The whole thing with removing labels is something that has come from the Jamacian sound system parties and early hip hop battles in the Bronx with DJs like Kool Herc. The DJs ran sound systems and would often have to battle with other systems to draw the biggest crowds and being able to play certain tunes that your rivals didn't know of was an important factor. This was a practice picked up by the Northen Soul Djs in the UK who played almost exclusivly rare and old Detroit soul. Because the rarity and obscurity of the music was such an important element for the scene and its DJs, then guarding the identity of a tune that a DJ may have searched dusty warehouses for days on end for was, for some, very imprtant. A DJs career could be made by simply having a particular tune that noone else could play. In the context of today's techno scene none of this is so much an issue. The majority of tunes are readily available and excessable by the time a record is relesed with a label to even remove in the first place. Some might say that by practicing this a DJ is putting thier ego above that of the recording artist and the record buying public and that in actually going to a club, fighting your way to the DJ box and managing to actually decipher the title of a rotating bit of vinyl you've put in enought work to earn the right to own it. Anyway, just thought I'd add to the debate.
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