Fast forward a couple years. In his early 20s, You Know Me Well was putting out mixtapes and playing gigs under the name of DJ Kamikaze, but to “become more relevant, it would have been smart to work with a rapper or a crew” — both of which he didn’t do, he tells us, shrugging.
Then, in 2003, Kami put out a mixtape called “Radiotuning”. With this tape, Kami wasn’t trying to “keep it real”, but instead had fun, mashing up commercially successful 90s smash hits with the emerging street rap of the era. “At the time, I didn’t realize this was a very bold move,” Kami tells us. “I lost quite a couple of Hip Hop heads, but this mix opened other doors and introduced me to a new crowd. Skateboarding- and snowboarding events, fashion and club gigs and most importantly, international arrangements, which was rather unusual for a German Hip Hop DJ back then.”
“Just to be clear, I didn’t invent mash ups or cross format DJing, but probably was one of the first to do it in Germany and then export it quite successfully, too. The same year I traveled through Asia, handing out CDs. One thing led to another and shortly after, I was moving to Shanghai to start a Friday residency in a downtown club.”