SHOWCASE: C2C at the BBC

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Is the turntable an instrument? It’s a question I’ve always wrestled with. But French turntablist crew and bazillion time winners of DMC C2C popped into BBC Radio 1 last week to perform their single “Down the Road” and get about as close to showing that a turntable is an instrument as you can get.

If you’re unfamiliar with C2C, they pretty much turned the team battle game on its head. Previously, team sets had been a group of DJs performing short sets together in a strictly turntablist fashion. But then C2C came along, and turned it into coherent flowing performance from beginning to end. They all have a role within the performance, which on the whole isn’t about overly technical quad click flares, but is very much about them performing as a group with their chosen instruments.

When we look at how turntablism has evolved in the last 5 years or so, instead of being a handful of individual disparate sets glued together, the best sets are much more about being flowing performances, where the set has a structure that flows from beginning to end. And what C2C have done here is to basically take a short DMC team set and craft an actual track from it.

For comparison, here’s the actual music video for your viewing pleasure:

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