VILLAINS / WOLFTOWN RECORDINGS
Interview by Rick Thorne. Photo by Brian Bartholomew
From Murder Dog Vol 9 #2 (2002)

What lead to the hip-hop scene falling off here?
Late: I think there’s a lot of things why it died but you’ve gotta admit fuckin’ dance music did take a big part of it. The whole club culture of Es and acid and goin’ out and not bein’ serious any more and just fuckin’ gettin’ off their heads. People was attracted to that.
Tricksta: I think what happened, going back to that ‘80s/’90s thing, is that it potentially began to get to the stage where bands like the Sindicut were signed to Virgin, had like a six-figure Villains advance, it was beginning to happen. But them acts wasn’t the right acts.
Late: IMD had a deal with MCA, the album never got fuckin’ released because of politics. Threw a big figure at it.
Tricksta: So what you’ve got there you’ve got major labels in this country paid advances, haven’t recouped ‘coz the composition hasn’t been made, the recording of the album hasn’t been made, so it can never get released so it can never earn money back. So what happens is the major label goes ‘I’ve done the hip-hop thing, it didn’t work. Let’s do the drum n’ bass thing.’ It ain’t just one artist. The whole genre. In the same way, you can just see the fall of So Solid Crew. Because So Solid Crew are good but they’ve got too many people fuckin’ hatin’ on them. People are gonna make ‘em drop off.
Late: The media will.
Tricksta: And when that happens in a year’s time, when it filters through, they’ll be a fuckin’ backlash against ‘urban’ music. It’s gonna be hard but what the hip-hop scene’s gotta do, when the U.K. garage thing goes it’s gotta be there to go ‘right, here’s your alternative ‘coz you need one’ but it’s gotta be ready. What scares me is we ain’t gonna be ready. And it could be like ‘right we’ve done the fuckin’ urban thing, it ain’t worked, we fuckin’ tried the hip-hop thing eight years ago, that didn’t work either, the R n’ B acts have gone’. And all of a sudden you’ve got guitar music comin’ back, you got fuckin’ house gettin’ more breakbeat y’know what I mean.
Do you think it’s also due to the majors misunderstanding the music?
Tricksta: If there’s any major labels reading this I want you to know, ‘coz this is so important for the fuckin’ scene—don’t sign acts, sign labels. Please don’t sign acts. You won’t be able to manage ‘em and they’ll upset ya. They’ll smoke a lot of weed, they’ll piss you off. Sign the label. Let the label deal with them artists and you deal with people who can run a label. That’s the way we have to do it then you won’t never have to meet the artist and there’s never no problem. That’s the way we gotta do it over here man.
Late: Majors aren’t gonna sign any acts until they see us sellin’ 10,000 and bein’ serious about it ourselves. They see us sellin’ 10,000 on the underground and they’re gonna invest.
So you’re saying the people at those labels can’t relate to the artist?
Late: No possible way.
Tricksta: We need obviously the finance, the marketing strategies, the distribution strategies and the licensing strategies of the majors. That’s about it. We don’t need their advice on how to be in the scene because I’m fuckin’ from Wolverhampton and I’m sittin’ here doin’ an interview with a magazine from America. So what’s that show ya? Are you gonna do that? Are Universal gonna hook me up with an interview with Murder Dog, get Black Dog to go ‘yeah, yeah, okay cool. I’ll get my U.K. cats to come up and interview ya’. No. Sign the label. The label will profile the artist how it needs to be profiled. Wolftown is a record label but we got it goin’ on, we got the magazine, we doin’ videos, we into short films. We’re tryna build a fuckin’ empire. With cash injection, Wolftown, game over man. No Limit in the U.K. all over again.
How did you manage to get your records out?
Tricksta: We seeked a distribution deal which is what a lot of the people in the U.K. have got to do. Personally my opinion is people go to distributors ain’t got no product. The distributor thinks ‘right okay, I’m gonna get two twelve-inches a year to put out’. It ain’t even worth the paper work, it’s gonna sell 500-1000, it ain’t worth it. We went in there and said ‘we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do that’ and we do get respect for this. Everything we’ve said we’re gonna do we’ve done. Them three albums right, the Villains, the Vicious Circle, the Wolftown Committee were decided the day we started the label. We said we’re gonna start a magazine, we did it, we said we’re gonna do videos low budget we’ve done it. We’ve even got play on MTV dy’know what I mean? Everything we’ve fuckin’ said we’re gonna do we’ve done.
What kind of response have you had since you’ve been on the scene?
Tricksta: The first single got five out of five in Hip-Hop Connection, ‘Single of the Month’. And I know that pissed a lot of people off. It was a blazin’ review. Then boom, fuck me here’s the album. I know it ain’t strange for someone who’s into hip-hop to think they’re building up over eight months, that sounds about right, single, single, album. But in England that’s strange.
So that album did well enough to set up the future stuff?
Tricksta: The Villains album done enough. It’s still sellin’ as I speak because people are still finding out about the label and that’s the one they come for first ‘coz it’s the first release.
Late: Introducing you to the first batch of emcees and to the way we live basically.
Does your music have a distinctive U.K. sound?
Tricksta: Yeah, definitely. Everyone raps in their own accent. I’ve got bare love for America but what I won’t have is people tryna rap in American accents ‘coz that ain’t real.
Late: And rappin’ about things that they ain’t doin’.
Tricksta: Late ain’t gonna rap about havin’ a lowrider because he ain’t got a lowrider. Yet. There’s limitations, we have to keep it real. That’s very important to us.
Your album artwork and imagery jumps out at a lot of people. Do you relate to the U.S. gangsta shit?
Late: To get that cover, I always had that image of the four of us outside the block of flats. I had that image from when I started the group, I already had the cover ‘coz when I see something I get amped as an artist, I’ve got it all planned out in my head already anyway. And I’d seen the way Pen & Pixel, like it or not you’ve gotta pick it up. And originally we was gonna get the album done by Pen & Pixel but we couldn’t afford it on the budget we was on and this is why we hooked up with the artwork guy and that’s how he got tied into Wolftown.
Tricksta: We just knew it would cause so much attention when we did it. People would think ‘Who the fuck are these?! Who do they think are?!’ dy’know what I mean, which a lot of people did. Which got everybody on the web site checkin’ the music, when they heard the music it started selling.
Late: I like that artwork, that’s the artwork I’m into if you look at all my CDs. I’m fuckin’ a fiend for Pen & Pixel shit man, a fiend for it!
Do each of you play different roles in the running of Wolftown Records?
Tricksta: Late is visual, he’s a very visual person. That’s why he does the storyboards for the videos and all the basic concepts and designs to give to the artwork guy. And that’s why I deal with the other shit, I deal with the distributor more and I’m on the phone tryna link things up. He’ll say ‘I think we should do a track with my man’ and I’ll phone him and sort it out.
Do you think you took a lot of that from what was going on in the independent scene in the States?
Tricksta: I think we took a lot of inspiration from the independent scene period.
Late: Which Murder Dog to be honest helped us.
How long have you been reading Murder Dog?
Late: I can go back a few years. Once I seen that I was addicted. See I’m a very addictive person, whatever I do I get addicted to it and that’s the way I am. Like my cars, I always drive BMs ‘coz I’m addicted to BMs. I go full-on in everything I do.
Tricksta: When he says the next two years are planned out they are. There’s albums that ain’t been made yet that’ve got release dates. The idea’s there in his head.
So you’ve taken in those influences from everywhere.
Tricksta: It wasn’t just there, there was other places as well. The French scene, the German scene, the Canadian scene, the sort of independent scene that was comin’ out of L.A. like your Ground Control Records, then you got Landspeed over in New York, things that they were doin’. Just watchin’ everything but predominantly the way the people on the west coast and down south do it. The deejays support the music, the music supports the deejay, the emcees support the music, everyone’s earnin’ off it, everyone’s happy. There’s no bad vibe, there’s no beef ‘coz my man ain’t playin’ my music. I’ll tell ya one thing I’ve gotta say as well, R.I.P. DJ Screw because that was a great loss dy’know what I mean. Wolftown bare love to DJ Screw. I’m never gonna get the opportunity to get Screwed.
Who are some of the other cats you’ve been speaking to from the U.S.?
Late: K-Rino, Mr. D.O.G. Coolnutz, Jus Family Records. Lil CS, feelin’ him.
Tricksta: Kidd X and SD3, they’re comin’ out of San Jose. Strippa 1 and Playboy. Cee Rock The Fury, Queensbridge. Roxbury Rituals outta Boston. Lord Roc, Regents Park in the Bronx.
Late: Bullet & Shaolin, they’re from Portland, they’re down with Cool Nutz. Lyrical Lizard representin’ Gary, Indiana, the Midwest.
Why did you start your own magazine Rago?
Late: We had to because no one else was ever gonna give us anything. We’ve always deejayed so we’ve always got records through the post but since starting the magazine I’ve contacted a lot of labels and it’s a wicked advertising tool.
Tricksta: We’ve gotta say y’know a lot of it was inspired by Murder Dog. It’s a good networking tool, even in England on a small scale you’ve got people from Sheffield making records with people from London because of the magazine. What you’ve also got is people like us makin’ records with people from the States. Hip-hop is now a global thing, like it or not man. I mean it started in America, it’s an American music, a lot of the best stuff still comes out of America. But it is more global now. There’s hip-hop crews in Africa, in Australia, France, Sweden, Germany and they’re puttin’ it on man, they’re havin’ a right go.
Late: In the States you got Murder Dog but there’s nowhere else for people who are up and comin’ to send your demo or your little EP and get some sort of advice or a review or something that you can take somewhere else. So we’ve set this up because we know how hard it is, havin’ a label ourselves.
Do you cover all different types of rap in the magazine?
Late: Yeah yeah. We do like that sorta grimy Mobb Deep sound, they’re representin’ where them livin’ which is how the west coast man are. But they don’t get represented either so we try to get people like Lord Roc, underground New York artists.
Tricksta: We try and get as much in there as we can, we’re just enthusiasts of the music. We are always on the look out to link with as many people as possible. If you’re a rapper and you’ve got a label get in touch with us, bring it on, the more the merrier.
What’s coming up from Wolftown?
Late: We’ve got Wolftown Committee album first. That’s got everyone on Wolftown and a couple of surprises.
Tricksta: That’s the third release on the label. Wolftown Committee is basically Late and Tricksta from Villains, Vicious Circle, Lee Dee, Wayney G, Jai-Boo, Wolftown’s first lady, fuckin’ High Timez who’s more of a ragga style, and Conman who’s just on some next shit. It’s everybody puttin’ their energy into one album. There’s no samples, it’s like a natural vibe so as a producer I’m about to go into the next zone which is gonna be a fuckin’ heavy one dy’know what I mean. Then we’ve got the International Rhyme Spittin’ which confirms the fact that Wolftown Recordings is a label that releases hip-hop and rap music period, not just a U.K. hip-hop label.
Late: Every music’s got its place in hip-hop. You can live within hip-hop and not have to listen to anything else. You got your R n’ B laidback stuff to smoke to and shag to. You’ve got some Miami stuff, carnival party music. Levels of anger, levels of love.
Tricksta: I’m fuckin’ pissed off now put Mobb Deep on. Now I’m really pissed off put Brotha Lynch Hung on. Your mum comes round you can put Common Sense on. I’m very open minded when it comes to hip-hop.

How did Villains get together as a group?

Late: Round about '95, '96 we started to make records, deejaying, promoting club nights, doin' radio shows. Grew up with Tricksta, went to school together and hooked up with Profesah 194, and he was the third member of Villains. That was Tricksta doin' the deejaying, me and Profesah doin' the lyrics. We started writin' and then Profesah got five years.

Did he get out in time to do the album?

Late: It was '96 when he got five years, he come out after two-and-a-half.
Tricksta: So Profesah, Late and myself knew this rapper called Nugsta and he had a mutual friend IMD who was like 'I wanna fuckin' get movin', I wanna produce a fuckin' album, I wanna get shit out' and us, 'we need a fuckin' producer, we wanna start a label', so we met him and we just hit it off. It was IMD doin' the beats, all the engineering and all the playin', me doin' some co-production on some tracks, just bein' in the crew really, also kinda like spokesman, the man who'd go and sort things out. So what you got is Villains, which is four people, and one member who'd never met the other, Profesah and IMD.

Did you two live close to each other?

Tricksta: We’ve rolled tight like that since we was like 14. When I moved school I just met Late and just rolled with Late. I’m 29 now, it’s been like that since I was like 14. And High Timez used to live next door but one and Vicious Circle, that’s like a family as well. So it’s been like that. Then we met IMD and started recording the album and that was what, ’98.
Late: Basically Profesah had done about two years and we’d started recording, we was waiting for him to come out, we’d done about 16 tracks. When he came out, spat on the tracks, one take sort of thing, we put the album to bed, put it out and basically that was the Villains album.
What made you decide to form your label Wolftown Recordings?
Tricksta: I was working at a music group, a bunch of different labels and stuff. So I was runnin’ these labels anyway. We both agreed from day one it’s no good lookin’ for a deal because no one’s gonna give us the deal we want. Because when I say to the man we need a million the man’s gonna laugh in my face. But when I break it down why I need a million he still ain’t gonna understand but that’s how much I need to do what I need to do. I can’t get that money to do it so it’s a waste of time bein’ on a major. I’ve got to do this independent because no one’s gonna understand the things we wanna do. He ain’t gonna understand why we wanna start a magazine and give all the other people in the scene love. A major label’s not gonna understand why you should do that, it’s all about lookin’ after yourself dy’know what I mean? Stickers, flyers, posters, the distribution angle of it, the musical content.
And they don’t have that confidence in U.K. hip-hop?
Tricksta: No and to be honest the Villains haven’t got that confidence in the majors. We’ve seen a lot of British acts get signed and dropped and it ending up ruining mans’ careers. The Villains album was never ever gonna come out on any other label apart from Wolftown and that’s why we did it.
Was the label formed by both of you?
Tricksta: Wolftown Recordings was formed by Late and Tricksta. 50/50 partners.
Late: So we was gonna do a twelve-inch, a white label and we thought ‘hang on let’s do it properly’. We’d seen how the Americans was goin’ on with like Master P with the quality thing and we thought the image, the artwork, the quality of it’s gotta be fuckin’ on point.
Tricksta: We also knew to be honest that no one else was watchin’ the things we were watchin’ and to this day I still don’t think people, not even now are watchin’ what we’re watchin’.
Late: Jay-Z’s watchin’ what we’re watchin’.
Tricksta: Yeah, and London man are watchin’ Jay-Z. People ain’t seen the things we’ve seen. There’s that much blinkeredness over here, and I’m not blamin’ the heads, it’s not the heads fault, ‘coz the heads only know what the media portray. And there’s a whole fuckin’ bunch of hip-hop that’s not gettin’ represented. There’s like 15 percent of what’s goin’ on gets represented on MTV and in the magazines, your big artists. The other 85 percent that’s out there, fuckin’ hell, there’s cats out there that people ain’t ready for over here, dy’know what I mean? I’ve gotta be honest. As soon as we started the Villains thing ya know, we ain’t stupid, two black guys, two white guys, that’s a brave move. For two white guys in the hip-hop scene in England to go out like that. Like ‘yes it’s us, yes we’re fuckin’ white, yes there’s gold fonts’.
Late: And not hide behind our logo.
Tricksta: Come and roll with me and I’ll show you how I fuckin’ live. And then you’ll understand, dy’know what I mean? And a lot of people at first were like what are we fuckin’ steppin’ into here? ‘Coz that Villains album cover, and I still say it today is invitin’ you into the label. Welcome To Wolftown – we’ve fuckin’ landed, we’re here, we’re British, we’re not from London, we’re from the Midlands, this is a different flex and this is how we’re goin’ on. That’s why the album’s called Welcome To Wolftown. That album is an introduction to the label.
Did you christen Wolverhampton with the name Wolftown?
Late: Wolftown is the street name for Wolves anyway, it was a street talk thing representin’ Wolftown.
Tricksta: Wolverhampton used to be a town until about six months ago, they just made it a city.
What was it like for you growing up here?
Late: I grew up on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. I’m the only white person in the street, dy’know what I mean, pure Asian and black people in the street. I was there ‘til I was four, basically mum and dad divorced, kicked out the yard, he sold the house out from under us and was left homeless. My mum and me had to live with my nan for two years and then we basically moved to the outskirts of Wolverhampton, which is called Moxley. So you’ve got Wolverhampton there’s a city, and you got a place next to it called Walsall. It’s the same size as Wolverhampton but it’s a bit more backward, it’s a bit less cultured, it’s a bit more ragga. So I’m on the outskirts there between Wolverhampton and fuckin’ Walsall and where it is it’s fuckin’ racist, it’s proper fuckin’ racist mentality dy’know what I mean, cars on drives.
Tricksta: Which is hard if you’re white and you’ve got a skinhead and you go out with a black girl.
Late: But basically I’ve always gone to a Wolverhampton school ‘coz I started school there before I’d moved so I’ve had to travel sorta thing. The school I went to was cultured dy’know what I mean, the alternative was like a fuckin’ backward sorta redneck school, council estate sort of thing. And that’s where I met Tricksta because Tricksta was from Walsall and he came to Wolverhampton.
Tricksta: I was born in Wolves, we used to live in Wolverhampton then we moved out to fuckin’ Walsall, then I come back to Wolves.
Late: Same sorta set-up, single mother sort of thing.
Tricksta: You wanna know about me, if you wanna know about Tricksta you’ve gotta buy the Wolftown Committee album and you’ve gotta pump the tune called ‘Maintain’. If you buy that album and you pump that tune you know everything about me. That track is my life, it’s the only track I’m gonna do on Wolftown where I spit the whole song all myself. There will never be another one, that’s the gem for that album. I’ve dropped my life up until about eight weeks ago. From like he’s sayin’ family background shit about my dad used to hit my mum, left when I was one. I’m not sayin’ I had it hard but I didn’t have it easy dy’know what I mean? But I never knew anyone that had two parents, a proper mum and a dad anyway. So it wasn’t like ‘you’re the odd one out Tricksta’.
Late: Typical council estate livin’ basically. That’s what all Wolftown man basically is.
How did you get into hip-hop?
Late: High Timez, he had family in America so he introduced me and him to hip-hop sorta thing. He used to go to New York.
Tricksta: He’s comin’ back with all belts with his name on.
Late: This is like ’82, ’83, he’s comin’ back with these red furry hats, Kangols, rockin’ them dy’know what I mean? Basically so I grew up on hip-hop, y’know breakdancing, done the grafitti, then one album came out – and that was Ice-T Power. The album’s alright but one song, and you know the song is ‘High Rollers’. And that song basically changed my life. Because until then I was a petty thief, a petty person. That showed me the tailored suit, the luxury, woke me up to bein’ proper.
Tricksta: High Timez had connections in New York so a lot of stuff I was hearin’ was what High Timez was playin’ me. In all fairness I got into hip-hop later, I was like three years behind dy’know what I mean? I kinda got this Just-Ice, BDP, Public Enemy and EPMD thing goin’ on, then Late was like ‘nah, Ice-T man, Geto Boys’. Back in the day it wasn’t a coast thing, and then I went out off my own back and I bought an NWA vinyl, full cover, and it had white people polishing black man’s shoes. And it cost me £7 (roughly $11) and I was a fuckin’ Saturday boy in a butcher’s. I come back with this record and the man went ‘let’s have a look at what you bought’, I go ‘you won’t understand’, he goes ‘what ya bought?!’ I go ‘alright then’. And then from there we just rolled tight and we just got on it man. There was like five or six people in the crew and we was like ‘if you buy that, I’ll buy that’.
Late: The first crew was when we was kids man, and that was our grafitti, thievin’, we used to go out every day robbin’ for clothes, pens. It was all hip-hop related theft. I’d go out, don’t forget I was 14, 15, we’d go and rob factories and things like that for spray paints and pens and you’d nick the petty cash and you’d leave the computer and you’d be there fuckin’ robbin’ pens. That’s how on it we were with the hip-hop thing.
So what were you doing before you started making music?
Tricksta: Still tryna crave recognition.
Late: That’s growin’ up with no love basically.
Tricksta: Look I’m fuckin’ here, my name’s everywhere! I am here, someone fuckin’ take note. And that is in me and Late anyway, dy’know what I mean? Wolftown as a record label’s got so much energy in it, it can’t fail. The energy, the belief in what we’re fuckin’ doin’, we know. Like ‘oh my god, you’ve sold 10 fuckin’ million albums!’ Y’know I ain’t shocked, dy’know what I mean? The stuff we’re puttin’ out, there ain’t fuckin’ no man that can go up against that. Not over these sides anyway, can go really up against that stuff. They can’t get the fuckin’ beats sounding tight enough, they can’t get the vocals recorded the way we do it. Like I say they’re very blinkered, they’re jammin’ Westwood and that’s all there really is.
Late: We’ve watched people from the South rise and the reason they’ve rose is because of self-sufficiency. That’s the whole crew thing here.
Tricksta: When we was round here we had MTV on and Master P had his video played for the first time and it was like ‘gwarn P! Yes Percy, fuckin’ gwarn!’ Dy’know what I mean? My man’s fuckin’ on MTV. And then it was like fuckin’ No Limit’s rising and then he starts to come. And it was like ‘Go on Percy, go on P fuckin’ do it!’ When he blew we was stood there like ‘that’s a made man!’
For more info: www.wolftown.co.uk