“I released the original 12” volume of Five Fingers Of Death Battle Breaks way back in 1998, while I was living in Oakland and then San Francisco during a time of incredible movement and creativity within the suddenly exploding Scratch DJ scene.
The term “turntablist”, coined by DJ Disk, had yet to really catch on outside of the Bay Area scratch fraternity. Having recently moved to California from New York, Paul’s turntable aesthetics were strictly 80’s East Coast and was more concerned with “catching doubles” (beat juggling) and overall party rocking. In other words, the science of scratching was not something I was even contemplating. Needless to say, I was completely amazed and overwhelmed with what DJs like QBert, Shortcut, Apollo and Mixmaster Mike were doing.
It was also around this time that I had discovered that these guys were giving a lot of play to an independently pressed beat record I had made before leaving NY.“Fists of the White Lotus” was originally on an instrumental EP I did with my mentor Joey T on his Empire Records label (Beats Anonymous Vol.1). I remember when QBert found out I had made that record. His immediate response was, “Holy shit! I love that record!” I said back to him: “Can I quote you on that?”
I pressed up the first couple of hundred copies of Five Fingers Of Death Battle Breaks complete with a sticker on the shrinkwrap containing Q’s quote. Those first couple of hundred quickly turned into a thousand. Then 3 thousand. Then before you know it, Volume 2. And 3. And so on.
This record now is a nostalgic return to these days for me. A little reminder of what made that time in history special for so many.”
