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Once the Sugarhill Gang started the courtship, it was only a matter of time before "Scratchin'" -- a collaboration between the World Famous Supreme Team and former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren that prominently featured turntables -- made Nakamura a convert in 1984. He began collecting 12-inch singles by UTFO, Whodini, Doug E. Fresh, and later, Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J. And until he reached high school a few years later, he thought his involvement would revolve around his own set of turntables.
But while Nakamura was in high school, he noticed that some of the other kids in his neighborhood, younger than he was, were also playing around with turntables. And they were good, much better than he was. Nakamura couldn't have known at the time that the kids he was envying would become some of the most talented DJs (now, turntablists) ever to scratch a record -- Mix Master Mike, D-Styles, Yogafrog, Shortkut, and Q-Bert, collectively known as the Invisibl Skratch Piklz. Two of them, Mix Master Mike (erstwhile DJ for the Beastie Boys) and Q-Bert, were inducted into the Disco Mix Club (DMC) Hall of Fame last year.
"I was a pretty good DJ," Nakamura recalls. "Maybe not the best in the world, but you know, pretty good, right? I thought I was going to be a really good DJ-editor-remixer guy or something maybe. But when I was coming up, becoming a good DJ, it was the same period when Q-Bert, Mix Master Mike, all these other people were coming up in my neighborhood." He laughs. "I'm in high school, and I see this kid in junior high school, Q, and I'm like, 'I'll never be able to do that.' At some point, Q-Bert really inspired me to not DJ. All of a sudden, these guys around me are light-years beyond me, and they're years younger than me. It was inspiration by discouragement."
But Nakamura stayed involved with hip hop, shifting his attention away from cutting other people's records together with his turntables and focusing instead on coming up with his own sounds. In the early 1990s, he worked in production, slowly building his reputation around the Bay Area while developing the skills he needed to take on the rest of the world. His work finally paid off in 1995 when Nakamura teamed up with former Ultramagnetic MC "Kool" Keith Thornton and Q-Bert to record the self-titled debut and finale by one of Thornton's many alter egos, Dr. Octagon.
Originally released on the tiny local Bulk Recordings -- DreamWorks would essentially release the same album a year later as Dr. Octagonecologyst -- the record became an underground sensation, as Nakamura's dirty, arty beats saw and raised Thornton's wacked-out sensibility. Around the same time, Nakamura released an EP as the Automator, A Better Tomorrow, which was acclaimed for its John Woo-inspired, operatic take on hip hop. When DreamWorks released Dr. Octagonecologyst, it was accompanied in stores by a separate disc, Instrumentalyst, that proved Nakamura had as much, if not more, to do with the success of Dr. Octagon as anyone else.
But just as the project was about to take off on an even grander scale -- the DreamWorks reissue had exposed Dr. Octagon to a new audience, and the band's slot on the Lollapalooza tour seemed set to bring it even wider recognition -- Thornton disappeared. Dr. Octagon was forced to drop off the bill, and shortly thereafter, the group disbanded. Nakamura understands why Thornton vanished, and in a way, he's thankful. "We were about to start embarking on tours and stuff, and Keith didn't really want to do that," Nakamura explains. "He kind of wanted to get out of it and go on and do his solo record. Basically, Keith is a real cool guy, and we're cool and everything. But he didn't want to have a full alternative audience; he wanted to have a rap audience. He's a New York rap guy from the Heavy D-LL Cool J period of time. To have no rap audience at all and more like a bored, alternative audience, he didn't really think that's where he wanted to be ultimately. He wanted to do his own stuff. He's pretty much a free spirit. You know, a few things came out that sound negative, but essentially, what it was was just him trying to get out of touring.
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