[[quoteright:260:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/djs.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:260:''[[ManipulativeEditing "Who is he!?" "Just yo' fav-o-rite DJ savior!"]]'']]

Joshua Paul "Josh" Davis (born June 29, 1972) better known as DJ Shadow, is an American DJ, producer and songwriter, known for his groundbreaking use of {{sampling}} and massive record collection of over 60,000 [=LPs=]. He and Music/BeastieBoys are generally cited whenever you're trying to convince somebody that sampling can, in fact, be used to make good music.

Davis began his career as a DJ for his university's campus radio station. His first two singles under the "DJ Shadow" moniker, "In/Flux" and "Lost and Found", were released between 1993 and 1994. They are considered the TropeCodifier for the genre of trip-hop[[note]]Fun fact: "In/Flux" actually inspired the coining of the term "trip-hop" when it was used to described the single by music journalist Andy Pemberton[[/note]], which had been [[TropeMaker already invented by]] Music/MassiveAttack in 1991. The songs were generally [[EpicRocking long and complex]], made up entirely out of samples and fused together funk- and hip-hop-derived beats and occasional rock guitars with an ambient-jazz atmosphere, plus the occasional oddball sample of SpokenWordInMusic. These singles attracted the attention of the British experimental hip-hop label Mo' Wax, with whom Shadow signed a contract shortly afterwards.

Shadow's first release for the label, ''Music/{{Endtroducing}}'', was composed entirely using an Akai [=MPC60=] sampler, a pair of turntables and the aforementioned massive collection of [=LPs=]. Besides getting a Guinness World Record for being the first completely sample-based album, the album only refined the style he had established on his earlier singles, employing expert sampling from more varied sources either known (Music/BeastieBoys, Music/{{Metallica}}, ''Series/TwinPeaks'', etc.) or obscure (''Film/PrinceOfDarkness'', Pekka Pohjola, Rotary Connection, etc.) to create a unified album that one critic described as "[[JustForFun/XMeetsY a cross between]] ProgressiveRock and Music/PublicEnemy". ''Endtroducing.....'' was greeted with unanimous acclaim by critics and fans and became Shadow's most well-known and respected album.

After ''Endtroducing.....'', Shadow laid low for a while, releasing the singles compilation ''Preemptive Strike'' and producing Music/{{UNKLE}}'s debut album ''Psyence Fiction''. He also lent several of his tracks to ''Dark Days'', a documentary about people who live in an abandoned section of the New York subway. A new album was finally released after six years, titled ''The Private Press''. This album saw him slightly reduce his sampling due to increasing fees, focusing mostly on unknown sources, but otherwise continued with his trademark cinematic trip-hop style. While [[ToughActToFollow not as well-reviewed as his debut]], ''Press'' still won acclaim from fans and critics.

A shorter hiatus[[note]]further smoothed over by the release of the live album/DVD ''In Tune and on Time'' in 2004[[/note]] ensued between ''Press'' and Shadow's next album, ''The Outsider'', which retreated a bit from his prog-hop sound, featuring more collaborations with rappers and a few hyphy tracks, to mixed reception. He then continued releasing music throughout the [=2010s=], scoring a considerably big mainstream hit in "Nobody Speak", his 2016 collaboration with Music/RunTheJewels, which has been used in numerous trailers and commercials.

!!Discography:
* ''Music/{{Endtroducing}}'' (1996)
* ''Preemptive Strike'' (1998) - compilation of early singles.
* ''Brainfreeze'' (1999) - collaboration with fellow DJ Cut Chemist
* ''Product Placement'' (2001) - collaboration with Cut Chemist
* ''The Private Press'' (2002)
* ''In Tune and on Time'' (2004) - live DVD
* ''The Outsider'' (2006)
* ''The Less You Know, The Better'' (2011)
* ''The Mountain Will Fall'' (2016)
* ''Our Pathetic Age'' (2019)
* ''Action Adventure'' (2023)
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!!DJ Shadow provides examples of:

* BloodOnTheDebateFloor - The music video for "Nobody Speak".
* DrivesLikeCrazy - "Mashin' on the Motorway"
* EpicRocking - "Stem/Long Stem", "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain", ''Brainfreeze'' and ''Product Placement'' (both of which contain exactly two songs), "Blood on the Motorway", "You Can't Go Home Again".
* GenreRoulette - While mostly known for blending genres, ''The Outsider'' bounces back and forth from crunk to hyphy to blues to rock to industrial and beyond.
* LastNoteNightmare - ''Endtroducing'' ends with the atmospherically unnerving "Transmission 3", with an ominous spoken-word sample being buried and smothered under sinister, fuzzy ambience. There's even a ''Series/TwinPeaks'' sample near the end.
* [[LonelyPianoPiece Lonely Guitar Piece]] - "Triplicate/Something Happened That Day"
* {{Instrumentals}} - 99% of his songs are this or just feature short samples of SpokenWordInMusic.
* MixedMetaphor: One of his songs is titled ''Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt''. While the song has no real lyrics (just samples), based on the normal meaning of the idioms, the title would seem to translate to something like "Working hard despite being uncertain about one's task, cause, etc.".
* NewSoundAlbum: The Outsider, to the point where it has collaborating artists.
** The I Gotta Rokk and I'm Excited [=EPs=] are showing The Less You Know, The Better to be more of a rock album.
** Really, all of them have a different sound from the others. Endtroducing has a dirtier, hip-hop sound, The Private Press is cleaner and more experimental, The Outsider has the aforementioned collaborations and The Less You Know, The Better is more of a rock album.
* OneWomanWail - Man, he loves using this.
* PunnyName
** ''Endtroducing.''
** "Organ Donor" (an organ-based track)
* {{Sampling}} / SampledUp: But of course.
* SelfDeprecation: The artwork for the "[[http://www.djshadow.com/store/detail/73296 I Gotta Rokk]]" single features various digital gadgets making snide remarks about Shadow and his relevancy in modern music. Lately these same characters have been popping up on different pages of his website committing acts of vandalism, such as [[http://i54.tinypic.com/wqsubl.png drawing a moustache on his photo,]] [[http://i54.tinypic.com/25tg70h.png ripping the page apart,]] or apparently [[http://i52.tinypic.com/ojf30j.png throwing out his entire discography.]] This seems to be a commentary on the public's opinion of him since ''The Outsider,'' particularly in online message boards where it's particularly easy to go along with someone else's negative opinion. It seems likely this will be a running theme during the ''Less You Know'' era.
* SpokenWordInMusic: Often incorporated throughout his music in samples.
* StudioChatter
* SubduedSection
* TakeThat: One of the short songs on his first album is called "Why HipHop Sucks in '96." The song itself consists of 45 seconds of a laid back Music/DrDre type beat, as was popular in 1996, then has a quick sample of someone (namely Shadow's friend and occasional collaborator Lyrics Born) saying "[[MoneyDearBoy It's the money!]]"
* TextlessAlbumCover: ''Endtroducing.....''
* YouCantGoHomeAgain: He has a song with that title, natch. [[SoundtrackDissonance Surprisingly upbeat, tho'.]]
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