Happy New Year world! Hopefully things are starting out on a positive note for you and a blessed and fruitful year ahead. As with previous years, I’d like to do a recap of what went on in my world and review things that you might have missed or overlooked and hopefully you’ll catch back up.
2025 was a great year of travels, projects released, special events and just an overall amazing year for connecting with people and bringing people together in spaces to enjoy both music and film and sometimes both of those together. Coming into 2025 I really wanted to focus on being featured on more podcasts covering topics that I was into and with great hosts which actually worked out. The year started out with being featured on the Push Black podcast where we discussed the Black History of The DJ. It was an extremely deep dive into Black music and culture and the importance of the Black DJ who was the centerpiece of the culture. Following Push Black, I had the pleasure of being featured on Direct Edition with West Coast Dave (on YouTube) as we discussed comic book collecting, DJ’ing / music, traveling to Japan and of course culture. Another exciting podcast that I was featured on was the Homeboy and The Pyramids (Black Men Travel Guide) podcast which is very special and features Black men who really travel the globe experiencing cultures. Another favorite was the Gems (on YouTube) with host Shom who invites some of the deepest diggers and record collectors, producers and industry heads on for in-depth discussions. Shom is a very knowledgeable and really does his homework when conducting these talks. And closing out the year, it was great to be back in Tokyo and out digging with the homie Koenji Shawn who is my rare book dealer connect. I hung out with Shawn to go check out the Shirow Masamune exhibition and beforehand recorded an episode for his YouTube channel discussing the great artist.
Push Black https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoBAW8BgwjM
Direct Edition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc_Ih5A0U8w
Homeboy and The Pyrmaids https://open.spotify.com/episode/00lUPNvHHi7gEHIrIx2sqn?si=dhbZzeWuSta_nu7-s8YdZQ
Gems Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8soGof1FQi0
Digging Shirow Masamune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cejVyPmQfzA
Opening the year up, I had the extreme honor of being invited to interview legendary drummer, Bernard Purdie in the James Brown African American Room at the Newark Public Library. It was an honor to reconnect with Mr. Purdie who I hadn’t seen since 2016 while in St. Petersburg Russia while doing an event together. For the 2hr hour conversation we dove into Bernards upbringing, history as a drummer and of course some of the records that he’s played on which he is noted as being the most recorded drummer in history.
Another highlight for me was being offered a slot on the Reel of Steel on ROVR to record episodes of my World Impressions Radio Show which aires twice a month. The 2hr programming takes a deep dive into some of my favorite records, both old and new, common and obscure and all types of genres. World Impressions gives me a chance to dive deep into records that I enjoy but aren’t necessarily ones that I can play for the dance floor. It’s the perfect look into my musical mind to see exactly what I enjoy while at home and my perfect space. https://www.rovr.live/curators/skeme-richards
2025 also saw the return of me touring Germany once again, not once, not twice but on 3 separate occassions. Back in May, I did the first of 2 tours with DJ Oonops where we played a combination or parties and movie theaters where I live scored some of my favorite films (more on that later). The tour went extremely well that we decided that we should close out the year for another short tour which concluded on December 22nd before I returned back home for the holidays. It was an amazing adventure that took us to some of our favorite cities and a few firsts that I can now add to the list of places visited. The year also marked the return of the Butta 45’s tour with Scarce One and Selecta M. This is the 10th anniversary (15th but due to covid it was paused) and it was great to get back on the road with the fellas for our return.
Movies and film played a major part this year for me as well with having the opportunity to present and introduce a few including Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury in collaboration with Reel Nomadic at The Philadelphia Film Society which was a big highlight not only seeing it on the big screen but presenting it. While on the Germany tour with Oonops, I had the pleasure of live scoring a few films and doing Q&A’s afterwards at several theaters in Hannover, Berlin and Oldenburg. The film lineup was incredible and included The Mystery of Chess Boxing (on of The RZA’s favorite Kung Fu Films), the Blaxploitation classics Shaft and Coffy, the Poliziotteschi classic, Caliber 9 and to close things out, Bruce Lee’s The Way of The Dragon.
Keeping things into the film world, I had the pleasure of doing commentary for the Arrow Video Blu-ray release of The Proof of The Man (1978) alongside good friend, Rob Buscher. The film is a collaboration between Japan and America and was filmed in both Japan and New York and centers around a half Black half Japanese man who leaves Harlem NY to go back to Japan to find his mother only wind up dead. It’s a who’s who of who did it with the Japanese and New York police departments on the case and lead by one police from each department in a buddy style cop flick. Back in October I had the pleasure of flying to Chicago to present the film at the Japan Culture Center and following the screening up with playing a special Jazz Kissaten DJ Set.
DJ Gigs and travels were also fulfilling with doing two Japan tours, playing across the states in some of my favorite cities, continuing on with my New York monthly residency at Studio151 and of course, the year couldn’t be perfectly recapped if I didn’t mention my involvement with the VinylCon Record Show which I have been working with to coordinate the DJ lineups for their various shows which included Philadelphia, Baltimore and Los Angeles and this year making the return to each of those cities and also adding Atlanta to the lineup which makes it’s debut February 21/22nd. It’s been fun putting together an incredible lineup of deep record heads that showcase their collections which has included Cut Chemist, Large Professor, House Shoes, Double Peas, Sky Society and more. Keep an eye out for a VinylCon coming to your city!
Rounding out the recap, I kept busy with releasing projects in between all of the traveling which included a Germany tour exclusive 45 and Skeme Digs Nautilus cassette tape, Watch For The Fuzz cassette which is a dedicated to my OG who passed away a few years ago and features production by us and themed in the 70’s cop chase soundtrack vibe. I also curated a compilation mix for the Tava Tava Rare label which focuses on releasing Japanese anime and BGM soundtracks as well as Italian ones. For the compilation I focused on the anime side for Skeme Richards Digs Tava Tava Rare. And of course the tape selections wouldn’t be complete with out my direct-to-cassette series of mixes which I released 4 for the year. Another highlight of the year was releasing a collaboration mixtape with Dusties Magazine which I was featured on the cover and interviewed in. I released a special cassette for the release simply titled, Original Pressing which is available here at Nostalgia King or with a subscription to the magazine at https://dustiesmagazine.com/
It’s been quite the year and looking forward to getting 2026 underway with plenty of new things including an upcoming residency in Philly, more screenings and of course travels and projects.