Patience. Discipline. And furious fighting skills. These qualities are inextricably linked with the dojo, that hallowed center of Japanese martial-arts training. It’s a place where meditation, education and self- defense sit comfortably side by side. The central concept: One can learn anything if taught in the proper environment.
This idea also propels Denver-based Dojo, a hip-hop and electronic music collective inching closer to its goal of elevating the Denver music scene through creative alliances.
Marissa Knight (a.k.a. Analog Suspect) and Sean Ryerson (a.k.a. Selecta Roswell) co- founded Dojo after their drum-‘n’-bass outfit Sundog dissolved in early 2001. The two sensed the need for more collaboration among Denver’s loose network of DJs, MCs and electronic artists.
“We’re the co-founders, but we view ourselves as part of the collective,” Knight said recently from Dojo’s home-based recording studio. “Like a real dojo would work, there’s a sensei (or master) and people coming through and learning the techniques and working together.”
Knight credited Dojo’s theme with a colorful mix of influences, including her love and respect for Japanese culture. “We also grew up on kung fu and monster movies,” Ryerson added.
Besides mentoring aspiring MCs, the pair run Dojo’s eponymous record label and regularly conduct themed live shows that mix media and musical genres. Near the end of their monthly “Subliminal Teaching” events, which ran for two years at the Mercury Cafe, they were attracting nearly 300 people to the tiny space and introducing hip-hop kids to reggae-rock bands like Five Style Fist.
Dojo also has rocked the mic at Red Rocks, Revoluciones Collective Art Space and a variety of hip-hop-friendly venues like the Fox Theatre in Boulder.
The division of labor starts at the top: Knight, 28, handles the MC and sound engineering duties (she has a degree in it from CU-Denver) while Ryerson, 32, focuses on the beats and Dojo’s overall marketing. Both are experienced DJs and producers.
Beyond that, it’s a mix of MCs and DJs working under the Dojo banner. The group’s newest ninja, The Verse, is a local MC whose politically conscious debut EP, “Domino Theory,” was released on the Dojo label in 2005. Dojo also put out the “Re:Adaptation” disc last year, featuring 14 remixes of tracks from past discs. Locals like DJ Idiom, McPullish, My Calculus Beats Your Algebra and CacheFlowe all tried their hand at re-imagining Dojo’s trip-hop and Def Jux-influenced flows through dub, reggae, ambient and jungle.
“Coming from an MC’s standpoint, it’s an inspiration to hear,” Knight said. “All the samples and basic structure were created by Sean and me, but it’s cool to hear how people translated it.”
Dojo is preparing for overseas collaborations with artists from Japan, England, France and Bangkok, Thailand. In France, Analog Suspect’s “Same People” single charted on Radio Nova with Cypress Hill and Dilated Peoples. That opened the door to three more tracks with the artist Gasoline on France’s La Foundation Records and a distribution deal in Taiwan.
“We’ve always wanted to explore doing some international touring,” Knight said. “We have strong contacts with French hip-hop labels like La Foundation.”
In the meantime Knight and Ryerson have their hands full licensing songs to snowboarding and skateboarding soundtracks and preparing five new releases. The full-length “Duality” album will feature the Dojo principals and guest MCs like Extra Kool, DJ Square and Mest. An unnamed project will gather tracks from MCs without their own studios to showcase local talent. Analog Suspect and Selecta Roswell will drop their own solo albums, with special guests. Finally, Dojo friend McPullish will remix the “Duality” record for a joint release between Dojo and his own label.
With so much going on, it would be easy for Dojo to unravel, but Knight and Ryerson welcome the disparate threads.
“For us it’s about trying to work with as many people as possible and as many styles as possible,” Ryerson said. He ascribes some of Dojo’s stylistic diversity to the fact that Denver is a musical way station.
“It’s harder to build in Denver because we’re such a crossroads for so many styles. We seem to be this big city in this dust bowl between Chicago and Las Vegas,” he said.
But Knight and Ryerson use that in their favor, networking with other boundary-pushers in an effort to bring attention to the whole city, not merely their own little corner of it.
“People are just happy to hear something different,” said Knight. “A lot of young girls and women come up to me (after shows) and say, ‘I’m so happy to see that there’s a woman doing this.’ That’s not something I use as a crutch or even like to talk about necessarily, but it’s something that people pick up.”
Or as Knight says in the track “Actions Speak Louder,” “As a woman I know I ain’t got nothing to prove, but as an MC I know I got many more bodies to groove.”
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-820-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
Dojo Collective
HIP-HOP|Quixote’s True Blue, 2637 Welton St; 8 p.m. Sunday with McPullish, DJ Malloy and visuals by An-ism|$5|Tickets at the door
