You want cool? Try this on for size. In a town and a time where everyone works every angle and drops every name, here comes a cat who, in this Head Spins interview, didn't mention the fact that we both knew each other in the old-school days of Jessie's and Rose's and Brandt's Break and Chili Pepper. Whether he did so to spare me the potential embarrassment of not immediately remembering, or simply because he wanted to stand strong on the laurels he's earned since then, is really beside the point. The fact is DJ Meta 4 was cool like that.
This street-credded sound slinger, alongside DJ Radamas, holds down the main room at Space each and every Saturday night. And if you know Space, then you know for that for the last two months the megaclub's main room has been heavy with hip-hop. And if you know Meta 4, then you know that beats don't get much meatier.
But Meta 4 didn't just waltz into Space a couple months ago and start dropping the knowledge. No, he's been turning the tables at downtown Miami's most-regarded dance joint for the past four years -- before the main room, he and Radamas held court in the club's loft. Now you might say they've taken hip-hop and put it front and center.
Dig the Drake and the Lil' Wayne and the Young Jeezy and the Gucci Mane. Lose it over Trina and Trick and the rest of the Slip N Slide posse. And wonder at the wit Meta 4 shows when he's pitting the O'Jays against Biggie, or 50 Cent against Kanye West, or or Timbaland against the Supremes in any number of epic collisions. And when Meta 4 isn't making mash-up of some of the best tracks ever, he's giving them his own remix. And until you hear Meta 4's deft manhandling of Don Omar's "Salio El Sol," you haven't heard the possible pushed past impossible new limits.
It's a craft Meta 4 has also mastered online. His main game when he's not spinning Space is the Internet, and for the past year Meta 4's been slipping it in on the Grey Matter blog, where many a Magic City hustler keeps it locked. And for the past five years now, long before podcasts became a given, Meta 4's been issuing forth some monolithic mixes on PodOmatic, which regularly make the site's top ten. Of course, when you're first out of, the gate you're most likely gonna get duly recognized.
And Meta 4 gets recognition wherever he roams, whether it's downtown at 4 a.m. before a throng of hard-partying nightcrawlers, or over the 'net among a world-wide set of very discriminating listeners. Mostly though, Mega 4 is making sure Miami gets its props as a beat-kicking capital. Perhaps that's why Meta 4 is so often on top of the hip-hop heap: he's cool enough to put his hometown - and the throwdown - first.
Meta 4's Top Five Miami Hip-Hop Tracks of All Time:
1. "Throw The D," 2 Live Crew
2. "Yes 'n' Deed," Society
3. "M.I.A.M.I.," First Platoon
4. "Rock Bottom Of The Map," Mother Superia
5. "Nann," Trick Daddy
DJ Meta 4. Saturdays from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. at Space, Miami; clubspace.com
Hear Meta 4's mixes and mash-ups at djmeta4.podomatic.com and greymatterblog.com
