”
Over the course of 20+ years, DJ Assault has published over 800 songs. His song ‘Ass n’ Titties’ is even a favorite of comedian Dave Chappelle and Chappelle featured it on his show in 2004 on ‘The Gay Landscaper’ segment.
Biography
Born October 19th, 1977, Craig Adams (aka: DJ Assault) grew up on Detroit’s Westside at 7 Mile Road and Greenfield. When he was 7 years old, his family moved to Southfield, a suburb just north of Detroit.
“At that age I started collecting records. I was about 10 when I started trying to mix records, so around 1987. At that time, I was listening to the radio a lot, being influenced by The Wizard (Jeff Mills), Electrifying Mojo, etc. and I had some older friends who got hold of some cassette tapes from WBMX and WGCI the Chicago radio stations that were playing early Chicago House music.”
“The DJ’s mixing records, the Chicago guys, were so good I thought that some type of machine was mixing the records because they were so smooth and accurate. I didn’t realize it was humans doing it. They all knew the records so well, even expertly matching doubles of the same record, it was crazy. As a hip-hop DJ, I heard this type of stuff first with house music, then The Wizard was one of the first to start doing it with rap and Detroit techno.”
DJ Assault’s first music job
“I worked at Buy Rite Records in 1995. Buy Rite was a famous record store in Detroit at 7 Mile and Livernois. Juan Atkins worked there before me. Moodymann and DJ Rashad worked there for a minute too.”
“I took a pay cut to work in music retail. It was cool but I’m a real guy, not a political guy and there were just too much politics there. Buy Rite was one of the first places that united the DJ’s but the character of the owner Cliff Thomas was nasty. Cliff would tear people apart, keep people divided, never kept his word to anybody. Everybody knew Cliff was crooked.”
“I left because he promised to pay me for four 12-inches we produced in the shop and he never paid, even though the records sold more than 400 copies each. I think that Detroit could’ve been a much better scene overall if it wasn’t for the greedy schemes of Cliff Thomas.”
“There’s so many talented musicians in Detroit, it’s literally almost unbelievable but trust me there is. The one big problem is that most of them grow up in poverty and it’s almost impossible for them to get recognized and credited. My parents had money, so I didn’t take that Cliff Thomas ghetto non-sense.”
“And if you think black people got robbed in the 1950’s in the music business, it’s even worse now, especially by other black people. Black execs now turn around and rob other black people. The music industry is all corporate and political, it’s a dangerous jungle of everybody robbing everybody else.”
Early Influences
“I’m very much influenced by West Coast rappers like Too Short, DJ Quik, Ant Banks, Death Row Records, etc. Also, original Detroit Techno stuff like Model 500 (Juan Atkins), Kevin Sauderson, Derrick May. I also love Miami bass, groups like 69 Boyz, 2 Live Crew, Luke’s solo stuff, Splack Pack, Poison Clan.”
“I really looked up to Esham, used to listen to a lot of his acid rap when I was growing up. the mid-90s to early 2000’s, I was just distributing records daily.”
“I knew Proof of D12, he was in the street. Proof was a cool, funny guy who cracked a bunch of jokes. It was unfortunate what happened to him. One of our last conversations was he heard me rapping on a mixtape that was selling over at Fairlane Mall in Dearborn, then I’m spinning in a club, he comes in and I gave him the mic. I spun and he was just talking to the crowd that night.”
“J. Dilla was a great guy. He used to make beats over at his house on Nevada and Conant, over on Detroit’s Eastside.”
“Royce Da 5’9” is a really cool dude, in fact he’s probably my favorite rapper.”
Early Gigs and How it All Started
DJ Assault was the first DJ to start scratching and rapping to non-hip hop genres of music in Detroit. His music is often inaccurately labeled ‘ghettotech’.
“My music has a wide fanbase. The term ‘ghettotech’ doesn’t accurately describe anything. I would describe it as Detroit booty dance music. I write and produce all my own stuff and do the lyrics on the records. Most people do collabs where it’s like ‘you do the beat, I’ll do the lyrics’ or something like that but not me, I do it all.”
“In the early days, roundabout 1994-95, I was doing high school parties that really helped me out more than anything. I was selling $3.00 mixtapes that used to make people laugh. For several years, I was selling over 10,000 tapes a year at $3.00 a tape. I would make a new tape every single week.”
“Things first started popping off for me at The Grand Quarters at East Grand Blvd and Woodward. It was an old movie theater that became a concert hall and it was the biggest high school party in the city every week. They had 1200 people there every Friday. Then it moved down to the River Rock Nightclub (673 Franklin St, Detroit).”
“I played hundreds of raves, warehouse parties, mostly on Detroit’s Eastside on places like Bellevue Street and East Grand Blvd and stuff. The people there were weird man. Everybody was ecstasy’ed out and on LSD and mushrooms, eyes bugging. I liked club parties better.”
“Back in the day, we used to hang out on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit a lot. We’d be riding down Jefferson to Belle Isle, Hart Plaza, etc, and there’s a lot of wild history with my friends and I on Jefferson. If you want to know what Jefferson Ave is like, just listen to my music.”
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“My first big hit was my record Techno Freak. It was unusual at the time because I layered lyrics over a fast techno type beat. Then in 1996, Ass n’ Titties came out. My first time playing internationally was in Germany in 1997, man that was a wild one. Then I started my Jefferson Avenue record label in 2001.”
“Making something that people would play in Detroit at clubs and house parties, was my goal. I understood the market in Detroit. I understood what DJ’s would play because I am a DJ.”
DJ Assault’s set-up
“I play piano, guitar and I do lyrics. I’m even thinking about hiring a professional vocal training coach to help me learn how to actually properly sing.”
“These days my music is all computer based. The technology has come so far over the years, it’s crazy. I use a microphone, mic preamp, Reaper software and my Timbaland Open Labs Neko keyboard.”
“I’ve used all types of software. I was a beta tester for Ableton. I can also use Pro Tools, FL Studio, Cubase, Propellerheads Reason, etc, but I keep coming back to Reaper as my favorite, it can do anything.”
Living in Atlanta
“I live in Atlanta but I still stay in the Detroit area too, just north of there over in the Lathrup Village-Southfield area. When I’m up there I usually hit up the Berkley Coney Island at 12 Mile and Greenfield.”
“I went to school in Atlanta. Then I moved down here in 2002 to do some business. It didn’t end up working out but I’m still down here.”
“Atlanta and Detroit are totally different. Atlanta is 3x’s bigger and the traffic is more congested. The people are more laid back here, not as crazy and aggressive as Detroiters. Atlanta at the moment is a big hub for the music and film industries but everything goes in phases and cycles, it most likely won’t last.”
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“I think too that a lot of the Southern Rappers down here turned hip-hop into a joke. They helped screw it up and it’s all propaganda and garbage now. Hip Hop originally was an entity that could make too much money, so the corporate pimps hijacked it and ruined it. They let people hit a lick for a minute instead of making it into a career. It was structured stupidly and people fell for it.”
“Nowadays, these kids, these 20-somethings, are like on par with straight up crack babies, no brains in they heads. The kids these days want to be crackhead-dumb, what they really need to do is read some books and put down the smartphone and learn some social skills.”
DJ Assault has no middle man
“I don’t use an agency. I do all the scheduling, everything, myself. I’ve been in the music industry for over 20 years, I been around the block man and I’ve learned some things.”
“Regarding agencies of any type, the value is in their database, the info they collect. They build their database and connections and contacts when they “help” you but all they’re really doing is using you to help themselves grow at your expense. Don’t fall for it. Don’t be afraid to work a little and do some stuff on your own.”
The Relationship Expert
“A lot of my songs are very erotic. I consider it tapping into the primal rhythms of people’s sexual natures.”
“I learned a lot about girls, especially in my early years, college competitions, seeing how many numbers we can get. I’m a relationship expert. I know women very well. Plus, I was raised by my Mother. I love women, they’re the most beautiful creation God can make.”
“My music is basically about the lustful pursuit of women and comedy. People are getting too hyper-sensitive about everything. Y’all need to relax and laugh more for real. Life is short. Enjoy it.”
The Myth of the Unpublished DJ Assault Cartoon is Actually True
“My range of writing is broad, everything from short stories to book-length stuff. I have dozens and dozens of notebooks filled with ideas too. I even developed a cartoon with 18 characters including character profiles, biographies, storylines, but I wasn’t giving up 50% of it, so it didn’t pan out commercially. I always look at how much I can generate, not how much I get paid. Many opportunities I’ve turned down because I didn’t want to be used.”
The Music Industry is One Big Corporate Circus
“Every week something memorable happens to me. I’m just glad to be here and connect with my fans. I appreciate they see my music is real and not some fabricated corporate gimmick. DJ Assault is not CB4 like the majority of stuff out there. Just because people get auto-famous, instafamous or whatever on the internet doesn’t mean you got talent.”
“A lot of people who have big names in the music industry are just corporate manipulated and manufactured. Marketing hype has replaced talent. I cannot be fake, I can’t and won’t do it, period. I’m not gonna be told by some record exec what type of music I can and can’t make. I will make my own music always.”
“90% of the stuff nowadays is garage out there because people don’t make music from the heart. Sure it may sound good because of the engineer and equipment but it’s lacking in raw passionate talent. My advice to all music creators out there is you are not a prostitute for the corporate pimps. Be who you are and do your own thing!”
The Future
“I’m gonna be touring Europe this Spring. Going to Strasbourg, Manchester, Dusseldorf, Berlin, London, etc. I don’t know what to expect but I’m looking forward to it.”
“This year so far I also have the Red Bull Music Academy Festival in New York, then Dallas the week after that.”
“I have my new EP coming out called ‘The Nymphomaniacs EP’ coming soon. You can also get all my songs on the internet. You can buy my entire catalog at my website store http://store.jeffersonave.com/ You can buy my whole catalog there for 90% off.”
“If you want to hire me for a gig, I’m open to all propositions. You pay for the flight, whatever one is good. You pay for the hotel, doesn’t have to be the Taj Mahal. And you pay my gig rate. I get paid in money and nothing else. I know this is the drug era and people want to pay you in Molly and all that but I’m old school, I get paid in money.”
Final Thought
“I’m not trying to fit in. I’m not worried about getting my tracks with big labels. In fact, I’m not worried about anything. All I want to do is make music, make people smile and enjoy living.”
Homepage
Buy Music
http://store.jeffersonave.com/
Contact
Click image to listen to track:
Jobbie Crew’s Top Favorite 15 DJ Assault Tracks
Ass n Titties
Weave Pulled Out
Yo Relatives = “yo mama, yo daddy, yo sista’s a ho”
Backpage Hoe
Pussy So Wet
U Twerk Dat = “let me see you twerk dat, cuz you know dat ass fat”
Pussy Pop
Suck my motherfuckin dick
Sex on the Beach
Panties on the Ground
Bangapella
Love the Pussy
U Can’t See Me
Bang Hot Chicks
Pull Yo Panties (Down)
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