Bonafide issue 04 by Bonafide Magazine

SOME OTHER UPCOMING SOUNDCRASH SHOWS FLYING LOTUS 26/10/10 SOUNDWAVE CROATIA FESTIVAL REUNION 04/12/10 ANDREYA TRIANA 13/12/10 AUDIO-VISUAL SPECIAL: HEXSTATIC/DJ FOOD/CHEEBA 18/12/10 BEARDYMAN 09/03/11 JAGA JAZZIST 29/03/11 SOUNDWAVE CROATIA FESTIVAL 22-24/07/11 TICKETS/INFO: WWW.SOUNDCRASHMUSIC.COM

BONAFIDE 04 IT’S BEEN A SRNGE OLD SUMMER FOR OUR FIR ISLND, ONE TAT HAS BEEN WEIGHED DOWN WIT EXPECTATION, FOR WHICH TE ASSAILNS RESPONSIBLE HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO DELIVER. Two events stand out. The first was the general election, which galvanised young voters in a way that hasn’t been seen in a generation. The resulting coalition promised fairness but early signs ring of familiar Tory policy; job cuts, tax hikes and a costly University education reserved for the privileged few. June brought with it high hopes that England’s ‘golden generation’ of footballers would finally deliver, this time at South Africa’s brightly hosted World Cup. What followed was a series of insipid displays void of creativity and riddled with the sort of defensive naivety you would expect to see in the lower leagues at Hackney Marshes. But it’s not all glum faces and storm clouds in the UK, during the past 12 + months our little island has birthed some of the most forward thinking and exciting music of recent times. Rooted in hip-hop, bass and electronic, but ultimately working beyond these musical boundaries, this is some good, heavy and diverse sheet that has got people excited and taking notice. So much so, that we’ve deemed it worthy of a special Bonafide investigation. Of the new bucks, we speak to Eglo Record’s future funk soul diva Fatima,dedicate reviews to the Multiverse: Dark Matter release, the Bristol based Tectonic label who are adding to the city’s rich musical heritage, and the 7x7Beat LP from the Dublin based All City, a nascent label blurring the dots between electronica and hip-hop.

From new-jacks to old masters, we catch up with renaissance man, Jamie Lidell, celebrate UK label Ninja Tune with an excerpt from Stevie Chick’s excellent retrospect, Ninja Tune: 20 Years of Beats and Pieces and feature several bastions of the UK underground rap scene including cover star Klashnekoff, Jehst and the ever-eloquent Ty. We also take a moment to doff our caps to one of the most exciting musical collectives to emerge from outside of the UK in recent years; the LA based Brainfeeder. We get the lowdown from follicle nut job and this issues special non-UK guest, The Gaslamp Killer on what makes him and the familia tick. From an art perspective we speak to three very different outfits; design whizz kids Oscar & Ewan, agent provocateur D*Face and Slinkachu, a name you may not be familiar but who’s work you no doubt will be. What’s more this issue features two brand new sections; a roundtable discussion with BBC 1xtra DJs Benji B, Mista Jam and DJ Target, and Prose-Ache, a short fiction column with writer and Big Dada head honcho Will Ashon as the inaugural editor. All in, a mish-mash of experimental culture brought to you in a magazine that is aiming to test the water, take risks and uncover people, art and fashion, who are Bonafide.

ROLL CLL MUSIC Jamie Lidell We set out to understand the amorphorus sounds and ambitions of Jamie Lidell

1Xtra A BBC 1Xtra roundtable discuss the past, present and future of UK urban music

Cappo One man’s ambition to spaz the world on his own terms

YNR Productions YNR head honcho Jehst reﬂects on 10 years of ups and downs at YNR

Klashnekoff K-Lash re-ups, reloads and takes us deep into the sagas that stitch UK hip-hop together

Fatima A portrait of the Swedish soulstress currently sprinkling her unique magic

TY An intimate and unﬂinching conversation with the ever honest UK hip-hop vet.

Ninja Tune An exclusive excerpt from the forthcoming book that documents the birth of the label

Skitz Or Daddy Skitz to you, discusses his follow-up to the groundbreaking Countryman LP

Selected Listening We cup our ears to the new sounds from way out

The Gaslamp Killer A guest appearance from our boisterous cousin from across the Atlantic

FSHION Bonaﬁde Fashion Shoot UK’s inner city tribes exposed

Tied Together Documenting Team Bonaﬁde’s contribution to Nike (Red)

ART Oscar and Ewan Investigating big design concepts with the London based creative duo

Slinkachu Putting the lives of little people under the microscope

D-Face On the wing with the graphic designer turned leading street an-art-chist

Prose-Ache An exclusive short ﬁction column from writer and Big Dada head-honcho Will Ashon

STAFF Editor: James Grifﬁn Music Editor: David Kane Graphic Design: Paul Allworthy Fashion Editor: Jade Stavri Copy Editor: Kieran Hadley, Copy Editor: Becci Woods Feature Editor: John Whybrow

CONTACT Advertising enquiries: advertising@bonafidezine.com Stock and General enquiries: mailbox@bonafidezine.com Anything else, head to: www.bonafidezine.com

WORDS John Whybrow, Ricky Kershaw, Danna Takako Hawley, Steve Chick, Andrew Spragg, Joel Harris, Leke Sanusi, Will Coldwell, Disorda, Ian Hsieh, Will Ashon, Ceritﬁed Banger, Groovement

VISUALS/PHOTOGRAPHY Cover Photo: Yev Kazannik Features: Anna Higgie, Jimmy Mould, Alexander Jordan, Azza Suliman, Nick Taylor, Chad Kouri, Emilski, Yev Kazanik

SHOUTS: Rosie@Tru Thoughts, Maddy & James@Ninja Tune, Lee@BBE, Rod@Doctors Orders, Rob & James@Soundcrash, James@Macked, Disorda, Chris Renwick, Penelope Robson, Big up to everyone who featured in the issue and everyone who picked up a copy. Peace.

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MUSIC AN INSIGH INO TE UK’S TOWERING MUSICL TALEN

www. ww w an anna nahi na higg hi gg gie ie.ccom

JAMIE LIDELL FUSING DISPARTE ELEMENS OF SOUL, ELECTRONIC, BLUES AND FOLK AMONG MANY OTERS, COMPASS IS AN INSIGH INO A MAN WHOSE CRETIVE INNOCENCE DOESN’T CONFINE HIM TO TE LIMITS OF ANY ONE SYLE OTER TAN HIS OWN. WORDS: JOHN WHYBROW

VISUALS: ANNA HIGGIE

Lidell’s music shines with an insouciance that has seen him gain a loyal international following, as well as broad critical acclaim within the industry, as the buzz around this latest release testifies. “Amid the grey, the colours stand out,” says Lidell, referring to his hometown of Huntingdon, also home to Oliver Cromwell and John Major. “Well, in the hair department, I’m definitely like Cromwell,” he says. Good banter, given that I’m phoning him at the end of a five hour interview session. Indeed, the likeness goes further than hair: Jamie Lidell is leading a musical revolution on his own terms, and is bringing houses down from Brooklyn to Berlin via Brussels and beyond. After the successes of 2005’s Multiply and 2008’s Jim, comes Compass, an LP co-produced by none other than the somewhat labour-frenzied Beck and featuring a host of accomplices from Feist to former Bill Withers studio drummer James Gadson. It’s a piece of work that sees Lidell take his music in, he says, “the right direction,” adding quickly, “that’s not to say that my music was taking the wrong direction before, I just feel that it’s the right direction for where I am now.” The album’s title extends beyond the usual cut-anddry metaphor, as if Lidell really is navigating by some secret inner compass. “My life took a major 360 and I ended up back at a kind of crossroads, and those are always the good parts of life really

aren’t they? You get to take another road, I’d done Jim, I’d done Multiply, and thought who am I? Who the fuck am I now? What’s worth saying, worth doing, worth making?” A few revelations later and you begin to sense that his is a compass for navigating the past rather than the future. “It was good to be at that spot and to know the answer in a way,” he says with conviction, “because you know the way. If you can be bothered to ask yourself properly which way to go, you just know. Sometimes you don’t want to bother, ‘cause it’s too painful, or it’s easier to just go down the pub.” The last two years saw a lot of emotional turbulence for Lidell, “I took to writing everything down, which gave me a lot to sift through and think about. Musically, I was turned-off a little bit, almost getting on a sort of weird auto-pilot mode, and I wasn’t really buzzing in a way, so I thought, man I’ve got to get that buzz, I’ve got to get that buzz back.” He goes on to explain, “when you’re going through a shit time, all you want is for that time to end and to be in a good place, and when you get into that good place all you want, in a way, is to … >>

IF YOU CAN BE BOTHERED TO ASK YOURSELF PROPERLY WHICH WAY TO GO,YOU JUST KNOW. SOMETIMES YOU DON’T WANT TO BOTHER, ‘CAUSE IT’S TOO PAINFUL, OR IT’S EASIER TO JUST GO DOWN THE PUB.

forget about the bad place. But the nature of trying to make art, to an extent, is not doing that.” So, as an artist, you need those bad places? “Yes, you need those bad places, but you’ve also got to revisit them, and let some of those feelings come out, which is what this record was all about.” Using the compass to guide him back to those dark places, Lidell has learned to catalyse the despair, to look at it through his own prism, resulting in a genuinely unique sound. Listening to the album, it’s clear he is indeed going where he wants to be going, and no doubt should be going. Melodically as catchy as some of the more pop-pandering efforts on Jim, while still managing to retain the raw, quirky fundamentals of Multiply, Compass is full of surprises. Die-hard Warp afﬁliates may not be convinced - but this is an album that sees Lidell settle into his sound and do what he does best. His voice has reached a certain maturity and he wears it well. On the opening track Completely Exposed, mouth-organ bass blends with beatbox percussion at the low-end, as Lidell reaches near alto proportions yelping out heartfelt lyrics. Lines such as “Please, please pull me out of here, I’ve been down too long, I don’t wanna be closed, but opening up has left me completely exposed” do more than hint at the frayed heartstrings which Lidell has tried to repair.

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Yet, and this is where the album really succeeds, there are so many manifestations to his catharsis, that you can’t help but be drawn in, through one dark hole or another. If baying like a vulnerable dog isn’t your bag, then try The Ring, with its mad-funk kazoo-like melody and thumping, feet-stomping beat. Or maybe you’re after a bit more aggression, in the form of the mind-bending feedback, distorted guitars and near-death-metal drums offered by You Are Walking. More than a few tracks build to a violent crescendo, as though a gentle swim in a familiar stream has ended in the midst of a maelstrom powerful enough to test Captain Ahab himself. There can be no denying the buoyant inﬂuence of such luminaries as Prince and James Brown, but Lidell’s dark streak is at ease here too, as if confronting his demons was a regular chore, like hoovering the stairs. “I’m not that way inclined normally, and I realised that most of the time I just want to run away if I can, which is bollocks really, ‘cause you’ll just end up sad. It’s hard to remain open but that’s kind of my new resolution, to remain open.” Consequently, he stands out amid swathes of selfabsorbed celebrities as an artist capable of a more composed self-analysis, looking at the tangle of knots and working out how to unravel them, to the greater good of his audience.

Pho hoto tog ogra rap aphy: hy Li L nds dsseyy Rom Rome e

It must be a concern then, when everything is cruisy and the touchstone of despair is nowhere to be seen, what then? “I deﬁnitely think that when you’re comfortable you stop thinking, in a way, which is a great place to be in terms of living. With someone like Stevie Wonder for instance, there’s some really jubilant music out there which is fucking amazing, it doesn’t have to be shoegazing mayhem every time, you know? But I can’t imagine there will come a time when I don’t hear music, because there’s always little things, even during the course of one day. When are you ever going to go through a week where there’s no stress, no turbulence? Every day has crazy ups and downs, that’s just life.” Lidell appears to be orienteering his way through more than just life’s dark patches too; touring with an extended group of musicians requires him to step up to the helm and navigate other obstacles with authority. “I’m trying to keep it balanced, trying to work out how to be the band-leader boss kind of guy, with a good mix of discipline and having a laugh, while trying to put on something that’s really worthy.” And it comes as no surprise

ALTHOUGH I NOW LIVE IN NEW YORK, I WAS IN BERLIN FOR 10 YEARS. I HAD 50 PEOPLE ON MY GUEST-LIST AND IT WASN’T ONE OF THOSE SHOWS WHERE I COULD KIND OF DELIVER - I HAD TO NAIL IT. that such an affable man struggles with the idea of retaining a strict professionalism among his artistic peers, “I’ve never really liked being the boss, I’ll be honest, I never like to boss people around and I don’t like having a boss, so I resent being one in a way, but at the same time it’s … >>

really necessary and ultimately, when you do it well everyone feels brilliant.” There is also the pressure from an expectant audience; New York’s The Bowery, and The Troubador in LA were both sell out shows, but it was a return to Berlin that held special signiﬁcance for the one-time resident. “Berlin was a big one for me, that was actually the most nerve-racking of the shows. Although I now live in New York, I was in Berlin for ten years. I had 50 people on my guest-list and it wasn’t one of those shows where I could kind of deliver I had to nail it.” So why leave a city as creatively rich and diverse as Berlin - a city that evidently held so much history for him - for the bright lights and boomboxes of NYC? Was it a Sinatra-esque pull, did he feel he had to make it there to be able to make it anywhere? “No, no,” he says calmly, “I left for the love of a good woman. It wasn’t a career move, it was a love move. I mean, just a change of scene alone will do a lot for you, but to be in a better place emotionally, that’s hard to top.” Which just about counts as Sinatraesque in the Bonaﬁde books.

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Doubtless, the fast-paced and furious faces of the city provide a healthy stimulus to productivity, but when asked how a change in environment affects his approach to music, Lidell embarks on another reflective pause, and you can almost hear his eyes glazing over, as if trying to grasp at something that’s just beyond him. “I’ve been asked this a few times, and I don’t really know what the place does, but at the same time, it definitely does something. There’s no doubt about it, living in Berlin does have that perpetual Sunday kind of feeling, whereas living in New York is more like every-second-counts,” like a perpetual Monday morning? “Yeah, I guess, and the urgency kicks into the music - or the making of it at least but...” He trails off. Of the many reasons then, it may be that the most likely cause for the move was that he was simply following his inner compass - did I hear someone say heart? And as for Huntingdon, will it take him back there one day? “Imagine a grey, cultureless place... now if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Frank Sinatra should have been singing about Huntingdon, maybe that’s what I should do! Maybe the ultimate psalm in my repertoire would be an ode to Huntingdon High Street.” Don’t forget peeps, you heard it here first.

1XTR ROUNDTABLE FOR TIS UK SPECIAL BONAFIDE WEN TO TE BASION OF GRET BRITISH MEDIA, TE BBC’S RDIO 1 CENRE FOR A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION WIT 1XTR DJS BENJI B, MISA JAM AND DJ TARGET.

Benji B

DJ Target

WORDS: DAVID KANE

Mista Jam

PICTURES: JIMMY MOULD

After a period of careful negotiation we finally managed to set up the interview with the proviso that I submit all questions to the press and communications department beforehand, surely the journalistic equivalent of unwrapping a particularly well-vacuumed box of prophylactics moments before intercourse, in terms of awkwardness. As it stood, only one question got the chop, one that revolved around the ultimately safe resolution of the Beeb’s independent music favouring station, Radio 6. Benji B and Mista Jam have a wealth of DJ experience; the former having presented his Deviation show on 1xtra since the stations inception in 2002, with a music policy joining the dots between dubstep, funky, garage, Detroit techno and hip-hop with a ‘soulful twist’. His influential and intimate club night of the same name was the first in Europe to host live performances by Flying Lotus and Dam Funk.

While Nottingham born Mista Jam hosted a number of larger scale MC-driven events (UK Takeover) throughout the 00s that by his own admission ‘never made any money’. Mista Jam (real name Pete Dalton) is also a trained actor, having appeared in the nations one time ‘fourth favourite soap’, Crossroads, and evidently he is the most expressive of today’s round table participants. DJ Target is the youngest member of the forum and the newest addition to 1xtra as the Homegrown - a UK exclusive show – host. His trajectory has been different to both Benji B and Mista Jams as he is one of the producers behind grime pioneers Roll Deep.

Because of the 1xtra remit, you guys have the enviable task of unearthing and promoting new music for a job, but are there any particular albums or artists you ﬁnd yourselves returning to for inspiration? MJ: Because I have the new music show I don’t get much of a chance to return to the older stuff. Luckily for me I get inspired by new music and I believe we’re experiencing a really good time for music. DJ-T: Jam kind of hit the nail on the head. Whereas two to three years ago I might have had to dig out an old CD or look to America (for inspiration) I think now the UK has got the scene by the balls, so I’m hearing new music that I get inspired by all the time. BB: The turnover is ridiculous. But in terms of personal time, if I want to escape then yes there are 10-20 classic albums I return to. Its sort of a personal zone because you know it means something to you; you know where you’re going to with it. These could be very different to what I play, like Voodoo by D’angelo, which is one of my favourite records of all time, it’s a very personal thing but I could listen to that record all day everyday for weeks without getting sick of it. There’s also Talking Books by Stevie (Wonder), Shuggie Otis. Not stuff I would necessarily play in the club at all. And I think that’s a relevant

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point, that there are fewer albums now. The concept of the album may be a dated thing but personally I still quite enjoy it. Returning to the new music tip, what was the last track that you heard that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? MJ: I heard some of Skream’s new album that he’s working on at the moment; a couple of tracks with a singer called Jasmine and the only way I could describe it, as is ‘future garage’. DJ-T: For me I get that feeling a couple times a month. I was listening to Drake’s album today and there’s a track called Resistance, which I was listening to the whole way here on repeat. A lot of Drake’s stuff just gets me. BB: That happened for me with (Drake’s single) Over, the music, the production and the fact that in one moment he’s reminding you how shit so much of the stuff (music) is by just being good. Over is some aspirational tune. I played that loads on my show when I ﬁrst heard it and I even got some hate on it because people didn’t think it ﬁt the show. When I go out and I hear that it makes me feel good, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Well, it did anyway. More recently I’ve had it a couple of times, there’s this new EP coming out by Mala, who

I believe makes music on a deep, almost spiritual level and there’s two tracks in particular which stand out, one track called Return to Space and another called Eyes and it’s the type of music that gets you excited to go out and DJ. Fortunately I get that feeling quite often. Despite the subtle musical differences between your shows you’ve all made a success for yourself in a very competitive area of the industry, was there ever a period when that didn’t look likely to happen? And do you remember the point when things started to take shape for you? DJ-T: I just loved mixing, making tapes, going onto pirate radio. It never occurred to me that I could make a living out of it until suddenly I was. I suppose a particular turning point was when we were doing Pay As You Go Cartel on pirate radio. We (Pay As You Go Cartel) weren’t making any money, just a few gigs here and there, the clubs slowly started getting bigger and then we got a call from one of the big garage agents at the time that wanted us to sign with them. Then they started sending us off on gigs all around the country, ﬁve or six a week, at the time I was still living at home and had little outgoings so I started noticing the money coming in. Got studio time, started coming on to 1xtra and then I had my own show.

BB: I think you can apply that story with different details to anyone that has succeeded in specialist music, and it’s not a calculated thing. I’m fortunate to say it is something that has happened to me without making it happen, but without realising it you do make it happen. Because the thing that we’ve got which so many people in life aren’t fortunate enough to have is passion. If your thing in life is ﬁlm, and all you care about is being a director then you will be one. But unfortunately a lot of people don’t have that drive in life, doesn’t matter whether you’re into gardening, cooking… and for me, and I’m sure you guys, I live, breathe and eat music. It [music] is actually my wife, and for any woman who comes into my life, she knows that I’m already married, and she’s going to have to deal with the other woman in my life! MJ: Being the only married man sitting here I have to say I love my wife more than I love music! .................. >>

Obviously I pulled a few moves, you had to hustle to make your way up, I remember when I was 15 and I’d bunk a train to Reading to get to the distribution place for the latest test pressing. No one from my area was doing that; they were going to the same record shops (adopts a donkey style voice) going ‘got any promos mate?’ ‘No’. It isn’t an accident but I was never intending to make a career, it was just because I wanted those tunes. It was the passion really.

LOOK AT SOMEONE LIKE AFRIKA BAMBAATAA, HE BOUGHT KRAFTWERK RECORDS BECAUSE HE COULDN’T MAKE THEM HIMSELF AND I THINK THE AMERICANS ARE DOING THAT NOW WITH UK URBAN MUSIC.

DJ-T: A lot of people I grew up with were making music but when they faced some problems, a few bumps in the road they were like ‘Nah, I can’t be bothered now’. But you’ve got to ride those bumps. BB: I think a lot of people aren’t built for this. Don’t get it twisted; there are months when you’re eating and other months when you’re kind of real. Some people aren’t built for that; they want their cheque every month. I’ve never been a prisoner of that sort of conventional lifestyle. DJ-T: Some people who look at us and don’t know how the scene works think some sort of guardian angel comes down and taps us on the shoulder and says you, you and you… But there are some exceptions where that does happen right? My last job was at Universal – I won’t say which label – and the head of A&R came into my ofﬁce area and asked me what music I had on and I told him ESG and he looked at me blankly and asked were they signed. He was the son of that particular label’s Managing Director. MJ: There are deﬁnitely exceptions but not in the world we operate from. For me and my peers the one thing that completely separates us from plenty of others is that we have worked our arses off and continue to work our arses off. BB: But there’s also the knowledge, I’ve got tapes from the early 80s where I recorded radio shows.

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Now a 16 year old can go round his friend’s house and leave with 15 years worth of music, but they don’t have the context. Why one record ﬁts with another, that’s something that comes over time and being respectful of DJ culture. Some of your peers at 1xtra have started labels – Gilles Peterson, Rob Da Bank – is that something that appeals to you? Target I understand you already have something set up with Wiley? DJ-T: We’ve got a Roll Deep label, and my own label but I haven’t brought anything out. Just behind the scenes DVDs, mixtapes by Danny Weed (fellow Roll Deep producer) and me. Even before we had a label we were selling white labels out the back of our cars, going around all the different record shops, in the good old days when you could get cash up front. BB: How many Eskimo white labels did Wiley sell? DJ-T: He made well into six ﬁgures just off white labels. He would sell the shit ones for £3 each. I remember once we had 3000 white labels and my Punto was doing wheelies it was so heavy. We took it to Ammunition (a distribution plant) and Danny Weed came out with £10k in cash, we were still really young at the time, we were like ‘shit!’ BB: But without really knowing it, that’s the original punk ethic. With me it was really quite simple, in the late 90s I had quite a few offers for A&R jobs

2-3 YEARS AGO I MIGHT HAVE HAD TO DIG OUT AN OLD CD OR LOOK TO AMERICA (FOR INSPIRATION) I THINK NOW THE UK HAS GOT THE SCENE BY THE BALLS

but I knew quite a few people in the industry at the time and I made a conscious decision that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go down. I saw what it did to people, not necessarily a bad thing but it was completely all consuming. And at that time I didn’t want to be that A&R guy driving the tasty company car all around London. That’s different now. In the 00s if you started a record label after 2005 you’re basically mad or extremely passionate and I salute those people that do the labour of love for the sake of it. But I think it’s coming round full circle now for people like me who come from a more traditional record buying background. I love it that I can buy a track on Juno or Boomkat and that I can have my little bit of artwork and WAV format so I can bang it in the club and it’s not some crap 128 kbps. So this means it (the digital music era) is coming of age so you can legitimately have a label now and put records out digitally. So I’m kind of open to the idea again but it’s just a question of ﬁnding the time. But you’re fooling yourself if you think it’s like the good old days where Roll Deep were able to sell 10k units out the back of the car. In urban music over the last few years there seems to have been a fantastic cross pollination of styles from dub-step through to funky and the renaissance of garage that you’ve all helped support but who are the

artists responsible for this phenomenon of new instrumental music? DJ-T: I’d hate to say Roll Deep, but I have to. Because when we made our first album in 2005 coming from grime – underground, dark music, it really said what it did on the tin – we said ‘lets try some other stuff, a bit of pop, a bit of this and that’. And we went and did it. At first people from the (grime) scene turned their nose up at it but if you look at that scene now a lot of the main artists have crossed over, and I really believe if we didn’t do that then it might have taken longer to do so. MJ: I think it’s a generation thing, I wouldn’t want to pick any artist but I think you’ll find it’s people who were born in the late 70s, early 80s and grew up in the 90s where it wasn’t strange to see people like Oasis being knocked off the top of the charts by people like Warren G or some big dance record. You had the birth of jungle, drum n bass, garage. That 20-year period where almost every important form of dance music in the UK came into existence. So now in 2010 there are people who have grown up listening to all of that it’s no surprise to hear people like Tinie Tempah at the top of the charts and at the end of the record it breaks out into drum n bass. Throughout the record you can hear echoes of Dre-esque west coast bump, jungle, garage. You can hear all of it in this music that has become the dominant popular music and that’s because the people who made it grew up listening to all these different styles.

BB: Once upon a time as a DJ you’d build up breaks and go digging. You used to save up and buy equipment; MPC, SP12, or your bad outboard Akai and by the time you got to making music it was almost overly informed. Now you’re 16 with music technology at your ﬁngertips, and it just comes out and that’s what all art should be. Art is when stuff just comes out of you and you don’t think about it too hard. So all those kids are doing all this amazing art and ultimately it’s changing music forever and I think we’re about to enter this new golden era of dance music right now. Do you feel that traditional radio is more under threat than ever before due to the avalanche of MP3 driven blogs and streaming sites? DJ-T: At the BBC I’m sure myself and other DJs purposefully seek out the way of playing the highest quality format track that is available. I wouldn’t say ‘under threat’ because a specialist DJ will always be a specialist DJ. BB: People still need to be told what’s good. There needs to be a commissioning editor that decides what does and doesn’t make it onto TV. I’m deciding what makes it and what doesn’t make it onto my show because I feel I have

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a good idea in my experience of what I’m into or what you should and shouldn’t have the opportunity to check out. But as a larger version of that, fortunately for Target, Jam and myself the BBC have picked us out as people they think are worthy to be the filter of that stuff (style of music), and it’s an honour to be able to do it. DJ-T: That’s it; because we have this responsibility as a filter I literally listen to everything I’ve been sent for the homegrown show. There’s so much music and it’s important that there are people like us to ensure that the good stuff gets to the listener. And you don’t feel blogs or streaming sites can adequately provide that filter? BB: No I don’t, because of what’s happened with the Internet now everyone is an expert, if you put your mind to it you can put together a pretty looking Wordpress and everyone has access to Wikipedia. It goes back to the same thing just because you can look up who Larry Levan or Marley Marl is on Wikipedia doesn’t mean you have experience of the lineage of that music, that’s something you amass over time and how

that has directly affected you. In one sense the Internet is a wonderful thing because it creates a democracy and gives everyone a voice but there are certain voices I just don’t want to hear. MJ: I read blogs and write my own, but blogging is like deejaying, if you’re not passionate about it you will soon be found out very quickly and people will stop checking it. Rap has always been a very masculine music but I think it’s probably more liberal, even apathetic towards most issues, than it has ever been. Yet the idea of homosexuality in hip-hop, be it a MC, Producer, DJ or even a prominent industry ﬁgure – outside of an insulting context is still unheard of, completely taboo even. Why do you think that still is?.. MJ: The day of change is the day Dr Dre or someone of a similar level of respect comes out then immediately everybody else will have to change the mindset. DJ-T: Hip-hop culture would have pretended there’s not gays in it but of course there is, there’s gays in football, there must be…it’s a stupid thing, because you don’t want to be on the small team…

BB: It’s kind of a loaded question, and more of a cultural one I think. I do remember the end of the 90s, early 00s, with the blacked out picture with the ‘Who is the gay rapper?’ headline in Source magazine. You only had to see recently with the sad passing of Guru, and the supposed business relationship or a personal involvement he had with his so called partner Solar, and the (user) comments (left) on Nah Right and other blogs for the vitriolic level of homophobia that still exists (in hip-hop). MJ: But that still exists in ghetto communities at large. OK, a little less taboo now. Traditionally UK rap has always found it difﬁcult to gain respect for it’s MCs from the States, do you think that is changing at all? BB: Massively. MJ: I think the thing is with the States they’ve always respected numbers and they’ve respected skill. On a skill level we always have respect from people in the States who have paid attention to what we do lyrically in the UK. What we haven’t had is numbers; we never had a number one … >>

record, now we’ve got that which is why they’re paying a bit more attention. Plus musically it’s more exciting in the UK. When you’ve got Diddy talking at length on Twitter over which rapper out of JME or Skepta he’s going to sign to a record then you know something’s going well. He feels the time is right, he’s a businessman and can see these guys are breaking the charts and that the pound is stronger than the dollar. BB: But there’s nothing more hip-hop than that than doing your own thing. I think in a way again it’s about identity and I think now that British identity really zings out. And do you think that’s only a recent development?

THE INTERNET IS A WONDERFUL THING BECAUSE IT CREATES A DEMOCRACY AND GIVES EVERYONE A VOICE BUT THERE ARE CERTAIN VOICES I JUST DON’T WANT TO HEAR.

BB: In terms of conﬁdence, yes certainly. DJ-T: We always felt as a (urban) music scene in the UK we were inferior to America, no one thinks that anymore. We know we are level with them, maybe they’re earning much more money out of it, but in terms of talent we’re at least level with them now.

Featuring brand new, exclusive music and remixes from: Amon Tobin, Roots Manuva, The Cinematic Orchestra, Mr. Scruff, The Bug, Autechre, Benga, Cut Chemist, Modeselektor, Diplo, Gold Panda, Joe Goddard, The Orb, Tom Middleton, Metronomy, Micachu, Gaslamp Killer, Kronos Quartet, Mala, Zomby, Jaga Jazzist, Bonobo, Toddla T, Daedelus, Dorian Concept, Dan Le Sac, Eskmo, Mark Pritchard, Rustie, 808 State, Tunng, Floating Points, Jammer, Wagon Christ, Kid Koala, cLOUDDEAD and more...

MJ: We’re making music now that we can be very proud of, if you look at someone like Afrika Bambaataa he bought Kraftwerk records because he couldn’t make them himself and I think the Americans are doing that now with UK urban music.

2 x 2CD + DNL + Ltd. edition box set with exclusive CDs, vinyl and hardback book “A glorious celebration of Ninja Tune’s “audio splendour”” Independent, Album Of The Week “A stunning Boxed-Set.” The Times 5/5 “A startingly multi-dimensional urban soundscape that’ll surprise die-hard Ninja fans and newcomers a like.” Mixmag 5/5

Released 20th September 2010

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CPPO CPPO AK CPPS IS NOTING SHORT OF A LEGEND ON TE UK HIP-HOP SCENE. IF YOU HAVEN’T AT LES HERD OF HIM TEN YOU’RE NOT A FN. PERIOD. WORDS: CERTIFIEDBANGER.CO.UK Despite such a heavyweight rep’, Cappo remains an enigma. Hailing from the unlikely hip-hop hotbed that is Nottingham, along with Scorzayzee and P Brothers, Cappo’s debut album Spaz The World was a straight-up gem. Since 2003, he’s fallen off the radar but returns triumphantly in 2010 with the Genghis album rearing its powerful head. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cappo… …on dropping Genghis as a ltd edition vinyl First up, when me and Al at Son Records spoke about the release we agreed that it should be done with integrity and at the highest quality possible. The album has been built from scratch and no corners have been cut. It was mixed at the mighty Mark Gamble’s studio where Spaz the World was mixed, so the beats and vocals have that undeniable crunch and sheen that sets it apart from other music. Because we put so much effort into the mixing and mastering of the LP, it was only right that when it was to see the light of day it should done properly and given to the true supporters ﬁrst. We knew that word-of-mouth and anticipation for the album was strong so we put the limited vinyl out quietly and let the real people get it ﬁrst and foremost. I signed and wrote on each vinyl album individually so no two copies are the same and each copy was numbered. We did this because we believe in giving back to the heads who support the music.

…on the meaning of Genghis Genghis is a metaphor for going hard with my music, I’m only interested in music that moves me, so when I go in, I go into Genghis mode. It also is an explanation of how I want the album to be globally recognized as a great achievement. I went through many struggles and changes whilst Genghis was being made and I believe this reveals itself in the music. I want the album to inspire listeners and break preconceptions they may have of what I am and can achieve. This is my magnum opus, so I made it in the frame of mind that it is an unstoppable force that cannot be underestimated. …on name checking historical ﬁgures When I mention a subject or person in my lyrics whether they are famous in history or close to me I am doing it out of the utmost respect for them. I feel namechecking great people in time is my way of giving back to them and also trying to teach others who may not be informed about those certain characters. I have always done this dating back to one of my ﬁrst releases The Codex where one of the tracks is named after Gilgamesh.

I AM COMING TO THE CONCLUSION THAT TO BE HUMBLE AT THIS POINT IN MY CAREER WOULD BE THE WRONG WAY TO GO. I HAVE CONFIDENCE THAT WHAT I AM CREATING IS VALID AND CORRECT AND WILL BE LOOKED TO IN THE FUTURE FOR REFERENCE AND AS INSPIRATION.

…on history I have a great interest in history and people who have advanced the world in different ways. More than most things I would like to leave a legacy that I advanced the world also. This is why I work so hard with the music, constantly trying to reinvent my skills so I can set myself apart from any competition. I am a perfectionist and I am coming to the conclusion that to be humble at this point in my career would be the wrong way to go. I have confidence that what I am creating is valid and correct and will be looked to in the future for reference and as inspiration. …on Chev Chelios, Crank and Jason Statham I name check Chev Chelios because he is the indestructible man who you can’t stop. The second film ends with him on fire, still moving forward with no intentions of quitting. That’s the mentality of myself and Genghis, an incomparable force that will never cease saying ‘Fuck you’ to all non-believers.

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I DON’T BELIEVE THERE NEEDS TO BE OLD OR YOUNG MCS IN THE GAME, THERE JUST NEEDS TO BE MCS WHO ARE DOPE AND WHO KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO KILL A VERSE ON A BREAK.

…on being a producer All the beats on the album where built and produced by myself and overseen by The Theorist and the legendary DJ Styly Cee. I have learned about the art of production by working with the best and feel I have transferred my knowledge into Genghis. It was always my intention to make the album myself because beat making, alongside rhyme writing, has been my profession for nearly a decade. I believe Genghis is very different from anything I have released before and I can say truly that this is the best product I have ever released up to this point in my career. I intended it to travel over the presumptions of critics and hit on a global level. It’s like I explain on Most Wanted I spaz the universe this time! …on the Nottingham scene and its revival I’m always part of the Notts scene because that’s where I’m from and I will always rep’ for that. I hope there will be a revival of the rap scene here and in a lot of other places as well. As far as I’m concerned I’m here all the time working on new product and dealing with life as Capps like I always have been. I want to rise above the opinions and presumptions of non-believers and take my music further and onto an international level. I want to do this without letting the music lose its heart or integrity. I know that it’s a long process, but I am steadfast and strong in my belief that this goal is achievable in the next few years.

On Cyrus Malachi, Iron Braydz and the kind of MC hip-hop needs Both Cyrus Malachi and Iron Braydz are heavyweight rhymers and it was a privilege to work with them on the Needle Drop. I wouldn’t categorise them as conscious rappers, I would say they are ill MCs period. I don’t believe there needs to be old or young MCs in the game, there just needs to be MCs who are dope and who know what it means to kill a verse on a break. The greatest MCs are known for their skill on the mic so that’s who I look to for inspiration. …on Bono’s statement that hip-hop is “Amazingly sophisticated pop music” In certain ways I can agree with that because hip-hop and rap is now one of the biggest selling forms of music on the planet so that would make it popular. A lot of the hip-hop music I listen to is sophisticated so I would agree with that too. …on hip-hop getting grown I feel hip-hop is growing and changing all the time and that’s one of its best attributes. I try to stay alongside it and ﬁnd the goodness that’s always there, but perhaps more concealed nowadays. When I look back and look forward I see the same rules apply when it’s broken down to its rawest form, to be great you have to have the skills to inspire and the ability to be the best in your profession.

Genghis is out now. Check www.sonrecords.com

YNR PRODUCTIONS

WORDS: RICKY KERS RSHAW Independent artists and their labels, they come and they go. At the dustier end of the UK’s hip-hop scene, more often than not they go and don’t come back. Whether it’s apathy from either fans or artists, the behemoth major labels they’re competing against or simply the financial logistics of turning beats and rhymes into food and shelter, the shelves of crate diggers all across the land are littered with B-Boys and Girls from Blighty who came, briefly sparkled and disappeared just as quickly. Some though, battle those odds and endure, becoming a standard-bearer for their scene, the name in everyone’s top five. For more than a decade now Jehst, at the helm of YNR Productions, has been giving us slices of life from the underbelly of Britain. Hard beats crafted from a hard work ethic and poetic vignettes of the everyday, easily identifiable to any of us who’ve had to re-use a tea bag or light up off the cooker. Bonafide caught up with the man known as Billy Brimstone to talk about the journey himself and his label have been on these last 10 years, and where it all goes next.

SLOWLY MUSICIANS AND FANS ARE TAKING THE POWER BACK, FROM THE CORPORATIONS, FROM THE FUCKIN’ DR EVIL, DARTH VADER EMPIRES AND SHIT.

What made you think 10 years ago you could put your own records out? Good question, what on earth was I thinking? I used to work with a dude from Yorkshire years ago who did one release on a label called Flamegrilled. He was meant to be putting out Premonitions and he just longed it off so I was like, ‘I’ve done all the fucking work now, sod it I’m gonna put it out myself.’ That was literally how it started. There was never a big plan I just thought I’m not gonna let this shit go to waste, I’m gonna do something with it myself. And it still runs very much the same way now, there’s no plan it’s just ‘shit what we gonna do next’? What expectations were there starting out? At first I just wanted the music to be available for people to hear. I was confident in the abilities of everybody involved, I thought guys like Evil Ed, Tommy Evans and Usmaan were amazing. We had our own little thing, we were really cut off. It was Huddersfield, Halifax, Leeds and people didn’t think it was a viable thing for us to be putting music out, so that was the motivation: we deserve to be heard. You’ve got to remember this is before everyone had the Internet on their phone. Just to know that other people out there were into what you were doing was eye-opening. Just to get a cassette in the post, or a phone call, or buck up on someone at a jam and be like ‘oh seen this guy can spit’ that was the difference between now and then ‘cause you couldn’t just go on Google and find people who share your interests.

With so much emphasis online is it easier to connect directly with the people you need to or does it all get lost in the noise? What I’ve noticed from talking to hip-hop DJs is there’s no anthems anymore ‘cause everything’s gone digital so stuff just gets lost. Say for example Redman puts a new album out, you’d expect there to be a big single that a DJ can drop in a club and everyone’s like ‘ah man it’s the new Redman joint!’ But it’s not happening ‘cause of the format music’s being released on, stuff’s not coming out on 12”s, labels aren’t really getting behind one big tune. Nothing’s cohesive and I think that’s symptomatic of the formats and people’s approach to the music. Obviously the technology makes it easier to reach an audience and that’s something that I’m only really starting to embrace now. It’s taken me a while to get the conﬁdence in those methods. Nowadays when people ask me for advice on their release I say ‘well how do you want to do it?’. Because there’s no rules anymore, and that’s kind of beautiful ‘cause slowly musicians and fans are taking the power back, from the corporations, from the fuckin’ Dr Evil, Darth Vader Empires and shit. Can a label your size react quicker to changes in the industry than a major? I always make that point to people who are doing things on an indie level and getting all doom and gloom about it. They’re small enough to manoeuvre and change their whole set up to react to trends.

The lack of risks being taken by majors in a way is making it easier for people who are being true to themselves because they’re not really competing with anyone on majors anymore. Then you’ve got shit like dubstep being so massive. They established that shit on their own terms, pressing up their own vinyl and putting on their own jams, reminding people that you can still do music that way. Big up to all the people who’ve re-established that approach, some straight cottage-industry shit, yeah? Lowlife was the biggest UK indie label back in the day. What did you learn from working with them? I did learn a lot so I have to give credit where it’s due. Sadly, I think now in retrospect the most relevant lesson, which is unfortunately not what the fans are gonna want to hear… I’m sad to say I’ve learned that an independent can rip you off and fuck you over same as a major can. I don’t have any regrets but I think I was naively unrealistic about the whole ‘we’re all in this together, independent, we don’t need the industry’ thing. It was working, you know? But then when everybody started asking where their royalties were, it became a different thing. I think really and truly as much as it achieved as a label and as dope as it was, Lowlife was also very lucky because they almost got the talent by default ‘cause nobody else was putting that shit out. Say something like Falling Down, a lot of what

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made that record big was I’d created a little following for myself on the live circuit. George, who was my manager then, came on board and started organising that shit into a tour, we got K-Lash and them as a support act before ‘[It’s] Murda’ came out. And it has to be said a big part of the success of certain records was down to the artists that were organised and motivated putting in crazy amounts of hours. I think the reason it was short lived and didn’t get as big as it could have been, was because, at a time when there was massive sales and massive interest, the level of investment, and not just ﬁnancial investment but time and resources, was not great. There was a point that if we’d just got our heads together and said ‘right we need 24 hour studio time, two or three in-house producers’, bang, we could have started churning out big albums. And that was where it kind of fell off because there was artists who were willing to work who weren’t facilitated. The reason Falling Down wasn’t followed up within a six or 12 month period is ‘cause it wasn’t facilitated in any way. I don’t want to take credit away ‘cause there’s so much they did that was wicked and the music was wicked. I can’t front, I was a fan before I had any involvement, 98 Series: 1 & 2: incredible records, Future Years was a wicked EP, it raised the bar for production levels so I don’t want to come off like I’m hating and big respect for all the positive shit that Lowlife did but a lot of the shit I learned was

BIG RESPECT FOR ALL THE POSITIVE SHIT THAT LOWLIFE DID BUT A LOT OF THE SHIT I LEARNED WAS GETTING PERSPECTIVE AND SEEING NOT JUST WHAT THEY DID DO BUT WHAT THEY DIDN’T DO

getting perspective and seeing not just what they did do but what they didn’t do and that you have to have this 360. Is ﬁnding new talent to put out as exciting as making a record of your own? For a long time to some extent it was more exciting because I wasn’t being facilitated to make records, so in a way it was more fun to help somebody else do it then at least I’m seeing the end result that I wanna see. It renewed faith that ‘come on we can do this, there’s talent there and the only thing stopping it from being recognised is somebody getting behind them and supporting them’. For a while it was liberating and made me concentrate more on production and learning things that I couldn’t while being an artist in the foreground. Working with other artists is a funny one, you get so much inspiration out of it and so much energy but at the same time it can be very draining. But it’s taught me so much, I used to think when I was making beats I was a producer you get me? There’s people I think have got better beats than me ‘cause I’m a fan but I can safely say I think I’m one of the best producers in hip-hop in this country, hands-down. Because I’m actually producing records. A lot of dudes who say they’re producers it’s like ‘dude but what have you actually produced?’ ‘Oh I did the beat for whatever’ ‘but did you actually produce it, did you make it happen?’

I’m deﬁnitely excited about saying ‘well if I can do this for a rapper then I can do this for anyone’. You start to realise there’s basic skills involved in production beyond the actual programming or composition and you think, I can apply this to any form of music. I could go into a studio with a rock band who’ve got songs they’ve already written and an engineer but you’re still gonna need a producer to make what they’re all doing cohesive. How far do you think UK hip-hop’s come now? Say ﬁve years ago people from the movement I came up with, we were almost thinking ‘Fuck, have we got to make pop records now?’ ‘cause it was like: ‘You’re the top boys and now you’re gonna go big so where’s your chart record?’. We can’t do that shit. People like us ‘cause we make the grimy, hard, dusty shit that we feel. I’d be lying to you if I said I go home and listen to Example or Tinchey Stryder, that music is not for me but if you ask me if I respect it? Yeah, ‘cause those guys are working hard and we have to have a mainstream. I think the beauty of having these really established pop rappers is that it means what I do stands out even more. It reminds you of what it is you’re bringing to the table. I don’t do that shit. I do straight up hip-hop shit and people understand that all over the world. It’s amazing ‘cause even before Dizzy came out with Fix up... people didn’t think you could have a pop record with someone rapping in an … >>

I’D BE LYING TO YOU IF I SAID I GO HOME AND LISTEN TO EXAMPLE OR TINCHEY STRYDER, THAT MUSIC IS NOT FOR ME BUT IF YOU ASK ME IF I RESPECT IT? YEAH,‘CAUSE THOSE GUYS ARE WORKING HARD AND WE HAVE TO HAVE A MAINSTREAM. English accent. Of course you can. And now nobody would dream about coming out with a fake American accent. We’ve contributed to what is acceptable and what is accessible, which I feel proud of. I look at N-Dubs and feel quite proud, it might sound silly but our whole scene and everything that we’ve done has contributed. Having toured Australia how healthy did you think their scene was compared to the UK? Okay, lets look at it like this: Obese records. Massive label. Hilltop Hoods get number ones. They’re one of the biggest pop groups in Australia. Back in about 2001 Task Force went over to Australia to do shows and they jumped on a record with a guy called Pegz. That 12” was massive in what at the time was an underground hip-hop scene. From putting that out with Task Force, within a handful of years that label’s got Hilltop Hoods who’ve got a number one album, number one single, boom! Obese now is a very professional, established business. They’ve got ofﬁces, they’ve got X amount of artists, they distribute other labels, they’ve got a shop selling records, spraypaint, garm’s and they started out having a record with Task Force and yet look at the UK. The labels who’ve put out Task Force records, where are they now? It’s about what you do with what you’ve got.

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Now look at Stones Throw, that’s an indie based on a guy being a fan. Peanut Butter Wolf being like, ‘lets put some records out of our shit ‘cause nobody’s really repping the Bay Area’. Why aren’t we doing that? Saying ‘well nobody’s really repping London, nobody’s really repping Leeds’. When we were doing that, shit was good right? We stopped doing that and shit went a bit dry, and people wonder why. It’s not rocket science. If you never put out another record would you be happy with what you’ve done? Nah, ‘cause I’m pretty ambitious. Not in the sense of needing to have a house in the Hollywood Hills, just that my aim for a long time has been making it as easy as possible to be creative and if possible be putting out records every six months. I haven’t achieved that yet and from Return of the Drifter onwards, that’s what I wanted to be doing, but right now I almost feel like I’m ready to start again. After this album’s come out I’m just gonna start putting out tunes every few months, bang out a single, something digital, a limited run vinyl and have that approach to making music again. If you’re serious about this shit and this is what you’re doing with your life you’ve got to be coming on some really proliﬁc shit, that’s my attitude anyway, I want to be on some Quincy Jones, James Brown, Madlib, you know? Just smashing people over the head with releases. That’s the kind of legacy I’m trying to leave.

Kashmere

Telemachus

Micall Parknsun

Verb T

Jyager

Sir Smurf Lil’

AFTER GETTING TE LOWDOWN ON TE LBEL FROM TE MAN IN CHARGE, WE CUGH UP WIT TE RES OF TE YNR ROSER TO PICK TEIR BRINS. Jon Phonics Why is YNR the right label to get your music out there? KASHMERE: Because you are guaranteed platinum sales and a legion of screaming 14 year old fans obviously. Plus they make you do shit pop music which is always a good thing. TELEMACHUS: Jehst and I share a lot of beliefs in what makes good music so its only natural that YNR is the right place for me. MICALL PARKNSUN: Because I feel the talent on this label including afﬁlliates is the realest shit you’ll ever get. VERB T: I have known Jehst for a while. He’s someone I knew would understand my vision, push the album in the right way and give me a say in what happens each step of the way.

JYAGER: Over the last 10 years YNR has released a number of amazing artists and records. Crossing boundaries and breaking ground with the freshest hip-hop music to date. I feel that alone is a good enough reason. SIR SMURF LIL’: Understanding and encouragement of artist development. The support and creative freedom provided for the artist allows for growth in his/her artistic vision. … >>

JON PHONICS: My association with YNR came about by working at Kilamanjaro Studios with Chemo. Eventually Jehst became co-owner of the studio and would be around for I’d say 90% of the making of the album. Putting out Half Past Calm 2 via YNR was just something that seemed like it needed to happen rather than being premeditated. What have you got coming out on the horizon and why should we buy it? KASHMERE: I have the Kingdom Of Fear album produced by Jehst coming out on YNR and the Galaktus album coming out on Boot. You should buy them because if you don’t then that means you are stupid. And I’m saying this in an interview that can be read so that must be true. TELEMACHUS: I have a 7” single imminent called Scarecrows featuring Roc Marciano. This is from my forthcoming album entitled In The Evening, also on YNR. MICALL PARKNSUN: I’m about to start working on a new album produced totally by me. If you like my type of music already and have bought my music before why should I explain why you should buy it? If you like it, share it. VERB T: My new album entitled Serious Games is ﬁnished and should be coming out soon. You should buy it because it’s a good album from the production to the artwork, and from my side I think

I have written some of my best songs for it. Also if I sell over 10,000 copies I’ll wear one of those caps with the propeller on top for a year, and put on a free ﬁrework display in your mum’s garden. JYAGER: Polar Bear with Jyager Common Ground, a collaborative jazz EP/mini-LP out this winter on The Leaf Label and Released From Captivity, my second album for YNR. Reason to buy? The less we support each other, the quicker we destroy our own industry. SIR SMURF LIL’: I am currently working on a possible third album at present. In my opinion the album is exceptional but there is always room for improvement and that is why I am still weaving in the loose ends trying to shape it into the perfect sculpture, and perfection is what I am building towards. “Keep faith in the Smurf and he shall not let you down”. This statement was and still is the promise to all whom is a follower of Smurf’s music. Creatively, the album is going to be thought provoking in a pleasant way. JON PHONICS: I’m currently waiting to drop an instrumental EP I’ve been sitting on. Each track is a collaboration with a different producer. It features BUG, Jaisu, Pete Cannon, Jeekay & S-Type. There’s also a Jon Phonics vs. T- Bear project which is gonna drop on Local Hero and other stuff I’m working on for 2011 but I’m not gonna say what they are because when I do that they don’t get ﬁnished. You should buy them

because if people don’t, then I’ll just assume it’s rubbish and stop. Thanks. See you in the shop. I’ll be the guy with a gun to your head. What does independent hip-hop give the listener that major label hip-hop doesn’t? KASHMERE: Music. TELEMACHUS: Freedom to not conform. We don’t always use it though. MICALL PARKNSUN: Non-manufactured music. Underground in it’s realest form. I like to call it ‘heart-on-sleeve’ music. Sometimes majors can capture it but after all is said and done the artists usually turn shit. VERB T: There is some good major label hip-hop but independent music tends to be more cuttingedge, more raw and more experimental which makes for a more interesting listen I think. But of course freedom allows some artists to disappear up their own backsides never to be seen again. JYAGER: The only difference I feel is the amount of freedom you have. Majors want you to ﬁt into a speciﬁc category or ‘pigeon hole’ you within the industry to sell records. So a lot of times you’ll have to bite your tongue and go with them on it. JON PHONICS: Independent hip-hop gives the listener something to identify with, i.e. broke people listen to independent hip-hop/broke people make independent hip-hop. Everyone’s

broke and depressed. Wahooo!!! You can’t listen to Fabulous if you’ve got no food in the fridge. Well...you can, but you ain’t gonna identify with it. Ya dig? If there was a hip-hop superhero what would their powers be? KASHMERE: Inspired creation and unification. That’s if you’re talking about HIP-HOP. Unfortunately a lot of people that claim hip-hop wouldn’t recognise it if it shot them nine times. TELEMACHUS: He would be called ‘Rappy Shankfinger’ and would have SP1200’s for legs and whisks instead of hands. VERB T: They would rap at bad guys and make them break dance. So, for example a dude would be trying to detonate some explosives and he wouldn’t be able to because Emcee Super Hero would be spitting crime fighting bars at him and have him doing head spins and shit. Also he would fly but mostly at 2 miles an hour only so people could take a good look, and he’d be like ‘yeeeeeeah take a good look bitch, I’m a hero!’ JON PHONICS: I’m not too sure a hip-hop super hero would be that great, they would probably sleep with your girlfriend and drink your drank and steal your weed then pass out in the corner farting. www.ynr-productions.co.uk

KLSHNEKOFF HACKNEY’S PRODIGL SON REuRNS TO TE SAGS AND SOUND TAT FIRS MADE HIM ONE OF TE COUNRY’S FINES MCS. WORDS: DAVID KANE

PHOTO: YEV KAZANNIK

Klashnekoff, real name Darren Kandler, burst onto the scene in the summer of 2004 after releasing his debut LP, The Sagas of Klashnekoff and as the founding member of the group Terra Firma, alongside Kyza and Scribblah. With Lewis Parker producing a sizeable portion of the album it signalled a new dawn for UK rap, sparse West Indian drums, flutes and banjos juxtaposed with anglicised boom baps laid the groundwork for Klash to tell apocalyptic stories of city life; “From the city to the sticks there’s stacks of lunatics…cats who use crucifix to seduce chicks”, spat in his distinctive East London/Jamaican Patois cadence. At the time of release it was one of the country’s finest rap albums, with few having matched let alone bettered its often-brutal vigour since. Unsurprisingly it took follow up album, Lionheart: Struggle with the Beast to garner significant mainstream media attention. Critics from the dance music press through to the broadsheets sang his and the album’s praises, which featured a more diverse sound than Sagas… encompassing RnB, soca and dancehall. The Guardian newspaper’s G2 supplement ran a particularly gushing feature, perhaps compelled by the salubrious credibility Klashnekoff presented as a single dad living in Hackney, who also happened to be a bloody good (English) MC. This also came at a time when people still actually paid for music (2007). According to the new album’s press release an impressive

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‘30,000 copies of The Sagas have been sold in the UK alone.’ So, the stage was all but set for K-lash to both cement UK rap’s place within British popular music and claim the crown, right? Wrong. A nationwide and European tour didn’t fully materialise despite the positive press responses, while behind the scenes grumblings persisted; besides Klash didn’t even like Lionheart… “I didn’t want to put that out as an album but it got so far down the line I didn’t have a choice, Rodney P is still fam but Braintax, well, I don’t really want to go there (Lionheart was released on Rodney P’s short lived Riddim Killa imprint, part of the now defunct Low Life records, formerly run by Braintax, but you should already know this). I listen to some of Lionheart and cringe, I tried to stretch myself a bit [musically] and I wasn’t really looking at it as a pure Klashnekoff product. It was just meant to be a bloody mixtape for [Joe] Buhdah!” Whereas Lionheart… took the best part of two years to complete – the logistical obstacle of travelling to and from Joe Buhdha ‘s studio in Nottingham to record; “nine to 12 tracks” for Back to the Sagas were completed in just 3 days. And the results can be heard in an album that is an aurally tighter, … >>

more coherent experience and with it a return to that classic Klashnekoff sound. Guests include long-term cohort Skriblah, Wretch 32 and a slew of emerging, hungry MCs. Production duties are handled by Joe Buhdah, Skriblah and Rinse FM’s Smasher, who Klash describes as a “genius, he’s known more for (producing) grime but can do hip-hop too, (and is) also a bit of an MC.” Undoubted album highlights are Tek Time, an ethereal female vocal provides the verse while Klash drops introspective bars over subtle cymbals, strings and handclaps, the calm before the storm as Klash Anthem sees the Black Russian in full

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Sagas mode; razor sharp, venomous bars over obscure eastern European chanting. Most deﬁnitely a return to form for one of the UK’s ﬁnest MCs. While younger peers like Sway, Professor Green and grime contemporaries Wiley and Dizzee have embraced the charts, Klashnekoff has always been more likely to implode than go pop. And it is this tension that makes Klash such an interesting artist; “Sometimes I stutter and get things wrong and contradict myself and that’s because I’m not always 100% certain of what I’m saying. But there’s no regrets, that’s what makes me me and when the passion goes the music does too.”

SOMETIMES I CONTRADICT MYSELF AND THAT’S BECAUSE I’M NOT ALWAYS 100% CERTAIN OF WHAT I’M SAYING. BUT THERE’S NO REGRETS, THAT’S WHAT MAKES ME ME AND WHEN THE PASSION GOES THE MUSIC DOES TOO But what of the new generation of British urban artists crossing over into the mainstream, the so-called ‘brap pack’? “I do think there is good pop music, it’s a Catch-22 situation, there’s a lot of crap music out there but I don’t blame kids for aspiring to it, you can’t blame a man for wanting to get paid.” Although it’s the urban artists operating just off the radar, taking charge of their own destiny that interests Klash as he enthuses; “Giggs is a good rapper, no one really does that sort of (rap) style anymore... From the new breed I really like JME, he’s not exactly a chart act but he could be, he has completely manipulated Myspace. It’s really down to the artist to exploit these things but spending all your time on Twitter, Myspace, Ustream and you’ll spend no time on the art. But don’t get me wrong, I’m no Alf Garnett, I love technology! As a man who always likes to express himself Twitter is a bit of a deadly weapon!” I also interviewed Klash around the release of his last album where he was in typically entertaining form, if a little strained, with a few choice opinions reserved for both Lady Sovereign and Pete (sorry, Peter) Doherty among others. He has often been quick to speak his mind – from his condemnation of the now defunct Low Life and it’s owner to calling Tim Westwood “a cunt” – but now he seems more mellow, a curb in his ways towards the

industry. Or perhaps more accurately, he has just been too honest in the past? “I’ll be real with you, I’m an honest guy and an honest artist, and I’m trying to regulate my points of view. I think I‘ve learnt to play the game a bit better, sometimes you talk and say shit that you might not think about first but I don’t want to die tomorrow without saying what I needed to say today.” In many ways Klashnekoff epitomises the obstinate spirit of underground rap in this country, or to use the often-maligned label, ‘UK hip-hop’ – the ying to Roots Manuva or Mike Skinner’s mischievous yang – the poorer cousin to our illustrious pioneers over the Atlantic. Yet where American hip-hop has always been diverse, with numerous interpretations and crossovers of varying quality (there’s a world of difference between The Insane Clown Posse and the horrorcore of Gravediggaz, thankfully) – it has essentially always been just that, hip-hop. English rap however has always been part of a greater shifting musical myriad – a magnificent beast encompassing drum n bass, jungle, garage, grime and dubstep. Earlier this year, on his Redbull Music Academy show, Digital Mystikz’ Mala cited the excellent Falling Down LP by Jehst as a major early influence while every grime MC I have interviewed or met from Lethal Bizzle to Bruza lists Klashnekoff among their favourite MCs. And I think that’s pretty cool.

FTIMA TE NOMADIC, SWEDISH BORN, ES LONDON BASED SINGER DOES SOME SOUL SERCHING WIT DANNA TAKKO HAWLEY. WORDS: DANNA TAKAKO HAWLEY PHOTOS: ALEXANDER JORDAN “Sometimes people ask me what style my music is, and I always say - I sing in a soulful style, but then depending on who I work with, it could go any direction. I like to write to the music and to the sounds, because the vibe of the song can really inspire me,” Fatima says, while cutting into a pastry from her local bakery in East London. “Sometimes I write something with a message, and sometimes I just write a party tune, but I try to keep it positive either way. Maybe it’s like writing a diary and you just want to get some thoughts out of your mind.” Chances are most music-loving Londoners have heard Fatima’s beautifully versatile voice at some point or another but it might be hard to keep up. One moment she could be singing gracefully over her seven-piece live band at the Royal Opera House, and the next she’ll be slinging a mic over a ﬁerce club-set at Plastic People. And just as soon as she’s scatting over soul records in a sweaty London warehouse, she’ll next be found on her weekly surf through Rinse FM’s airwaves with Alexander Nut. No matter the style or setting, one thing’s for certain: when Fatima sings, every beat of her heart can be heard alongside her fullbodied melodies, and her poetic lyrics open an invitation into a vibrant world. Hers is a world full of life and character, laughter and imagination, and unexpected surprises around each corner.

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Fatima Bramme Sey was born in Stockholm to a Swedish mother and half-Gambian/halfSenegalese father. Her mother, Fatima says, “is a traveller. She loves all kinds of music and cultures. She used to have a shop called Boutique Afrique; she would buy loads of textiles and small instruments and jewellery , especially from West Africa. We travelled a lot when I was a kid, to Gambia and Senegal speciﬁcally. There were so many sounds, so many drums, rhythms and colours; it left so many impressions.” Constantly being immersed in music and performance growing up (from school choirs to theatre productions), she eventually started gracing stages as a backup vocalist in her hometown. Fatima made the big jump to the Big Smoke towards the end of 2006, after feeling an itch to “see a new place in the world.” It was in the summer of ’07 - in-between trying to jump into open mic circles and diving deep into London’s club circuit - that fate would introduce her to Alexander Nut, London underground’s premiere beat-seeker.“ Back then I would go out all the time,” she says. “You get to know about places, get a feel for different clubs and venues, and you bump into all different walks of life. Alex and I would always go to the same clubs, so we’d seen each other out a lot. One night he gave me a mix CD, and he invited me to his [Rinse FM] show to sing.”

WE TRAVELLED A LOT WHEN I WAS A KID, TO GAMBIA AND SENEGAL SPECIFICALLY. THERE WERE SO MANY SOUNDS, SO MANY DRUMS, RHYTHMS AND COLOURS; IT LEFT SO MANY IMPRESSIONS.

Fast forward to now, when Sir Nut - alongside Sam Shepherd (aka Floating Points, a producer who’s as comfortable crafting deep 4/4 records as he is composing for a full orchestral ensemble) - connected the dots to create a label that encompasses the most future-forward sounds coming out of the UK: Eglo Records. The close-knit fam formed as a group of like minded soulful artists gravitated towards one another in November ’08, including electronicboogie genius FunkinEven (who featured Fatima on his cosmic ‘Kleer’ EP last December), the African-fused hip-hop and jazz sounds of Shaunise and, of course, the soul queen that picked up Alex’s CD that destined night.

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“It’s a good mix of people in the Eglo crew,” Fatima beams. “Everyone’s got their own thing to bring to the table, but I think we still feed off each other in a good way. And really, I’m so happy that I’ve met all of these people - not just the people in the crew, but so many other folks around the way. From people I’m just dancing with, to people I always see in the club, to the various people I’ve met through music.” Fatima sings with a grace and wisdom far beyond her 25 years, sweetly ﬂoating through a colourful range of beats with velvety, honeyed vocals that glitter with delicate nuances. She can take any track, in any style, and instantly make it hers: whether bouncing on a heated club banger

I DO FEEL MORE CONNECTED TO LONDON THAN STOCKHOLM NOW, IN THE SENSE OF THE MUSIC I’M INVOLVED IN. MOST INSPIRATIONS FOR ME COME FROM THIS CITY.

with Scratcha DVA (‘Just Vybe,’ out late October); or going in deep on an off-kilter beat from Sa-Ra’s Shaﬁq Husayn (as heard on their stunning ‘Lil Girl’ collab); or daydreaming about sunny days through some low-slung West Coast beats from Dam Funk. “I’m lucky that I have those people around me that bring all of the different styles!” She laughs. “I always appreciate all kinds of music, so if it’s something that I feel I can do my thing and vibe off of, then I’ll have fun with it.” In March this year, the songstress unleashed her debut solo work on Eglo, the 4-track sonic-soul masterpiece Mind Travellin. Fatima’s face lights up when discussing her heavyweight EP: “I’m happy to have something that I know is mine, and I’m really happy that I was able to work with three of my favourite producers FunkinEven and Dam Funk, and VeeBeeO, my old friend from Sweden.” With Mind Travellin’, Fatima even had the chance to put together her ﬁrst music video with FunkinEven, a bright, fun, retro ode to their Jheri curl inspired ‘Soul Glo’ single. The next project on the rise, her follow-up EP, will be coming in an Eglo sleeve this November and produced entirely by Floating Points.

Though her passport belongs to Sweden, Fatima’s sound is inherently London. She agrees, “I do feel more connected to London than Stockholm now, in the sense of the music I’m involved in. Most inspirations for me come from this city. When I moved here, I didn’t really have a set plan. But things have grown naturally, and it feels like it’s still moving in the right direction.” And as things keep on moving, and her mind keeps on travellin’, what does the future hold for Fatima? “I’ll still be doing music with people... even if no one books me!” she says, creasing up with laughter. “For me, I need music around me. I always come up with some song in my head, I always hear beats, it’s such a big part of my life and who I am. I can only hope that people feel what I’m doing, and that somehow it affects them in a positive way - that it makes them wanna dance, or it makes them smile. Even if they just like the sound of it, it makes me happy. In the core of it all, I’m just doing it because I love it, but if it has a positive effect on someone, somewhere in the world, then that means something to me.”

ERLIER TIS YER, JOHN WHYBROW GOT TO CHEW TE FT WIT LEGENDARY SOUH-LONDON LIP-TESE TY, FROM BIG SISERS TO SPOILT KIDS, AND HOW HIP-HOP NEEDS TO GROW UP. WO W OR RD DS: S: JJOH OHN OH N WH WHYB YBRO YBRO OW

PH HOTO OTTO: O: AZ ZZ ZA SU ULI LIMA MAN MA N

Having long wondered if the man behind the moniker is as full of wise-cracks and wisdom as his laureate lyrics, it’s with a great sense of anticipation that I pick up the receiver for some telephone time with one of the UK’s most productive, persistent and profound musical artists. Only apparently I’m calling one hour early for our scheduled lunch-time slot (I am not) so I’m asked to call back. Damn. Ty, real name Ben Chijoke, is preparing to release his fourth LP, Special Kind of Fool, and I figure the media bullshit must be getting to him, so several cups of coffee later and armed with some questions of potentially less media bullshit value, I call back to find the man settled and ready for some real talk. You said you came up with the title before the album was done, which isn’t your usual process, suggesting that you had a very strong direction for this before you even started. I just had enough time to think about the project and what I wanted to say, I wanted to work differently from how I normally work. I really wanted to see this project finish with a particular aesthetic. There is obviously a mood in [hip-hop] music at the moment, it’s like there are two schools: people that know hip-hop is supposed to have more feelings, and people that are like, ‘well it is what it is right now and that’s cool for me’. Obviously I lean towards the feeling that it could be more than it is at the moment.

Your website says that Special Kind of Fool is a product of one of the darkest periods in your life, could you shed any light on said darkness for us? Not really. Okay. How about if I said that in spite of the fact that your lyrics don’t shy away from life’s harsh realities, your sense of humour puts such a positive spin on things, that I can’t help but feel you are actually a very optimistic person? Would you agree? Deﬁnitely, deﬁnitely optimistic. Life is what it is but at the same time there’s always room for an improvement or room for being hopeful. So it’s perhaps only by confronting those realities that we can be genuinely optimistic about overcoming them? Whatever it is that you do – there are moments where things are hard, but then there are moments when you’re like, ‘Ah, but it’s worth it because of this, or because of that.’ I wanted to make a human-being record, not an emcee record, and by human being, I mean there’s ups and downs, lefts and rights.

I WANTED TO MAKE A HUMAN-BEING RECORD, NOT AN EMCEE RECORD, AND BY HUMAN BEING, I MEAN THERE’S UPS AND DOWNS,LEFTS AND RIGHTS.

Word. Speaking of which... your abilities as a wordsmith are beyond comparison, but recently you’ve been copping more shine as a beatsmith, perhaps that’s as a result of not getting credit where it was due, but do you think that words will continue to remain at the heart of hip-hop for you? I’ve always tinkered with beats, so it’s not new, I’m just accepting more appreciation from people who assumed someone else did the music and I just rapped. Hip-hop is multi-faceted, it’s like athletics, you can ﬂirt with indoor athletics, or with the track, or with the marathon. Different things that are associated with putting on a pair of trainers and training. There’s no shift for me from being poetic to being musical, it’s all part and parcel of the same thing. The lyrics will always be at the forefront of what I do – if there’s a gift, I would say the gift is [my] lyrical or poetic ability – but the real simple way to answer this question is, I focus on the song. I like making music people can listen back to without me being there and enjoy it. I stopped being interested in doing freestyles, and when I say this, it is not to perturb anyone else from what they’re doing, but you asked the question so I think I need to break it down to make it clear. My focus is on songs. You strike me as a lot more honest, in that you have genuine artistic intentions. Yeah. But what I’m trying to say is that I’ve had

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to learn not to do certain things, because they were distractions to the actual goal. The goal is to rip off pieces of myself, shred ‘em up, grind ‘em into a beat, roll that beat, fry it and hand it to you. The goal is how do I take this record, chop it up, play around with it, create this song that doesn’t have the same meaning as the record or the sample I used, and make a song that stands on its own? That’s the puzzle, that’s the Rubix cube that enthralls me. Rather than being the most feared MC, or the most respected MC, I’ve stopped being interested in that. I think that deﬁnitely shines through in the music you make. I wanted to ask you too, about the spoken word scene, it’s something I really thought would blow up this last couple of years, and there has deﬁnitely been a surge in interest but I get the feeling it will only ever be a fringe to music, in a mainstream context. How important is it to get people listening to stories and engaging their brains? Spoken word is the older sister that looks after the children when the parents are away. [She] doesn’t get to go to school but is responsible for these children’s wellbeing. Whatever they do in the future they have to look back and appreciate the spoken word. It’s the nurturing element of entertainment. The poetry, the spoken word, the people that do it, are more likely to be the ones that are in school, teaching and inspiring young kids to do better, or to use words, than rappers and singers.

Sure, it’s a proper life skill I guess. Talking of life skills, would you like to be more involved in producing for other artists in the future? That’s a tricky question. I think initially, that would deﬁnitely be the goal but I need to sit in the studio with like-minded people because at the moment there’s a detachment going on in hip-hop music. You never used to hear someone talk about [adopts US accent] ‘Yo, that beat son’; it was always the song, or it was the group. Now it’s that DJ, and ‘I want that MP3, yo’. Absolutely. I read your remarks about Lily Allen in the wake of her comments on music downloading, and in all honesty I found your views refreshingly positive. For me, art is and always will be a gift, not meaning that we can steal it, but artists (and even non-artists) should get more used to giving than selling, right? I think with Lily it’s interesting, ‘cause it’s like, babe, you was the media darling for a minute, right?

You’ve come through, done your thing, and you’re in a certain position, brilliant. But some of us have to work harder, some of us don’t get the chances you get, and we see things like this Internet downloading and blah, blah, blah, it’s neither here nor there for us. What I’m getting at is this: you’re throwing your toys out of the pram, but you had a pram. So basically you’re not in a position to be telling people that don’t have a pram what they should be doing, just because your pram is being hijacked. Either way I’m not mad at Lily Allen y’know, but I will say all artists have to get back to learning to perform; there’s no more goldensyrup, open-gate adventures, you’ve got to actually have some skills. We got sold on this whole idea she came from nowhere: bollocks. That was engineered. We were sold a story she started from Myspace. Really? ‘Cause I started on Myspace and it’s a lot … >>

THE GOAL IS TO RIP OFF PIECES OF MYSELF, SHRED ‘EM UP,GRIND ‘EM INTO A BEAT, ROLL THAT BEAT, FRY IT AND HAND IT TO YOU.

harder unless you have a whole media team involved. It was absolutely engineered. I’m glad that she made it through, but don’t be upset now. People often refer to your individuality as an artist, would you say that this is in part a reaction to the mainstream, especially now, where some so-called UK hip-hop and grime artists have essentially followed an American model and are merely making hip-hop as pop music (which obviously isn’t hip-hop, or even grime)? I deﬁnitely feel a duty towards making hip-hop music again. I’m not here to call anybody else’s music crap, though privately I probably do, but what I would say publicly is that this is about saying, ‘You know what, I’m sick and tired of being pushed towards doing this monotone, commercial, one-layered level of music. I want to do the music that I want to do,’ but that [sub-standard music] actually does help me to stay on course. It’s like [when] I got an opportunity to do a song that would probably chart. I refused it because the guy making the record had the wrong intentions. You’ve got producers like this guy, who can turn round and tell people ‘Yeah I need you to rap this type of thing, this is what’s in the charts, this is what’ll work’. The implications of Ty making that record are [that] I would let so many people down. It might give me a mortgage or two but it’s not my legacy, and if there’s one thing I’ve done it’s to let other artists know it’s possible to do something else other than the bullshit. Because

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you just saw Ty do it so that’s an avenue for you to get your record played because my record was there, and it’s proven that certain people will play certain records that are from the UK. That is the legacy I’m cool with. That’s very admirable man. It’s costly is what it is! Okay ﬁnally, in one of the lyrics on the album you said ‘I don’t have time for weights, I got my passport, pen & pad and briefcase?!!’ I really loved that lyric, so was surprised to hear that you joined the gym - is that a mind, body and soul thing? [laughs] That’s why I was so fucking tired when you called me! I was like one [p.m.] bruv, one! Let me get a little lie down! I’m just trying to get my ﬁtness up is all. A healthy body is a healthy mind. Well this is it, obviously you attack your day differently. Y’know I’ve just come back from tour, I’ve been on the road for a week, aaaand [yawns]... You’re tired. Yeah, I’m tired ‘cause I’m not used to that fucking jogging machine, but it’s all good man, it’s all good. And with that the image of an omniscient corporate PR machine eating away at the soul of this most singular of artists begins to dissolve. It’s nice to know amidst all the ‘reality’ out there, at least someone is actually keepin’ it real.

NINJAuNE: 20 YERS OF BETS AND PIECES

BLCK DOG’S NEW BOOK DETAILS TE GENESIS OF ONE OF TE UK’S MOS INFLUENIAL LBELS. EXCLUSIVE TO BONAFIDE, WE HAVE AN EXTRCT FROM TE BOOK DETAILING TE ORIGINS OF NINJA uNE. 20 Years of Beats and Pieces is a lavish visual document of how Jonathon Moore and Matt Black’s frustration at the way major labels were dealing with them spurred them on to create a striking signature sonic and graphic style using punk’s DIY approach. The book begins by taking the needle off the record and dropping it back at the start, to Oxford in the early 1980s. It then works chronologically through classic albums, interviews, design work, technology and history of the label in brilliantly forensic detail, it is truly a geek’s paradise.

For fans, it has some pure gold trivia such as Jake Wherry of the Herbaliser and PC of DJ Food being in a Cure covers band in high school. Context for key albums and the entire NTone, Big Dada and Ninja discographies will have collectors salivating and scouring Ebay.

WORDS: STEVIE CHICK In the two decades that have passed since Matt Black and Jonathan More founded Ninja Tune Records, the world has changed immeasurably, and the music industry – a microcosm that has always evolved at its own accelerated pace – especially so. Technological advances have radically transformed both how music is made, and how it is distributed and consumed. And Ninja Tune itself—an entity that can take rightful pride in always operating at the cutting edge of such developments—has changed, too. Swiftly growing from an outlet for Black and More’s extra-curricular activities, it has become a bona-ﬁde, albeit resolutely independent, record label. From the beginning, their only limitations were those imposed by early sampling and sequencing equipment, using their turntables to repurpose music’s varied pasts into radical new futures. Today, the label is home to a roster of visionary artists—producers, instrumentalists and rappers, ﬁlm-makers and multimedia-mavens, even singer-songwriters and rock groups—making the very most of that same creative freedom Coldcut originally craved, and amassing a catalogue of game-changing releases any imprint would envy... ... but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s take the needle off the record and drop it back at wthe start, to Oxford in the early 1980s, where Matt Black was sharing a house with a bunch of fellow students, all fellow music obsessives.

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“We were these white guys just really fucking totally in love with black music”, remembers Black. “There was Mark Porter, whose nickname was Jim; he now works as Creative Director of The Guardian. And there was Duncan James, a DJ with a really wicked collection of records. Around 1982, I remember Duncan telling me that he just thought black music was much better than rock. We were getting stoned a lot, and he would play me all this fantastic music, and I was thinking, yeah, this is really cool. We seized onto it, to differentiate ourselves from the hippies and the rockers. We’d throw parties, and everyone knew we had the best music, because we’d buy imported records from America, even though they cost astronomical sums back then.” It was a time before the internet, before ﬁle-sharing and MP3s: when music could be expensive and elusive, when home-taping was, supposedly, killing music. Often, however, the opposite was true: hip-hop’s cut’n’paste aesthetic was making its ﬁrst seismic impressions outside of the South Bronx, and although they didn’t yet own decks and

THE LABEL WASN’T INTENDED AS ANYTHING OTHER THAN A MEANS FOR JON AND I TO RELEASE OUR MUSIC, WITHOUT THE CORPRATS TELLING US WE COULDN’T... MATT BLACK

mixers, Black and his friends rocked the pausebuttons of their hi-ﬁ cassette decks to dub together their own mix-tapes. “We developed quite a technique”, he remembers “We used to sit around and criticise each other’s mixes, shouting ‘Late!’ if the timing was off.” After graduation, Black found work as a computer programmer, but by late 1985 he’d quit his job and moved to Spain, where he DJ’d at a disco, and sold import records. “I wanted to do something with music, and live somewhere nicer”, he remembers. “House music was just coming up, and I remember having my mind blown by “Jack Your Body” by Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley, and “Love Can’t Turn Around” by Farley Jackmaster Funk, playing these records to the Spanish guys at the disco, who were all into rock music, and watching them totally feeling the energy of that sound, and being really excited about it.” It was the minimal, monumental “Acid Tracks” – 12 pioneering minutes of Roland TB-303 squelch cut by Chicago house trio Phuture— that made the most impact on Black: “I played it again, and again, and again, thinking, this is something else, we’re going somewhere here. I’d been in Spain a year, and I’d had a great time, but I moved back to the UK, to make something out of DJing and mixing music.” By late 1986, Black returned to sharing a London ﬂat with his college mates, and immersing himself

in hip-hop. “I took things a little further than our pause-button mix-tapes”, he says. “My grand-dad had left me some money, and I bought myself a pair of Technics SL1210 turntables, a mixer, a Roland MC202 synthesiser, a little digital echo chamber and a four-track recorder. I could scratch, a bit, and I could mix.” Black’s main inspiration was the “Lessons” series of breakbeat collages produced by seminal New York hip-hop duo Double Dee and Steinski, who’d kick-started their careers by winning a competition held by Tommy Boy Record to remix the single “Play That Beat, Mr. D.J.” by G.L.O.B.E. and Whiz Kid. “I wanted to make a record by chopping stuff up”, remembers Black. “On Capital Radio, DJ Mike Allen was holding a competition for listeners’ mixes, and I thought, ‘I’ll enter that, and I’ll win, and that’ll get me started’.” One afternoon that November, Black ventured into Soho’s Reckless Records, where Jonathan More sold him a bootleg 12” of Maceo & The Macks’ funk rarity “Across The Tracks”, then in heavy rotation on DJ Norman Jay’s show on London pirate station Kiss FM. “We bonded over the fact that he was the only other guy in London crazy enough to have spent £45 for an import copy of Steinski’s “Lesson 3””, laughs Black. More was much more than just a record store till jockey, of course. The former art teacher had been DJing for some time, at clubs and parties and … >>

launch-nights, and hosting his Meltdown night and helping develop the Flim Flam club in New Cross. A late night cab-ride home from a Meltdown party opened another avenue for him. “I had my record box with me, and got chatting to the cabbie”, remembers More, “and it turned out he was Gordon Mack, who was running Kiss FM at the time, and also doing some cabbing on the side.” More passed on a tape of his mixes to Mack, and won himself a weekly show on the thenpirate radio station. “I didn’t really mix, I slurped”, he grins. “I was playing everything across the board—go-go, hip-hop, house, rare groove. I was on before Norman Jay on a Saturday afternoon, a good time to be playing records.” Black returned to Reckless a day later, and played More his track, “Say Kids, What Time Is It?”, a bristling, bustling and dense blizzard of beats and soundbytes that cut wildly from Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache” beat, to Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, to blasts of Kurtis Blow and The Fat Boys and Grandmaster Flash, between snippets from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and 1950s American kids TV show Howdy Doody, and a particularly inspired passage where Matt layered Louis Prima’s “I Wanna Be Like You”, from Disney’s The Jungle Book, over James Brown’s “Funky Drummer” beat. “It was pretty much 99.9% there, really”, remembers More.

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“I remember rifﬂing through the record racks, waiting for Jon’s reaction, biting my nails”, adds Black. “I thought the track was pretty good, but what did I know? But he said, ‘This is wicked!’ So we decided, maybe we should just release it ourselves....” Mindful that pressing up a copyright-trampling release like “Say Kids” would be an illicit venture, the duo delivered the track to Acton-based pressing plant Broadcrest Records under assumed names, “because we thought they’d say, ‘Excuse me gentlemen, but this copyrighted material cannot be reproduced, we’re taking you into custody’”, laughs Black. “But they didn’t. We gave them £500, and they pressed up 500 records.” Having burned the pressing plant details off the vinyl with a soldering iron to cover their tracks, and rubber-stamped the labels by hand with a John Bull printing set, More began selling copies of the 12” under the counter at Reckless, as he had with previous bootleg releases. “Jon told the punters it was a limited edition import from the States, 15 quid a copy”, says Black. “Because we were collectors, we understood that the weirder it looked, the more expensive it was, the more attractive it would be. And Jon had DJ’d at Commes Des Garcons’ men’s fashion shows, and he’d learned that people would be prepared to pay a lot of money for something, if they thought it was worth it.”

“I didn’t go to business school or take any marketing courses or anything”, adds More. “But I’d met Rei Kawakubo, the don of Comme Des Garcons, and I had the cheek to ask her why she sold her clothes at such a high price, and in such small numbers. And she said, ‘Because the best ideas will be ripped off straight-away, so this way, I have a business’. That proved to be a very useful lesson.” “We pretended it was by some bod we’d met in New York”, he laughs. “One DJ friend of mine was completely fooled by it, and reviewed it as if it were a ‘rare’ American tune in Blues & Soul, and got quite embarrassed when the truth arose.” Coldcut’s “Say Kids, What Time Is It?”, pressed up on white label under their own Ahead Of Our Time imprint, rapidly sold out of its ﬁrst pressing, and a subsequent pressing, and just kept on selling. Black and More joined forces and began hosting their own acclaimed mix show, Solid Steel, on Kiss FM, while their epic, pioneering recut of Eric B & Rakim’s “Paid In Full”—a “journey into sound” that rode a haunting Ofra Haza melody through scattered samples from Bogart noir The Big Sleep, The Adventures Of Superman and Howdy Doody, and licks and breaks from James Brown and Lyn Collins and myriad others—was released as a 12” by the New York duo’s UK label, 4th & B’way, reaching #15 in the UK singles charts and scoring Coldcut a DMC award.

They saw out the year with “Beats + Pieces”, another landmark chop’n’paste masterpiece pressed by Ahead Of Our Time that proved the success of “Say Kids” wasn’t a fluke, that Coldcut were no novelty one-hit wonders; revisited by the pair and countless other remixers over the years that followed, “Beats + Pieces” introduced fresh breaks to the hip-hop vocabulary, establishing a unique British voice. Coldcut’s trio of 1987 releases didn’t just mark the duo out as visionary producers: they also proved that UK artists could cut hip-hop tracks every bit as credible as those from the genre’s motherland, while also expanding the music’s boundaries with maverick flair. But, with a creative restlessness that would define their career, Black and More had already moved on from this sound, and also—albeit temporarily—from running their own label.

Ninja Tune: 20 Years of Beats & Pieces is out now.

SKITZ AK DADDY SKITZ, AK JOE COLE, IS A BONAFIDE UK HIP-HOP HERO. HIS SECOND ALBUM PROPER, SICKSMAN, SAW TE LIGH OF DAY ERLIER TIS YER. BONAFIDE’S AGEN J CUGH UP WIT SKITZ, WHEN HE HAD A FREE MOMEN BETWEEN TRVELLING AND PROPER DADDY SKITZ DUIES WIT HIS MOS RECEN ADDITION TO TE FMILY. WORDS: GROOVEMENT.CO.UK

VISUALS: NICK TAYLOR

Skitz launched his career with Where My Mind Is At with Roots Manuva in 1996, followed it up with the ambitious Fingerprint of the Gods in ‘98 and dropped his debut long player into UK hip-hop consciousness in 2001. A release that reafﬁrmed the nation’s faith in the scene. In addition, alongside Rodney P, he presented Original Fever for years on 1Xtra, championing the cause in the UK. Recalling the glory of his debut LP Countryman, Sticksman pushes the sound forward, calling on board a bevy of lyrical pirates to steer the ship soaked to the beams in his trademark reggae and hip-hop sound and built on a love of musical culture. Never one to tread lightly, his records are packed with social commentary and a DIY attitude. Hello Skitz. Sticksman’s been out a while now, have you been pleased with initial reactions? Yeah, reactions have been amazing. Everyone feels it lives up to expectations and follows on neatly from Countryman. My fear was that people would say I hadn’t moved on but everyone seems to have understood that technically it’s more advanced and that it takes inspirations from current genres. Has that feedback inspired you to get straight into constructing a third album? To be honest I’m taking stock, digesting feedback and making plans. I need a rest…it’s gonna be a while. I’m also doing an album for

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(Brighton sample library) Loopmasters so that’ll take a bit of time. Maybe I’ll do a straight-up reggae hip-hop album or a folk album…ha-ha. How long was the process of making the album? As time stretched did you worry more about people’s expectations? The process was long because it was recorded half in Reading, half in Holloway and all the pre-production was done in my house. I was also paying for everything myself, doing gigs, driving the Scratch Perverts and being a dad (Skitz recently welcomed his second child into the world). I was worried about expectations but I did kinda feel that if I was happy with it, then that was enough. I’m happy with it. Was its release totally self ﬁnanced? I understand you can’t get a vinyl version out until you’ve made some comeback… Silent Soundz (UK label) had some initial input and Essential helped towards the end, but basically I was doing everything. It’s hard out here if you’re

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making music that ain’t ‘of the moment’ so it was a struggle. But I was determined to do it right and on my terms. I’d love to do a vinyl run but it’d probably be at a loss! In contrast to this, are there any saving graces in commercial hip-hop? Do any of the big name hitters do it for you in 2010? I love hip-hop…that’s

my wifey so yeah I listen to it all. In amongst the debris there’s some good shit. I think Rick Ross’ new album is heavy. Weezy’s got some tunes and then there’s a whole heap of talent over here that I’m feeling. Jay Electronica is good mates with Diddy. What do you think their musical baby will … >>

WHEN YOU’RE DOWN YOU GOTTA FIGHT TO BE UP.IT’S HARD SOMETIMES TO KEEP YOUR CHIN UP AND EVERYONE HAS THEIR DEMONS AND DARK PERIODS

look like? Is it a good or bad thing that an independent artist a lot of people are excited about has the Diddy empire backing him? Of course it’s good. Relationships like this can only bring real boundary breaking hip-hop back to the forefront. I wish I had a backer like Diddy. If you could choose a millionaire rapper to be your best bud who would it be? Lil’ Wayne. I reckon hanging out with him would be whole lotta crazy antics and debauchery on the tour bus…ha ha. And what about the British? Is what Dizzee, Tinchy etc. producing hip-hop? The hip-hop goalposts are wide…Dizzee, Tinchey etc. are most definitely MC’s and most definitely influenced by hip-hop. Some of the newer cats are sick lyricists and bring things to the table that a straight-up hip-hop purist would never do. Do I like them or not? Most of them are terrible rappers with no distinct style, charisma or originality but a few that are sick and talented. Back to Sticksman, what have been the changes in the way you’ve worked over the past ten years in terms of technology? In a nutshell. I sold my MPC. Akais are in the shed. More plug-ins. More original old outboard gear. Master to tape. Heh heh…that’s it. I do use Serato sometimes and CDJs. The last record I bought was about a month ago…so it’s not an everyday thing anymore. Plus the tunes I want aren’t available!

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I sold about 12,000 records and kept about 2,000. Now every tune you pull out of my shelf is a classic or holds a memory for me. Would it be okay if vinyl went the way of the dinosaur and Ricicles? Would it matter? I love vinyl and it would be sad to see it go but I think it will always be present in people’s lives that are from this certain generation. People like me will always have a few shelves filled with classics to bore our children with and an old dusty Technic in the corner. Can’t you get Ricicles anymore? Shit. Meaning and relevance is important in this LP, as it was on your first. Is it a prerequisite that rappers are aware of this when collaborating with you? I want to be conscious and push positivity so it’s important. Too many MCs are talking loud and saying nothing and are blinded by the bullshit and bright lights and just blatantly following fashion lyrically. That’s all well and good and if you’re feeding your family, well done, but try and be a role model, do some good in the world if you’re lucky enough to be in a position to do that. Certified Banger summed up the LP as being about how hard life can be and how much fun you can have despite that. Would you care to elaborate? Well when you’re down you gotta fight to be up. It’s hard sometimes to keep your chin up and everyone has their demons and dark periods to deal with. Life’s a bleeding

struggle innit. So enjoy yourself as much as you can. Strive to be happy. Sometimes it’s hard — but it helps. There’re a couple of Joan Baez samples on Sticksman – do you ﬁnd inspiration in folk? Yeah, I grew up on Joan Baez. My mum went to see her the other day and said she was talking revolution as much as she was in the sixties. How many rappers will be in 50 years? I take it you have little interest in where BBC1Xtra is now? You had a successful run when the station started up, did you have a degree of freedom at that point? Do you miss being able to push music to a wide audience regularly? It’s funny ‘cause I listen to 1xtra pretty much every day when I’m washing up. Robbo’s show is heavy and Benji B’s, Mista Jam reps some tunes but Westwood just comes across like a dirty old man…it cracks me up. Yeah, they’re just doing their thing with the youngsters. Its all good. We had total freedom but within the genre, so towards the end we were bored and struggling to ﬁnd new hip-hop that was inspiring. I guess our boredom showed a little and that was the end. To be honest that was the kick I needed ‘cos I was … >>

getting complacent. I had to sell my house but I got my album done! I miss shining the light on new tunes and do feel that a lot of people lost their voice when we left. But y’know, truthfully, it was a stagnant time for the scene….when it comes back maybe it’ll be stronger. I got no regrets, it was a good time and I met good people and had a few adventures. Do you still get to travel the world to play, and is there anywhere that’s struck you as having good home-brewed hip-hop scenes? Everywhere’s got a hip-hop scene. It’s a global brand like Coca-Cola, football or Bob Marley. I was standing on the beach in Croatia with (Rodney) P and Broke’n’English saying we never thought hip-hop would take us this far. Any place you go you’ll ﬁnd a local scene that incorporates its own culture, drawing on its own environment and culture full of aspiring talented youngsters – if only Kool Herc knew!

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KRS One’s playing in October. Excited? Ha ha. Well, that’s a funny question. My girl’s organised the whole thing. Yeah I’m excited…I’m a fan. Plus, me and Rodney P are supporting on a couple of shows. He (KRS One) is a legend. It’s been amusing coming home and hearing my girl on a conference call with him though! When you were younger and living out of the city, you used to make the journey to travel up to jams. Do you reckon that sort of dedication and pursuit is gone in the days of all-access internet? Ha…never really thought about that. Yeah, I guess it’s slowed it down a bit. I mean, I’d hitch around the country going to jams. These days I guess people still travel to get to see their favourite DJs/MCs and stuff so I like to think it still goes on, but obviously not as much when you can watch the gig on YouTube and feel like you were almost there. Sticksman is out on Dragon Drop Recordings.

SELECTED LISENING BANGING BETS, CHOICE CUTS AND UNEXPECTED GEMS TAT EVEN YOUR FRIENDS WOULD LIKE. BONAFIDE GIVES ITS SEL OF APPROVAL TO A SELECT AND DISINGUISHED LIS OF RELESES. WORDS: ANDREW SPRAGG, DAVID KANE, JAMES GRIFFIN, JOEL HARRIS, KIERAN HADLEY, LEKE SANUSI, WILL COLDWELL, PAUL ALLWORTHY Ty – A special kind of fool | BBE Ty’s discography is sparse. The man evidently likes to take a few years between each album, and this is no different - it being four years since Closer ﬁrst dropped. In fact many fans of Ty (not myself however), feel that Closer was a bit of a disappointment, losing his original off-beat instrumentals for more poppy, soulful numbers. With the likelihood being that A Special Kind of Fool would continue this progression, I can say with great pleasure that Ty brings together the new and the old in a way that brings back fond memories of all the London summers that he produced soundtracks for. Something Big feat. Carroll Thompson, is a personal favourite – Thompson’s sickly sweet souful voice sings the chorus as Ty raps about his life’s ups and downs with his typically comic ﬂow. Choice picks aside, the album as a whole is so listenable that it’s tricky to turn it off, and why turn it off anyway - It’s been long enough coming. WC

Chima Anya – New Day | Phoenix Down This Oxfordshire lad really has an unconventional rise into the world of hip-hop. In his time leading up to his debut album, New Day, Chima has gained a PHD in hip-hop, as well as graduating from Birmingham as a junior doctor. This should make him even more qualified than Dre to use the title Dr, but Chima holds back. This isn’t to say his lyrics lack the self-inflating rhymes so easily found in this genre, but his sound is definitely on the fresher side of UK hip-hop. With support from Jehst and Soweto Kinch, Chima ties together a range of styles between the tracks – from the driving funk of Spell it Out to the glitchy electronica of Astrosnare – which make it clear Chima is open to progressive sounds. WC

Kano – Method To The Maadness | Bigger Picture Music Kano is excellent in the booth but his gifts aren’t adequately matched by the hooks or the scope of the songs themselves on Method To The Maadness. Listening to the songs over and over, one is left wanting and expecting more. Waiting to be drawn in by the subject matter and music. That said, Method To The Maadness does succeed on a number of fronts, Spaceship being the song to listen out for. The track boasts a monster of a beat put together by producers Chase & Status. Spaceship offers a glimpse of what Method To The Maadness is at its best – a unanimous, universal banger that should appeal to die-hard fans and newcomers alike, in clubs or on car stereos. This is a certiﬁed hit and demands a video. A good one.

Method To The Maadness is a strong and solid record by a seasoned lyricist of insatiable ability. It won’t lose or gain Kano many fans. Ironically, despite being his most experimental project yet, it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about him. It does however speak volumes for an artist increasingly assured in his own shoes and growing ever more comfortable with his own voice. Some might not be wholly satisﬁed with the end result but you’d have to be maad to debate such a talented emcee’s abilities. LS

Maddslinky – Make A Change | Tru Thoughts Garage music has enjoyed a renaissance over the past 2 years, with producers such as Rosco, Untold and Joy Orbison all adapting the 2 step rhythmic structure to their own sound. Dave Jones, aka Zed Bias was a major influence behind this, helping to push garage into new spheres of soulful musicality at the turn of the century with tracks like Show Some Appreciation. Whilst also maintaining the ability to create the sort of thunderous bass productions – which defined many of his early Sidewinder releases and surprise chart hit, Neighbourhood – that has gone onto characterise dubstep. Now Jones returns via his Maddslinky alias and Make A Change makes for a rewarding listen. After a shaky rap-by-numbers start with Lionheart, the album immediately steps up a gear with the Mr Scruff featuring skank-out Dub Is For Real. It Was U continues along the same vein while injecting a 2-step sound with hypnotic vocals and tingling analogue waves. 50 Shades of Peng is a flawless lesson in how to make moody, danceable dubstep - featuring Skream, and a return to that vintage (bizarrely, considering he’s just 23) sound – with menacing flanging effects and sickle-sharp synths. The cast assembled for Make A Change is an interesting and impressive one, a selection reflecting some of the key movements in British urban dance music of the past 10 years, with several bass styles explored. Yet the flow of the album is seamless, and never does it feel like anyone else’s except for Maddslinky. DK

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7 x 7 BEAT | All City Records It seems that lot of recent genres built around a core of minimalism – think wonky, dubstep, and minimal techno – have become too sexed up of late and, without meaning to cast too many negative aspersions, that core has gone rotten as a result. Well not so with this outstanding compilation from Irish hip-hop label All City Records, featuring tracks from eight artists currently setting speakers on ﬁre from Sidcup to San Diego. Beautifully layered, minimal soundscapes to make your synapses snap are offered here courtesy of Hudson Mohawke, Onra and Le Neko among others, though it’s Fulgeance who stands out as the boundary pusher, with stumbling synths and dirty 8-bit chords on Revenge of the Nerd, followed by the sublimely trippy Mamie Thé, with its Fly-Lo ﬁngersnap snares and vinyl crackles that make you wonder how something so warm and worn could sound so cold and futuristic. The collection runs the full gamut of styles that would perhaps collectively be best described as enigmatic; a sentiment echoed by the label, who state that “the 7X7 BEAT series was born to demonstrate the best of this new international beat scene that people are still struggling to name and understand.” Buy it now. And forget about maggots. JW

Belleruche – 270 Stories | Tru Thoughts

270 Stories is Belleruche’s third album and follows on the heels of 2008’s The Express and signals a band growing into their sound. With production values bathed in vintage recording equipment, turntablism and a love of bass, and vocals provided by Kathrin DeBoer’s delightfully smokey voice, 270 Stories is a gem. Tracks such Bobby and the combustible 3 Amp Fuse, with its cinematic string section and relentlessly rip-roaring drums, encapsulate an album best described as highly polished and sophisticated dance music. One for the dinner party set methinks. JG

Massive Attack – Heligoland | Virgin Records Named after a small, rugged German archipelago in the North Sea, Heligoland is a remote relation to the sonically sparse and inconsistent 100th Window and picks up the thread from where Mezzanine ended. A warm and visceral record, the guest list may surprise but several beautiful moments of darkness, such as Paradise Circus, remind us why Massive Attack have had such a major role in shaping contemporary British music. JG

Bonobo – Black Sands | Ninja Tune With Black Sands, the man named after the endangered species of Pygmy Chimpanzee has evolved his sound and crafted his best work to date. As reﬁned as the beautiful artwork that encases it (doffed caps to Oscar & Ewan), Black Sands is a rich and rare listen and gets two thumbs up from the PG Tips monkeys who have it on rotate during their tea parties. JG

Lloyd Miller and The Heliocentrics – OST | Strut Born in 1938, Dr Lloyd Miller has devoted his lifetime to musical and cultural discovery. A believer in heritage, he embraced New Orleans jazz before, in the late 50s, becoming an authority on Persian and Eastern Music, immersing himself in ethnic music, producing work such as Oriental Jazz and presenting a Tehran based TV show. On this release for Strut he works with experimental British collective the Heliocentrics. On paper the partnership promises much and when the record cackles to life it doesn’t disappoint, transporting the listener to an exotic and mythical place. An enigmatic and timeless piece, OST showcases Millers understanding of Eastern arrangements and musicianship and highlights yet again the Heliocentrics’ talent for re-imagining the boundaries of jazz and funk. This is a deﬁantly original record, welding a respect of musical heritage with a desire to invent. JG

Paul White – Paul White & the Purple Brain | One Handed Music Paul White’s second album is a curious tribute to Swedish proprietor of the psychedelic, S.T. Mikael. Spanning 25 tracks, Paul White & the Purple Brain samples heavily from Mikael’s sprawling and esoteric back catalogue, producing a thick layer of swirling instrumental work reminiscent of Madlib’s recent Beat Konducta LPs. In that sense there is a lot to draw comparison to, not least in the fact that many of the songs feel like doodles awaiting further development.

Paul White & the Purple Brain comes across as a well executed homage to a fringe artist – one that fails to capture the imagination completely by the grace of its relatively narrow scope. While there are plenty of examples of recent beat-makers zeroing in on a particular source for their work (Beat Konducta in India being a pertinent example), they tend to choose on the basis of the subject matter’s elasticity. Having selected S.T. Mikael, one suspects that Paul White has considerably limited his palette. While Paul White & the Purple Brain remains an enjoyable exploration, it fails to make a lasting impact. AS

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The Bug – Infected EP | Ninja Tune Kevin Martin has released music under many guises during a prolific and critically acclaimed 20-year recording career – as part of post-industrialists God, the mutant hip-hop of Techno Animal and more recently alongside poet Roger Robinson in the King Midas Sound project, among others – but it is his work as The Bug that hit a zeitgeist. Extreme, cinematic, sinister and painfully authentic, these adjectives and many more were rattled off to describe London Zoo, probably Martin’s highest profile release to date and his third as The Bug. The Infected EP continues in a similar vein to the 2008 opus, but, is somehow even darker. Lead track Catch A Fire is a subtle deconstruction of Skeng (from London Zoo), where menacing bass is layered with industrial fuzz for Hitomi’s glacial vocals to observe a world gone bad. For Tune In The Bug manages to coax a usually jovial Roots Manuva into an ominous, zombie-like state of jive talking, something about ‘time running out’ and the sound of his ‘ju-ju’. But the previous 2 tracks are a breezy walk in the park on a summer’s day when compared to Autechre’s remix of the seminal Skeng, a track so sparse and stripped down it sounds like it’s been produced by sampling a swarm of angry, killer bees with a bass that thuds like the sharp end of a hammer hitting lead. The Scratch DVA mix of Poison Dart is easily the most dancefloor friendly tracks from the EP with Warrior Queen’s vocals being stretched and wrapped around funky keys, white noise and drone. In two words: death step. DK

Andreya Triana – Lost Where I Belong | Ninja Tune Andreya has been popping up on a lot of people’s radar since her perfectly pitched guest spots for Flying Lotus, Mr Scruff, Kidkanevil and Bonobo. However, those expecting some next-level beat science from new album Lost Where I Belong will be as wrong footed as those who pigeonholed her as a successor to fellow Leeds resident Corinne Bailey-Rae. What the album, co-produced by Bonobo, delivers is an elegant and understated backdrop of live instrumentation and found sounds which always lets Andreya’s gorgeous voice take centre stage. Cuts like Up In Fire and X display the kind of vocal-maturity that sacrifices vocal gymnastics for emotional connection and is embarrassingly rare on a debut album. The crunchy Loopstation aesthetic of her earlier live shows is evident in opener Draw The Stars, but is slowly layered with lush strings and percussion arrangements as delicate as cracking ice. The whole album follows this fine balancing act of being in a lovely limbo between big old-school soul orchestration and a homemade breathy gentleness. A very promising first record indeed and perfect for cold Yorkshire nights in. KH

Dark Matter – Multiverse 2004-2009 | Tectonic Bristol’s dub heritage runs deep. Whether it be The Wild Bunch sound system of the mid 80’s (later to be Massive Attack), the angst ridden growls of Tricky or the lush, synthesised soundboy riddims of Rob Smith (Smith n Mighty), this is a city that knows it’s bass onions. Over a decade on and rising like the proverbial phoenix from the mid ‘90s ﬂames are the Multiverse recording studio and Tectonic label. One of the most innovative and diverse of recent years, call it dubstep if you like; but it’s inﬂuences span dub, techno, 2-step, industrial, world music, the list goes on. Quality permeates throughout, with a real depth of sound evident. Whether it be the snaking, meditative skank of label founder Pinch’s seminal Qawwali, the ambient, soundscape leanings of Moving Ninja or the P-Funk-esque bass monsters of Joker; this is music made to be heard loud and clear. It’s menacing at times, brooding at others. October’s two releases would be as equally at home in a Carl Craig set of deep driving techno. Equally genre defying is 2562 who, with Techno Dread, blends Detroit pads with immaculately programmed future 2-step rhythms to create a sublime hybrid sound. Emptyset’s Demian is a beautifully restrained piece of dub techno minimalism that no doubt pulses through the Berlin twilight hours. As a snapshot of individuals who are stamping their mark on bass culture right now, this comes highly recommended. There’s shades of light but ultimately, this is for lovers of the dark. JH

Klashnekoff – Back to the Sagas | Abstract Urban Upon recieving the review copy of Back to the Sagas I was perplexed to find out it was the ‘clean’ version. Reminds me of school and some kid kept bugging me to dub him a tape of Ill Communication by the Beasties. Being a smug teenager, I decided, influenced by his usually poor musical taste, that he didn’t quite deserve something I’d saved up two weeks of paper round money for. I knew the album off by heart so sat there while it taped, pressing the mute button over the top of every explicit word on the album. I told him my mam said I had to do it, he never asked me to tape him anything again. Despite a swooshy noise in the place of naughty words, the album grew on me relatively quickly. Technically you could regard this as a debut album. The Sagas of Klashnekoff was really a collection of 12”s and as you can read earlier in this magazine, he regards Lionheart as not much more than a mixtape for Joe Buhdha. Sagas and Lionheart were deservedly met with critical acclaim. Back to the Sagas contains all the qualities that he has become known for but has the cohesion it’s predecessors lacked. Klash has been one of the dopest MCs in the UK for many years now, it’s good to see him finally arrive with a proper album. A smart and articulate story-teller with plenty to say, bringing that straight up grimy hip-hop shit that couldn’t come from anywhere else other than Britain. PA

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FROM TE CRTES BONAFIDE DRFTS IN DISORDA, BACKBONE OF TE UK HIP-HOP SCENE, VETERN MC, DJ, PROMOTER AND FOUNDER OF SUSPECT-PACKGES.COM TO DUS OFF AN OVERLOOKED PIECE OF CLSSIC UK VINYL AND GIVE IT SOME DUE RESPECT. WORDS: DISORDA When asked to pen a review for Bonaﬁde on a rarity from my UK collection, I didn’t really have to think for too long what to grab out of the racks: a compilation album released in 1988 called Hard Core One on the BPM label. The label’s main output was house music, yet there must have been a hip-hop head in amongst the crew, as they also released three other hip-hop 12”s alongside this compilation: a cut & paste jam from Construction Crew and straight up hiphop 12”s from D To The K & The Korperayshun. Having said that, back in ‘88 the distance between hip-hop & House music wasn’t that far. Think Rebel MC, Cookie Crew, Shut Up & Dance. They all merged the two genres with very impressive results, some even taking it to the top of the charts. I guess it’s very similar to the way the charts these days seem to be embracing the merging of Grime and Dance music into one, no? Anyway, I digress, let’s get to this bad boy. It’s only eight tracks long but truss, each one kicks. When it was released, the ‘Britcore’ scene was in full swing. Artists such as Gunshot, Blade, Hardnoise, Hijack, Silver Bullet, Killa Instinct and many more all had releases out around this time. Yet when this album dropped, it contained artists relatively unknown to the record buying public, especially to heads outside London: MC Krazee A, MC Reason, Rhymeside, MC Fizal Eff & DJ Quick, DJ Cuetips

& MC Dashy D, The Korperayshun, D 2 The K featuring MC Mell’O’ and finally Joi Bangla Sound. The opener by MC Reason, Money, sets the pace off nicely. A female emcee delivering the realities of money and the greed that can go with it. Followed by Krazee A’s Into The Music, straight head rocking over some sick break beat action, with the memorable line ‘media beware the b-boy battalion!’ Both these tracks are produced by Positive Clan… Nah, I’ve not heard of them either?! Then there’s Control, possibly the stand out track of the whole album, truly encompassing the sound and style of the UK’s hip-hop output at that time. Produced by Cuetips & Dexter (yes, Dexter who later went on to form The Brotherhood) it rolls with some rapidfire beats, and surefire rhymes. The other tracks are all killers, definitely no fillers, with D 2 The K drafting in possibly the most well known emcee at the time, MC Mell’O’ onto their track Slow Jam. Dexter is also part of the D 2 The K crew by the way. On the artwork is printed ‘conceived and compiled by Tony Thorpe’, whoever, wherever you are, big up, this is one hell of a release! Track it down if you can. Oh yeah, looking at the labels’ address on the sleeve I notice it was in the same business block in Camberwell, South East London that my business was once housed, random.

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EXPERIMENING WIT TE GRMS, IDENITIES AND SEREOTYPES OF DIFFEREN CITY TRIBES

White Polo shirt by King – £39.99 Jacket by PC Williams – £POR Blue Twister jeans by Topman £44 Air Force 1 Trainers by Nike @ foot asylum – £60 Hat w/anchor by Staple £POR

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Photographer: A R Harvey Stylist: Jade Stavri Stylists Assistant: Lauren Cardoe Hair Stylist: Soichi Inagaki Makeup Artist: Kaori Mitsuyasu using MAC Models: Ben from Oxygen Models, Deimante from Oxygen Models Top left: Blue Checked Shirt by Supreme Being – £50 Jacket by Insight – £POR Beige Trousers by Topman – £26 Dickey Bow tie by Topman – £10 Black High tops by Vans – £62 Top Right: Jewellery by Disney Couture – Unicorn: £30, Jaw bracelet, House necklace: £50, Diamante bracelets,£60, Dress by Rebecca Minkoff £POR Bottom Left: Dress by Mina UK – £65 Jacket by Lavenham – £POR Knee high boots in birch by Kate Kuba – £225 Jewellery by Disney Couture – Coral Necklace: £46, Diamante Headband: £40

Top Left: Male: (See previous page, top left) Female: Plaid Jumpsuit by Won hundred – £200 Converse all stars by Foot Asylum – £40 Gilet with sheepskin trim by Penﬁeld – £165 Coral necklace by Disney Couture – £46 Top Right: Shirt by PC Williams – £POR Bomber Jacket by King – £POR Trousers by Topman – £26 Bottom Left: Playsuit by Kage – £POR Pink Kyrstal bag by Clutch – £245 Gold/black cardigan by Mina UK – £59 Jewellery by Disney Couture – Black ribbon and pearl earrings: £45, Pearl bracelets: £30 Disney Couture @ www.asos.com www.topman.com | www.supremebeing.com www.king-apparel.com | www.minauk.com PC WIlliams @ www.pcw.moonfruit.com www.penﬁeldusa.com

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Shirt by Mina Pinka – £POR Trousers by Mina Pinka – £POR Boots by L.A.M.B – £POR

TIED TOGETER

RED-ALERT: BONAFIDE X NIKE TIED TOGETER WORDS: JOHN WHYBROW

GRAFF: EMILSKI

In the very early hours of a typically wet and gloomy June morning, Team Bonaﬁde formed part of Nike’s latest creative venture, a project called Tied Together, aimed at promoting their new laces in honour of the Product (Red) campaign.

tee designed by the ever-dope Emilski and Bonfide’s J-boy. Mix-hosting site Mixcloud also invited each team to produce an hour-long mix, providing 24 hours of tracks to move to, and once again Bonafide wasn’t fessing, curling out the zany 58 track Milk ‘n’ Anchovies mix, put together by the one and only DJ Fracture, joint-head of Astrophonica and Compound One record labels. Check it here: www.bonafidezine.com/mixes

The red “Lace Up Save Lives” laces have been hitting roads, wrists, parks and pitches in recent weeks, and you can find them at any Nike store. 100% profit from each sale goes to providing antiretroviral (ARV) medicines to HIV patients in Africa, so make sure you cop a pair. Tied Together was a global event spanning 5 cities. New York, London, Milan, Berlin and Paris each fielded 24 teams who had creative control over one hour in the day. The teams – repping the likes of Supreme, ALIFE, Vice, Tumblr, Mixcloud, Collette, as well as several fledgling creative outfits – had to move through the urban landscapes of their respective cities on foot, bike, deck, roller-skate, shopping trolley, and neon street-pedallo thing, whilst being filmed and photographed for the campaign. The whole thing was pretty hectic, as team after team passed the red baton, involving unlikely exchanges between roller-girls and skate kids, zentai freaks and running heads. T-shirts were designed especially for the event by each team, with the kick-ass Bonafide x Nike

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It was with great anticipation, fixies and a bunch of well-sourced latex masks, that we took to the roads, ready to cause havoc and rep the red laces. The initial plan was to ping down to London’s financial outpost on The Isle of Dogs and blam the crap out of every polished steel and marble surface with an army of red blood cell stickers. The red blood cell was the motif on the Bonafide tee and our way of putting the message across to the fat cats and kittens of West India Docks, figuring that if anyone should be lacing up and helping victims of HIV in Africa, it’s those that ply their trade amid the shiny towers of HSBC, Citigroup, et al. Much to our lament though, London’s ‘summer’ was really kicking in by 3am and some adjustments had to be made due to the wet weather, not least on the part of Emilski, who had planned a massive double-helix piece on the sidewall of 1948, now covered in rivulets of rainwater.

The local bobbies were on redalert however, and the operation was swiftly shut down as we were walkie-talkied up against a wall and eventually escorted off the premises under Section 8-point-whatever of the AntiTerror waft. To say that the security was tight would be gross understatement, as within minutes Chaz and co. found themselves on the back foot, looking for the Protein ﬁlm crew and the way back to 1948, where event co-ordinators Rosie Lee awaited the red baton for their dawn run to Soho’s Red Light District. Spirits were kept aﬂoat though and it seemed our arrival, wearing celebrity masks and rocking up with many a red item had reignited a spark of enthusiasm among the other creative forces involved in the event: a rather perked up Shaniqwa Jarvis (one-time snapper of the RZA and Methodman and current Supreme photographer) took an almost nefarious pleasure in the banter as the the four horsemen of the Air Max set about the task in hand. As Prince Chaz, Posh Spice, and Simon Cowell rode through the wild wet, barking indecipherable propaganda at London’s twilight-zoners, Rodders (aka Emilski) grappled with noisy aerosols in the foreboding darkness of 1948’s usually well-lit courtyard. After a brief detour and a conspicuous U-turn, phase one was accomplished as we arrived on The Isle of Dogs. Having already disturbed some of the wharf’s

late-night movers and shakers, the hunt was on for a few prime targets for sticker onslaught. Deftly moving across the polished stone paving slabs towards the Credite Suisse building, slapping up blood cells along the way, Team Bonaﬁde decided to step to London’s biggest erection: No.1 Canada Square.

Managing to stop en-route for a few money shots with Teddy Protein - much to the horror of some rowdy Whitechapel rudeboys - the Bonaﬁde heads made it back in time to pass the baton, all agreeing it was one of the most surreal hours they’d had since watching Kool Keith’s ode to 98 year old refrigerators on youtube the night before. Conﬁrmation of Rodders’ dab

handywork with a spraycan was duly noted, as there adorning the outer wall of 1948, lay a fat ‘Safe Blud!’ dub, and the leg was as good as done.

Peep the full ﬁlm footage of the London leg here: www.vimeo.com/14235352 or search keywords Nike Tied Together.

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BLOWING TE TRUMPET FOR TOP RNKING UK CRETIVE TALEN

OSCR & EWAN OUR QUES FOR SUPER FRESH COVER ARTWORK BRINGS US TO A QUESION AND ANSWER SESSION WIT OSCR AND EWAN. TE CRETIVE DUO BEHIND A HOS OF BRILLIAN COVERS, WE CHEW TE FT OVER TYPOGRPHY, ELEPHANS AND OIL SPILLS. WORDS: JAMES GRIFFIN During the previous issues, we’ve had the opportunity to speak to designers like George Dubose, Jeff Jank, Village Green, Gareth Bayliss and Ehquestionmark? All individuals were characterised by a common denominator: a relentless drive to produce original and experimental artwork that was a ﬁtting foil to the music. Such motivations resulted in work deserving critical props. And critical plaudits is something that goes hand-in-hand with label Big Dada. Run by Will Ashton, Big Dada isn’t concerned with reputations. Instead it backs those with natural talent and gives them a platform to express themselves. What is equally true is that Big Dada have also given creative team Oscar and Ewan the opportunity and space to realise their own colourful creative language.

How did it all start with Big Dada? Ewan: We were both at St Martins. In the second year I interned at Big Dada, helping out doing bits and bobs, making tea and doing some design work...easy stuff such as adverts. The chance came to pitch for the Wiley [Playtime is Over] cover. They liked the idea and it dominoed from there.

The duo were given their ﬁrst chance to work with the label on Wiley’s Playtime is Over cover. It was all about an exciting idea and not about a portfolio of previously realised work. Big Dada bought into said idea and the result was a cover that was pitch perfect and expertly executed. Everything from the composition, tone and the details from the chalk inﬂuenced typeface through to the grey and chilly weather, were clearly selected to complement the album. Subsequent work for the likes of Bonobo and Jammer have cemented their reputation as original thinkers who can deliver artwork that has the ability to make the viewer take a second look. Nuff said.

Regarding the Playtime is Over artwork, how did you get the label and artist onside? Oscar: The idea seemed to ﬁt the album title. When we proposed it, it was a full pitch and included a layout of how we would do it. [Wiley] didn’t seem too fussed. He was more concerned with getting the tunes out there rather than thinking about what the cover was looking like. I think, at the beginning, there was the slight worry that it wasn’t as grimey as the usual material but that was what we wanted. We wanted a classy design and Big Dada liked the idea.

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Ewan: At ﬁrst the label were worried about how it would come out, especially as we initially thought

Cover for Wiley’s Playtime is Over LP we might paint the playground and not much of our previous work was fully realised. So we were like “We want to make this playground black,” and they wanted to see exactly what we meant. It was quite difﬁcult for us and obviously a risk for them. Since then, with that coming out quite well, they have been more trusting with letting us go with our ideas. Oscar: It´s the way you start out with anything. Say you can do it and then hope for the best. Was everything spay-painted for that cover? Ewan: Initially we thought we would spray-paint the climbing frame. But obviously we would have got into trouble, so we got a creative re-toucher in. He did the climbing frame and we spray-painted the toys and the other bits and bobs.

Connected to the idea of influencing artists, was it easy to convince Jammer to work with an elephant for his new cover? Ewan: It´s called Jahmanji and he wanted animals everywhere. It was going to be Photoshopped but we said ‘Why don’t we just shoot him with an elephant’. We wanted it be posed, like he was with his Staffordshire terrier. The label were on board straight away. Actually finding a park that would let us take a picture of an MC next to an elephant was a bit more difficult. Was there a lot of organization involved? Ewan: Kind of. It was quite surprising how many parks have elephants in Britain. I thought there would be just one but there was … >>

WE HAVE THREE STEPS. THE IDEA, THEN THE HOW THE IMAGE WILL LOOK, AND THEN THE PACKAGING AND HOW IT CAN INTERACT WITH THE IMAGE.

four or ﬁve. We ended up shooting at Whipsnade Zoo, part of London zoo, and they were quite happy to have someone right next to the elephant. Oscar: The major problem seems to be that the elephant gets quite bored quite easily. There was a half an hour slot but after about 10 minutes or something the elephant got bored and left. In that situation you can´t really do much. Can you sum up how your visual style complements the output and ethos of Big Dada? Ewan: Big Dada is an underdog really. Where the musical output is excellent, but they don’t have the means of larger labels. Creative freedom for the artists is a big and essential part of what they do. In the same way, we have enjoyed a fairly free reign with regards to the design, and this freedom has let us put forward quite a strong, uncompromised vision. Our idea based approach with the photography has minimised the need the for over the top, extravagant graphics and typography, so the actual tone of the design is quite subdued and not at the forefront. In this way its similar to the label, Will [Ashton] has always stressed that it is an artist led label and we think in our work the representation of the artists is the main objective. If you look at the work on your website, it´s quite varied. What is your creative process? Oscar: When we get a brief we try to strip it down to the bare communication. After listening to the

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album we assume that this is why they have given it this title. So we always try to strip it down to that straight communication and avoid swirls and such like on the cover. We try to keep it true to the [albums] original idea and not detract from that Ewan: First we get the idea and then after that we will decide on how the image will look, its tone and how we want to tweak it. I guess we have three steps. The idea, then the how the image will look, and then the packaging and how it can interact with the image. As you mentioned, you place importance on creating the ﬁnal image yourself, instead of relying on second-hand images and postproduction. Can you elaborate on this? Ewan: There is something to be said about the fact that we make something physical and document it, rather than making on some Photoshop jazz image. I think when you look at it, you can feel that it is a physical piece and that is quite an impressive thing. Maybe they have more of a presence because someone has put effort into it. Oscar: There are a few covers, such as Ninja Cuts, where we couldn’t come up with a big concept and bought an image from an American NASA illustrator and images of pyramids, and did it the classic way. The stuff we enjoy the most, though, is when can realise the whole thing ourselves. Of course when we create physical objects, such as the Well Deep piece and Roots Manuva´s

Artwork for Jammer’s 10 Man Roll single

ACTUALLY FINDING A PARK THAT WOULD LET US TAKE A PICTURE OF AN MC NEXT TO AN ELEPHANT WAS A BIT MORE DIFFICULT

head, it is useful whenever people ask us to be in a show. I think is quite a nice thing to be able to do instead of just supplying the album sleeve. I love the Well Deep cover, it seems that you are showing the credibility of Big Dada’s output. How did that creative come about? Ewan: There was two things. The celebration of ten years, showing the hip-hop records who people might not always take seriously in a context that was quite grand. And then, which was more of a silly thing, the play on the deep by having the records stacked in a box. Oscar: We took all the records and arranged them in chronological order and made a museum piece. It´s difﬁcult how to answer how the idea comes to life, it tends to be organic, we push each others ideas on. Had you produced the sleeves for a lot of the records? Oscar: A few. The Wiley stuff which was [then] the most recent and we tried to get on top of the pile! We’ve come across you because of your design work for record sleeves, what other areas do you work in? Oscar: Classic text based areas such as catalogues, books and programmes. A big growing interest for us has been furniture and spatial design. We’ve had the opportunity to take part in exhibitions on our own doing 3D work, where we work with the space. It seems to a continuation of how we

work and instead of taking a picture we let it exist in its own right. Does this furniture have a practical use? Ewan: We did some work with Metropolitan Works, a digital manufacturing bureau based in London. They have all sorts of different technology for crafting prototyping, laser scanning and stuff like that. We did an exhibition for them when they opened. They commissioned eight or nine artists and designers to produce a piece using with their technology. Is it important to you to remain forwardlooking designers, embracing new techniques and going off in different directions? Oscar: Absolutely. Rather than narrow ourselves down, we open ourselves up to any kind of field because that brings in this element of newness. There is an obvious risk of not being prepared for what is going to happen or how things are going to go. But the risk factor is outweighed by the fun of the project and there are times that you find things that are a new take on something. If you just say in your safe little area there is a risk that you will start looking like most other things. Ewan: Having said that we rarely work in a way that we find the technology and think of a way to use it. It is often the idea and then trying to find a way to realise it. And if that takes us to something new then we embrace it. … >>

Details: clockwise from top of the page; Well Deep record cover; photography from Roots Manuva’s Slime and Reason release; cover artwork for Wiley’s My Mistakes single; artwork for Bonobo’s Black Sands LP; oil rig visual for the Offshore EP.

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OUR MOTTO IS ‘CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG, BUT YOU CAN NEVER GO WRONG, WITH A BIT OF SABON’

We´ve talked about conceptual design work that you have produced and in particular the challenges of working with an elephant. Have you worked on anything elaborate that has gone wrong or not worked? Oscar: Can we say this without Big Dada reading it going “Ah ha”? Ewan: The Slime and Reason piece was pretty risky. We did a 3D print of the head and then had to cast it in plaster and sculpt it. In the casting we had to break the original print. And then when it came out, the lady who helped cast the mould went on holiday so we had to remove it and do the last bit of sculpting ourselves. It could have been pretty disastrous. Oscar: We had no idea what we were doing and we just thought “Yeah that is ﬁne we will just take a scalpel”. We started sculpting the eyes and the eyelids and we found out it was really quite difﬁcult. We came back and looked at it the eyes were going this way and that way. That was all the original and we couldn´t plaster over it. Ewan: It had this massive squint. Oscar: A lot of thanks go to our photographer who lit it very well! I was looking at the site, and I’ve seen the Offshore [Ewan’s music alias] stuff. Where did the visual image come from, is it a model?

Ewan: The rig is a 3D model created by a guy from Aberdeen who does a lot of 3D visualization for the oil industry. Oscar: He’ll be doing well now. Ewan: Yeah I’ve got this idea for a big cork. Oscar: You should do a big spill around it now. Can you list your favourite: font, logo design and record. Font: difﬁcult, all have their time and place. One we used for Big Dada’s Well Deep [and continued to use on some other releases] is Johnston, which is most widely known for its use on the London Underground. Another classic we have been using recently for a few straighter projects is Sabon. Our motto is “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can never go wrong, with a bit of Sabon”. Logo: no clear favourite! A few nice ones of different categories are, V&A, Fedex and Fjällräven. Record: a few ofﬁce listening hits: Wu Tang – 36 Chambers / Love – Forever Changes / The Kewis – Kewis Komplete / Neil Young – Harvest / Philip Glass – Koyaanisqatsi / Kyuss – And The Circus Leaves Town

For more information visit www.oscarandewan.co.uk

SLINKCHU FLLEN SUPER HEROES, DAY DREMING OFFICE WORKERS AND LONELINESS IN TE CITY, SLINKCHU’S WORK PLYS WIT TEMES BIGGER TAN TE ACTORS INVOLVED. WE GO TROUGH TE AIMS AND AMBITIONS OF TE CRETOR OF LITTLE PEOPLE WIT IDES ABOVE TEIR SATION. WORDS: JAMES GRIFFIN While many within the street-art genre tend to traverse familiar territory; either attention grabbing calling cards, commercial or political subversive statements or clichéd remixes of pop culture (or post-Mr Brainwash, pastiches of existing streetart that itself sampled pop culture); Slinkachu resides on the periphery of the scene. Like JR, Mark Jenkins and Blu, he utilises the urban-canvas in a nuanced and sophisticated way. His work also displays a rare and charming sleight of hand that deals in pathos, dreams and the ridiculous. Innovative and original, his work locker doesn’t include the usual items of spray-paint, pasteups or stencils, instead his tools are revamped miniature model ﬁgurines purchased from Preiser, a German company that specialises in making pieces for toy railways. He paints, manipulates and re-imagines these pieces and photographs them in different scenarios. In many ways he’s a street-art conundrum, championed by many in the scene, yet an artist who doesn’t conform to the set ideas of what the practice should be about. Smartly dressed and in his early 30s, he is a genial interviewee, answering questions with easy humour and even going halves on lunch. Over cups of tea, an easy ﬂowing conversation provides an illuminating insight into an artist, who with a body of original and recognisable work, has carved his own niche.

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THE GENERAL THEME IS THE SMALLNESS OF THE CHARACTERS AND THE SITUATIONS THEY ARE IN… THE MUNDANE TASKS PEOPLE DO EVERYDAY THAT HAVE A RIDICULOUS OR MELANCHOLIC ELEMENT.

I’M INCLUDED IN THE STREET-ART SCENE BECAUSE I TAKE MY PICTURES OUTDOORS BUT REALLY I GUESS I AM ON THE EDGE. PART OF THE EXTENDED FAMILY

Photography details: this page Tundra, opposite page Dreams of Living

Artistic development Slinkachu’s output is an accomplished balance of technical skill and idea realisation, an approach fostered through a childhood curiosity for making objects, refined through A-level and degree level art courses, and commercially honed in the role of Art Director for an advertising agency. Developing these skills has allowed him to express his talent for playful, visual storytelling via brilliantly conceived set-piece photography. It´s apt that his transformation to full-time artist has a feel-good plot. His first piece involved characters sat on a bench at Putney Station and over the next two years as ideas and interest snowballed he was able, in 2008, on the eve of his first solo show to leave secure employment and become a full-time artist. Currently represented by the Andipa Gallery, that provides access to studio space and specialized equipment, the way he describes his artistic path sounds oh-so-easy. But then as he admits he’s doing something that he loves that has inadvertently become his job and talking with him you realise that he appreciates every minute of it.

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Eavesdropping Discussing how he develops accessible ideas, he outlines how he takes his inspiration from the minutiae of the world around him. He derives ideas from people watching, eavesdropping on snatches of conversations, and also novels such as The Scheme for Full Employment. Local newspaper stories, that often read like an entry for a creative short story but are actually true, also provide inspiration. He gleefully recounts an incident he read about a person ejected from a train, having been seen by a fellow passenger to write the word killers on a notepad. What the accuser and those who ejected the writer failed to take into account was that they were compiling a DJ set list that included The Killers. “The general theme is the smallness of the characters and the situations they are in…the mundane tasks people do everyday that have a ridiculous or melancholic element. My favourite piece is Tundra. There is a sign saying ‘You are here’ and the background is solid grey concrete. I like how it suggests that city life is overwhelming and lonely while there is also a touch of the ridiculous about it.”

He takes the ideas to their logical conclusion with his miniature prints, such as Close Shave where the character is shot farcically walking around with a huge piece of paper that covers up his freshly nicked, shaved face. These mini-pieces, due to their size provide, an opportunity to be ﬂippant and showcase a razor-sharp sense of humour.

worker gazing over a puddle on a sunny day. The title complements the image but muddies interpretations. Is the worker dreaming of quitting the city for a bucolic existence or considering diving in and ending it all? The ﬁgure, setting and playful title act as cues for the viewers imagination to begin unfolding the story.

As the conversation progresses it becomes apparent that while humour is important the work also has real depth and isn’t just about one-line jokes. Pieces such as Dreams of Packing It All In and The Last Kiss encapsulate his prowess for multi-layered storytelling using limited tools. While the subject matter might make the work popular there are themes, other than obvious, at work.

During the course of our conversation he mentions that he writes short stories and that, at some stage in the future, he would like to write a book and as the conversation moves forward it’s easy to his how his interest in ﬁction shapes his work. Indeed if we want to push the literary link it can be suggested that telling a story with limited means reverberates of Ernest Hemmingway’s short story For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn. Hemmingway demonstrated that by carefully selecting your tools it’s possible to create something more elaborate than the sum of its parts. It’s plausible to suggest that Slinkachu’s work, due to the limits he imposes on himself, has the ability to encourage the reader to ﬁll in the blanks. These clues make the imagery, like life, complicated and allow people to relate to them.

For example, taking Slinkachu’s admission that he is drawn to the melancholic, is The Last Kiss documenting the last passion play of the night or does it signal the end of the affair? Adding ambiguity are titles like High Expectations, Spilt Milk and The High Life. Considered names that add a literary element to the work. Dreams of Packing It All In sounds wistful and visually it is a timely reﬂection of the state-of-nation in current economic climes. It features a city

The real-life quality of the pieces is echoed in the way his work appears. From the first shot he took in Putney, his work has used the outdoors. The figures that he manipulates, the station guard turned superhero are, post-shoot, left on their own to fend to for themselves, possibly to picked up by a child, eaten by a pigeon or blown away by the wind. Brief encounters of the small kind If you aren’t fortunate enough to stumble across the little folk when they have had their photograph taken, there are still chances to see his work first-hand. He has been involved with the Fame Exhibition, Italy, Nuart, Norway, and Extraordinary Measures, Belsay Hall, Northumberland. His popular book Little People in the City that documents his work included an introduction by Will Self. He asked for a preface that explores Lilliputian comparisons and was pleased to follow this up with own tongue-in-cheek introduction that didn’t require a dictionary to translate. The book has been published in the UK and Germany and an updated version is set for release in Holland. Like many successful artists, with a distinctive idea, he has been approached by companies dangling cheque books, wanting to incorporate his work

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into their advertising. So far he has batted away any interest. His own experience in the industry means he is un-surprised but not uncomfortable with the fact that several campaigns over the past few years have used miniature models as their leading men and ladies. His focus instead has been on diversifying his output and taking advantage of opportunities that are coming his way. He is currently collaborating on a short ﬁlm that, through different camera angles, will allow the characters to evolve and offer a chance realise more complicated ideas, working on illustrations for a story published by a charity organization and producing a google map that marks where all his shots have been taken. The parting image is of an artist hungry to make his mark, who loves engaging viewers with his work.

Keep an eye on the little folk at http://little-people.blogspot.com

WHO IS TE WING?” ASKS D*FCE’S LOGO – A SORT OF DEMENED BOWLING BA£ FCE WIT WINGS SPROUING FROM TE SIDES – A SREET ARTIS WHO GOES ABOU HIS PROLIFIC AND OFTEN SPECTACULR WORK IN A SATE OF RELTIVE ANONYMITY. BU I DIGRESS....WHO IS TE WING? WOR WO RD DS S:: DAV VID D KAN A E It could be the tubby, bearded guy decked out in Supreme and SBs you see on the platform every morning, the old lady who lives down the road or the po-faced city worker? It could be any of us. The individual behind the wings is Dean Stockton and he grew up in London. That much is known, but he prefers anonymity, choosing not to reveal himself and I’m none the wiser as this interview is conducted via email. Yet his work and the candidness of some of his answers suggests this has less to do with enigmatic gimmickry and more to do with a preference for his work to be judged on its merits rather than any gallery big wig or culture sheet schmoozing. His mission statement is to ‘encourage the public not just to see but to look at what surrounds them and their lives.’ To teach and to taunt if you will. He explores this space by taking familiar pop culture iconography and injecting it with a mischievous dose of warped

hyper-reality. A world where art and advertising clash, where anything and everything is a canvas including screen prints, vinyl stickers, steel, swimming pools, £10 notes, dollar bills and of course, the streets. His work includes distorted Walt Disney typography, an Eyecons exhibition with prints of Kurt Kant Complain and Cli-Che Guevara, re-interpretations of classic comic book heroes appearing exposed and vulnerable,and even the hilarious More Punk Than You Punk, a print series featuring a sex pistoled HRH Queen Elizabeth. Surprisingly, despite these often subversive statements D*Face has been commissioned by both the Queen and the Vatican. Given that the original motivation behind art was rooted in the notion of ‘the gift’, why do so many people attempt to ‘cash in’ on art, particularly street art, and is this morally right? All I know is my motivation hasn’t changed and I’m through with the moral dilemma and debate of putting work on the street and seeing it taken and sold on eBay or whatever auction. I still love putting work on the street and that’s that. As soon as anything goes

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HIRST MADE SELLING HIS ART AN ART FORM ITSELF, AND ART’S ALL ABOUT PUSHING THE IDEA OF ‘ART’ AND PEOPLES PERCEPTIONS THEM

from being ‘underground’ to becoming more ‘populist’ and a value is attached to it, then inevitably people try to cash in on that. I’ve seen it in music for instance the Sub Pop label and the bands it signed and skateboarding, going from ‘get the fuck off my steps’ to the largest-growing sport. So inevitably it happened within this genre whether that’s people becoming ‘street artists’ in the pursuit of the dollar, or selling work they’ve taken or bought, that’s all part and parcel of what this movement’s become. Nobody owns anything right? So if I put something in the street it’s no longer mine, it’s the public’s, so what happens to it is no longer in my hands. If it gets lined out, buffed, stolen or weathers the test of time, these are all the ‘beauty and the beast’ of putting artwork in the public domain. What do you think of Andy Warhol and his capitalisation of the modern art world? Are there any parallels between that and what is going on in contemporary street art now? I think what Warhol did, like Duchamp, was turn the art world around on itself. OK, Warhol made the artist become the art as much as a celebrity, but I think you have to look at what artists like Hirst do to really get on that parallel, forming consortiums to purchase your work at the highest possible price in order for it to become historically signiﬁcant, setting up auctions to sell your work at the highest price... now this starts to become really interesting. Hirst made selling his art an art form

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itself, and art’s all about pushing the idea of ‘art’ and peoples perceptions. I think parallels can be drawn throughout the history of art back to what is happening today. But i’d sooner be able to live as an artist now than go back to the days of artists having to die before work was deemed ‘valuable’. Practically the whole of art history can be separated into periods/movements/styles etc. Do you think street art has reached, or will ever reach, saturation point? If so, what then? That’s assuming street art has earned it’s place in art history and as such a movement?! If so then with any movement there’s a saturation point, normally easily equated to a monetary crash and we’ve all seen that. The good thing about street art is any person can do it, it’s an open field, no curator, no buyers, no panel of judges. So long as the motivation and dedication are true it’ll continue indefinitely. Just like any movement, there’s saturation and then clarification and as the dust settles it’s a little easier to see out the other side. What is the closest you have ever come to suffering for your art (arrested, injured etc.)? I’ve come close to serious injury, maybe worse. I wanted to paste up a poster on a stupid spot, it was high and had amazing visibility, but the only way to get to it involved climbing over and along an iron railing that had pointed barbs at the top, so I had to rail walk out and then back round the end and onto a ledge, the railing overhung

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unfamiliar, uncomfortable, taste beneath.’ We, and I use the term very much in the plural (sweeping statement et al), spent far too much of the 00s romanticising and fetishising pop culture from the 80s, and the last year or so has seen a growing nostalgia for 90s fashions and music (echoes of jungle music, from producers like Zomby and traces of grunge, stylistically at least, with groups such as The xx, etc.) Looking back on the 00s, do we have any original culture to be remotely proud of and one that can be referenced over time?

a slowly freezing canal in a wintry Amsterdam. It was ﬁne heading out to the spot but coming back wasn’t so easy, covered in wheat paste and with frozen slippery hands and wet shoes, my grip was failing fast and with each step along the railing my hands and feet lost grip, to the point where I had to take a leap of faith for the path, that still makes my balls creep today. Or in Hong Kong where I scaled a three story bamboo scaffold to hit a spot, only to get caught, and have to re-climb the structure three times as I attempted to fool the law and hide my posters and paste at the top of the scaffolding... only to get seen each time... every time I scaled the bamboo scaffolding was a testament to my own stupidity.... actually much or most of what I do is testament to my own stupidity. What does a sense of Britishness mean to you? A healthy dose of being able to laugh at ourselves and a good oldfashioned dollop of anti-establishment values. There is a sentence in the Why section of your website that particularly interests me; ‘A Pandora’s box of bittersweet delights - sweet and sugary on the surface, but with an

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Wooooohhhooo, getting a little heavy... I think so, I HOPE so. It becomes blatantly apparent that the past is there for the plundering, nothing goes without being referenced to something that pre-dated it, whether the author was or is aware of the potential origins, but some truly original and unique art, fashion and music have come from those inﬂuences and they will stand the test of time. I think certain corners of those cultures can begin to be revealed. What was it like working with a pop artist as big as Christina Aguilera for the cover art on her latest album, Bionic? Easy. Honestly she was a dream, she’d asked me to work on the album a long time ago and really wanted me to do it, I think she sensed my reservations, she was also aware that I grew up listening to punk and thrash

I ADMIRE A STRONG WOMAN THAT HOLDS HER OWN AND STILL REMAINS FEMININE AND SEXY WITH IT AND MY EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH HER WAS ALL THIS. MUSICALLY I CAN’T BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE ALBUM, BUT VISUALLY IT’S ALL ME. music, so understood it was a hard call for me to make. But she was really cool and just pushed my ideas, never directing or altering what I was trying to do. Her and her husband have been buying my work for some time so I have a good relationship with them and it meant I dealt with them directly. If she was unclear with what I was doing, we’d speak directly. She’s a headstrong woman and knows what she likes/doesn’t like and I’m sure she’s used to getting what she wants, but the experience was totally cool, I admire a strong woman that holds her own and still remains feminine and sexy with it, she’s up for a laugh and my experience working with her was all this. Musically I can’t be held accountable for the album, but visually it’s all me. Are you keen to work with more musicians on their cover art? HELL YEAH. I’m as musically talented as a brick, so working with talented musicians is a pleasure, I’d really like to work with a new, young band like These New Puritans where I could really visually get involved from a deeper level or of course, Interpol. Should the Dead Kennedys or any of my old punk band favorites reform... I’m down!

Comic books are signiﬁcant throughout your work, there are a few notable exceptions but the ﬁlm adaptations seem to be getting worse. Do you agree with that? And if you had the choice what comic book character would you take to the big screen and why? Yeah it’s true, they do seem to be getting worse. You know I think they’re better off left alone. The problem with translating any comic or book for that matter, is everyone who has read them previously makes them completely personally So when a director, producer, script writer etc get involved they have to tailor it to the masses and it instantly starts to fail. So they’re best left alone... apart from Christian Bale as Bat Man. He smashed it... well I thought he did! (ed. he did!) Have they taken Snoopy to the big screen? No? I’d do that; make it really dark and satirical. And ending with a comic book syntax, what lies in store for the future of D*Face? ... to be continued.

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PROSE-ACHE

INTRO: DAVID KANE

WORDS: WILL ASHON

Will Ashon is probably best known for being the founder and A&R head of Big Dada Records. The avant-garde hip-hop offshoot of Ninja Tune that has released all of Roots Manuva’s studio albums, records by Ty, DOOM’s apocalyptic alias Vicktor Vaughn as well as giving Diplo and Spank Rock their big break. But he is also a writer of some distinction having contributed to the likes of Muzik, Trace and Hip-Hop Connection magazine during the 1990s. More recently Will has had two novels published by Faber & Faber, the mischievous Clear Water and The Heritage, with a third. Work due out later this year. Will is the ﬁrst editor of Prose-Ache, a new column of short stories exploring the complexities and minutiae of modern day living.

CAMERA In retrospect Tim Billington couldn’t be sure when it had all started. Though he knew exactly when it had all stopped. He had been going to work by the same route for well over a year. Out of his ﬂat, left at the off licence, cross over, right and then along the scruffy drag to the tube. After a few months he had begun walking down the stairs at the station instead of taking the lift – for the exercise, to sweat off some of the drink, as the rest of his life was spent sitting at a desk or in the pub. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to spot it, but he thinks of himself as observant, so it can’t have

been too long. There it was, every day, as he spiralled down those steps in a rhythmic, skidding run. The camera. Tim still has no idea why that camera in particular should have caught his attention. Yes, the ceiling of the stairwell was quite low and the camera was positioned right in the middle so that he was halfconcerned he could hit his head on it. But he must have passed hundreds of cameras on his way to and from work, many even more conspicuous than this one, and he never seemed to focus on any of the others. The truth was, when he passed this one, he felt watched. He actually felt watched. As if he could almost see the human eye behind the lens. Tim didn’t feel disconcerted by this revelation. At ﬁrst he wasn’t even aware of it. To begin with he just smiled at the camera every time he walked down past it without even thinking. And then, eventually, he noticed this smiling and asked himself why he was doing it. And that was when

he realised he felt like this camera, this camera in particular, was watching him. Not observing him. Not recording his actions. Watching him.

industries. This became his installation, his personal masterpiece, this daily meeting with his camera.

Even then, he didn’t mind. He’d always liked “1984” but maybe not in the way his teacher had intended. He’d found it a great comfort read, reassuring. Sexy, almost. He couldn’t believe he was the only person who felt like that.

He knew someone was watching, was waiting for him every morning between 8.50 and 9am. A girl, probably only his age, a girl in a security uniform. One day he left a ﬂower on the step for her. When he came home it was gone. The next day he left her another ﬂower. The day after a small teddy bear with a note explaining that it was his own from when he was a baby. That wasn’t strictly true but he liked it as a gesture. After that it was homebaked cookies bought from a shop near work. Poems (copied out in his own hand). Photographs of the Brecon Beacons. Blades of grass. He knew she was watching. He imagined the morning she would be standing there waiting for him to come down, so that he would see her just as he hitched his bag off his shoulder.

And, it had to be said, no one took much notice of Tim anywhere else. No one seemed desperate to acknowledge his unique talents, his incomparable skill sets. Whatever he did, no matter how hard he tried, no one seemed to be watching. He began by waving as well as smiling. Every morning as he descended. The notes followed. He would copy motivational quotations from his favourite books last thing at night, in big block capitals on A4 sheets of card stolen from work. He would liked to have written something original but what with the job and going out with colleagues after, he never seemed to have time. As he walked past his camera, smiling and waving, he would hold up the card so that the watcher could read it. As the months passed, the quotations started to get longer and he would have to stop and stand on the stairs ﬂipping through three or four and then ﬁve or six cards as his fellow commuters pushed past him. He had always wanted to do something arty, had ended up making tea for wankers in an obscure sector of the creative

And then one day it all ended. He still has no idea what came over him. It hadn’t been planned. It certainly hadn’t been planned. And he had really meant no harm or offence. He still can’t understand it. But at 8.52am on Wednesday May 7th, whilst descending the stairs at the tube station he had passed through over a thousand times before, Tim Billington got out his dick.

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Sunday 7th November:

Suite For Ma Dukes Screenings @ Westbourne Studios Exclusive charity screenings of this brilliant orchestral performance of J-Dilla's work.

Saturday 13th November:

The Doctor's Orders @ Big Chill House “THE KINGS OF THE CAPITAL'S HIP-HOP SCENE” TIME OUT 2010

Drum & Bass legend Grooverider plays an exclusive Hip-Hop & Soul set at this special FREE party.

Saturday 20th November:

The Doctor's Orders Brighton 1st Birthday Party @ Jam We celebrate a year of incredible parties with another fantastic line up.

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Keith Murray live @ Plan B This "golden era" MC performs a rare UK live show with support from Yungun & Mr Thing and Skandal.

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