FUSE TV - Crate Diggers: Z-Trip Has Lost Many Girlfriends to Records

You've already seen the record collections of DJ Muggs and Peanut Butter Wolf in Fuse's West Coast "Crate Diggers" jaunt. Now, we delve into the 60,000+ collection of Z-Trip, the Los Angeles-based (via Arizona and New York City) DJ/producer who, more than anyone in the past decade, pioneered mash-ups and exemplified the kitchen-sink genre approach to sampling.

In our mini-documentary above, Z-Trip discusses his early obsessions with collecting and bringing music from New York to Arizona. "Any time I'd fly back to New York, it was to see family but secretly, it was to get records," said the DJ. 

"It was tough because I lost a lot of girlfriends to this sh*t. You'd go on vacation somewhere and the plan might have been to go to a park and go to a dinner. And before I knew it, it was go to the record store. When the opportunity falls in your lap, you have to go. I remember pulling out amazing records out of some of these places, but losing a lot of relationships to it. But that's the gig."

The man behind 2001's seminal Uneasy Listening, Vol. 1 shows us a rare Eazy-E acetate from 1988, a Sesame Street album with Cookie Monster covering Barry White on "Me Going to Munch You Munch You Munch You" and the first record he ever bought (Spoiler: It's Star Wars-related).

We also get to see how his collection is arranged and learn how record shopping with Cut Chemist, Nu-Mark and DJ Shadow affected his record-buying trips. "We'd all go into the record store at the same time and those guys would always gravitate toward one section," says Z-Trip. "There's no way I could compete with these dudes. They're deeper in their funk and jazz than I am, so I'm going to go to the kid's section or spoken word section. I would find the craziest sh*t."

Check out said crazy sh*t above and if you're still fiending, watch all the past "Crate Diggers" episodes.