Interview and Photos by Matt Sonzala
I’ve followed your career for a long time and I want to talk about your long, storied history in hip hop, but one thing I have watched you do over the years is be able to adapt with the times. As we get older a lot of people turn their nose up to a lot of new music but you are a DJ who has been able to keep your finger on the pulse of whats going on in the UK, the US and all over and stay very current. Is that because of your overall passion for the music and the culture?
Yeah I think it’s very simple, first and foremost I’m a fan and that’s it. I’ve been very fortunate to witness a lot of great moments over the years as a fan, as a DJ, as an executive working at a label, in every facet I’ve seen and experienced the rise of hip hop, UK Rap, but first and foremost I’m just a fan of the culture.
When you were first starting out and becoming a fan was UK Rap a thing?
I think the story of UK Rap, when it started out it was very bold, ambitious, there was artists that appeared on the scene like Hijack, Cookie Crew, Derek B, The Demon Boyz, London Posse, all very different, all very British but obviously with some kind of US influence and between ‘89 – ‘92 a lot of these artists were breaking ground in different ways. Then what happened in the UK, you know we get restless creatively so a lot of the talent that was in UK Rap moved into rave music, which is a thing that came about in the mid ‘90’s, then they moved into Jungle, then they moved into Drum N Bass and UK Garage and so on and so on. Whereas in America you’ve got years of history of mentorship. For instance you’ve got Dr. Dre who has been there since World Class Wreckin’ Cru, through NWA, through Death Row with 2Pac and Snoop, through Shady/Aftermath, when he signed Eminem and then the G-Unit thing when Eminem signed 50 Cent to Kendrick Lamar and so on, we never had that over here. We never had that legacy of creative mentorship. So it kind of stopped and started. So I’d say from ‘89 – ‘92 is when we had UK Rap artists in the charts. Demon Boyz did one of the best UK Rap albums ever with their first album “Recognition.” Hijack is one of the most innovative, creative groups to ever come out of hip hop. To the point where when I saw the Wu Tang Clan I was like, they took that from Hijack. The ninja thing, the sword thing, the masks on their faces, that was Hijack. So when I saw Wu, of course they didn’t rip it off, but I was like, we’ve done this. But Hijack, they never got to that point where they received worldwide recognition unfortunately. And like I said, there have been gaps in the UK Rap story. The UK rap story is one of struggle, the beautiful struggle. And then we have Grime which is a different thing to the UK Rap, it’s more the unique sound than just a straight derivative from hip hop. You can argue that Grime has been inspired by Techno, Dancehall as well as Hip Hop. I think Grime is probably our true hip hop in the sense that there’s pioneers, there’s legacy, there’s the aesthetic, there’s the work ethic, there’s the aspects of clashing and freestyling, the radio freestyles, the Sidewinder performances, it was the true essence of becoming an MC. So Grime is it’s own thing and then that inspired UK rap again and you had people like Giggs coming through in the more gangster rap side of things. To the point where I feel like 2015 was the UK Rap renaissance where a number of things happened at the same time. I think it was the advent of streaming which was a level playing field, the advent of UK Drill and the advent of Afro Swing, and I think between those genres and the tech changes and everything else I think our scene exponentially exploded to the point where it’s at today.
I think that’s dope to say because when Grime was first starting out here was around the time when the South in the US was really starting to grab more of a foothold musically, and to the people in New York I would say Grime and a lot of the Crunk music and the music from Memphis and Houston and Atlanta were almost like foreign languages to some of the hip hop purists but in a sense it was people in the streets and everybody was saying the same things, but the sound really represented the cities the sounds were coming from. Memphis sounds like Memphis and the Grime was really very identifiable to here in London.
You know, I love all of those sounds, I even did a mixtape called Crunk N Grime, and I feel like there’s a lot of styles and trends that emerge and then they are not as big but I don’t think they ever go away and every now and then they get a resurgence, but they don’t die. I think Grime is in an incredible place with this new generation of artists coming through. And all the artists, the OG’s are actually celebrated, they are revered because of their artistry, because of clashes they did 20 years ago. So some one like a Ghetts or a Skepta or a JME or a D Double E, they still get the same sort of adoration and praise that they did when they first came out. And I think that’s the better thing about Grime. I think with hip hop it tends to out older generations. You saw it with Killer Mike winning the Grammys over certain other albums. Personally I think Mike deserved it. It’s just rap excellence. But there is still that age thing, that doesn’t happen in Grime.
I love to see now though, because there was a long time people would say hip hop didn’t age that well, but I think one of the problems with the rap artists is a lot of them tried to jump on certain trends in the middle of their career that didn’t really work, and then they come back now to what brought them up in the first place. And now if you are a hip hop purist of a certain age you can still go out and see KRS One, Slick Rick… and you can celebrate the boundaries that Killer Mike broke down. It’s a really cool era right now from young to old.
I see the conversation about should there be a different category for Contemporary Rap and I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not. All I know is hip hop is hip hop and whatever style you are into it’s cool. I don’t think one is better than the other. I think if one is better for you then great. I think it’s dope that the culture constantly reinvents itself but at the same time there’s icons that can still exist. For me to be opening for Cypress Hill at the Royal Albert Hall with the orchestra, it’s insane. It’s an insane proposition. I never dreamt I’d be doing something like that. The crowd was amazing. I did my set and they were getting into the music and at the end I got a round of applause and that’s dope. That’s a different lane and it doesn’t matter how old you are. Doesn’t matter if you are in your 40’s or you are in your 20’s it’s a very different experience, it’s so new. So it’s not about classification, it’s just as long as it’s dope shit just keep doing it.
That’s a really good example of what’s keeping this so exciting now because, we can site a lot of examples of dumb shit that’s happened over the years and now we can also look and see where this culture has been recognized as the culture that it is on such different levels. I mean, Cypress Hill is not from London but they came to the Royal Albert Hall and sold it out. It’s such a universal culture, even moreso than just the music. You wrote a book called Hip Hop Raised Me. I tried to read the whole thing man but that’s a big ass book! I definitely dug into it man and I love stories like that. You bringing up those artists from the ‘89 – ‘92 era sparked a lot of thoughts in my head because I used to pick up Hip Hop Connection magazine at Tower Records. I was always hungry to know about that sort of thing. I read about those guys and heard what I could. It wasn’t easy to find a Hijack tape in the states but I found some. Tell me about the whole process of writing your book, that had to be a massive undertaking. You really laid out a history of hip hop but from your perspective of living in the culture.
It’s pretty easy, it’s a lifetime in the making. It took me six months to write it.
Six months? Damn I thought it would take a lot longer than that.
I wrote 80,000 words and it was cut down to 50,000. I wrote every single word and came up with every single concept with each chapter. The thing is it’s easy because yeah it took me six months to write it but at that point I had been doing radio for like 15 years so I’ve got 15 years of experience interviewing artists, playing the latest trends, playing the hottest new music, seeing it evolve, seeing things happen and at the same time I have 15 years of experience shutting down festivals, clubs, concerts and everything else and I’ve worked alongside most of the artists I’ve written about in various capacities. So I don’t want to sound flippant but it was pretty straight forward. If you were asked to write a book about what you have done in the past 30 years you could do it without a doubt. You just have to come up with the structure of it and chapterize it. It kind of writes itself because it’s everything you have done. You could write about the history of Houston hip hop from your perspective, you could talk about Grime because back in the day you were on top of all the things that were happening over here. You don’t lose that knowledge. All you have to do is just write it down, and when I was writing the book if I was on a train I’d do a few hundred words, if I was on the toilet I would do a few hundred words, I kept writing, I had a mission to do the book. I didn’t want to drag it out. I’d go to places at night to write, and that’s it. So I just flushed out everything, it was really straight forward to do.
What was your first entry into radio?
My first entry into radio was on a Pirate Radio station in Manchester called Ital FM. There was these two dreads called Marcus and Leyton who had the Pirate Station in an area called Hulme and you know they only came on on weekends, it was a reggae station and I was doing hip hop from 7-9 on a Sunday night. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and they loved my passion and my energy, they were like alright well someone is filling up space and while I was playing music they was downstairs playing dominoes in the kitchen. It was dope. They were really happy to see me do what I was doing but more importantly it gave me a chance. Other stations were being snobby and wouldn’t give me a chance but Marcus and Leyton gave me a chance. From there I went to another Pirate Station, Love Energy, and even though it was an illegal station, my show between 6-8pm I treated it like it was a legit show. I was there on time every week. I filled the show up with new music and most of the Pirate DJ’s would as well. It meant a lot to me and then the people on after me was a duo called Shades of Power and one of the DJ’s was Laura Lukanz. So it was interesting when BBC 1Xtra first started in the early 2000’s I was one of the first DJ’s hired and she was one of the first people to be hired to be an exec at the station and program music. So it was like we both came up through a pirate station in west side of Manchester. It was amazing you know, those were my first forays into radio. When I was on Pirate Radio, I never used to talk, then I moved to 1Xtra there was a guy called Ray Paul who brought me into the station as a DJ, he made me talk. So ever since then I’ve been killing it, 23 years later.
The beautiful thing about 1Xtra is it came around the beginnings of internet radio, so I heard you before I ever met you. And the Grime music, the way I started hearing it was like bootlegs on Napster and there was another station on the internet back then, I think pirate-radio.co.uk, but when 1Xtra came on man, it was RAW.
I think when 1Xtra came on they were very ambitious. In the beginning they called me for another DJ, they didn’t even call for me they wanted a DJ that was on my street team and I connected them. And I was like, if there’s any space, I want on. And then there was a Destiny’s Child event in Finsbury Park and there was a Rawkus tent where Mos Def and Pharoahe Monch performed and I was DJing at that and I was absolutely killing it and they guys from 1Xtra were in the crowd and they were like yeah I got to get him. And that’s how I got that gig.
Is 1Xtra what brought you to London?
No. What brought me to London is I wanted to work with the music. I had DJed in Manchester and put on events, promoting, I hated promoting because it’s just the most nonsensical line of work. You spend hours working on a moment and when the night happens you find out whether it worked or not after a months work. And most of the time I was losing money. I was promoting events purely to put my name on a flyer because nobody else would put me, I did it purely to invest in myself. I started out at the bottom of the flyer and made my way up as my name became bigger. I got an offer to set up the first street team for Sony in the UK and they asked me to move to London and I said yes, I didn’t even think twice. I was down within two weeks.
That’s a huge opportunity.
Oh yeah, massive opportunity but massive risk as well. I didn’t know anyone. I landed in Wood Green in a room that cost like $300 a month, it was a dump, infested with ants and everything else and I was literally by myself but I came down to London with an intent to succeed and make a name for myself as a DJ and just turn things upside down.
When you came in there to Sony to set up the street team how long was it before you started getting into A&R and Artist Development?
It was within a couple of years. I never wanted to do A&R but I got sick of A&R guys who were paid ten times more than me coming up to me and saying “Let me pick your brain,” and I was helping save their careers. So I knew I had to level up, but when I saw Dizzee Rascal I believed that he was the turning point for rap in the UK. I believed what he would do would change everything. He was a game changer and he has inspired generations. You could argue that pretty much everything that comes out of Grime stems from his approach to songwriting. If you look at “Stop That,” “I Love You,” they are all a call and response thing and the voracity of what he says and how he does it is all from him. He lead the way and he defined that style and influenced everyone to this day. I’d say his influence can be heard in UK Drill. Every sub genre that has come out of UK rap, his vocals and DNA is present.
And his motivation and work ethic was crazy. He got out there and did that shit.
Yeah and I tried to sign him, they didn’t see the vision. They did when it was too late and even so I still stayed close with Dizzee. I was working with them, I was his tour DJ for eight years and I learned a lot from his work ethic and his approach and everything else. He is very creative and open minded. When he got offered to open for Red Hot Chili Peppers across Europe we did it and we adapted to the set to include a more rock format and we killed it. I don’t know many rap artists that would have done that, like to this day I don’t know many rap artists that would go on tour with one of the biggest rock acts, I don’t think they get it. So I think he’s definitely a trailblazer and he has inspired everybody else and he still does.
So before hearing Dizzee or around the time of hearing him, when you heard groups of guys on a rooftop on a pirate station freestyling for hours on end did you see a vision for Grime at that time?
I mean I saw it, So Solid was dope. What they did with “21 Seconds” was so dope. What Wiley was doing was dope. Not to take anything away from anyone but it hit me when I saw Dizzee. Dizzee was like hearing Public Enemy for the first time, it was that kind of “This is something definitive, this is music that speaks to you, that means something, that is audacious, uncompromising, and it’s exciting and this needs to be heard in a big environment with the biggest crowd imaginable.” That’s what that music said to me and that’s why I wanted to be involved.
I want to thank you for bringing BBC 1Xtra to Houston. That was a big game changer for years because Houston fought for years to get attention on our scene and you put people like Trae tha Truth, Devin the Dude, Bun B and the Grit Boys live in concert on the BBC and I’m sorry you don’t get much bigger than the BBC when it comes to something like this. Was that a hard sell to 1Xtra?
Naw because at the time I was working with great people. Ray Paul, the station manager at the time was always asking what’s next, and I would tell him and he knew I knew what I was talking about. He trusted my take on hip hop. He trusted my ability to connect with people. My hip hop passport, I’ve got a few stamps on it. So to put in calls to people like yourself or in San Francisco or anywhere else, I’m official. I don’t do the fuck shit. My record, my reputation is pretty flawless.
Well you took a lot of chances too.
I never saw them as chances because I knew what it meant. I knew that it was culturally significant and if it’s culturally significant it’s not really a chance from my point of view. It’s my duty to fight for greatness. It’s my duty to help the next artist come through. I don’t mind looking crazy if I’m the only person pointing out this is going to be the next thing. I’m confident with my opinion, I’ve done it many times before. I don’t need validation from anyone else. To the point that right now there is a debate about the state of UK Rap and I’ve said that it’s the greatest time ever for UK rap and it’s elementary when you look at the global appeal, when you look at the advances that have been made, when you look at the number of rappers that now exist. The numbers of UK rap millionaires, the number of people trying to get noticed. Twenty years ago it would cost twenty grand to put out a Mix CD or a white label record and you would hope a UK DJ would hear you and maybe support you. Now a kid can go on TikTok and be viral worldwide over night. So yeah it’s in the greatest place it’s ever been. It might not be the best quality wise but the genre is in the greatest place it’s ever been. It’s interesting having that debate because I’m shocked by how many people don’t get it because I’ve seen it from the beginning. I’ve seen the struggle, I’ve seen where it’s gone. It will get even greater.
Well there is no denying that the access to this music has advanced. Even where I live I can hear this music.
I saw a clip this morning of three guys on the 95 South Show and they were like taking the piss out of the UK rap acts and making fun of the accents and slang like reciting their take on UK Rap lyrics and it goes on for about four minutes and they are laughing their heads off about it, and my first instinct is to be offended by it because I’m looking at it like “You would not do that if you were over here, you would be very very different.” Because you couldn’t come here on that type of smoke. You would get dealt with. But then I looked at it from another angle and this is UK Rap culture being parroted. That has never happened before. I don’t know who these 95 South guys are, I know they have a lot of traffic and everything else, but the fact that they are taking time out of their day to mock UK rap and parody it in their own way means they have been exposed to it. Their references are right. I can tell who they been listening to and it’s not just Central C. And there’s trailblazers who embraced UK rap first, like French Montana had features with Cerose and DVS, Dre London who manages Post Malone hooked that up. Dre London did that when he was out here in the trenches in 2016. And what ASAP Rocky did with Skepta on “Praise the Lord” he put Skepta on as a producer and a featured artist and on the hook, it’s an incredible international co-sign and that’s happening more and more frequently now to the point where it’s not really news. It’s a great time irrefutably and it’s gonna get greater.
Obviously 95 South has heard this music and they are showing that it’s having some reach and I know where 95 South the road is and music from their region was getting made fun of for a long time. I think about what’s happening now is really beautiful because it was work to get Pimp C on a song with Dizzee Rascal. Bun B was open to it but to hear UGK and a UK artist back then, some guys from Port Arthur who were still underground even though they had a huge fanbase, reaching the UK. They were on Dizzee’s album and Dizzee was on their album. I love to see those collaborations to this day. What’s next for you?
What’s next for me is I want to create big international bangers myself as DJ Semtex featuring and so forth. I love what DJ Snake did with “Turn Down For What,” and as a DJ I can play that in any club and it just goes off, worldwide. It’s a festival banger, it’s inspiring to see how big he’s taken what he does and he dips in and out of different genres. We were in an arena for the Kanye West listening party in the beginning of the year and someone told me that DJ Snake’s gonna be doing that and I was like, wow I want to do this. Now for me I am evolving into the producer/DJ/artist because I know I can do it and I want to do it and I love touring and I love DJing and doing festivals so I want to be able to do festivals where I am shutting down shows with my own music. I started making records a few years ago and it’s definitely been a struggle. I didn’t want to just take a track and put and artist on it and put it out, I have produced everything myself and I want to do it all myself and I’ve got some bangers lined up.
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