KINGPIN the grime issue
nottingham
2015
in conversation with bru-c
10 part one discusses the influences, inspiration and beginning of Bru-C. Where he came from, why he got into the industry and how he got into the industry.
16 part two involves quick fire questions which build up a profile around Bru-C, getting to know his personality.
26 part three Bru-C discusses the grime scene in Nottingham, how it has evolved and who to watch.
contributors
special thanks to joanna dolan, photographer specialising in photographing people.
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KINGPIN nottingham’s grime issue june 2015
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Grime is a UK inspired form of music that has come a long way since its origins.
hitting collective music that cemented them in the scene as a force to be reckoned with.
Nottingham has never been particularly well known for grime, but it has been growing to become a more and more creative city. With an increase in platforms for young MC’s to promote their music, Nottingham is now one of the leading cities turning out the next generation of artists. People caught onto what was going down in London with influences like Dizzee Rascal, Tynchy, Lethal Bizzle and Wretch 32 and began to start backing their local MC. London’s scene was based around ‘crew’ mentality. If things were to grow and evolve, however, the Midlands needed a different avenue. Nottingham almost banded together as one to give themselves a fighting chance of going up against the talent going on in London and make a name for their local area. In 2008 - 09, Nottingham were already backing their local legend ‘Wariko’ who built a foundation to bring MC’s through with on his ‘NewCamp” brand. Wariko would be featured on “lord of the mics 3” which opened a door for Nottingham MC’s to get a shot. Stay fresh released heavyweight hard
All the sounds that have emerged in the UK were raised by an underground scene, and those sounds have been taken from the innovators and passed down to the mainstream market. Just like when the people of London backed their MC’s and gave birth to the grime scene, people are starting to support their local artists up and down the country. The mainstream were infiltrated; The release of Meridian Dan’s “German Whip” broke the barriers between underground and mainstream and charted at number 13 in the official chart. This was higher than any other grime single in the last 5 years which proved that grime is self-started, it grew without the help of the media outlets made available to more successful artists. Given the right amount of time and the right set of artists coming into the scene it is obvious to see that grime culture will still be here in 20 years time, much like Drum and Bass did before it. The future of grime looks promising, and hopefully it can be something that we can use to show the world what British culture really and truly is.
BIG UP BRU-C Meet Bru-C, a.k.a Josh Bruce. He is one of Nottingham’s most exciting and promising young musicians recording today. He also cofounder of music label ‘Phlexx”, a member of “The Afterdark Movement” and in his spare time works at the YMCA teaching music lessons to kids. He has also just entered Fatherhood - we caught up with him to catch up on his hectic life and to chat about Nottingham’s grime scene.
part Firstly tell me about how you came about wanting to make music. Where did you come from, when did you first know it was what you wanted to do? OK, so probably start writing rap when I was school, when I was like 13/14 doing rap battles in the playground.
doing rap battles around Nottingham. Then I got onto Don’t Flop which boosted the fanbase which then lead me being able to put out mixtapes, EP’s 1xtra stuff. Playing all over the country then led onto playing Croatia.
So would you say 2012 was the year when it really started to blow up? I would probably say 2013. I like to Why? What started it? say that 2012 was the graft year. I dunno really, I was really into Grime 2013 was not as much hard work, growing up. There was a lot of clashes. more efficient things that were more It’s called battles in Don’t Flop but beneficial. Last year I put a lot of work in Grime it’s clashes. Everyone was into playing shows, then you realise clashing like Lord of the Mic, Skepta, Boy Better Know, and they’re all massive what’s beneficial and what’s not. You learn from stuff, like putting in more now and I listened to them when I was work into events. We run events as well like 13. Yeah I was really into it, there with Phlexx records. We run a label and were a few people who MC’d at school, we put out all of our own music on so I did a couple of battles. But never really did anything. Then when I was 19, the label through myself thats Bru-C, Afterdark movement and also another I got contacted by a guy who said that band I’m in, Origin One. Yeah and it’s he ran a big label at the time. He didn’t just back to the drawing board now. but if it wasn’t for him then I would Every year we seem to just start again never have gotten into it. Started doing which is crazy. It sounds weird. As you music just on Grime beats, didn’t know learn about the music industry, you what I was really doing or know where learn how it moves on. When you do it I was going. Then I met Ben who was off your own back especially. You learn friends with my sister at school and from your mistakes and you work your we started working together. Started a finances around working full-time and band called The AfterDark Movement then we started playing shows. We won it’s all good fun. future band of Nottingham in 2012, did a little tour with Katy B and Dizzee Rascal. With Bru-C solo stuff I just kept 10
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What are the low points, have you had some really tough times? I’d probably say this year sort of feels like a low point, just had a son obviously so I have had to stop doing so many shows. It’s a step back; there’s been loads of opportunities that have been passed to me, but if they aren’t paying I can’t do it. But at the same time I’ve been working on a piece of music myself that I’ve been able to budget and it’s out in June - I think it’s been some of the best music I have done. To take a step back and not be so hungry and desperate in a sense, cos you do kinda get like “I wanna do his I wanna do that”. At times it’s too much. So yep, I feel like I’m at a nice pace where things are going really well. But I would say a lowpoint, I dunno I haven’t really had any low low points. Nah not really, haha. It’s all been good. It’s been steady progression. What would you say is your highpoint? Last Summer was sick, playing Soundwave festival was amazing. No Tomorrow festival with like Sam Smith, London Grammar, we played the Royal Concert Hall with a 40 piece orchestra which was pretty amazing. Probably the highest point was 2012 we played Splendour was Rascal and Katy B. First time I played Outlook festival in 2013
was sick as well.
Do you prefer to play live or record your own stuff? Contemporary gigs, when people are just there to see your music, that’s when you know you have kind of made it. We have played so many venues where people just go and are kind of fucked, they go to party. They won’t remember your songs or your band name, half of them won’t even have a clue who they saw that night. But when you’re playing shows where people are buying tickets to come see you, they are sober. That’s when you know “I’ve got something something out of this”. So more the battles where people come to hear you. Yeah, the battles are crazy. The amount of CD’s I have sold! I wouldn’t have sold them CD’s if it wasn’t for the battles. Half the money I have made I can then give back. If it wasn’t for the fans and supporters, I wouldn’t have events across the country.
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“I DON’T PIGEONHOLE I NEVER HAVE. WHEN I HEAR A BEAT I LIKE, SOMETHING JUST TRIGGERS AND I WILL WRITE TO IT”.
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>What’s the first record you ever remember buying? More fire crew, Oi.
>What was the last gig you went to? Future bubblers at Rough Trade, where we are know. Yeah a Yazmin Lacy, Giles Peterson event. Enjoyed it a lot. No wait the Skints, yeah the Skints in Leeds. Do you go to gigs less now that your doing it yourself? Nah, more cos you know people that are there and you get in free. You get free drinks and you meet new people. So, we try and get to as many shows, that big people will be at and get on the guest list for as many as possible. Went to see the Skints in their sell out tour, that was inspirational. They are fucking killing it, they’re in America now on another tour. You know how much I love the Skints. >Your stranded on the moon and you can have one artist beamed up to you. Who would you choose and why? It’s got to be someone hot man. It’s got to be a female singer. Probably be Marcia from the Skints. >What’s your karaoke song? I don’t know. My karaoke song would be Lionel Ritchie Hello. >What song do you want to be played at your funeral? Prodigy, Fire Starter. Haha
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>Three biggest influences Ben, who I run Phlexx with, then my sister and Bob Marley.
>What do you stand for? Positive energy, balancing work and play to the absolute maximum that’s so important. Mind, body and soul just all being connected in a pattern equally. Just being positive and meeting new people. Giving and receiving from life really. >What do you want to achieve by 2016? I would like to be doing constant paid show with the Afterdark. Have a nice release out and be doing the same kind of events we’ve been doing with Phlexx but just more regularly. Touring myself with my solo EP which is coming out. And to be fully qualified as a music leader trainee.
love it. Doing that for time man. I do love doing music and I would love to be successful and play shows everywhere. But I also want that something to fall back on when I don’t want to do music anymore. Cos I think it’s a bit lame when you see like a 35 year old guy. A has been. I don’t want to be a has been and I never will be. So yeah that’s probably top priority for me to get qualified being a youth worker and spread the love. Turn Phlexx into a label where we have our own studio space, where we can deliver sessions to young people. To deliver music, sign people to our label push them out and just help them succeed in Nottingham. So yeah that’s the dream.
Yeah, so speak some more about that aspect. Yeah so it’s basically a YMCA music learning course, where I do song writing with young people - some with just talent others with learning difficulties and behaviour problems. Just doing song writing, getting in the studio. Doing a project at the minute called Youth Insight. I’ve come up with a concept where we look at different pictures and then we brainstorm different ideas about what we see and put it into song lyrics. We’ve done a 5 track EP and its finished now. Yeah and I’m taking them all on Kemmet FM live to play some songs and do some bars. It’s so rewarding. Yeah they 17
How would you describe your sound? I feel like it’s a mixture of a few things. Yeah, well my solo stuff definitely comes from a grime background. Kinda just taken the edge off the hood part of grime. Cos I don’t really come from a particularly rough area. It was quite rough but not that bad compared to other areas in the UK. Is it important where you came from? Grime, yeah especially within the scene, kind of something I came to realise. Grime is me cos I grew up listening to it since I was 12, 13 so it’s definitely in my heart. But you kinda realise when you get to a certain age, the people you want to be around and the sort of influences you want to give out. So this new EP is all hip-hop. It’s completely different to anything I’ve ever done, it’s really honest. So I wouldn’t like to pigeonhole myself as just a grime MC I do a lot of genres I do a bit of reggae as well with Origin One. I do hiphop ,soul and reggae with The Afterdark Movement. I just make positive music really, it’s all I want to do. So you don’t ever think “I want it to sound a certain way”? Not really I don’t pigeonhole I never have. When I hear a beat I like, something just triggers and I will write to it.
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“it’s probably top priority for me to get qualified being a youth worker and spread the love”.
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part three 26
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So tell me about your new EP. Ok so, it’s called Black and Red the EP. It’s produced by a guy called Ayo kid who’s from Derby. The first time I’ve done a solo release all produced from the same guy. He’s half Japanese half Jamaican so his beats are really like ambient, Japanese sounding hip-hop, bass music. His beats are amazing and he’s just really honest So it’s just you and him? Yeah it’s just me and him. I kinda like just took it off him and worked it to my producer and sound engineer to get the sound to how we wanted it. He sent all the stems over with the music. So you are more creatively in charge of the music? Yeah, yeah. He’s just sent the tunes, he didn’t really have that much to do with it. I approached him and said I want this this and this on soundcloud. He has not many plays on soundcloud, I don’t know whether he has pushed himself that way. So I kind of just jumped, before anyone else got the chace cos his style is nice. Yeah and I’ve just gone about it, kinda like when I had my little boy. I had to take a step back and look at the type of music I was making. The kind of example that I want to set for him. It just reflects the life that I want. Not that I want to live, but I am living in a
sense. It’s just positive, honesty is the main thing. Stripped back all the kind of, not even the glamour of it, just a different side of me really. Yeah, just a different side, it’s a lot more honest. It’s a new direction. It’s kind of like cos your involvement has evolved with the people you work with. Yeah that as well, that’s been a big step. I cannot talk about some of the stuff that I spoke about in old tunes. A lot of your fans are quite young as well, you seem like quite a bit of a role model. Yeah, you’ve got to step up. It’s gonna be a big risk and its’ gonna be interesting to see how it goes down because it is so different. But risks are. Risks aren’t always the worst thing, sometimes taking risks work out for the better. If them fans don’t like it, they might not be my audience anymore you got to grow and grow. You can’t just stick to the same people, especially if it doesn’t feel like it’s you anymore, you gotta grow up. Like I said I’m not bothered about being a famous person, as long as I can just make enough money to support my family and myself off music I’m happy, and if that means giving it a go then that’s fine by me.
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YOU’VE GOT TO STEP UP. 28
So, are you not really bothered about what people say about the music, as long as it’s what you feel like at the time. Honest? Nah, I definitely am bothered about what people think about the sound. But I’m definitely ready to cater to different audiences. Don’t want anyone to think that my sound is shit. Some fans who listen to my grime might say why is he making hip-hop now, it’s not really my cup of tea. That’s fine You’ve heard people say that? Yeah, definitely that’s fine. But people saying it’s shit, I don’t want that. It’s just like I said maybe I’m ready to cater to a more adult audience, something that might be more relatable. What is the writing process like. How do you go about actually writing it? Is there a process you go through each time? There used to be, I used to sit down and brainstorm a load of words that fit around the track and write down a load of rhyming words off of them and put them together. Kinda like what I do with the kinds now. Now its just whatever comes to mind, music can be very forced when you write like that. Now it’s kinda more free. I’m not really bothered if it rhymes. I used to spend so much time trying to structure everything and get every word perfect. But I’m not as bothered about the rhyme this time. Before I used to think it was all about the detail of the rap but now it’s more about the music.
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don’t sit on it, just get it out there
Who do you think are the emerging talents in the Nottingham scene. Is there anyone you would watch? Yeah, Yazmin Lacy. Most definitely. Good friend of mine as well. Singer, songwriter she’s just got an amazing voice. She’s got a lot of watch from Giles Peterson and the Mimm label. She’s killing it. Mez, a grime MC from Nottingham, he’s making absolute ridiculous movements. He’s next in grime. He’s been on 1xtra and he’s on tour Kano at the moment. Actually, he’s playing at Tumble tonight and he’s killing it. It’s ridiculous he’s up and down the country going on 1xtra every week. He’s all over the place. He’s only just turned 18. Yeah, he’s killing it. Enera they’re a Reggae band. They are really good. I’ve only really seen them gig, I don’t think they have done anything big at the moment. What do you think of the state of the scene now, in comparison to 5, 10 years ago? I love it, I think it’s been strong for a while. When I first got into it I was like “I would love to be a part of this scene”. I’ve managed to become kind of a household name in Nottingham which is great. With things like Rough Trade being in Nottingham now, it’s huge for the scene. It’s brought so much attention to our city. People like 8 plug, Saint Raymond, Harley Blue, Nina Smith, and she’s just charted. It seems like it is moving more in a mainstream direction, especially compared to 10, 15 years ago. Yeah. But I think it’s good Yeah it’s good if that’s what you want to do. For the rest of the scene. The problem with Nottingham is that it’s a very small city. Big population, but Nottingham is full of council houses. There are people who are on an estate, they don’t go to my shows. They watch fucking Nicki Minaj and shit. I don’t think that Nottingham will ever be that city because of that. But 32
hopefully it will, cos it’s growing. Where do you see it going in the future? And where do you see yourself going? Do you plan to stay in Nottingham? Probably not, I would probably always come back to Nottingham and grow old here. But through my work with the YMCA I wanna travel to different YMCA’s cos they are placed all over the world. So I wanna go deliver the sessions that I’m giving here. And then I would hopefully deliver those sessions to kids around the world. Spend a couple of years just travelling, travel and travel. And just work. As for the Nottingham scene and myself in the Nottingham scene I see myself going further. I’m really confident with the band and the stuff that we are working on. Maybe like 2016/17 I think we will have had a really good run. My solo stuff, that will just go as it goes. I feel in a pretty good position. To be honest, because I push Phlexx and cos I push Afterdark, I’m not really bothered about one thing, things kinda circulate. I’m happy where I’m at really. Just keep it moving. What would you say to young people, looking to get their foot in the door, looking to do what you have done? If you’re an MC, send your tunes to every DJ possible. Get in a studio, mainly just build your craft. Nah I would possibly say use Youtube as your platform, build a fanbase. Then get your tunes down and get them sent out to all these DJ’s. Get your tunes to BBC introducing, all those kinds of people. Whoever your scene is, get your stuff out. If you’re an artist or if you’re in a band, if you’re a singer or songwriter. Just gig, gig you will be seen if you’ve got talent. There’s people everywhere - you will get spotted. There’s BBC introducing, Dean Jackson, there’s so many links. You’ve got to just push and get your stuff out. Don’t sit on it just get it out there.
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