Interview w/Emynd & Bo Bliz (White Tee’s, White Belts & The Bounce)
By: Justin Weleski

In a city that is always looked upon as the shadow of New York the one thing we got up on them, as well as the rest of the planet is our DJ’s and parties. From the classic times of The Remedy, Back to Basics, and Hollertronix. To the current times of Tasty Treats, Making Time, Body Rock, and Turbostation. Our DJ’s know how to make you party like no other. So I finally got the chance to sit down with two of the three men who put an up to no good smile on your face every time you notice it’s a new month. And even though they are on a lil hiatus from giving us our first Friday fix of the White Tee’s and White Belts Party. The DJ duo of Emynd and Bo Bliz are still busy and working hard at making you have fun. But want to set the record straight to a large majority of people still think it’s a “hipster party” or think that you have to where a white tee to get in….AND tell you to stop calling them White Tee’s and White Belts, just because they DJ your favorite party!
*Check out Emynd and Bo Bliz this Saturday (May 17th) for The Bounce @ The Barbary (Frankford & Delaware Ave) Click HERE for party info.

215: Before knowing you guys even DJ’d I knew you guys mainly as producers working with Reef The Lost Cauze early on in his career. So how long have you been doing production and how did you meet Reef?

Emynd: I’ve been doing production I guess since I was a sophomore in high school like around ‘96. I guess around 12 years which sounds like a long ass time now that I say it outloud. I met Reef through Bo

Bo Bliz: I’ve known Reef since about 8th or 9th grade as childhood friends, and I’ve been doing music since 2000 when I met Emil up in Penn State. And we kinda switched off by him teaching me how to make beats and me teaching him how to DJ. And now we both do both. Emil was the one who got me into digging records for producing because before that everything I bought was specifically just for mixtapes and parties. And was a good way for me to branch out into different shit

Emynd: Back when I was just producing, I was buying records as a dorky record collector and just to sample and make music out of. And then, when I met Bo I got more into DJ’ing and buying records to actually DJ with. We had a radio show together in college and started getting into doing parties around that time too.

215: Now that may be a shocker to some who know you guys now. So why do you guys disconnect your production talents and your DJ/party talents so far from each other?

Emynd: I don’t personally want it to be separate like that. It’s just how quote/un-quote “scene’s” have worked out. Like a lot of the rap I’ve done in the past, but it isn’t really club friendly rap so it’s kinda hard for me to incorporate that into my DJ sets. And it’s not anything done on purpose where I want keep each world separate, it’s just how it’s worked out. I have done things with Reef that I think will go over well in the club, but they’re not like real overt club songs that I make great efforts to work into my sets.

215: Well I understand that you wouldn’t necessarily play records you produced with rappers in the middle of a jumpin’ party. But I’m talking more about if people visit your website or whatever there literally see no information of any production stuff you’ve done. And is just straight about parties, so why separate the two so much?

Bo: Well the internet shit is mainly used just for us promoting our parties. And as far as production and stuff we’ve done in the past and present it’s more about personal relationships we have with artists. There isn’t much point in trying to project ourselves as experienced producers, because it doesn’t do a lot for you most of the time as a DJ, because I’ve seen some legendary producers that can’t rock a party for shit.

Emynd: Yeah, it’s not really some calculated thing that we do online to keep the two separated. We just use the internet as a tool to promote our parties. Our more club related productions are found on our myspace page (www.myspace.com/whitetshirts). But, I guess another reason is that neither of us have really done all that much production work with rappers lately. Most of it has been club-oriented remixes, edits, or party tracks-not too much stuff with rappers, so that’s what winds up getting shine online. Be sure to let these crab ass producers out there that I got more breaks then them in my crates though! I was filtering bass lines back in ‘96 like the rest of y’all too!

215: Are you working with any MC’s at the current moment? Reef – IB Das?

Emynd: Not really, I’ve been more into New Orleans Bounce music and have been trying to get in touch with some good MC’s down there to work with. I still work with Reef occasionally and throw him some beats when I got stuff that I think he would sound good on. I believe I got a new track on Reef’s new album and it’s really effing dope. There’s some other local cats I’d love to work with but nothing has materialized as of yet. I’m really into that dude Young Hot. But, I guess if I’m really honest about this stuff, there’s some rappers I like, but getting in touch with them and trying to get them to make the music I want isn’t really a huge thing on my priority list as of right just with my time being so limited these days. There’s 50 things I’m working on now that I’m more interested in working on then establishing new relationships with rappers and trying to push forward with them.

Bo: Yeah they were the last two people I’ve worked with. Me & IB Das have been working in the studio. And I believe I have two or three tracks that should be coming out on a mixtape he’s working on.

215: You released an EP a year or so back, so how was the feedback and success from it?

Emynd: Yeah, it actually went really well and I think it sold out in a month in a half or something like that. It mostly was an EP filled with party music, Bmore club, and club friendly remixes. We’ve got a new record coming out hopefully fairly soon with similar type of shit based on original Baltimore club and I guess what people in Philly call “Philly club” or Party music now.

Bo: That first EP was put out to represent us as DJ’s and for people to hear what we play out at a party. It had a fair amount of club music on it, hiphop , and reggae. So at the time we wanted to represent what a night out dj’ing is for us was, as opposed to just all club(Baltimore) tracks or whatever

215: So how did you guys get into DJ’ing and how did the whole White Tee’s and White Belts party start?

Bo: I started DJ’ing in like ‘97. at the time I was real hype on dudes like DJ Ghetto and the Action Figures, and DJ’s doing parties out on Lancaster Ave(at the Fake House) and up at 5th & cecil b moore, just on some straight hip hop shit, DJ’s battling, and that’s what got me into DJ’ing in the first place. So from there I went out to Penn State until ‘02 and I did some radio and took a year or two to start getting into parties down here, but I’ve been doing some random hole in the wall shit & DJ’ing at least once a week since like 2000.

Emynd: I started DJ’ing when we started the radio show up at Penn State with Bo and then I started White T’s with Dan which original was just Emynd & Dan The Swede for the first 2-3, then we brought Bo aboard. Bo actually worked the door at the first White Ts even though he was probably technically the best DJ of the three of us. That very first White Ts & White Belts was at the Ruba Memorial Day Weekend in ‘05. Then we moved it to Ulana’s on 2nd and Bainbridge when we added on Bo just because the Ruba wasn’t really keen on doing a monthly party. About 6 or 7 months into White Ts, Dan the Swede left to go do some weekly Friday gig that conflicted with the White Ts schedule so the party became just me and Bo. From there we moved it to the Red Warehouse because the lady who ran Ulana’s was pretty impossible to work with. When Bo and I moved it to the Red Warehouse, the party really established its identity as this wile out, drunken, crazy party. At the time, it was like $5, BYOB, open till 4 in the morning, and it was just crazy. Those couple months are really what gave White Ts its identity and word spread really quickly. We didn’t change any of our promotional tactics, but word started spreading really fast and word-of-mouth became our biggest promo tool. After White Ts had been established as this real strong brand, we brought Dan back because his weekly gig had fallen through and we liked DJ’ing with him. The Red Warehouse got too crazy, so we moved it to the Ukranian Club for like 2 or 3 parties then finally to the Arts Garage. And, of course, that shit just recently got shut down.

215: What does White T’s White Belts actually mean? Because there’s people who actually ask if you have to wear a white tee.

Emynd: Yeah, it’s amazing that we still get that question to this day. Well the white tee represents the hip hop kid (Bo: 2-3yrs ago when they actually did) And also at that time white belts were the hipster kids. So I was suppose to be the white tees DJ that played the hip hop and Dan was the one who played more of the hipster stuff. And, overall I just thought it was a catchy name. At the time, hipsters actually wore white belts, so it didn’t sound as silly as it does now. And, the party name is a bit of a misnomer: the parties not frequented by as many hipster kids as you might think. There’s just a lot of regular people there partying. It’s a good, diverse scene of folks who just like to party and have fun.

215: Why did you guys make the decision into making White Ts White Belts more of a DJ crew name as oppose to just keeping that name for the 1st Friday party? Because there’s been numerous times people would say to me that there’s a white tee’s party and it was just you guys DJ’ing for another promoter. And, when those other parties sucked, it becomes a reflection on the successful party you guys established.

Emynd: I don’t think that was ever a decision. To this day, I don’t feel like we’re even a DJ crew. Emynd & Bo Bliz is a group. White Ts White Belts is just a crazy party that Emynd, Bo Bliz, and Dan the Swede throw. Promoters just wanted to book us as a White Ts party because they knew our name was ringing out there like that and they were trying to make some money off us.

Bo: That was never our wish, it was supposed to just always be a party name. And promoters wanted to use the name because that’s the name people mostly associate us with. Basically, people trying to get paid off work we did. So, despite having conversations with promoters saying not to use the name we’d still see that shit on the flyer. And I’ll tell you one of the reasons we got into this shit in the first place was to do it all ourselves, so we could control our image and what we consider our expression. We continuously get reminded that we want to keep doing it ourselves and that’s one of the reasons right there. People keep mis-representing you, people telling you what to play, all that shit we were trying to avoid by not dj’ing at your average club. I mean part of the point of going through the trouble of renting these independent venues was to avoid stuff like that.  We have never promoted White Ts with the exception of the 1st Friday parties we did. We said it was okay for some promoters to use it, but some promoters just took it and ran with it.

215: The party has been compared numerous times to the Hollertronix party, but for anyone who’s actually went to both. The only comparison is that each party was open past 2am and you could get drunk for cheap. So does this frustrate you guys at all? And why do you guys think you get that comparison?

Bo: It doesn’t frustrate us and we’re cool with those dudes, and it’s not like we wouldn’t want to be compared to those guys. We liked what they did and we like them as people but at the same time it definitely is a different experience and it is different music. And if you go see Low Budget or Diplo right now it’s going to be completely different genres of music than what we play right now. But there is a lot of the same cats at both parties, well it’s been so long now, but when that first ended and we started it was the same crowd, but now its 2008 and the last Hollertronix was in ‘04 or ‘05.

Emynd: I can see where it comes from and they sort of set the blueprint for what we do. And I remember when I first talked to Dan about doing a party, it’s part of the reason why we started White Ts in the first place. We were drunk at Silk City DJ’ing some party together for Naeem from Spank Rock, and we just got along real well and were like “Yo, we should do a party!” At the time there hadn’t been a Hollertronix for at least 6 months (probably more) and we just said let’s just do a big party and try and get something poppin’. So, I can definitely see where it comes from because it’s in the same trajectory or whatever. Of course, we are cool with those dudes and they were a big inspiration for us to do this ish ourselves as well. And, it’s definitely flattering to be compared to them because, to me, that was some seriously epic shit. Any time I ever talk about Hollertronix and going to those parties, it was easily the most fun I ever had at any party ever. Those dudes blew me away numerous times and I’ve never been to anything like those parties in my life. So, to be compared to that is definitely flattering, but I also just think it’s silly and lazy. Mostly, I feel like Hollertronix was more of an important party that kind’ve changed how a lot of people look at what a DJ party can be, where are party is more of just this fun, wile out party that’s fun for anybody that comes. I don’t know, I just feel that there party was just way more important than what we’re doing

Bo: And if you go anywhere in the country or even the world you’ll see people trying to imitate their style.

215: Now you guys had a short stay at the Ukie club where I first started to hear the comparison, so is that why you moved it quickly away from there?

Emynd: It was just a venue thing and we needed a venue. The Red Warehouse was just getting too wild. I think the first White Ts we did at the Red Warehouse, there was like 200 people, the next one was up to 400 people and the last one was up to 600 or 700 people in this small-ass, narrow warehouse space. That one was just insane. DJ Brendan Bring’em was there after his Friday gig at Trago’s shutting it down from like 2:30-4, playing late night and it was just scary at times. I remember at one point I stopped DJ’ing because Brendan was getting on and when you’re DJ’ing, you really don’t know what’s going on in the crowd. You just see people dancing so you’re thinking everything is cool. Well, I got off the tables and walked into the crowd and it felt like, at any moment, someone was gonna get stabbed or something. I mean, there was just fights everywhere. I was helping out security and escorting a bunch of trouble makers out of the party and I remember, while walking some dude out, he just turned around and randomly threw a full bottle of beer back into the middle of the crowded warehouse. I didn’t see where it went, but somebody must’ve got clocked in the head or some ish. And I got the dude outside, and there were just all these dude’s outside fighting and the BYOB thing made it even crazier because everyone in there was just absolutely ANNIHILATED. Earlier that evening the cops had stopped by too on some “WTF is going on here?” And we were just like “Uh, a private party.” The cop left because it must’ve been the end of his shift or whatever, but he knew what the hell was going on. And people would just get SOOOO DRUNK at this thing, man. People were bring coolers of beer and handles of liquor and just wiling: smoking whatever, having sex in the bathrooms, pissing off the balcony or in the corner of the warehouse. We thought we’d be all good because we had like 3-4 guys doing security, but they were more concerned with selling weed to people and weren’t too concerned about securing much of anything. I remember that last night at the Red Warehouse, during the last hour I kept running up to the DJ booth saying “Yo, we have to end this right now, shit’s getting out of control!” Basically just flipping out. I mean, I have a tendency to overreact to that kind of shit anyway, but I was flippin’ the fuck out. So after that one, we were like “Alright, we gotta move somewhere that feels a bit more like an actual venue so people won’t just come through and wile out like they’re in some random warehouse where consequences magically don’t exist.” But, at that point we were pretty dead set on keeping the party as this late night thing and the Ukie presented itself as a good option that would allow us to stay open late.  Once we moved it to the Red Warehouse and got away from the 2am bar closing time is when it really established itself and got the identity of this crazy party open till the wee hours of the morning. So, while things had gotten a bit TOO wild, we didn’t want to go back to a regular bar/club party where you buy $5 vodkas and go home at 2AM. At the time, there wasn’t any comparisons to Hollertronix and we didn’t even really think about it in those terms, so the logical venue move was to the Ukie. Honestly, we just wanted to move the party to a venue that would stay open late and people wouldn’t be wiling so hard. So, we hollered at Mike and Wes and asked them if it was cool that we did it at the Ukie, and they were both cool with it because they were off doing their thing anyway. So, we got the blessing from the old heads and we went and did it. I think we only did one or two at the Ukie before we moved it again. There was the one with Peedi Crakk and maybe one other one.

Bo: We moved it to the Ukie club and we could have kept it at the Red Warehouse but it was just a crazy situation and the dude who we were renting it from really had no idea what he got himself into. He thought we were just having like 100 friends over just to drink some beers, and I remember he first asked us “so how many people come to your parties?” and we said “yeah like 100 - 200 people, something like that”, and they show up the next day with the spot all tagged up, puke everywhere, broken glass, girls panties on the floor. So we just didn’t want to be responsible if something really crazy went down.

215: So after that you moved it to the Arts Garage which is temporally closed down. So what’s the next step for the party?

Emynd: Right now were weighing our options and seeing if we can find a new venue or start something new.

Bo: Honestly the party has been bounced around a lot to so many different venues(which sucks). So I’m trying to get myself in a position with all this shit on the level where we’re really in control of it and we are not reporting to anyone but each other. And trying to find a permanent solution where we are legal but can still do us.

Emynd: Don’t tell anybody, but we’re basically going to buy a “White Ts” skyscraper and get ish popping in there. That big ass Comcast building? That’s actually ours.

215: You guys have publicly spoken out (or at least online) on how you guys won’t take any corporate sponsorship money for any parties you guys put on yourselves. So why not take free money just for a logo on a flyer and a banner on a wall?

Emynd: I’m not vocally against it and it’s not really this huge moral thing to me. I’m not speaking for Bo or Dan when I say any of this, but I don’t really stress that sponsorship BS because to me, I’m just kinda trying to keep this pure for myself. This is a way of keeping the party in my hands. I’m worried once we get corporate sponsorship it will change how I approach the party and what I play and what my involvement in it should be and just feel it will taint the whole experience in a certain way. Like I have my 9-5 and I got money coming in from remixes and mixtapes and what not. This shit I do right now isn’t about the money and maybe the $1,000 I would get from putting a logo on a flyer would of course help me more, but right now I’m building something myself with my friends and it’s all us. I remember once we first officially booked Freeway, I was so stoked, but I was also kinda scared because I knew it was going to strain our party financially and we might lose some money doing it. If you know anything about booking these dudes, you gotta put up half the money up front, so I met up with Free’s managaer with a check of my own money and handed it to him and I just remember thinking “Man, I hope I make most of this back!” So, we talked about getting some sponsors to help out and we hollered at a bunch of folks and actually put in some proposals and one-sheets and all that corny BS. But, we were actually sitting down with our friend Brendan Bring’em one day after we had booked Freeway all hype, and after a couple shots and beers and he was like “fuck that, you guys can do that shit yourselves… fuck these sponsors that are trying to eat off what you guys have built!” And, Brendan is my old head and he’s a super inspiring and wise dude, so Bo and I left the bar all hype like “YEAH! FUCK A SPONSOR! WE GOT THIS!” But, basically, what it came down to is that we just didn’t want people to talk about our party on some “Yo, did you go to that Scion party with Freeway where Beans and Peedi showed up and rocked it?” Now, there’s no chance anybody is saying that. Fuck that. That shit happened at some DIY party throw by some dudes who call Philly their home. That shit was WHITE Ts, not some stupid corporate party sponsored by some wack magazine or whatever.

Bo: Yeah it was by far our biggest party to date at least from my perspective. That guy is one of my favorite rappers (Freeway) and just having him there getting down was huge to me. And it was just shit that we wanted people 10yrs down the line to remember that night as OUR party with Freeway. And we didn’t mean to offend anyone by saying what we said (on lowbee.com) by not having a corporate sponsor on that party, it’s just that we were proud of doing it 100% ourselves, and we were just sharing our perspective of it and how we feel about it. We didn’t say anyone’s name in any of it. People were hitting us up saying we were dragging their names in the mud and it wasn’t anything like that. I mean people were really hitting me up on my cell. We were talking about us. If you got offended and felt some type of way about how we do us then fuck it. Maybe you should worry about yourself more and stop girlin’.

Emynd: And just to clarify that I don’t look down on anyone who gets those sponsorships it’s just my personal relationship with it all. And, who knows? I could be totally wrong about all this shit. Maybe a sponsor wouldn’t taint my relationship with my party, but I just don’t want chance it. I love how things are going right now, and I’m not going to risk losing what I love about it in order to get a couple hundred dollars more every month. And, I think people in Philly respect that and can sense that. I think that’s part of why our party became so popular for so long: because it was some for real Philly ish that we’re just doing because we want to have a good time, and we like partying and DJing. Whether or not the people that come to the party would really express that as a reason why they like it, I don’t know. But I do think that there’s something to be said for the DIY, grimey, wile-out aesthetic of White Ts.

215: I know Bo works full time as a teacher in a High School classroom that’s occupied by kids who are constantly in trouble with both the education system and even the law. Now I find that surprising not because you’re a DJ, but you’re a DJ and a fan of allot of violent, drug, and derogatory rap music. So how do you explain your reasoning to someone who questions that?

Bo: I can get into a long answer but the simple answer is this; I listen to that shit and I’m perfectly happy with my life and I can recognize that its real music but it’s also entertainment. None of it has affected me negatively. It’s not like a cartoon for me, I know it’s real, but it’s still also entertainment. Kids aren’t stupid either, they know the difference between rap and real life, but its only natural they are going to listen to something they can relate to. Maybe some of these people being critical of this music are in denial about what’s going on with kids in our city right now. 90% of people who criticize Jeezy or Beans or whoever aren’t doing anything to make positive changes anyways, they’re just running their mouths. So I take what they say with a grain of salt.

215: You also mentioned that your school was involved and started a very similar education program to what Beanie Sigel explained he would like to see happen in our interview. As far as getting kids into work unions and help getting them jobs before they graduate. So how was the response been this year being the school year is almost done?

Bo: Yeah it’s a job outreach and any opportunities we have to try and give them a taste of the work force and what they’ll be dealing with after they graduate we try and do. It’s been working out and it just started this year.

215: Do you guys have any summer tours in the works?

Emynd: I got a 9-5 with a two week vacation, so it’s hard to schedule any real long tours. But, we got some weekend things playing here and there. We’ve got stuff in the works in Baltimore, DC, Boston, New Hampshire, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago. Honestly, pretty much anywhere we go we try to reach out to other promoters to make something happen. Last summer we went up and down the west coast, from Cali up to Vancouver DJ’ing. Last summer we went out to Europe: Sweden a couple times and we hit up Copenhagen as well. But, it’s crazy trying to balance a 9-5 and a music career… not to mention a girlfriend and a social life. It’s crazy to how valuable your time becomes. There just is not enough time in the day for me to do as much stuff as I want. You should see how completely messy my apartment is. I need to clean that ish SO BAD, but there’s not enough damn time when I’m trying to wrap up these 5 songs for this EP, and these 6 songs for that EP, and this remix for my homie out in Cali, and then make flyers for our parties coming up in two weeks, and put those fliers up around town, and book gigs out of state, and post new joints on the blog (www.crossfadedbacon.com), and book guests to come do our parties, and grab some dinner with my girlfriend, and watch the Sixers game, and catch up with my parents in the ‘burbs… man, it’s exhausting just thinking about it. And, this also goes back to the producing thing and working with rappers. Like I want to work with more rappers but there just isn’t enough time in the day to make it all happen.

215: Now looking at the legacy of Philly DJ’s from Josh Wink to Cash Money to Hollertronix. Do you feel that getting to that level is something you want to accomplish in making music a full time job?

Bo: Honestly I really like what I do (being a teacher) so it’s not really a goal of mine, unless it just jumped up on my lap. And that’s not really how it works, you gotta work for it. I give a lot of respect to people who made that decision, it’s a serious grind.

Emynd: For me it just relates back to the sponsorship thing and at this point I don’t want it to be my 9-5 unless my name is big enough where I can do a lot of traveling and production and really just live off my name. I really don’t want to have to do 3 weekly gigs where I have to be somewhere every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday playing the hits just so I can pay rent. That’s not what I like about DJ’ing. I like the stability and freedom my job enables so I can do the type of parties I want to do. If I forced this music thing to be a full time job, there would be a lot of compromising I would have to do just in order to pay my rent. Right now I’m not worried about any of that. I got my rent money and can do the party I want to do. If it happens that my music career becomes successful enough that I can live off it full time, then that’s what’s up. But, it’s not there yet, and I’m not going to force it because I have too much fun with it how it is right now.

215: What’s in the near future?

Bo: We are doing every 3rd Saturday at the Barbary, it’s a dope venue and going very well. Were looking into making a monthly in Baltimore and besides that working on a record and some mixtapes

Emynd: Trying to stay real busy this year. I got a New Orleans Bounce remix of the South Rakkas song “Mad Again” that just officially came out online as a part of the digital release on Diplo’s Mad Decent label. You can hear it on the myspace (www.myspace.com/whitetshirts) and buy it on turntablelab or itunes. We’ve got another record coming out on Flamin Hotz (the label that put out our first record) , I’m working on a solo record, working a new Orleans Bounce mixtape, and I’m meeting up with Freeway’s manager next week and talk about shopping some beats. I’m just trying to stay real busy with production whether it be remixes, working with rappers, Baltimore club and Philly Party music, New Orleans Bounce or whatever. The plan is to do as much production as I can… but, man, as I said before I just got to find the damn time for it all.

Last 5 posts in Interviews

• Hustle Simmons Interview - November 4th, 2008
• Written House Interview - October 31st, 2008
• Snowgoons Interview - September 30th, 2008
• Wordplay w/Goldie Jawn - September 25th, 2008
• Aesop Rock Interview - August 18th, 2008