Born in 1970 in Washington, D.C., Miller's father, a politically active lawyer passed away when Paul was just three-years-old. He left his son his extensive collection of record albums, and it was here that Miller began his musical education, studying the sounds as a way to get to know the person that once collected them.

Growing up in the '80s in D.C., Miller was exposed to a particularly diverse music culture, which he eagerly soaked up. "I grew up with this weird kind of cross-fusion," he says. "I was growing up with The Specials and English Beat on one hand, Trouble Funk and the Junkyard Band on the other, and at the same time listening to Bad Brains or Minor Threat. In my head, those are my core rhythm patterns." By 1988, he had launched his own radio show at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he had begun studies in French literature and philosophy. "Dr. Seuss' Eclectic Jungle" ran for four years and explored the etymology of sound, working backwards from hip-hop records and the like to expose their sample sources and original inspirations.

DJ Spooky's latest album, "Riddim Warfare," is the result of collaging multiple cultures and lands. Many of these sonic ideas have been culled from his own experience; others he learns and passes on with the help of the album's many guest contributors, including such hip-hop and rock luminaries as Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, members of Organized Konfusion and Kool Keith.

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