Mention the name “Cosmo Baker” in a circle of DJs, and cats get quiet and speak in hushed tones. I’ve seen it happen too many times to forget. It’s a quiet borne of reverence, borne of a man who is supremely talented at his craft, a guy who is a trademark of excellence in blending music that bridges genres and brings people together. Cosmo spins all over the world, but is best known these days for spinning at Brookklyn’s “The Rub,” alongside DJ Ayres and DJ Eleven, a party with a hip hop base that touches the stratosphere and comes back again. Cosmo Baker started as a DJ alongside Rich Medina and Questlove. Let’s rewind that sentence. Cosmo Baker started as a DJ alongside Rich Medina and Questlove. When you start there, there’s really nowhere else to go but to let your greatness trickle down and bless the masses. Cosmo comes to U Street Music Hall this Friday to spin Red Fridays alongside Sam “The Man” Burns and the Dirty Bombs crew of Deep Sang and DJ Meistro for a powerhouse lineup that’s certain to impress. I had the chance to interview the rising legend DJ, and got an education in response. Enjoy!
1. Growing up in Philadelphia, you had to have been touched by Gamble and Huff and Philly International Records. What exactly about their production style did you appreciate when you first broke into DJing, and what do you appreciate now about those classic recordings?
Well everyone in Philly has been touched by TSOP, whether it’s something that they consciously recognize or not. There really isn’t any other way of putting it other than it really truly is The Sound Of Philadelphia. I mean Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now may as well be the Philadelphia anthem you know. But I don’t know what it was about their production style that I liked when I first started DJing. Obviously like checking for samples and all that, and that’s always been a thing with my DJing like incorporating the old with the new. But these songs are classics, they’re standards, growing up hearing them they’re a part of your lineage. And I’ll always appreciate them for their what I think as their AMBITION, like “We’re going to make the most lush, fullest, most ground shattering sound ever” which is dope cause it comes from a bunch of dudes in Philly, a city that kind of didn’t really have anything.
2. Being adept at spinning so many various styles of music, where exactly do you find the thread that connects disparate sounds to each other? Is it a bassline, is it a sample, or is it an emotional place that the song takes you? When it comes to bending genres, what are some of your favorite records to mix together that show truly cross genre and cross cultural tie?
All those musical components help with what you want to do but really it’s more about a feeling than anything else. You want to tell a story, or go on a journey. You know like back when I first started going out to clubs you would hear rap, house, club, classics, rockers, so it makes sense that all these things have a flow where you can place them together. Shit back in the day Nicky Siano is playing James Brown, Motown, Traffic, fucking other wild shit, African shit… It’s just “party music.” So I kind of like to draw the parallel lines in my sets when I play.
3. You are an influential DJ to at least three generations of DJs. What to you separates a DJ from the ever growing pack, and do you still listen as fervently and closely to the top young spinners of this generation as you did to those you developed alongside and the generation after that?
That shit is crazy, I don’t even see myself other than just a dude who does his thing. And so I don’t really quite know if I have a real answer for this, because for me it was just always about me doing my thing even if it wasn’t popular at the time. But yeah the most important thing for me was always just finding and developing my own sound, and then just staying true to that and never compromising… not saying that a sound can’t evolve, because it has to, but not giving in to flavor of the month shit. So that’s important, and to answer the second part I definitely listen to the young dudes coming up. I was always the “youngboy” of the crew so now that I’m older and I have this weird “elder” position I’m still trying to fit into it I guess. And of course I got to take note of the dudes coming up – they’re gonna end up taking all my jobs one of these days haha!
4. The hipster movement spawned a lot of DJs. Coming out of Philly and watching the development of Diplo and Low Budget’s Hollertronix parties, what about their party and developing style at the start of that movement do you think informed the hipster generation as a whole, and what do you feel, if anything is lost by many DJs who attempt to replicate that these days?
Those dudes weren’t trying to recreate the wheel, so I think motherfuckers have this erroneous notion that when they first set out they were trying to develop this new and crazy scene and sound. No dude, they were just trying to have a hip-hop party. And they were doing blends and spinning wild shit the same way several generations of Philly DJs were. It just ended up catching on like at the right place at the right time… it was a dope party for real, real fun. I guess a lot of the rock kids and hipsters decided they were going to change their mind and start listening to music black people made instead of Belle & Sebastien – ironically at first but then a bunch of them said “okay this is really fresh” and then the movement kind of started. But because it was like a whole new world for these kids they just threw themselves into it without any pretension. So I dunno, people trying to catch lightning in a bottle as opposed from playing from their heart and soul.
5. You’re spinning at Red Fridays, which is primarily known as a house music party. When Rich Medina (a frequent colleague) spun the party a month ago, he expanded the definition of what a “house music” party was in the eyes of many by tossing in Original Bongo Band’s “Apache and the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running.” Do you employ that same open ended method when spinning “house parties,” and if so what are some of your favorite “non-traditional” tracks to drop?
Yeah man no question man, like HOUSE is HOUSE and there’s no question about that, but again like I said it’s all about the journey and the drawing of parallel lines and shit. IT ALL FITS is kind of my philosophy. Like I’m definitely going to play new and classic house but you never know where that’s going to take you, and I think that’s a shame that not as many DJs allow themselves to go with the flow like that. Motherfuckers are too rigid, DJs are made conservative, and then the crowd gets rigid too. People need to let their hair down and have fun, get funky, let the freak flag fly you know! It’s all about the party so let’s make it happen. As for what I’m gonna play well we will see.
6. Having broken in with Questlove and Rich Medina back in the early 90s, who were some of the key teachers and what were some of the key lessons that you learned as DJs and promoters that you feel bear a necessity to be mentioned to the younger generations?
Well honestly I’m one of those dudes that got his turntables and took to it like a fish to water, but there’s one name that is never really mentioned about and that was my man DJ Storm, who put me down in the very early 90s. We used to play at this place Sugarcube which was an all ages, predominantly black crowd that was just down to party to hip-hop, rockers (what we used to call dancehall) R&B, club, “Luke” what we would call Miami bass) and more. I would open for him and then he would get on and I would just watch him the way he would read, and develop the crowd and the dancefloor. Then I would go to The Nile and that’s where my perception changed. Nile was a gay club, 99% black I would say, and here I was this young kid that I don’t even think I was 18 yet, and Storm was like “Come with me to Nile to learn what house music is about.” So I would go up there and they would be playing all this crazy shit, wild house, even club cause in Philly the gay clubs were playing Baltimore club in the house sets way before hipsters embraced it. So yeah, you would have DJ Donald Stone (RIP) up there playing doubles of “My First Mistake” for 30 minutes while all the drag queens would be having their voguing competitions and serving everyone, then playing new house, Cajmere, Strictly Rhythm shit, harder shit, but then always back to the classics… Changed my life. That’s my perception of real house music, and it’s thanks to DJ Storm who opened that door for me.
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