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"I love hip-hop like Madonna loves sex!" That should be explanation enough, right? Endlessly scratched and kneaded, the phrase acts as a warning in "I love hip-hop", the intro to DJ Cam's new album, "The Beat Assassinated", which is indeed guaranteed 100% hip-hop. And if DJ Cam's creed and faith in a beat born in the Bronx in the mid-seventies come as a surprise to some, that is because they still know nothing about what makes him tick. "This album is to stress my roots. I come from hip-hop: I started with graffiti and I organised 'barbarian' events at the age of seventeen, where guys disappeared with the takings... It's also because I'm sick of the 'techno' label, like 'I'm Laurent Garnier and Carl Cox's best friend'! I can't stand it. I don't have a problem with anyone, but I'm coming from somewhere else and I hate techno. The album's visual is clearly hip-hop, with a Krylon spray and tag ring. I also wanted to change my sound to be able to play my own stuff in clubs. That wasn't possible before be-cause my productions were really slow and very soft, but when I mix live, the sound packs a punch! Now that I have more possibilities, I decided to do something I've always wanted to do: write the music and bring in guys to rap." So there are rappers on "The Beat Assassinated" ... and not just any rappers. No watered-down chart acts, no trained animals put through their paces by some Puff Daddy or other. From New York, Channel Live - KRS One's two protégés - rap unrivalled rhymes on "Broadcasting Live" and "Raise Up". From London, Silver Bullet - a lyrical machine gun who gained fame at the end of the eighties with "Bring Forth The Guillotine" - returns to ruffle "Renegade" with his torrential flow. Otis – who is English too, but who moved to Paris where he played gardener to the burgeoning jungle scene - brings virile rhymes to "Hardcore Freestyle". Finally, the album's local boy, Dadou from Toulouse, leader of the rap group KDD, exercises verbal ping-pong and bold metaphors in "L'invasion". The rest of this striking album is a collection of stunning breakbeats and razor-sharp scratches, an apocalyptic sound-track for a video game whose urban nature is far from virtual. The Beat Assassinated... all the better to rise again like a flamboyant Phoenix on DJ Cam's decks. The Clint Eastwood of hip-hop (with his turquoise gaze and precision sharpshooting) fires a warning salvo to show what he will be taking around the world in 1998. The DJ Cam Sound System, a four-deck show with a gang of three Technics Mk II desperadoes (Cam, Jam and Science), is heading out to blast the Turks, Japanese, South Africans and North Europeans, juggling time zones and dance rhythms.