Scratch

You don’t have to be a connoisseur or even a lover of hiphop music to enjoy this documentary. Scratch does include inside jokes for experienced scratch fans, but enough is explained at an elementary level. After Hype! Scratch is the second major music documentary by Doug Pray. In Hype! he focused primarily on the friction that arises when underground bands turn into mega sellers. This friction is absent in Scratch. Scratch reached its commercial heights in the late Seventies. Since then, MCs have taken over the spotlight and DJs have a secondary role at the back of the stage. In the Underground, the phenomenon has gone through a massive development since then. The simple scratch of yore has acquired many complicated brothers. These techniques are all demonstrated and explained by the big names from the business: icons from the very start such as Afrika Bambaataa, Grand Wizzard and Jazzy Jay, contemporary pioneers such as Qbert and everything in between, including Mix Master Mike, the turntable wizard of the Beasty Boys and DJ Shadow.Pray prepared Scratch meticulously and has not got bogged down in superficiality. You really learn something out about hiphop and the people behind it. DJs, unlike most gangsta rappers, are mainly interested in music. So the main character in this documentary is undoubtedly the soundtrack.