Oakland Bohemian DJs ride bicycles

GOOD Culture profiles The Hidden Economics of Oakland’s Rap Bohemia.

The recording bay is a sort of pantry in a hallway stuffed with half a dozen keyboards, a mixing board, a working reel-to-reel, a USB mixer, and an old MacBook Pro playing an iTunes mix through an amp. The MacBook cost $300 on Craigslist, which is where most everything else came from; the only new-with-tags purchase was the $200 Ableton mixer, which fits in [Oakland rapper Mike Malero’s] backpack when he bikes to gigs.

Marty Aranaydo, aka DJ Willie Maze, comes by Myth Lab with fresh-printed STAY HATIN stickers for the crew. The group resolves to head to a backyard party in the neighborhood. Noah and Aranaydo ride in my car so we can buy beer; everyone else takes bikes.

Yep, that sounds like Oaktown.

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