Former Nuggets DJ, Local Hip-Hop Artists Celebrate Basketball Team With Free Mixtape

The Denver Nuggets commemorated the franchise’s first-ever NBA championship with a banner-raising and ring ceremony last Tuesday, October 24, and kicked off the team's title defense, which officially began with a 119-107 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers that same night.

“It's pretty surreal, the fact that they won last year,” says Cassidy Bednark. “As a lifelong Nuggets fan, you almost had that feeling that the other shoe was going to drop, because it always had, but we’re still basking in the afterglow of that. I’m glad I got to see it in my lifetime.”

Bednark, who is better known in local hip-hop circles as DJ Bedz, was the Nuggets' official DJ from 2003 to 2018 and mixed the recently released Western Conference II compilation, which showcases a plethora of Denver MCs, including Spoke In Wordz and Kontrast. The mixtape is free to download, but the artists are also encouraging listeners to consider making a donation to SafeHouse Denver, a local organization that works toward eliminating domestic violence.

Bednark and Spoke In Wordz, aka Hector Fredrick Garcia, have known each other for decades and teamed up on the first Western Conference mixtape in 2010. Since then, the two have been gathering more and more songs and samples that would eventually become the 46 new tracks on the second offering.

“We decided thirteen years later, why not?” explains Bednark, who is retired from full-time deejaying and is now a real estate agent. “We like the format and still have a lot of love for each other and the music, and thought doing it all over again, especially on the heels of the Nuggets championship, made sense, given the name and the theme.”

Garcia also aimed to “put on some of my favorite Colorado MCs, especially Kontrast,” when he reached out to Bednark with the idea of working on the long-awaited followup, after the Nuggets secured the Larry O’Brien trophy by completing a gentleman’s sweep of the Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat. The cover is an illustration of Bednark, Garcia and Kontrast as Nuggets superstars Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon.

After sending over a batch of his previous projects and a cappellas for Bednark to consider, Garcia let him work his magic. He couldn’t be more pleased with the result. “He just made it a masterpiece, really,” Garcia says of Bednark’s mixing mastery. “Even though I’ve heard some of those songs so many times, they feel new to me and fresh, the way they’re woven together.”

Bednark, who also goes by the nickname White Shadow, credits Garcia’s prolific writing chops and skill, refined over 23 years on the Denver cypher circuit, for bringing in more voices, such as his former Fire Squad and Fresh Breath Committee collaborators Paul Junior and MCbig House.

“Most of the method fell on Spoke In Wordz’s shoulders, because we had such a body of work to pull from over the course of thirteen years,” Bednark says. “He basically sent almost everything he had done at some point in some way, shape or fashion.

“He gave me this avalanche of vocal material to work with and said, ‘Go nuts,’” he continues, adding that he spent about four months weaving everything together. “That’s what happened.”

Songs such as “Cinamin Twist Remix” and “Bear Claw Remix” are a celebration not only of the city’s newfound basketball glory, but also its healthy hip-hop community.

“If you’re a true hip-hop head, I think you’ll appreciate it,” Garcia says, adding that he plans to promote the mixtape by handing out fliers at Nuggets games this season.

“It’s sort of become a full-circle moment for me," Bednark shares. "Now that I don’t [deejay] as a livelihood any longer, I’ve been able to pick and choose the things that I do.

“For me, this kind of a passion project, where I really felt strongly about the music I was using, was the perfect fit," he adds. "There was nothing obligatory about it. It was just one of those things for the soul.”

Helping SafeHouse Denver is also something Bednark is passionate about. Since 2007, he’s been giving what he can to the nonprofit. At first, he’d donate 100 percent of the proceeds from sales of his mixed CDs. Even now, as an honorary boardmember since 2013, a percentage of his real estate commissions are earmarked for the organization, which recognized his lifetime contributions in 2018 by awarding him the Susan Noble Community Impact Award.

“I know for a fact that domestic violence doesn’t get as much attention as it should. It’s such an important and viable thing to raise awareness and resources for,” he says.

“Any chance I get essentially to pull the heart strings and draw a little attention their way is a good excuse for me to do it," Bednark concludes. "This particular project was another example of an opportunity to show them some love, so that’s what we wanted to do.”

Western Conference II is available for download online at westernconference.org.