Happy New Year, 2015 is here! First want to extend congrats to the winners of the recent battles. For the 1 Click Prizm battle, the win goes to Collin. For the Fade battle, we have a tie - and since the top 2 entries each received the same amount of comments from other students, they've each won: congrats to Akiko Luv and Collin! You're winning demos will live on to inspire students to learn these skratches far into the future! 

Now for the next announcement: The Battle for 2014 Valedictorian is on! This is your chance to submit a 1 minute video of your craziest best skratching and become the next QSU Valedictorian. The winner joins an elite group of past winners: Zeke (2010), Primo (2011), DJ IQ (2012), Mr Cerdan (2013). 

To win, you gotta pull out all your best combos and cuts - but also be sure to have a clean video that has a good camera angle, good sound, and please limit your video to 1 minute! Here's a hint from Qbert, "The Valedictorian should have some kind of melodic stuff" in their skratching, so keep that in mind when you practice. 

Remember, the challenge is to have the best overall video - just give it your best shot and submit it to the Battle Category with the title "Valedictorian 2014". The deadline to submit is Monday, February 23 - don't sleep! 

Qbert had come back from his recent trip overseas and asked me to set up an account for the winner of the Ukraine Scratch Championship Online, which he had been a judge for. 

"They are the best in the Ukraine!" he told me. I was curious about the skratch scene over there, so Qbert put me in touch with the organizer of the competition, DJ Andrew. He got back to me right away, and hopefully we will be hearing more skratching coming from Ukraine in the future.

What can you tell us about the skratch scene in Ukraine?

Despite the fact that the scratch scene in Ukraine dates back to 2002, it is still underdeveloped and certainly can be considered as underground. But I noticed that after various significant events, such as the DMC & Red Bull Thre3style, that some quite experienced DJs have begun to pay attention to scratching. 

Who are some Ukrainian skratch pioneers?

When Ukrainian people first got interested in scratching, DJ Valik already was at a very good level and was definitively head and shoulders above. So it’s no wonder that he was the first Ukrainian who took part in the DMC.

At last, we're ready to share DJ Grotask's experience at the Red Bull Thre3style World Championship which was held in Baku, Azerbaijan back in September. This was many months in the making - Grotask had contacted me about covering this event over a year ago when he first found out that Thre3style finals were driving distance from where he lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. Since Qbert was on the judging panel, I got Grotask and his film crew media passes to the event to interview to whoever they could which included the winner Eskei83, Krafty Kuts, Skratch Bastid & Z-Trip, Qbert, Shortkut, D-Styles and more.

The Crew: 

• Unis krilov (aka Ne100): Director/Camera man
• Gocha Khukhuni (aka DJ Grotask): Reporter
• Levan Khurtsilava (aka DJ Juno Q Beat): Reporter/Camera man
• MC Samory - Dope MC from Georgia !!!

Congrats to our two winners of the Ox Flare Battle: DJ Hypnotize and JB Wizardry! Both videos are excellent examples of this flare combo and so they will reside on the Ox Flare lesson page as inspiration for us all. JB Wizardry is now a 3x QSU Battle Winner, having also won the Chirp Battle and the Stewie Skratch Battle. DJ Hypnotize is now a 4x QSU Battle Winner, having also won the Tear Battle, Slice Battle, and the original Combo Challenge a few years ago. Congrats on winning those gold records fellas, keep making us proud! Honorable mentions go out to Supaphonik, Akiko Luv, and POTB.

In other news, Qbert is embarking on World Wide Tour across the US and Europe! From all his students here, we wish him safe travels and a speedy return. Since he'll be away from his home studio for awhile, he's decided to announce not 1, but 2 new QSU Battles!

One is more for the advanced students and it's on the 1 Click Prizm which Q also breaks down in the new welcome video here. The other battle is on a more foundational skratch: the Fade. It's in the Level 1 of the lessons here and everyone should be familiar with it already. Here's Q's tips for what he's looking for:

"Do it slow, do it medium, do it fast, show different variations, show your funkiness, show your diversity with that skratch, I want to see your hands, I want to see how you do it… it's for students to learn." 

You can enter whichever battle you want, but the deadline to submit is Monday, November 3rd - you know what to do. Just submit your best 1 minute video to the Battle Category when you click on the "Submit A Video" tab. 

We're happy to announce the winner of the Tazer Battle is a dual win between ManOfTheTreeZ and Beha! They each have a special prize being shipped his way and our congrats go out to them! Their winning videos are now linked to the official lesson page so be sure to check them out in the Level 3 Area of the Lessons.

The next battle is on a skratch that Q learned on his recent trip to Germany. It's called the Ox Flare and you can see Q break it down in the latest Welcome video. Basically, it starts with an OG Flare and ends with two Tears coming back. It's a good one to try out different speeds and rhythms, so do some experiments to find your own unique flow. Q also recorded an official lesson for this and put it up in Level 4 so be sure to check it out:

Lessons --> Level 4 --> Ox Flare

The winner of this battle will receive a Special Limited Edition Gold Beedle Record and also have their video featured on the official lesson page until the end of time. The Deadline to submit your 1 minute entry video is Monday, September 8th. Good luck! 

Greetings to all throughout the skratchosphere! We are very excited about the official release of Qbert's new double album, Extraterrestria / GalaXXXian, which is now available and well worth the wait. This is the first album since 1998's seminal Wave Twisters, Qbert's first concept album which also went on to be an award winning animated film. The new albums are in heavy rotation over here and sound amazing. From the production to the skratching to the concepts and guest appearances... it's got something for everyone - even cameos from past QSU Valedictorians Zeke and IQ! 

Be sure to pick visit www.djqbert.com and get yourself a copy if you have not already. Also check the tour dates, he may be coming to a city near you!

In Battle News, we want to extend our congratulations to JB Wizardry! This long time student here won the recent Stewie Skratch Battle and is now the recipient of the coveted golden 45. His winning entry is also linked to from the Stewie Skratch Lesson page (Lessons --> Level 2 --> Stewie Skratch) as a demonstration of this unique combo in action. This marks JB's second battle win here, as he also won the Chirp Battle last year. 

Now, the next battle is on Tazers, which were first showed to Qbert by the world champion DJ Rafik from Germany way back when. Similar to Lazers, Tazers involve flinging the record back and forth with one hand while doing a 2-click motion on the fader much like an OG Flare. Make sense? Don't worry, these little guys are tricky, but the good news is that there's a lesson for that (Lessons --> Level 3 --> Tazers) - so be sure to spend some time practicing it before you record a video on it.

You have until August 4th to enter with a 1 minute video that shows all your Tazer skills… good luck!

There's a new lesson in Level 2, it's a variation of the Stewie skratch called the "Stewie Swirl" - don't forget to try the looper tool on the lessons too! Set the In and Out points and watch whatever little section you want on repeat. Also don't forget to submit for the Stewie Skratch Battle, deadline is Monday, June 23!

Lessons --> Level 2 --> Stewie Swirl

Thud Rumble has released their latest app in their series of Speed Booster Loopers, this time from the one and only D-Styles. Featuring beats from the Wax Fondler himself, this is another great tool to keep on hand for your skratch training. As with all the Warflex Looper Apps, you can adjust the BPM plus or minus 50, or you can set it to manually increase by 1% every 20 seconds - perfect for speed training!

Download the app from the links below:

• Warflex: D-Styles on itunes
• Warflex: D-Styles on Android

And the winner of the Freddy Battle is… DJ Adex! He had the best overall demo of this unique skratch combo, although there were some great other entries as well. Since these winning entries are linked to from the official Lesson Page, it's really important that we can see what both hands are doing. Congrats to Adex, be sure to check out his video from the Freddy Skratch lesson page in Level 2! 

Here's a tip: be sure to record your video at an angle that shows both your record and fader hands so we can see everything you're doing. Students are going to be studying all these videos forever so we want to make it as easy for them as possible.  

Next Battle: The Stewie Skratch - Deadline to submit is Monday, June 23!

We have also uploaded an official Stevie Skratch lesson in Level 2, find it in the curriculum:

Lessons --> Level 2 --> Stewie Skratch

More about the Next Battle in a minute, but first…