DJ Scratch: What Happened After N.W.A. and the Posse?
Categories: The Posse Project
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DJ Scratch
Also Known As: LaMont Burnett, King Scratch
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In the Photo: Scratch didn't want to have his photo taken because he hadn't had his hair done properly but was persuaded to jump into the shot by Eazy E, who said Scratch looked like part of the Ruthless Records gang.
"The picture was going to be taken later in the day, and we all had to get Jehri curls done and all that. Dre called early and said, 'We're gonna take the picture,' so I wasn't even going to get in the picture at all. I jumped in the car and I took Jinx and Candyman down there," Scratch tells me. "We went up there, and I wasn't in the picture. I actually had another camera, and I was just snapping them. And Eazy was like, 'Come on, get in the picture. You look Ruthless. Get in the picture.'"
"I look like a fool. I've got on two different types of pants and crazy hair and glasses and all that, but Eazy kept being like, 'You look Ruthless. Come get in it, come get in it.' So I jumped in."
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| King Scratch (left) today. |
"Eazy wanted me to be his DJ, but I didn't want to leave Candyman, because I was his DJ and he was my MC. Then Candyman's thing blew up too. But then Candyman's stuff fell off, and Eazy and Ren's just kept going up," Scratch says.
He has no regrets though: "Everything happens for a reason."
Now: Scratch lives in Barstow, California, which is between L.A. and Vegas. Scratch says it's a place where he has a house that's "nice and cheap and big." He's a family man with children and grandchildren.
Scratch has recorded some new music, which you can hear on his MySpace page. He also started a company that does merch for other musicians.
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| King Scratch now designs products for other rappers. This is a sample he did for himself. |
People Don't Know: Why DJ Scratch changed his name to King Scratch.
Another DJ Scratch, an associate of the late Jam-Master Jay became prominent as a member of Long Island hip-hop group EPMD right around the same time Scratch was starting to come to the forefront with Candyman and N.W.A.
"[DJ Scratches] were coming out the woodwork. So I was like, okay, I'll change. But I was the original Scratch. I was doing it first. I've been DJ Scratch since I was 14. I used to do parties and my system would piss out on me, so people would say, 'He DJ's all right, but he scratches better than anything else.' So that's where I got the name from,"
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| Candyman, Scratch and the late Johnny "J." |
"Somebody killed Johnny. He didn't kill himself, I know that," Scratch says. "At his funeral people were saying all sorts of false things, like he was platinum at the age of 16. At 16, he was working at McDonald's. We didn't hit platinum until the Candyman thing, when we were, like, 21."
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