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.

c2c turntablist team at BBC down the road

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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