Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
Through making our podcast every fortnight for the past fourteen months or so. One of my favorite things about doing it has been the countless artists, albums, films, directors, places that it's turned me onto when we record these. Almost every time someone will mention something that afterwards I'll always go and check out. But I'd say my guest on this latest episode, toddler Ta takes that to another level.
He's a music obsessive, as most of the people we have on here are, but the sheer breadth and depth of his knowledge is mind boggling. Plus the way he talks about it is really infectious. If toddler t isn't a name you know all too well, his story started back in Yorkshire. He wasn't even a teenager before he learned to DJ and mix, and by his late teens, still living at home in Sheffield working in a shoe shop. He got signed and moved down to London and today
he's put out two solo records. His debut Skanky Skanky in two thousand and nine, and then watched Me Dance a couple of years later. He's also made a new one after a sort of gap of six or so years. This will be his third one and it's called Foreign Light and it comes out in July, and you might have heard the lead single, Beast, which features Steph London.
But Toddler t definitely isn't just an album artist, though he lists a few in the podcasts you're about to hear, but he's been a producer and a collaborator with the likes of Roots Maneuver, Jmee, Wilie Jammer and Rasheeen Murphy over the years, loads of others as well. And outside of that, he's a broadcaster, hosting his own regular shows on Radio one and one Extra. He's also a DJ, which is pretty much taken into every corner of the world over the last decade or so.
Now. I always roll.
My eyes when I hear the word eclectic used in relation to music taste or knowledge, but Toddler Tea truly does have an eclectic taste. You'll discover that in this podcast, literally from the very beginnings of his love of US rap through to British hip hop, reggae, dubstep, electronica, everything
in between. And outside of that, he's also encyclopedic on grime, having championed it from the very very early days, and he talks about that and where he thinks that's all heading next after Obviously, Grime's had a couple of years very much in the kind of spotlight in the mainstream, and he also has had first hand experience of visiting and recording in Jamaica, which means he really does know what he's talking about when it comes to Dan siland
reggae music. And I thought that was really fascinating when he talks about that for this Midnight Chats. He invited me to his studio in West London a couple of weeks ago to record the conversation you're about to hear. The place is about one hundred meters from where he throws his annual sound system and his annual party at notting Hill Carnival each August, and I must admit I left thinking that I can't really be anywhere else this Bank holiday weekend in August.
He really did sell it to me.
And just finally, if you do like what you hear, do subscribe to our podcast Midnight Chats. It means you'll automatically get a new episode when we put them up each fortnight at midnight on a Thursday and rate us, review us all.
That kind of helpful stuff.
But for now I will leave you with this. It's Toddler Tea on episode twenty eight of Midnight Chats. So Lea Tea, thanks for joining us on Midnight Chats. Normally we record this podcast in our little office in East London, but we kind of made a trip out today and just tell us a bit about where we are and what we can go and see around us.
Right now in my studio in West London, I've been in this building for seven years now. I think it feels like twenty minutes, but that's what life's like at the minute. I used to share with them, the producer called red Light, and he used to have this room that was setting right now. And when we exit this room, there's a teeny little room to the right that's about
the size of an average toilet. And I remember when we first moved in here, I was so proud to have a studio with a security door, proper lights and air conditioning because my first studio in Sheffield, where I grew up and learned my craft, was a space in a warehouse called Kenilworth Works, and it was thirty a month, and he's yeah, And it was so cold on a cold day that you could see your own breath because it was just a room with cracks in the wall.
And above us was a rehearsal studio, and when they played, you couldn't really make music because it was so loud. And I remember coming to this particular unit and working next door with the producer called Sagety, and.
Being like, Oh my god, imagine if one day I could have a studio like this.
So when I managed to actually be able to fortunately be able to afford a space like this, even the little room next door felt like such a luxury. So I worked in that little room for sort of three years. Then Hugh Redlight moved out and I took the whole space on it's recording studio, stroke Boys room. All the stuff that my partner hasn't let me have in the house ends up here. Hence, while there's an inflatable parrot to my right, there are trainers that I really like
that are just taking up room in the house. On the wall, there's some memorabilia. There's a lot of stuff from Carnival.
Was going to say, I guess see some Worcester source over it or something like that.
Whennish relish.
There's a company in Scheffer called Henderson's and if you're from Sheffield or around it pretty much every time you go to a pub that is on the table with the other condiments. It's a very home pride. We actually did a collab with them, so we did tudder t Henderson's relish a few years ago.
So for me that's a big moment.
That's like, you know, I don't know, a vodka fan doing like a collab with you know, a Gray Goose, you know, Like for me, that was a deep moment anyway. So yeah, it's just you know, obviously this music equipment, but obviously just a stash a lot of stuff here. There's a room there. I have my stage at night. Ill Carnival is about one hundred meters away, so a lot of the stuff makes it back here for stash and we bring it out carnival time. So yeah, it's great.
It's my own space. I make music here, but I can work from here. I can dump the thick and have a laugh here. Had a session this weekend where we had a sort of mini party at the same time.
It's a joy Man. I love it in here.
It's I thought about moving a few times, but it's just too convenient and too good. I'd just been doing it for the sake. So yeah.
Right behind your head is a poster for Skanky Skanky, which is your debut album, and it says twenty fifth of May two thousand and nine. That is pretty much bang on eight years ago. So what do you remember from that time?
Shoes that's mid Well, these posters here, there's one right on the wall. As you mentioned, these were the promo posters that were slapped all around Sheffield and this record here, Skanky Kenky, my debut record, as you said, was a compilation and works of everything I've been doing I guess three four years prior to it, and it was very much a Sheffield thing. I was born and raised there.
I made the majority of the record in there with another producer called Ross Autumn, who was an amazing producer
from Sheffield. He's very, very punk spirited, so he was perfect in the time of my life to help me with that record because the sound of it was very raw, young, bit stupid, and I worked in his studio and that time in my life is kind of mad because I went from working in a shop selling trainers and clothes for four pounds an hour to slowly getting phone calls in the back of the stock room asking me to come to London and play, and I spit to do remixes and all this stuff, and overnight it felt like
it all had happened. And it was actually quite overwhelming because even though I'd been making music for so long before that, I'd been DJing for since I was ten, so music was my life for most of my life. By the time it all got serious, it was just a bit mental. I was like, oh my gosh, Like I felt like I kind of had to be a man all of a sudden. I was living at home with mums. All of a sudden people were talking about a lot of money and you know, big meetings and
all this stuff. So it was a mad, mad time because it was so much joy with the music and so much so much paying off of what I've been trying to achieve. But at the same time, it felt like I just had to step up straight away.
It was kind of weird. It was like I went to university for three years in like twenty minutes. So yeah, it was a joy and that just set the foundation.
As to where I am now, luckily, so very very important moment and record for me in my life.
That one you just mentioned then that you started dging when you were ten years old, So when did you What was the circumstance where you stood behind a pair of decks for the first time and ten years old.
I know it even seems weird to say now, but it's funny because my older sister was always well into music anyway, and obviously growing up on older brother or sister, you know, you look up too, so I think I always had that subconsciously in my mind that music was obviously something really cool or really aspirational. But I was just obsessed with hip hop when I got to about nine.
Because when you're growing up, particularly them times, they're slightly different now, I guess with smartphones and stuff, you buy one or you get given one CD potentially a year, so it being like a now thirty eight or something batter that, and you know all the hit songs. And that was obviously my younger life. I got into random
stuff like meat Loave. When I was about seven, me and my dad went to see him at Sheffield Arena, and you know, just stuff like that you just stumble across and you'd have that one tape and you batter it. But then when I got old enough to kind of find my own stuff, I just got obsessed with rap.
And it was Westwood on Radio one.
It was your MTV raps that you used to show for six hours at night twice a week on MTV and local pirate station called SCR, and I just sort of dived right in. My cousin showed me Biggie's first album.
I just got obsessed. I thought it was everything was brilliant.
Lyrics, beats, artwork, the fact that they swore it was all perfect. As I was watching MTV raps so much, there was always a DJ, I was like, I can be him.
I can't be that rapper. It don't make sense. I'm from Sheffield and I'm small and pale and skinny, but I can beat the DJ.
So I just got into that idea and started buying. Well, actually, my dad, bless him, brought me Malcolm McLaren pre Buffalo Girls Can Run You Sorry from a second hand shot, and that was my first record, I think Vinyl anyway, and then I just started going to town and collecting pocket money and buying records and eventually got two belt drive turntables that were Hi Fi ones, not pitched ones, and a mixer from Richard Sounds.
And that was probably around ten to eleven.
The needles kept breaking and stuff, and the mixer was terrible, but it just made me, you know, get the idea of putting records together and buying vinyl when I could afford it. So my record collection started, and by the time I got to fourteen fifteen and i'd.
Proper saved, saved.
I've managed to get proper turntables as such and could djn mix and start sketching and stuff. And that's the similar sort of time when I was invited to start playing out as well.
So smart for.
So many people when they're going up and kind of discovering music for the first time, it doesn't often come via the kind of like immediate family that it's like I remember, it's still kind of like an ongoing joke in my family now where if I if I go home and I put something on, my folks be like, what is this nonsense? Is this nice? Whereas it sounds like the opposite of for you know, like that early encouragement was like the absolutely springboard to basically doing what you're doing now.
Right.
Definitely, they're like, they probably didn't like it, you know, be hearing yeah, hearing Biggie being shouted down the stairs like some pretty brutal skits on that album as well, you know, but they tolerated it, and there's there's no doubt about it. It's like they their support or even their kind of I don't even know if it was like conscious, but the fact that they allowed that to happen allowed me to be here. Definitely, I'm so blessed
in that sense. And my dad's I'm my mom to be fair well into music, different stuff, so I think they probably got got that passion. They understood it more than someone that didn't like music or didn't really go to gigs or whatever.
So yeah, it's true. It's it's definitely true in that sense.
My sister I didn't really get the music she was into until later in my life. She loved house music in the nineties and early nineties, and I just didn't get that for years. But it was still always on and you could hear the kick drums and rare air through the ceiling, so it was always about you know, my house was quite musically driven, even if people didn't play instruments or DJ. So yeah, but my parents one hundred percent. The support is definitely helped me be here.
But it's like crucial really, yeah, blessed.
And talk to me a bit about the kind of journey from leaving Sheffield. So when things kind of like started to get going for you, like you're saying, you were getting the the opportunities to come like play bigger DJ gigs and like, you know, people were kind of interested in having big meetings, where did the transition to coming down to London happen and what was what was that like, you know, growing up in Sheffield being surrounded by what is like an amazing music city, but then
London's the whole bigger level, isn't it. So what was that like when you first arrived?
Boy?
I used to come to London anyway before, just as by records. I remember coming down with a school friend on buying final from everywhere from the HMV to Tower to mister Bongos and so, so it wasn't like the first time before that I'd come down with my mom to like the science music and stuff. Who were coming down as older and meeting music people and going to raves.
It was just like it was just amazing because sheffields like you say, has got an incredible music, music scene history and a hub, but it's still quite small on the grand scheme of things, Whereas when I come to London, there so many people doing what I did. I the fashion element of London I loved. Other people were wearing stuff that I really liked and admired, and it was all different types of people. So it was like as
a young man, it was super exciting. And I used to come down and there's a guy called Rathaun Dell who worked for ninety sixty five at the time, and he sent I sent him a demo you see, and he puts some all my early records out and again it's integral to where I'm sat here today. And I used to go and meet him and stay on his sofa in Forest Hill for probably three years, and he was very much.
At the epicenter of what was going on.
And he had an office in Soho with James Endercut and so at the time that's where all the labels were. So I'd get off the train and I'd get the tube and probably get lost to try and find him and go soho, and there's all these clothing trainer shops. Everyone was wearing all the new stuff. And then I'd go meet him and we end up in the pub with some like music producer or something, and it was
just like it. It kind of weirdly felt like I was home with like a massive group of like people that were so similar to me in terms of the passion for the music and the artumn. And yeah, by the time I actually moved here, I was going home to get a pair of socks, like I That's one of the reasons I actually settled here, because it was getting ridiculous how little I was at home. It wasn't like a big conscious decision like I'm going to move
to London and make it in the music bese. It was like, if I don't move he or not, I'm going to probably waste so much money on train free and it's just inconvenient for everyone. So it was like a slow process to actually being based here.
Once you got into this, into your studio. You mentioned at the top that you've been in here for like six seven years now.
Yeah, I think even maybe longer.
But yeah, Yeah, What have been some of your favorite days, favorite nights, favorite kind of sessions in this room in particular, There's.
Been so many, so many good times. I mean, I'm biased.
I love this space, but people always say it's got a spirit to it and people always delivering here, which is bizarre because in studios sometimes people just can't catch a vibe whatever. I don't think I've ever had a bum session in this room, which is bizarre because everyone has an off day, but obviously I'll be sat here some days and it's not happening, but with artists and collaborations, don't. I literally haven't had a dead session in here, which
is kind of bizarre. I think people like the fact it don't feel like a studio. It is a studio look, but it's more like just a bit of a messy room with some speakers and loads of stuff in it, and I think that helps to the vibe.
But there's been loads, man.
I mean, I've done sessions in here with Jamie Skepta, Miss Dynamite, Jamaican artists like prote Jay sons of dub Coco's artists from Sheffield, Me and him developed his whole sounding here. I've had a lot of after parties in here one this weekend. That's why it sounds a bit fragrant. I mean, boy, and the room next door is the old room is now the Vocal Boost that's where everyone voice is now, and again before that a similar thing.
There's been so many, mane, It's like it's because I used to work, start work about two or three and go till midnight, and now I start at nine in morning and finish at seven because I've got two kids, and I encourage artists to come down really early, which you see some sleepy eyes, right.
Yeah, which they don't.
I'm not all of them, but you know, it's particularly young and I want to have been here at nine at morning. I didn't when I was twenty two. So yeah, I've done here like from early, and people always deliver, and it's been a joy. And there's too there's too many moments. Really, there's nothing like bonkers that's ever happened. No one's ever set anything on fire or fell.
Asleep mid take.
But it's just been a very consistent and joyful musical moments in this room that just seemed to flow supernatural. And I think it's something of this it's a weird spirit in this room, and people kind of say it as well. I actually lend this room out to friends sometimes as well, and they always say the same something about your studio, man, studios.
I'll tell you.
Actually recently, I actually did some additional production on this record called Crank It, which is by George Kowally and Kiddeko.
It's a massive kind of pop dance record.
It was big in the club for Ages, and Ministry of Sound came to me to help make it into more of a radio record. So we took the beat and we vocal Naddie Rose and sweet Ire in here, and then they went and we arranged it and mixed it and it went and then.
I thought cool.
And then it went to radio and it started to do really well, and it were funny because I kept getting a taxi home and hearing it on the way home and in.
Like Capital Lextra or Kiss.
Like really mainstream stations. And it's funny because when you come out the room here onto the high street of the road, sorry, it's empty, it's dead, And when you get in the cabin hear that record. It's just weird because I just don't think you'd expect it to come out of this room or this building. So that's the latest thing that's been quite funny to sort of see when I'm getting like a taxi home for hearing a record on one of the most mainstream stations in the most out of context place.
So let's still get a bit of a buzz out of little things like that. Well not even little things, they're kind of quite significant.
In a way. Yeah, yeah, no, I do, Yeah, totally.
It's funny and knowing that coming out of this room and my microphone and through this you know, messy room.
You mentioned Jamie and Skepta there, Like I mean, when did you you've You've championed, you supported the development of UK crime for a long time. The fact that kind of now is arguably having its kind of mainstream moment. When did you first fall in love with UK crime?
Is that a sound that you've always loved? And what do you think of kind of where it's at right now, Like where we've got to the point where Boy Better No can play the two Arena put on their own festival there and they can and Skeptic and headline festivals and things like that. So talk to me a bit about your love for UK grime and your feelings on where you see it now.
Well, obviously, being obsessed with hip hop and rap as a kid, was always buy a lot of American rap, majority British hip hop was around. I I would see that, I'd see the odd video on MTV wraps.
Roots Maneuver was always a stick out artists.
I think he was one of the early ones that had kind of had videos on Telly at the time, So in for that you discovered deeper buying records.
There was there was a.
British rap scene, Black Twang, Test Force, Jest, et cetera. We was buying those records stuff and a lot of that stuff was really well crafted, but it was so influenced by America.
It was like we were doing what they were doing really well.
And that's not disrespect to any of them artists, because the really good at it. But what happened when grime came around was it was just so underdiably us and his first time I heard it. A lot of it mates into garage growing up, and I didn't really like it that much because I was such a hip hop nerd. I thought that MC's were rubbish because they weren't saying anything. It was for the rave and I was too young to be in a race, so I just didn't get it.
They were champagne girls. I was like, I just didn't get it. And then when it got darker and a lot of my friends would buy sign Werender tape packs and Side Wonder was raving in Milton Keynes.
That was garage and then.
Got into dark Ground and dark grind became grime and the darker garage sound the turn into gram I actually became more popular in garage, so it became the main thing at these events and anyway, they would play these tapes in the car when I was with them, and then I proper got it. I was like, oh my gosh,
there's there's some famous sessions. There's a real famous one with Dizzy and Wiley with the DJ Slimsey and the way that what they're talking about is so British and honest and the beach were so much darker and heavier and mental than UK garage was I when I heard I Love You, it just slapped me around the face, like just it was just I still remember hearing it, like it was just like properly got that vibe then, and so that's when I sort of start discovering grime
and getting deeper into it. And it was such a London thing though in Sheffield we didn't have DJs or MC's, you know what I mean. And it were funny because I was obsessed with British rap, so I was. I was into British American rap, and by the time I was also getting quite into dantile and reggae as well, because I was old enough to start going to little parties and hearing it loud and it made more sense on a sound.
System and in a party environment. And uh yeah.
So I used to look at America and Jamaica and now I was looking at London as on the same pedestal as you know, like Wiley and Dis were to me as impressive, as exotic and as exciting and famous as jay Z or ViBe's cartel.
Like.
We became so obsessed with this scene down in London as it developed, and they may started going from the sets from raves and on pilot radio and making records. A lot of the time it would be the sidewind the tapes. The lord of the mic.
DVDs was DVDs.
That were clash, so it was like battles of grime mcs. That's the first time I got to see them, and they talk called Lord of the Decks, which was the same as well. And then there was Practicers, et cetera, all these different DVDs that document them, and yeah, they'd come up the m one and to people like me, I would obsess over them.
And yeah.
Then one extra sort of launched not too far after, and they pushed it with Richie Viv cameo, all these guys playing it, and I just got obsessed. I was buying the vinyl, I was watching all the DVDs. And then when I came to London a few times, I got to see some of these artists and like I.
Say, I was impressed.
I'd be star struck by these people as much as I would have if I had a bumped into Biggie, you know.
And it was truly British.
And it was truly ours and it still is and it just sums up a time in Britain that was very special Musically. I think my generation me I'm thirty two now, so I'm older than a lot of people in what I do now, But in my generation I've never stumbled across a scene as exciting as that time. I wasn't around really when jungle was kicked off. I remember going to a youth club and nearing it. I wasn't
you know. Acid house was long before me. The British rap thing was cool, but it wasn't as cultural as great. When grime came along, it was just it was I've
never seen anything like it culturally. Dubstep was born out of grime, so again it was kind of lending from that, but grime was just so pure and yeah, I just loved it, and it kind of like it kind of had a real buzz at the start and dizzy went the Mercury and rare area, and then it kind of died down and a lot of people kind of stopped doing it, but I was still well into it.
I was still playing on the radio and that. And then again, like we say, in the.
Last three or four years, it's kind of come back round, and I think it's partly because a few accidents happened and it reignited the flame and made people believe they could do that and be accepted again. And Jami that's Jamie, and skeptics that's not me. For me, that record kind of reignited the flame because it was the original grime sound from two pioneers that everybody rates doing hardcore authentic grime.
And on top of that, I think it charted top.
Twenty and you know what, Skip He's done now, and I think that just reignited the flame. And I just think it's great because it's just so people being It's almost like the more hardcore you are, the further you go. Whereas there was a time when people started making pop records and watering down their sound and bleaching out because they felt like that's what they needed to do to
survive in the music industry. And it kind of opposite that. Recently, it's kind of like the more pure and honest you are, the further you go. And that's really inspiring and aspirational for youngins. I mean, look what Skeptic Storms has done as well. It's unbelievable, like you know, and he really really is just itself on really quite uncompromising production.
I mean, it's mad.
Who would have thought that this old two thing you mentioned would even ever happen, Like it's incredible. I think they're doing it like a full day of experiences as well, aren't.
They It's going to be like a full event with kind of other things going on outside of what's happening on stage.
Yeah, they'd be like, I don't know, like cooking or I don't know that food, probably workshops, fashion culture stuff, you know.
With Jmi.
Even just this week, Jami recorded that videos with Jeremy Corby. Yeah, kind of urging people young people, you know, the reason why they should register get involved with the upcoming general elections. So it's it's encouraging. It's got to be a positive thing that people like Jamie are making that step, putting themselves out there willing to be the kind of like face of urging young people to you know, to get involved in discussion, and.
Yeah, it takes everything else.
Yeah, he's I've always loved Jeremy his proper hero mine because he's so uncompromising and honest and it's so brilliant what he does.
Musically.
But out of that, he's like he doesn't He genuinely just seems to be so comfortable in his own skin, and it's just so I think we all want that in life. But he's, like he was, he does things that he wants to do that unconventionally not cool. So
like he the veganism thing. When he decided to turn vegan, it was the most out of fashion thing ever, Like what I was talking about chicken shops and meat and it was like kind of soft traditionally, and like look at where veganism is now, like it's the most ether. Even like he's obsessed him with technology, he's always step
forward from even like tech is. You know, he's into like rollerblading and gaming and all this stuff that he's like on paper isn't cool, but because he just wants to do it and he's into it, he does it. And I just think that's just amazing because not many people dare, you know, put their self out like that. On top of that, he's like he's so so so talented on the mic and what he says is just so real. And I think that's why everyone loves Jeremy, from people like me to young kids to like probably
people older than me. And I think it's brilliant how he's embraced politics this year and regardless of who you're looking to vote for or what you believe in him, just basically you.
Know, putting it out there that you need.
To vote as a young person, and also explaining to Corbyn why he hasn't as a conversation I've never seen before really and it's I think that's the way you reach you. Some garon Telly who has no you know, no connection to a young person in London ain't gonna be able to achieve that.
Someone like Jamie will.
And the fact he's done that makes me love him even more, which I didn't know as possible because I just think he's the best human being in the whole globe.
Which it's great.
What's next? Then? What's next? We just discussed that Jamie skeptics Storms, All these people are on such a high level. Now, where do you see the next movement for the sort of underground grind? Will that give like the whole thing like a shot in the arm. Does that mean that it's going to be around for another ten to fifteen years because of what these people are achieving, which I think will happen next. Yeah.
I mean it's interesting, isn't it with ground because you see, like people like Storms and novelists, they're super young man. I don't know, our Storms are about twenty.
Two or so something that Yeah, I think it's yeah, it's.
Mantled in it because I'm thirty two and he makes me feel like a child because he's so like switched on and so smart and so confident and even physically like he looks like just really healthy and amazing.
And just he's just he's just incredible in his storms.
But I think they probably because there's like so they're like, yeah, all right, so when like I Love you or something come out, he was probably about that's probably about how is that record fifteen years maybe?
I mean he's barely five years old, Yeah, exactly.
So these guys grew up listening to grime, like you know, and people in the States grow up listening to hip hop like people's parents will be playing that now, like you know. So there's going to be a generation that is just born into this thing now, which means that it's just so natural now it's like that could I think that that can only influence the next generation, even if it's not in a sense of it being grime as we know it now.
I think ultimately the younger generations of the new.
Generations will be inspired by it and potentially create their own version of it, you know, Like we don't want to make or play what our parents want to but it influences us.
So I don't know if it.
Will stay at you know, is how it is now for the next ten to fifteen years, but I'm sure and I'm pretty sure it's integral to our musical scene and culture now that it will ring through the next couple of generations, like you know reggae does for in Jamaica or Salca would doing you know, certain places whatever you know. In Jamaica, for example, the Young Raster movement references their elders, but it's got hip hop influence in there. It's got you know that what they talk about isn't
the same. They dress different, so maybe it'd be a case of something like that. But it's cool because like now in London as well, there's there's scenes that are referencing already, like this whole thing. They'll called it Afro swing, which is like Coojo Fund's Jay huss artists like that. They young kids in London of African descent, a lot of them, not all of them making this music at a slower tempo, but it's referencing grime and reggae and
wrap and it's a melting part. It sounds really exciting, and I don't think that could probably have happened without Grind for example. So you're going to get you know, these things spawning out of it as well, and it's alreadys beginning with this whole new movement now with this for a swing they're calling it, which is a really exciting little time.
I wanted to ask about your travels because anybody that's ever listened to any of the albums that you made, the records you made, helped produce, your radio shows that you've done over the years, know that you've got kind of wide scope. You're a massive fan of reggae, you love grime. You know if they tune in their dubstep, they heard all these different things. So you seem to me like somebody who's always kind of got their ears open.
But you must have kind of like gone on some trips to go and like really kind of like open your mind, discover some music. Tell us about some of the places you've been in, particularly mentioned Jamaica.
They're like, what have your.
Travels been like and what kind of things have you had your eyes open.
To boa I mean food DJ and I've been lucky enough to go every well not everywhere, but America, load Australia, Japan, Europe, Iceland, all these places. Before I started DJing, I'd never even been to Scotland. I've been looking enough to travel on holiday to Europe, and I've been to America's stuff, but i'd never really like traveled on my own accords, so
like it'd be like on all the day or school trips. Yeah, and I remember going Dundee early days, like being like whoa Scotland, But yeah, I've been all over the gas. Jamaica is very important to me musically and thus for culturally. But when I was growing up, like I said, I
was obsessed with rap music and hip hop music. When I started going out, i'd hear a lot of dance tile and reggae in the parties, and there was a couple of DJs back home, Winston Azel and DJ Pipes would always dropped reggae and Dan Saile at some point in the night on these big sound systems, and it
was sounded amazing. It was as simple as that, And I started buying Dan Sound reggae records, and then I noticed how much it was in our music jungle obviously really grind bits still grind, but yeah, you know, the mad electronic music we make. I could hear it in so much of what we do here, and that was important for me to, I guess, get more into the source of it, so I will be buying records. There's a shopping Sheffield called Fox's News off the High Street, London Road.
It's claused and it sold.
DVDs a lot of bangroom music like and underneath the County you'd have imports from Jamaica and you go in there and it was cool because the forty five to seven inches were two pounds fifty, but a hip hop twelve from the stage was seven pound, so I could buy three for one, and so it was kind of cool because he's like gonna get like a He's like buying a ten p mix over like a chocolate box. You get loads more, and so it was sick and
I was just just just going in on that. And then I met a guy called Seas who is an artist that I worked with a lot by a mutual friend, and he really schooled me up on Dan siland the culture and lent me a lot of VHS tapes of old stage shows from Jamaica of course Sting, which is like the big that like the Glastonburg and Jamaica, and he scored me up massively on.
It all, and I just got well into it.
This was when I was like sixteen and just find it really exciting because I felt like I kind of not I'd studied hip hop so much for my teens. I was ready for a new thing to kind of geek out into, and Dan style really reminded me of rap anyway, but it was like obviously done so differently, and I'm just like, yeah, I still still to this day, you know, love and play it and keep on top of it. And I quite like the pantomime of it
as well. There's so much like beef and on records and so much scandal and rare are air and it feels like it's fun at times and that sounds quite menacing, but it's a lot of the time it's quite fun.
So yeah, when I was about, oh, I can't remember, about five years ago, six years ago, when I'm a very good friend was going to Jamaica on holiday with his girlfriend and then all the inclusive, flussy posh place in the Grill, which is like the tourist area traditionally of Jamaica, and then he split with her and I was like, rah, I've got to go with you, you know, yeah, yeah, So I bought step Yeah, man, I'm gonna be your girlfriend this week.
Now joke runs and it's there like So I bought the ticket and we went.
But I said, you know, I can't go Jamaica and not do music, because it's just big bonkers to not do that. And this is the around the time I was making my second records called Watching Me Dance. So I went, I bought a ticket and we decided to this for go to the Grill and then go to Kingston and do some music. So via a few mutual link ups, we got someone out there to help us. But obviously Jamaica and music and the four culture is
integrated into British society a lot of the time. For example, like you hear in all the records this South systems I used to play in Sheffield were always operated by Western Nickimunity. We'd go to certain raves that were I was prominently West Indian music and just for party goers managed door neighbors to Jamaica and I could hear going up, I could hear the music over the wall. There's a Jamaican food shop around the corner. We all got the slang et cetera, et cetera. So you feel like you
know it a bit. But when I went Jamaica for the first time, when I stepped off that flight and that curtyred has slapped me around the faceboy like like I thought I knew it, and I just didn't, because is.
It just that much more intense?
Rule? Yeah, both everything, it's yeah, it's like, yeah, it's just more it's more raw, that's the way putting it. But like it's I just didn't. I was such I went there. I was such a musical pilgrimage. I didn't think of basic stuff like the heat or mosquitoes or the fact that it's beautiful, and all these things just hit me.
I was like, flipping it.
This is mid And we went to this hotel for a few days and even that's felt a bit like out there. And then we went basically, we got hooked up by this woman called Andrew, who would take care of us once we got to Kingston and drivers to studios and whatnot.
And she hooked up her a trip from the hotel to mobile airport and then we went to Kingston and Kingston was just the next level culture.
Got off, drove through the city past the prison downtown which is kind of poor area Kingston round the back to the studio called Builders, and voiced and recorded for two days. And I got there and I was nervous about if people would set my music or understand it or like it or whatever. And I got in the studio and there was an engineer, it was called DAYA and I put the first beat on and I was
super nervous. And there was a girl there called double K who was like a DJMC, and she heard it and went in the booth and gave me a song and it was like That's what I've been trying to get for so.
Long, Like that is it? Wow?
And it was like two days of complete joy. Everyone was amazing. Everyone was well into the music. And that was like I think I've been some mental like fourteen times since because I've been recording. I've been there with one extra a lot doing radio. I've played there, going again on Saturday to play, and I've got a lot of really good friends out there now. I've had some moments I've never forgot. I've met so many heroes. I've worked with so many heroes, and it's kind of like
a second home. And this week when we go again, I'll get off and I'm meeting loads of friends and we're gonna hang out and I'm playing on a beach and I'm I'm going to go to a studio and it's just a joe.
That sounds awful, isn't it. About one hundred meters from here you mentioned it earlier. About one hundred meters from here is where you set up for Carnival each and holiday weekends. You've always been a massive supporter, always been involved with notting Hill Carnival, which happens on the bank all day weekend. If anybody is listening that has never been before, just tell us what is so special and one you basically wouldn't be anywhere else in the world that weekend.
I literally couldn't be anywhere else in the anywhere else my favorite party in the world. Okay, So I've been coming down to Carnival since I think two thousand and six. I used to get the train from Sheffield and the first time I ever come, I got the train down and I got off at Westbourne Park and I think.
It was park. And then I walked down and I came under.
The West Way and I have never seen so many people rammed into a street in my life. And I had my record box I was playing and I was just dragging up the road and it were funny because.
I just like didn't really get how big it was.
And I'd heard about Carnival because people from back home used to come down every year. But what I loved about it from the day I got there was not only the fact that everyone's partying together, which is where you don't even a single rubbish record all day and you know how many.
Music you hear.
I mean, that was the first time I came, and that blew my mind off. I mean, for me, Carnival sums up everything brilliant about Britain. It is rooted in West Indian culture. It's initially actually started by a woman and she called it not an ill festival and she had a dream one day she saw kids in the street dancing together from all different walks of life. She decided to set it up and that's what happened.
And then one time.
The Trinity community got their steel pans out started doing parades and it developed and then sound systems would introduce later. And it's the sound system element that always attracted me because I'm such a music guy. When I was coming to Carnival, the sound systems in the street playing all
different types of music. So we've got a lot of Soca Calypso, dub music, a lot of West Indian music, but then you've got a lot of the children of that jungle, grime, hip hop, soul, all these different sounds coming all around and thus far you've got old people, young people, black people, white people, Asian people, gay people,
straight people. It's the only place in the world that my dad has stood next to like a Brazilian woman dancing next to a young black kid, next to me, next to my auntie, you know.
What I mean. Like it genuinely does bring people together.
Whereas clubs and festivals have a price bracket, they have certain rules in terms of dress, they have there's you know, there's there's a lot of restrictions. But what happens when not in ill is everyone comes together and raves in the street to brilliant music. And it's completely unique to London and I think it's so important to this city to have that once here to remind us that we all live together, and we're all come from different places,
but we're all living London. We all get on the same crap tube every day, we all you know what I mean, and we come together on that day and you've never seen it like that anywhere else any of the time, and just trouble like yourself in those parts of view. It's just a right good party.
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