DJ Julio on the Beat: Strictly, Strictly Hip Hop
DJ Julio of the Beat has a lot to say.
“”The Bat Line, Batman speaking.” No, that is not a line from a Batman movie. That’s how Julio answers the private line at 92.3 The Beat. Most people know him only as a voice on the radio, but there is a lot more to him. He started mixing when he was 15. By the time he was 17, he was a deejay on KDAY 1580 AM, one of the first hard-core hip hop radio stations. This is the station that Tupac mentioned in one of his songs, “To Live And Die In L.A.”
Now that he’s 27, we get the benefit of Julio’s mad skills every night from 6 to 10 p.m. He doesn’t just put a song on. He spins. He has the 7 o’clock Menu Mix, the 8 o’clock Battle of the Beats (callers vote for their favorite of two songs), and the 9 o’clock Bomb which is “strictly, strictly hip hop,” as Julio would say. Sometimes he slips into Spanish, representing the Latino race.
LA Youth: When you were younger, did you ever think you would make it this far?
Julio: I think I’m a dreamer. I always dream. This is not really far to me right now. I have so much more I would really love to achieve. But what I’m doing right now is really minimal compared to the big picture that I have. I’m getting older now, and I’m coming to realize that whatever I want to do in life, if I just keep the picture of it in my head, I can make it become a reality.
LA Youth: What are some tracks of other artists you have worked on, or helped produce?
Julio: I worked on Kid Frost’s album, I worked on the Eazy E album before he passed away, I did the Crow Soundtrack. I produced a song on there called “City Of Angels” with Above The Law and Kid Frost. I produced Mellow Man Ace, and I did a little Ghetto Boy remix on Death Row’s Greatest Hits.
LA Youth: What was it like working on “Mixmasters Show” on the KDAY station?
Julio: It wasn’t that big of a thing, to be honest with you… We were just young kids, and we went in, D.J’d and left. It became a bigger thing later… When I look back on it, it’s like, “Wow, we were trendsetters, we were ahead of our time, ’cause whatever you hear on the radio now is no different than what we were doing in ’85, ’86.
LA Youth: How did the “Ruthless Radio Mixmasters Show” on The Beat get started?
Julio: The Ruthless Radio Show originally got started with Eazy E, rest in peace. Me and Tony G knew him from back at KDAY. We played his record first. …He ran into us again, and we started The Ruthless Radio Show in July of ’94. Then, unfortunately, Eazy passed away, and Tony talked me into keeping the show on the air. We just changed the name, because at the time, it was getting too crazy with the company, and the politics of the name, so we started the show again, and we called it “The Mixmasters Show,” but I would keep the “Ruthless” in there because I want to keep my man’s memory alive regardless.
LA Youth: How was you relationship with Eazy E?
Julio: It was great…All this stuff that’s happening to me now is because of him… and the Lord, for blessing me with that person to be in my life. It’s sad, the misconceptions that people had of him as a gansta rapper, and a thug who sold drugs… deep down inside, he was a wonderful person, he had a very good heart, and he helped out everybody.
LA Youth: What are your goals in life?
Julio: Well, I produce now, but I want to get more into it. I want to put out a bomb, bomb, album one day, that could be a hip-hop classic. I want to start a record label with my partner Tony, and write some movies.
LA Youth: Is there anything else you would like to add, or would like people to know?
Julio: I would like to tell kids out there to get their education… I wish I would’ve gone to college and everything. It’s very important. Especially since we’re about to be in the new century, the year 2000, and especially for us minorities, we need to be educated on… who we are as a people. That’s a big reason why we’re out here killing each other, and hating each other, cause we don’t really know where we came from, and the people before us that lost their lives to get us where we’re at today.
A lot of people lost their lives for us… And a lot of us, we’re just throwing that away, by gangbanging, and not getting our education, and doing all that. We need to work ourselves up, and we really need to start stepping forward, being leaders again, and taking those risks.
Like myself, I feel like I’m putting my neck out on the line everyday, because I’m representing Latin people, and there might be someone out there that might not like Latin people, and might do harm to me. ‘Cause when you start getting powerful with people, and people start listening to you, you become a threat…
So I really feel like people need to get their education, so we can have leaders of the future.”