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"Scratch, Look & Listen: Improvisatory Poetics and Digital DJ Interfaces" in Critical Studies in Improvisation, 10 (1), 1-10

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"Scratch, Look & Listen: Improvisatory Poetics and Digital DJ Interfaces" in Critical Studies in Improvisation, 10 (1), 1-10


Since 2004, digital interfaces have become the dominant mode in which professional hip hop DJs perform for their audiences. There are a number of benefits and drawbacks to utilizing digital interfaces, such as increased or decreased abilities to improvise. This essay explores the impacts of digital interfaces on the hip hop DJ's abilities to improvise and future trajectories of sonic innovation and creativity.

About the Author

Mark V. Campbell is assistant professor and associate chair of Music and Culture in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Toronto. His work explores Afrosonic innovations.

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