DANNY DAN THE BEATMAN (History)(Biz Markie Producer|DJ) #DustyFingers

The heavy beat-diggers out there amongst you will know the name DANNY DAN THE BEATMAN. Either from his brief appearance in the short movie THE FUNK HUNT (where he takes a headbutt for his records!), or simply for being a legendary bronx veteran with an incredible arsenal of dope ass breakbeats - there's no denying this cat's qualifications. DANNY DAN grew up in the early days of Hip Hop and had already begun to DJ Funk, Soul and R&B from the age of 13, but was later influenced by the legendary KOOL DJ HERC to become a drum break junkie. He was fascinated by watching him spin two copies of the same record mixed seamlessly back-to-back.

He hailed from the Bronx 183rd street, and in this area DAN and his crew would rule the streets from 1975 to 1984 involved in organising and spinning at street jams, block parties, school yards etc.. This is where he earned his reputation as a master of drum breaks. DANNY tells us...
"THE TWO TUFF BROS, TBB CREW...we had some good times, we had it all - real B-Boys & B-Girls just havin' fun..... JOJO, MONGO, SPY, TRAC 2, WHITE BOY TRACE, BOM 5, RIP 7, BATCH, ABBY, WEBBLES, JIMMY DEE, JIMMY LEE, MR FREEZE, FROSTY FREEZE, LEFTY, MIKE MIKE, BIG LEE, LEON, 2TUFF FRED, EDDIE ED, KIN 1, SHICK SALSA, SLICK2, WASP 1, OZ 109, TRACY 168, KING 2, CHI CHI 133, P.NUT 2, CLIFF 159 and many other they all came to rock the house including DJ DESTINY, DJ BUCK O, DJ ECSTASY, DJ JONNY JOHN, DJ MIKE MIKE, DJ PILL 170, and the one and only MIX MASTER SUPREME, not forgetting FUNK MASTER J..."



But DANNY DAN is also known for creating dope beats for artists including Biz Markie's "You Got What I Need", Doo Wop and The Bounce Squad's "Hit em in the Head" and many more. He was also the man responsible for the hugely popular DUSTY FINGERS break comp series and has now compiled a treasure of the rarest break beats in the Dusty Fingers collection and now presents his first CD release, DUSTY FINGERS - THE MIX CD. THE BEATMAN has returned to his dusty archival collection only to discover over 50 more rare tracks including more rare international break beats from far afield including Europe. DUSTY FINGERS - THE MIX CD contains over 50 rare break beats that are almost impossible to find. You can preview & purchase DUSTY FINGERS - THE MIX CD at ROCKNSOULRECORDS.

It can be argued that DUSTY FINGERS was the first breakbeat comp to continually go beyond the well-travelled world of LENNY ROBERTS's much revered Ultimate Breaks and Beats series. I'm sure many of you will remember how DUSTY FINGERS was very much shrouded in mystery (is it Diamond D?). DAN made a quantum leap in the digging world, introducing many to euro-breaks, badder than the original cover versions, and also that elusive genre known as library records.

"For the first time DANNY DAN THE BEATMAN has been commissioned to create a mix from the series. With such incredible source material, it'd be hard to fuck this up, but Dann does an excellent job playing guide through the now massive catalogue. There's 57 tracks in total, with just enough editing (tracks average about 1:30 in length) and nicely timed doubles. Well over an hour of music." - Turntable Lab