From the basement of the Midwest, to the Bay Area. The Vision beat tape....produced and scratches by Dj Manwell by Dj Manwell
So, I guess I have a confession to make. I hate doing favors. When I started this personal blog over four years ago it was, and still is, for selfish reasons. I only wanted to write about subject matter that affected me. You become cynical around friends and associates that want everything they do to be posted on your personal blog.
Not the case in this situation, but there is a flip side to this. When you make the decision to write about people you're close to, and this could just be me, the writing changes. You want to do them and their craft justice. I take great pride in the ridiculous words I write on the internet, but I wanted to take extra care with this entry.
DJ Manwell is someone who influenced me to dance [bboy] ten years ago. When he took off as a turntablist and began touring the world, naturally he became harder to contact. So I took it upon myself to do a guerilla-style interview when I got a chance to sit down with him this past summer. Excuse my awful audio recording abilities. My smartphone isn't built for clarity of sound and I just learned Audacity minutes before posting this. If you're interested in one of my first audio interviews you can listen to a portion of our conversation here.
In an impromptu photo shoot, DJ Manwell brings one of the many tools that's helped him produce his instrumental music.
DJ Manwell's The Vision is an 18-minute beat tape. In our conversation you can hear unmastered cuts and ideas from the man himself. One of the key reasons I'm posting this here would be because the few people who actually read my blog are also into games or the games industry. In our talks, Manwell expressed an interest in being a part of the anime and video game soundtrack creation process. Judging by what I heard, I think most of his instrumentals would be a perfect fit.
Now I'm starting to sound like a promoter. In reality, I've had this interview since July. It's been months since Manny moved from Columbus to Los Angeles. I'm fairly sure he's gonna be mad at me for not posting this sooner. I just wanted to make sure I was writing about this for the right reasons. I wanted to make sure I did his talent justice.
With that being said, this isn't a review of his beat tape, though I've listened to it for the past couple weeks while writing. So take that for what it's worth. This is my friend DJ Manwell. He's a pretty talented guy. And I think you should listen to his stuff.
You can find him on Twitter, SoundCloud and Facebook.