Pop Quiz: DJ Shadow

Pop Quiz: DJ Shadow

Aidin Vaziri | When we first heard "The Outsider," the first album in four years by Bay Area native Josh "DJ Shadow" Davis, we were pretty sure the record player was broken. It wasn't. It's just a bad idea to play CDs on a record player. But once we sorted all that out, we were still kind of confused. Gone is the cinematic instrumental hip-hop that made Shadow famous on 1996's masterpiece "Entroducing." In its place: a hodgepodge of musical styles with prominent guest raps from San Francisco hyphy stars like E-40 and Keak Da Sneak. We confronted Davis at his Mill Valley home about making our brain hurt. Here's what he had to say.

DJ Shadow
Q: On your new album, you do hard-core rap, psychedelic rock, spoken word, indie folk, even a few Coldplay-style, light-rock ballads. You do realize that people are going to think you have multiple personalities, right?
A: It's just that I can't do the same s -- over and over again.
Q: Let me speak on behalf of all your fans: Why not?
A: So many other people do it, trying to sound like "Entroducing." Everybody loves that s -- , but then I do it and they're like, "Oh, he's lost his touch." That's the one thing I'm putting my foot down on. You cannot tell me that other people do what I do better than I do. It ain't right.
Q: I don't think anyone could argue with that, unless they have some kind of Ph.D.
A: I realize it may come across as f -- up or bitter, but you know what? You can't cater to your fans. You have to pull them by the nose. I used to freak out about it, but now I don't care. Some people won't be able to hack it through the whole thing, and some people will.