Okay, so watching myself here kind of makes me cringe, and I didn't initially want to post the video; but there's a lot of story behind it that I remember. First of all, it happened to be Feb 11, 1999: my 22nd birthday. I was still a student at UCLA, and so I had to drive an hour down to Westminster after class for the battle. I had a lot of needle skipping during my set, and I don't remember my crewmate Nando having his greatest set ever, either; but we both thought that Kid WIK from IF2 just killed it, and so we figured before the results were announced that Kid WIK had won.

Eventually they say the judges have reached a decision, but that somewhere within the results there is a tie. Turns out Nando and I had tied somewhere along the rankings, and so it was announced that the two of us were to battle head to head to break the tie. We looked at each other and assumed we were battling for second place, because - as mentioned - we thought that Kid WIK had totally ripped it.

So we go through with the head to head battle. I did an old Wu-Tang set and didn't feel that it turned out all that great; but since we figured we were just battling for second place, I didn't care all that much.

After the judges deliberate on the head to head battle, the results for the whole battle are announced: Nando was first, I took second, and Kid WIK was third.

WHAT??!! Nando and had been battling for FIRST place? WTF?! DOHHHH had I known about that, I would have cared and concentrated on that head to head battle a whole lot more! Especially since first place got a (just released, state-of-the-art at that time) Rane 54 mixer!

Son of a bitch! Nando already had multiple nice mixers at home, while I was rocking a worn-out Vestax 05 Pro with a busted fader. I'M the one who needed that shit, not him!

As somewhat of a consolation, word got out that it was my birthday, and the crowd sang Happy Birthday to me as we accepted our prizes on stage. Also, it was really special to me that one of the judges that night happened to be one of our all-time DJing idols: Melo-D from the Beat Junkies. I was (and am) really happy that Melo got to see me bust at that time, and that I placed well in a battle where he helped decide the outcome.

But having said all that.... I could've had a brand new Rane 54! FUCK!

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