Original subtitles

Welcome back to Unchin Life.

I am here with my friend,

owner, entrepreneur, teacher, DJ.

How are you, brother?

Great.

I'm glad you're here.

Sounds good.

So the idea at a certain point,

not sure I wanted to be a

teacher for my whole life.

Okay.

And have really these,

the passion for

collecting records and for DJing.

And I was DJing in clubs and lounges

and collecting records and slowly

getting more and more

records because it's an obsession.

And then in my mid 20s,

I got into craft beer.

Surprised that I got

into craft beer in Hong Kong

at both places.

And that's a whole long story.

Okay.

But when I got so

enthusiastic with both things,

DJing, collecting

records and craft beer,

I wanted to figure out a way to marry

those two passions of mine.

And I told friends, like, listen,

I want to build a place

that has these two things

side by side, craft

beer, vinyl records.

Told a friend and he said,

"That sounds like a place in

Japan that exists already."

I said, "What?"

So,

So you got no idea.

No idea that these places existed,

that you go to a bar or a

cafe and they play vinyl records

and they have a

collection behind the bar.

So we actually went

to Japan to pay homage

to the influences of beer racks.

And we met the gentleman Kobayashi-san,

who's in many ways a mentor that we met

and gave us his

blessing, which was incredible.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

And how was that experience when he

gave us his blessing?

I mean, it was like a dream come true.

He tends to be kind of a curmudgeon.

He's an older gentleman at this point,

probably in the 70s.

Okay.

And we went there three

times and he warmed up to us

and we showed him pictures of the bar.

And he's a big hip hop head.

So we showed him

pictures of hip hop celebrities

that have been here and

his eyes just brightened up.

And at that point I kind of say,

"Oh yeah, now we're, we

have an in now with this guy."

So talk to me about

some of the hip hop people

that have shown up here.

So, I mean, that is another blessing

and it's more of those pinch ourselves

when we have people like Lars Professor

that was the person who

essentially discovered Nas.

We've had EZ Mobi DJ here

who made many of the beats

on Notorious B.I.G's album.

Wow.

Beat nuts, Paul Ju Ju, Psycho Less.

We've had, I mean,

it's a crazy list of folks

that are incredible DJs that

are really pioneering folks.

Like Ryan Wizard Theodore,

he was the inventor of the scratch.

I was fun here several times.

So it's been such a blessing.

So two days, I want to

go into the conversation.

What is, what makes a great DJ to you?

Yeah.

So a great DJ to me is

someone that takes the listener

on a journey, right?

That's very intentional about the

records they choose.

And it's not just

playing a one-off record

and then a run-off

record, another record,

another record, another record.

There is a transition that makes sense.

The songs are mixed or they're,

it's pretty

technically skilled at cutting,

but they're cut,

they're just like scratching.

And they can scratch into a mix.

But everything just seems

so seamless and flawless.

To me, those are the pinnacle of DJs.

So it's putting your

soul into it, right?

And having the technical expertise to

execute those mixes

and that journey that

you're taking the listener on.

I see here everywhere, it's Wu-Tang.

(laughing)

Talk to me about Wu-Tang.

I mean, Wu-Tang, I mean

Wu-Tang is just such a

entity within hip hop, right?

So I was kind of

like, my heyday in hip hop

was the early nineties.

Yeah.

So to have experienced like

that golden era of hip hop

and to have seen Wu-Tang

come along and do something

that no one has ever really done,

of having so many incredible MCs,

and they're part of one super group,

and they all split off

and do classic albums

in their own right.

So, and this-

Is like a legal superhero.

It's a legal, seriously.

I mean, that's the

perfect way to capture it.

And this, that was done by Kel,

by my major and an amazing

artist and friend of mine

from Staten Island.

This has been a kind of a show feast.

People walk by and they're

like, wait, what is this?

So talk to me about the experience.

I used to like the beer.

So the beer is stuck

with intentionality.

We try to focus on local

producers of craft beer.

So independently owned beer,

independently owned breweries,

try to keep it as local as possible.

Cause we have so many great producers

right here in New York state, right

here in New York city.

So that's what we

want to focus on local.

There's the closest

brewery that we have

that we serve their beer

is right around the block.

No way.

Form one.

They literally just opened up a couple,

about six, seven months

ago, making their own beer.

So the fact that we can source beer

that's on the same

block as us or in Gowanus

is just incredible in terms of like

kind of formed a table.

We're talking about, you

know, from the tank to the bar

within a mile.

So we love that in

terms of like reducing

the carbon footprint

because you're getting

and sourcing so close

to where it's being made.

Beautiful.

It's almost like you

have that agenda helping.

It's almost like when

you were back in school

helping the kids, right?

You're helping other businesses.

You are allowing artists to come and

display their work.

DJs to come and spend.

So both the artists,

the DJs are in the artist

in their own right.

And then the magic of

the liquid, you know,

of all these people that are

artists in their own right.

Very passionate about creating liquid,

creating craft beer

that is true to the style,

but also very unique.

So.

Well, you have to come

to this magical place.

Praise me, El Mano.

El Mano.

Love you brother.

Love you too, bro.

Thank you.

And we'll walk around.

We'll show you around.

Oon Ching, go like that.

Oon Ching.