After hundreds of passes, DJ Cassidy’s mic is about to be tuned, at least for TV specials. The popular “Pass the Mic” series — which began online as a pandemic phenomenon combining classic R&B and rap stars, before moving to BET as a succession of post-awards specials — will receive its final installment on October 4, right after the BET Hip Awards. hop.
Next week’s BET Half-Hour Grand Final will see rappers from what DJ Cassidy calls “Hip-Hop’s second golden age,” which is considered to take place roughly between 1993 and 2003. Although he usually maintains a line-up of “pass by Mic’s specials” “In laps so that guests can surprise the audience, as Cassidy offers diverse A representative sample of four of the 20 stars listed at the end: Swizz Beatz, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, and Ice Cube.
Popular music player “Pass the Mic” started in 2020 as a pandemic-era way to bring together R&B and hip-hop stars, and nearly all of their early days date back to a set three-decade period, which is the perfect setting for Cassidy. , from the early seventies to the early twenty-first century. Cassidy shot musicians one by one for editing together in epic audio-visual combos that seem to work seamlessly from artist and song to song, even though he uses his usual bag of tricks to navigate songs that obviously don’t. They all share the same rhythm.
The first three installments were strictly online, but the last seven were on BET, serving as an after-party after each of the network’s signature award shows over the past two years, partnering with top TV producer Jesse Collins, hip-hop entrepreneur Steve Rifkind and Connie Orlando from BET. He said he always had 10 singles-themed episodes in mind, and concluded the series with an episode that was his dream to follow up on an award show celebrating contemporary stars of the genre.
“I celebrated 220 legendary artists and 166 featured songs in these 10 episodes,” says Cassidy. “I’ve always admired people like Michael Jordan who have come out on top, and I feel like 10 is a great round number with which to end a series of epic musical festivities. And with this episode being the last I’d fantasized about from the start, it seemed like a good time to close the curtain on the first generation. From “Pass the Mic” before I continue to expand the brand into new endeavors to celebrate.”
The full ten official installments of “Pass the Mic” do not include some of the mini versions or partial excerpts he made, as with his appearance in the “RWQuarantunes” virtual fundraising series, or final branch, when he was invited to do a shorter “microphone” pass as part From TV shows for Biden’s presidential inauguration.
Cassidy sees this episode of “Pass the Mic,” with its focus on hip-hop 1993-2003, as a sequel to the second episode in 2020, which focused on the genre’s original spread in 1983-93.
“Volume. 2, which was still one of the local episodes, was a celebration of what many people consider to be hip hop’s first golden age, which brought hip hop music from a bubble subculture from the South Bronx to the national stage as an established one. A new kind of music. That episode featured every specific artist of the era, “including Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Chuck D, Big Daddy Kane, Doug E. Fresh, Naughty by Nature, and Salt N Pepper.” There were nearly 40 per person in that one show. And after this show premiered, LL Cool J took to Instagram Live, spurring for a moment, impromptu, to talk about the show. Watching him talk about that edition was one of the greatest moments of my life. Thousands of people instantly signed up because he was so excited about what he not only saw, but participated in. Among the things he said, “This is a capsule of culture that will last for hundreds of years.” And I brought in LL Dog E Fresh, who brought a tear to my eye when he said, “What I realized watching this for 40 minutes was that we were all just pieces of the puzzle. And when Cassidy put this puzzle together, it was beautiful.”
He says the upcoming tenth and final release “represents a prolific era when hip-hop music began selling millions of records, shifting global pop culture from music to fashion to movies. Music that was usually considered street music became mainstream music, and rappers became Pop stars, designers, and actors. And I think this show represents the huge impact of New York and Los Angeles during this particular time.”
Ending TV iterations doesn’t mean DJ Cassidy is done with “Pass the Mic” as a brand: he does occasional live shows under that umbrella. The third live “Pass the Mic” will take place on October 21 in Austin in Formula One, with no guests revealed yet. The first was at the Pegasus World Cup in Miami in January, where he had a set of “Hollywood Squares” LED screens featuring pre-recorded performers, before opening some squares to reveal Ja Rule, Lil Kim, Mase and El DeBarge in the flesh. The second live show “Pass the Mic” was dedicated to the opening of the Hard Rock Hotel Times Square in New York City.
And he doesn’t give up his day/late night job, as a DJ his sets aren’t designed as tightly as all of the “Pass the Mic” episodes were. In fact, he was calling diverse From Milan, where he worked as a DJ at a Dolce & Gabbana / Kim Kardashian Fashion Week event.
“DJ solos are at the heart of who I am and what I do, and honestly, as crazy as it sounds, it’s been since I was 10, but specifically the late teens when I really started my career. I can’t imagine leaving that at all.” Whether I perform more frequently or less frequently, which happens in waves depending on what I’m doing at the time, I think everything I do is similar to how Kevin Hart always stands up, no matter how many movies he’s doing. He thinks he’s above standup club, and I think that’s what makes great comedians great.”
The ending of the BET specials has brought some plaudits from those who have worked with Cassidy on the entire series as well as those who have worked with him recently – such as Ice Cube, who tells diverse“It’s great to be part of the ‘Pass the Mic’ legacy and work with the only DJ Cassidy, who still respects the OGs in the game.”
Swizz Beatz, who also appears on next Tuesday’s finale, says “Pass The Mic” is something we never knew we needed until Cassidy showed us we did. The work and time required to organize such events are beyond words.”
“DJ Cassidy has created the most culturally relevant viral music series during the pandemic connecting iconic artists with communities of all ages and from all walks of life,” says Weitz, who took on Cassidy’s job as a client after their charity worked together for “RWQuarantines,” says No wonder he quickly It became a successful television series, cementing his place in history. … He is the maestro of modern day music.”
“‘Pass The Mic’ has been a game-changing part of the music scene since Cassidy created it in 2020,” says Super Producer Collins. “It continues to evolve and showcase timeless music in an innovative way for all of us to enjoy in these constantly challenging times. It has been an honor to be part of seven featured releases aired on BET. ‘Pass The Mic’ will surely continue to work and unite people through music for years to come.”
Rifkind says, “I met Cassidy as a young kid coming to the Loud Records office for vinyl. I was impressed with him at the time when he was only 13 years old. Ten years later, he brought an artist to SRC and gave them their first record deal. His creative vision and knowledge of music. Really amazing. When he sent me the first volume of Pass The Mic in July 2020, I told him I wanted to be his partner. I also told him the show was going to change his life and he did it. He created something very special for the culture and he’s just getting started.”
Looking back at the beginnings of “Pass the Mic,” Cassidy traces the way he was able to deconstruct the ten singles episodes to how he separated the genres and subgenres of hip-hop and R&B as a young DJ.
Right after vol. 1, I envisioned all the possibilities and really saw all the ensuing episodes in my mind,” he says. “These episodes are like the personal appearances of the record boxes I would bring to every DJ set before computer technology took over as DJs. Before the invention of Serato, DJs would carry vinyl boxes wherever they went. I was going to carry eight boxes of records to every party in New York City. And I picked the number eight because only six boxes fit in a New York City taxi boot, and if the driver was nice enough, I could put one box in the front and one in the back. So most of the boxes I could bring to a party in NYC were eight. When I flew to a party, I tried cutting eight to six. But those boxes were divided into categories, often by genre or era of music. And these performances are largely the result of those funds.”
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