SPECIAL: in memoriam Terror Danjah

Remembering one of the true greats of bass music with an expanded 2018 interview

Last week the world lost Terror Danjah. I wrote an appreciation for the Guardian here. In it I said “So hilariously gossipy were his stories, it could often feel like an episode of grimey EastEnders, but it also brought the music culture vividly to life,” - and also that he had been a direct influence on the genesis of Bass, Mids, Tops.

I was very serious about that. Terror Danjah’s stories showed me how scenes and genres really work. They mapped out familial, friendship and locality links, and made the musical details of shifting sounds inseparable from those things. This understanding set in motion the wheels that created BMT, he was always going to be part of it, and he was one of the very first people we went to interview and photograph for the book.

He was also one of the only interviewees we had to seriously edit. As you’ll see below, we got a lot. The final chapter ended up cutting some 9,000 words! Brian also took some great photos, many of which weren’t used, purely because the style we developed as the book came together changed. So in memory of one of the all time greats of UK bass culture and so much more, here it all is… complete with the slightly insane amount of footnotes I initially intended for the book.

—

“Verbatim conversations,” I said. “This book is going to be verbatim conversations. It’s going to be about its subjects’ voices above all, with a little light annotation to help the lay reader along.” But damn, this one tested my resolve (and, I should add, that of my stoic transcriber, Joe Gamp). Three hours Brian and I sat in the front room of Rodney Pryce aka Terror Danjah’s East End terraced house, and for three hours he talked nineteen to the dozen - a cascade of names, famous and ultra obscure, of raves, rappers, record shops, ups, downs and all arounds - until I was convinced that I was going to have to break my resolution about the book’s format and do the most brutal editing job imaginable. But when the transcript came back, I was even more banjaxed, because - once I’d got past the not inconsiderable feats of introducing sentence breaks into the constant flow of verbiage, and finding correct spellings of names of MCs decades since disappeared off the scene - I realised it was… all good.

The thing is, Terror Danjah is connected. He was one of the people whose music defined grime at its very outset - and giving to the lie to the idea that it was just a bunch of unschooled kids making random noises, his music was sophisticated from the start, too. But then like many of his compadres, by his early 20s, he’d already had many years - thousands of hours - of relentless schooling in the jungle drum’n’bass scene, dancing, mingling, mixing, getting on the mic, making beats, doing radio, so he was no novice even then. But though they were sophisticated, his beats were also immense, full of all the wall rattling vitality that soundsystem culture instils in each new generation, and they became part of London’s sonic fabric as surely as did Wiley’s, Jammer’s, Ruff Sqwad’s, or anyone else’s in the early 2000s. 

But even as he was helping define a generation, he was trying to reach beyond. Along with one or two others, most notably South Londoner DaVinChe, he worked on bringing singers into the grime scene, and for a while looked as if he genuinely might be able to make something out of the R&B / grime hybrid “R&G”. But grime in the late 2000s got heavily sidelined as its cousin dubstep took centre stage, and Terror Danjah himself seemed like yesterday’s man for a couple of years. But you can’t keep a proper hustle - or a talent like his - down, and TD carried on innovating. He was the first grime producer to release an album as such, rather than a showcase for MCs, and he crossed over into the experimental electronic world well before grime came back in vogue with crossover audiences.

He was there at the start of the Butterz label which took the snappy presentation of the post dubstep hipsterish club scene and used it to market unadulterated grime. He released on the consisently vital Hyperdub. But crucially, through all the ups and downs and ins and out, he kept hte most extraordinary focus in the studio. From his first release to the present day, you can hear the exact same elements: funk squelch, scampering complexity to the beats, a deep love for soul chords, monstrous sonic directness that comes from the UK’s lineage of techno and jungle, and always his signature gremlin cackle, pitched up and down, cut up or straight, announcing his presence. And though he’s been a more shadowy presence on the scene lately - in no small part becuase he took time to nurse his ill father up to his death in 2016 - that’s never let up. His recent releases, from the 2017 The Planets album to the early 2019 single “FFS Why Though” with the eponymous Northampton MC talent, have been as vivid and electric as anything in his catalogue. 

OK there was some editing here. A couple of paragraphs had to go becuase he told the same anecdote twice, and another couple of sentences becuase they could have landed all of us in no end of trouble, and occasionally the footnoting process broke down becuase among the lists upon lists of MCs’ names, many of them are completely untraceable - but otherwise, this is Terror Danjah uncut, and it works. This is the beating heart of the story of this book, it’s the chaotically detailed tale of the 20th century tipping over into the 21st, it’s the intimate musical connections that make up the modern world in all their sprawling, messy, entangled glory: it’s the mundane and sublime story of soundsystem culture as it mutates again, and again, and again, while never losing site of its core values.

So start at the beginning. Have you always lived right in this part of London, born and brought up?

I was actually born in the South but yeah, I've always lived in Forest Gate, East London. I seen it change from being a majority white people and black people and then a few Chinese people. Then over the years the landscape's changed where a lot of them have moved out further Essex, more Asian people moved in the late 80s to where you see it now, it's more an Asian community than anything. Yeah I've always lived here, seen the change. I'm one of the originals. 

And did you have loads of family around this area?

Yeah yeah yeah. Well such, kinda. My family's massive, I don't even know how but it's always been a communal sense because my mum passed away like 22 years ago, so I was about 14 at the time, but when my mum was around it was busy because my sister used to live here, she now lives in the States. My brother don't live in this country either these times. Back then it was very communal house, a lot of people from all round come here as well because my mum's a midwife, my dad's a mechanic so it was just buzzing innit. As you get older, people go off and live their lives innit and everyone just goes about their business, parts ways. 

And so if the house was busy, I presume there was a lot of music around. 

Oh yeah, because my brother was a budding wannabe DJ. At the time everyone had vinyls, this used to be a gramophone here [gestures] so that's old school, we had all the records and used to use the gramophone so everyone bought them... 

One of the big sideboard style ones?

Yeah yeah, the proper ones. I only got rid of it about ten years ago but, it was just taking up space as a cabinet - that was how I played all my records though, my Michael Jackson records like Off The Wall, Thriller and then probably like Bobby Brown records and my dad had all the jazz records, all the old school records and that, ska records, even, still got them. Even I can't even remember, Glen Miller and all them people. It weren't just black music as well, it was across the board of folk, jazz as well - because my dad wasn't really into reggae you know. He was into more of the classics and arts. Because Jamaican people, people think they're into reggae or dancehall but you've got to remember that's still relatively new so when my dad was growing up, he liked, I dunno, Nat King Cole, that stuff. He liked jazz, classical music, he looks upon the dancehall culture as riff raff, he's from an older generation. When he had me, he was 45 - I'm the youngest so my dad's almost like a grandad to me. My mum was a bit younger, only a few years younger, she was more into... Not saying he didn't like the music but he looked down at it, that's how most Jamaicans of his age in the late seventies onwards, that's how they view the music. That's riff raff. 

Someone in their sixties now hearing grime must be thinking the same kind of thing. It's like when rock’n'roll came around, the elders were like “What's this?” It's the same situation because they see themselves as people of class, so my dad would always wear suits. If you wear jeans, that's when he's working. What I'm dressed in now is what he'll go to work in, or do things in his overalls or that because he was obviously a tradesman. He basically built half this house, the floorboards is him, the doors, the tiling, the bathroom, the brick work, you name it, that's how he was, hands on. He worked on transport, fixed people's cars, I'm the opposite, I'm useless, you know what I mean? 

The other thing that makes me laugh about Jamaican people of that generation is how many of them love country and western. 

Yeah because that's what I'm saying, they love that - because he liked calypso, I don't think ska was around that time, he's from a different background. It's weird, all my friends' parents are much younger, they like reggae and all that whereas my dad is like [dismissive] “Eh.” I'm like “What is wrong with my dad, why does my dad have to be…?” any time I play certain music, he walks in the room, "You have no class!" My mum will be like [mutters]. 

But your sister and brother were both older right?

Yeah yeah. My sister's a grandmother, there you go innit. Yeah so, how it works, my brother in law was into house, electro, the Telstar stuff or the Afrika Bambaataa, that's how I got to know the music like that stuff. My brother in law, he was one of the first DJs on Station FM¹ so anytime I had family do's, here clear out the house and put on his sound system on stack, so it's always parties going on, so the sound system culture was just there from early so growing up.

And what was he playing?

He was playing reggae, dancehall, soul, R&B, the classic stuff so he would play what was at the time, so we're talking 80s and 90s stuff because this was between I was six, seven years old up until 12, 13. After that I think he just couldn't be bothered because of his work. He was serious, obviously but being married to my sister and having two kids, he's a top BT engineer.

Life gets in the way. 

But the joke is now, my nephew, he is now a DJ in Miami, he's got all the dubs from Vybz Cartel and Buju Banton and all those guys plus he's inherited all his dad's records so he got everything, so my nephew, I remember before they left here, I was teaching him how to mix and he couldn't mix for shit. Now, all of a sudden, he's... [swaggering] “This Vybz Kartel dub, I can get it for you,” he's playing all these big dances in Miami and I'm like [sharp exhalation], so it's in our family in a sense... So it's mad: all the influences plus my next door neighbour, she's still there, my mum's good friend. They're big chums, she had a lodger, and that's how I got into all the deeper dancehall stuff and hip hop so like NWA, Public Enemy, I didn't know nothing about that, Ragga Twins, all the UK stuff so I didn't know nothing about that. I just knew about Bobby Brown and Vanilla Ice and what was on the TV, or I knew what was on the house side and the deep stuff and the dance stuff from my brother in law, and I knew the basics of going to parties, weddings, christenings, what I still kind of play now in my car. But I didn't know the deeper rap stuff, the deeper dancehall stuff. 

Yeah so that's where my influences stem from, that stuff there. Then when I started school, I used to save my dinner money and all that. Didn't tell my parents but my mum used to sub me and buy records, said, “Don't tell your dad!” So I saved money, buy vinyl, that's why I've got all the early dancehall and jungle stuff. Because it was dancehall at first then after jungle came in do you know what I mean? From then it was boom. Listened to Station FM, Ragga FM², Kool FM, Weekend Rush³, you know those stations, you know the vibes. Obviously before we had Centreforce⁴ but I was a bit too young, my brother was listening to them stations but that was when I was listening to it, Ragga FM, all them stations and having my cassette player in and listening from the ranges of DJ Redan down to DJ Rashan, Shabba⁵, down to Kool FM, Brockie, Det⁶, Stevie Hyper D⁷, Nicky Blackmarket you know, down to even when Skibadee⁸ first popped on the scene, all those kind of DJs used to pop up, getting myself ready on a Friday night, going to probably buy my offkey⁹ Moschino, Saturday just sitting in the house listening to Kool FM in my bedroom. My dad's going, “Come here, do the chores,” I'm like “Uhhhh.” 

Then getting hyped for a rave, or sometimes saving my money from college so then if there's a rave at the end of the month. “You going?” “Yeah tickets are 20 something pounds yeah yeah,” so you put your £5 here, your £5 there, so when you're going to the rave you've got your ticket money, champagne money, or you've got your drinks money, or sometimes what I used to do, the cheapskate one was, remember Thunderbird, buy a bottle of Thunderbird, drink that before I go in the dance so I'm already... I don't need to drink in the rave any more. That was for me... Thunderbird was everything, that was a carnival thing for me. Used to freeze it because it was the strongest drink for that price innit and the best tasting one. I weren't into Lambrini or anything, Thunderbird was my drink before they banned it. Yeah, they banned it. I think they cast it as too strong for the category it was in. It was very strong, what is it, something like 14%, most of them drinks are 5%. 

[Brian interjects] When I was growing up, the people used to follow bands around doing gigs all used to drink Thunderbird because they all used to just hang around in car parks and things after the gigs so they needed to keep them warm. It was a massive thing. 

Yeah Thunderbird, they stopped stocking them. You still probably get it if you go to certain shops. 

Can you remember the first rave or club night that you went to off your own back with your friends rather than it being a family occasion?

It was actually a soundsystem, because around here it wasn't about clubs when I was growing up, it was about venues and halls, so there's a lot of venues and halls, so a lot of the culture came from youth centres, church halls and just normal halls you can hire, so Forest Gate has a lot of them, and house parties as well. So there were a lot of house parties as well, that was what was the norm. And that's what I used to do. From the age of 12, I had all the records from when I was buying various records and for my age, I had more records than most. So I used to go to some next road that had a big house, literally because this road is small but down there the other end of my road, they get bigger as you go along, this is small in comparison. As you go down there, when you get to the other side of the road, they're twice the size of this house. Two doors down you have a house that's double fronted and then the front room was upstairs... because obviously when I was a kid I used to go to everyone's house because that's how it was back in the day, they're still old, they're probably near 100 now. So yeah, snuck out, used to sneak out a lot, or say I was with one of my friends called Simon, we're still cool now. What I used to do was because my mum and his mum were midwives, when I was 13, 14 my mum had passed away, my dad obviously couldn't keep tabs on everything I did because he was all over the gaff. Not in a bad way but because obviously my mum had passed away and all that. So from the age of 12, just venues, house parties, obviously can't get into clubs. But then at the age of 13½ I did because I had the beard I have now so I looked much older - I kind of looked the same as I am now when I was at school, a bit obviously slimmer but some people that ain’t seen me 15 years have gone, “You ain't changed!” I lost a lot of weight recently, all music people know me as a big guy, so when some people see me [gasps] “Wow you lost a lot of weight!” But some people see me from back in the day, “You ain't changed.” I only just started sorting myself out while I hit my 30s but yeah, I'm going off tangent but yeah. 

OK - you would sneak out, go to parties, youth clubs, halls. 

Yeah, go to the youth centre.

So at that age, it was reggae dances - or rather dancehall?

It was dancehall and jungle was creeping in. Because the culture then, everyone in the dancehall was like grime now. ‘91 ‘92, dancehall was grime, Buju¹⁰ was like Wiley, Shabba Ranks¹¹ was like Lethal B. They were all like, everyone here, asian guys, white guys, guys you wouldn't think, blaring out the dancehall music. Obviously they called it ragga at the time. Everyone was playing it. Even the teachers at school, they knew the songs, but then ‘93 we saw the change in the wave when jungle came in. Then it was controversial when the Buju Banton song “Boom Bye Bye” came along. Even my teachers, Irish, knew, “Don't sing that song! No no no!” Like, “How'd you know about that?” That's how big it was then in school. Everyone knew it. Then ‘94, ‘95, jungle was the epidemic as you know, and ‘94, Wiley and that lot, I knew them from then when I was in school, so ‘94 times is where I started to DJ jungle. I had half the tunes on vinyl at the time then obviously everyone was into jungle so come ‘95 when I left college, that's when raving was crazy. And I was a tearaway. I think my dad kind of… well, when my mum was around, my dad, he was the enforcer, couldn't get away with nothing, but when my mum passed, he turned a blind eye a little bit and allowed me to do certain things but I did go the other way and take the piss - but at the same time, well… So my dad started to do minicabbing, he didn't need to but he loved driving to pass the time, because he missed my mum, so he'd come home three, four in the morning so I hd mandem in the house until two, three, then like “We gotta get out just in case!” then my dad come home like [suspicious inhalation] steaming about the house you know... 

What were the drugs of choice then? 

You know what, I didn't really smoke. I was more of a drinker - it was weed for everyone else but because when I was younger I was born premature and ill health a bit growing up when I was a kid so anytime someone smokes near me I always get a sore throat and that so I didn't really get into it. But my house always had alcohol in it, not to say my parents were alcoholic but my dad, he could handle his drink. My mum didn't drink so much because she's a midwife. My dad, he was working for himself at the time he was the kind of man that, he watched the cricket, remember when cricket used to be on TV for free? Then we got Sky, so he's the man watching the West Indies until six, seven in the morning - sometimes I get up and he's still watching and his friends are round, Tennent's cans all over the place and he's just there like [mimics chill, nodding, watching the TV]... I'm there like, “How do you do it?” Yeah, we had all the ornaments so we had every miniature [mini decorative bottles of liqueurs], when I was a kid, I remember I was left in the house about 13, 14 and my mum and dad went out and I must have tried Babycham for the first time. You know at Christmas they give you a little drink but I didn't really indulge because I weren't really into it. Then you have one drink you're alright but I started knocking it back. I was like “Yo I love this feeling, what's this?” Yeah, you can imagine, the lyrics are flying out. I was like “This is sick!” 

I got into the whole habit of going out and drinking so before I went out, I'm not drunk but waved, tipsy, I'm already happy and I was actually getting girls, it was ridiculous. But by the time I got in the rave, halfway through the rave I come down, like “This is shit, I want to go home.” So I've always had a habit of halfway through I'm going home... unless I've got a girl - so every time I got to the rave it was my mission to draw girls, early on I got what I thought was a bit of Dutch courage. It was just like, “Hey,” that was my weapon of choice, for a long while, to where I think when I got to, this was just before I became who I was in grime, about 2001 or 2002, I had the first hangover because up to then I could drink. When I was 18, you couldn't stop me. I could take a bottle of Jamaican rum, a proper one, not the fake one, pour the cup and [glugs]. Get waved but I'd still hold on, like, “Yeah, your turn. Your turn!” Making kool aid punches, rum punches and serve it to my mates, before we even go radio and that, just mad. We'd go raving and one day I thought I was superman and that's when I had my first hangover, I think I was 22. That day I still live to now, never again. I've had a hangover since then but never like that. That stops me, realise I'm not superhuman no more. That hangover, I'll never ever forget. I remember getting home, I don't know how I got home, I remember throwing up out my bedroom window and the alcohol was still sitting. I remember going studio and I did the worst thing, gone McDonalds and got a milkshake. Outside the studio, [barf sounds]. That was the best thing when I got it out. 

What about the circle of people around you? That was rave colliding with dancehall, were people doing Es? Was coke a thing?

Do you know what it is yeah? Like coming from my area, even I shotted for a bit. I never taken them, so I took my first share of selling on the selling side but the Es thing was normal. Just drinking and smoking weed so everyone that smoked weed and went raving, we're talking about the older lot so I was between 13, 14 yeah? These guys are like 19, 20 so they're that generation, just a bit older. I'm just about getting into the rave scene, they're in it. You know when them man are saying “Yeah, we're taking Es blah blah blah, try one.” “Nah nah nah.” It was normal! Ecstacy. They would call it by its full name. I was like yeah, this is crazy. I weren't into it. 

Had they been into hardcore and acid house and stuff before that as well and going to the raves?

Yeah. What it was at the time, 93, 94 it was kind of like hardcore / jungle, techno jungle. It wasn't full on jungle till 94. It was partly what I was used to and [mimics tune] then you hear “Helicopter”¹², when “Helicopter” come it changed everything, that time in 93 so that, few other tunes that were sampling rare grooves and dancehall stuff, it weren't a lot but everyone was into rave culture because that was like two, three years on from “Raving I’m Raving”¹³ and all them tunes. So everyone was raving but I wasn't really raving, I was going to the hood places where the black people went so you didn't really hear those tunes because the black people are on the side like, “Nah I'm not feeling shit” but they'll play “Helicopter” so they'll play a bait [obvious] jungle tune but they wouldn't go deep so there wasn't really that around my age group but the older ones that worked in record shops just up here, they all was onto it. Mainly the Asian guys as well, everyone was into Es except for my lot... I think my generation's more weed. I don't really know anyone that popped pills. Now it's mad though. But yeah. 

And then when jungle kicked in, was there a sense of pride that it was from here?

Oh yeah. When jungle come it was like, I was still a raver them times. By then I DJed but like I said, coming from a background, everyone bought vinyl, that was the MP3 of the time, so going out and then hearing a tune and the way it grabbed a lot of the black people in is, I'm hearing tunes I heard being brought up as a kid being resampled into this music. “Aah I know that tune!” Then you're hearing a whole escapade, hardcore tune like this is cool to where you're eventually in the whole genre of it. It was like yeah this is ours for the taking, everything from my youth, the guy down the road made it because Randall lived two roads down, literally. [demonstrates with parallel hands] This was my road then the next to the next road was Randall's so what was the record, De Underground record shop¹⁴, that's in Forest Gate. That was Randall's shop with those guys, was it 4 Hero, not 4 Hero they were Reinforced, West London… who was it? Anyway they had something to do with Randall, they owned the shop. Their producers worked in the shop... so the thing was in 95 to collect all the flyers and stick it on your wall and that's what I did on my wardrobe and my dad being an old school Jamaican dad, when I did, ripped them all off the wall. I was distraught, I kept the doubles and everything but it didn't make the difference. There was a collectors thing innit, offkey jeans, the flyers, the tape packs. Yeah, that was the culture, going to the raves and going, “This is our music.” Instead of like, we don't know the dancehall, hip hop American artists - so at the time it was “One More Chance” was the big tune, Biggie Smalls and that, Bad Boy, it was the bad boy era - you go to a rave, there was raves every day. You can walk on the street and you can just go to house parties, you can go to the club, every other club was playing hip hop, R&B and a bit of jungle but to hear jungle, it was like, you know, hear the tune and instantly “Ahh he lives in Hackney” or “He lives down the road. Rah, okay!” You felt part of the scene innit. I remember my older cousin wasn't into jungle but I said to him, “Come man.” I said “Girls!” - man said “Girls!” Every type of girl was in the rave. 

What I loved about that era, which I say to Champion¹⁵ which he don't get, I don't think none of the people get, in a rave you didn't need lyrics [chat up lines], you just need to look good or dress or smell a certain way. All you need to do is just sway with a girl and put yourself behind her, that's it. Just roll, hold her and then the bravest thing you have to do is turn her around, she might sign a lighter¹⁶ in your face, if she don't walk off or she puts her arm round, you're in. That was it, you didn't need no chat up lines. After that, you know if the girl's stuck by you after like half an hour, it's always about pen and paper. If you ain't got paper then your used bus pass, you know what I mean? You write the number. I had already pre written numbers. You know when I think back now, I think they must think I'm stupid, giving them pre written numbers. They must have known I had the hold. I was that prepared, you know, if I go to the rave, pager number - and it was pager in them times... “Ah here's one I write out earlier,” “Yeah you're smart aren't you?” I'm thinking like but yeah that's how I used to rol -l or I'd have the pen in my hat. You know them Gap hats and I took the label and fold it outside, I had the pen hanging down. Yeah, I was on it. I was a coyote man.  When I think about it, I think, “Imagine doing that now!”

But I got away with it then!  When I started doing it, guys started putting their pens in their hats too and started pulling the label outside because I remember there was a thing with the Gap hat, you take the label out because they were plain innit. Some people used to put the label on the strap at the back but I put mine on the side because I could sew. I put the pen there, yeah, I don't want no leakage in my £150 jeans, no way. It worked. So when girls ask why you put the pen there, you're like “Nah man, you spend £150 man, we're just saving these jeans. Nah man.” I was actually serious as well. I had an offkey Mosch shirt one time and the pen did leak innit so I had a little red mark but I got away with it, but that was £100 shirt, if you had £100 shirt, £150 jeans to match, you're like “Nah nah nah, the pen's gotta go outside.” You know what, double entendre... it worked though. Couldn't do that now, imagine going to a rave now and being a yout and having your pen on the side of your hat. You've got a phone nowadays, the phone is the new pen, you don't even need a pen, you just go “What's your number?” But before you had to be on point. Enough time I go to a rave and I'm like “Who's got a pen, you got a pen?” like, "Nah, we're not allowed to give out pens, we always lose pens". “Who's got a pen? Shit, shit!” It's like a film. “I gotta go.” “No no no! Someone's got a pen, bruv you got a pen. I saw you with a pen earlier bruv. No pen. Come on man!” “Give me £20!”, fuck. I'm telling you man. 

So right, booze, girls and you were starting to be a DJ. At what point did you start getting some recognition or being more than just mucking about in your bedroom? 

When that start happening, there was a lot of raves at houses going on then like I said, the normal house raves, me and D Double¹⁷ was school friends, we'd go to every other house rave, hear bassline, we're in there. If it was a girl's 18th, we'd just turn up because everyone's there. That was our way of getting noticed so I turned up to everyone's house rave and turn it over, literally, been turning over raves since 15, 16. I've been trying it since I was 12, turn up with my records like “Can I play?” cause I know they ain't got the latest jungle records that I've got so went in there, play, me and D Double, Double's MCing and that. He wasn't even named D Double then, he was MC Dee - spelled D-E-E. He still says “D-E-E” but MC Dee was his name - so we used to go to the raves, turn them over so I became recognised in my area, in Newham, so everyone knew who I was when I was 16, 17. Then when I was playing with my friend Simon who I used to go raving with, he had a party then played at this party then DJ Tempo, I don't know if you've heard of DJ Tempo, he used to be in Bass Inject crew, on Chicago FM and all the stations, Footsie was in Bass Inject too, that's how he came to prominence - so he said “I'm a manager at a radio station called Future FM,” don't know if you remember them but “Yeah, come on. You can come on seven to nine.” I was like “Prime time!” You don't get prime time radio, you always have to go graveyard to prove yourself but he was like “Yeah, you sure you're ready though?” I was nervous, first time I went on, I was a bit kind of a bit off, the manager was like “Yeah you got riddims,” though - I wasn't that great but I was good selector, that's what got me through. I had the idea. I held it. 

Was that with D Double as well?

That was with D Double because I had other two mates I auditioned with, sent a demo with, but they didn't want them two, they just wanted me and D Double. 

And was he getting a name for himself, did he have his sort of unique style then? 

Yeah yeah. His style came from jungle, all his lyrics now partially came from jungle. Same as me, it's all jungle. 

Did people think he was a standout MC at that stage?

Yeah he had character, he's always been like that. He's always been, I can definitely say he's always been like that so when he was on jungle, it was just like, he's faster and more skippy. It's crazy, he's always been that outstanding character so yeah. When we did that, again strength to strength. 

OK so time’s moved on though, you say jungle but we must be into ‘96, ‘97…

That’s right.

So the sound was… pretty much jump-up drum’n’bass, Tru Playaz kind of energy if I remember right. 

Yeah exactly that kind of sound. We still called it jungle, though. And the new MCs were just coming thought. Rinse FM at the time was the rival station - but they had the likes of Wiley, Target¹⁸, Maxwell D¹⁹, Paco, nah I don't think Paco was on there at the time, Plague, Carmen, they were called Underdogs, they were my favourite crew at the time. IC3²⁰ brother is Carmen, DJ SAS1 I was supposed to join them. What was his name, he used to shout... I’m trying to get to a story here, honest there is a link to what I'm trying to say. BK, that's it, there was Major Skitz and BK, I know you're like “Who are these names?” BK is basically the rapper Mystro²¹ [pronounced “maestro”], you know who Mystro is? I think he's signed to Big Dada, one of those labels.

Ohhh Mystro with a Y! 

That’s the one. He's UK hip hop... He was BK. He came from that. Then you had a female MC called Dyer who moved to America I think, then you had, ahhh bare people come from there. Rinse FM... At the time Kool FM was the station still, Rinse was coming up, at one stage Rinse for a little bit outshone Kool because Rinse was getting a variety and the Rinse FM MCs were all the youth. It was almost like at Radar²² now, Rinse and Radar, Rinse are like the Kool FM now, Radar's like the Rinse. Radar's up and coming but everyone's going on Radar, that's how Rinse was, Rinse was the cool station but Kool FM was still the big station, still doing the big dances - but what happened is that Rinse went down for a bit and then Pressure FM came on and then when Rinse came back they joined up with Pressure to what you know now as Rinse, it went to 100.3, Pressure FM then Rinse went to 100.3 then 100.4, remember the dial, now they’ve gone legal they’ve changed the dial. 

So when Rinse came back, I was the one that opened the station because I was on Pressure because Future crashed so I went onto Pressure, spoke to Rips, DJ Rips, he owened Pressure. He's from Mile End, Stepney Green ends, when I first went on they had the station, it was called Raw FM. Then they changed it back to Rinse but I was in the block in Barking, I'm DJing, there was a guy who was in the kitchen. This guy's sitting on the tabletop watching me, D Double and that do our set. Do you know who that was? DJ Karnage. Because Karnage was his nephew so I known Karnage from when he was a little kid, he probably was about 14, 15 so it's crazy how things revolve round. So when Rinse came back on, I was automatically back on Rinse so me, Geeneus, then the whole Pay As U Go started and just kind of fell out of love with DJing and that's when I started - 2001 time - producing. I kind of just sold my decks, went to college and said, “Let me just learn production.” I didn't even officially get thing, I'm still part of the consortium of Rinse, they don't mention me because maybe I'm not a pop star but if I blew up tomorrow I'm sure they'd say, “Yes, Terror Danjah came from here!” But I did. I was originally from Rinse. 

Through those pirate days, did you buzz on the excitement of it all and the studios, the threat of the DTI or whatever it was then shutting things down. 

Yeah, you know what, I just remember, that was just standard I think. It's just one of those things, “Do you want to be radio?” and it's the risk of losing your records and getting a criminal record but you don't think of that, when you're 16, 17, 18, 19, you don't give a shit. I think, I wasn't a bad breed yout, I was excited doing my stuff but I wasn't going out there robbing people, stabbing people, or doing that stuff. I was still a good citizen in the sense of that, but at the same time, the youth energy, you just don't think about it really. You think, “Fuck it, if I get caught, I'll worry about it later.” I remember being on Rinse and it was in Bow and I remember there was a point I was a bit paranoid because DTI did raid a couple studios, because what happened is what they normally do is they find lift shafts and then chop the wire - because Geeneus, that's why he was a king, him and Slimzee used to go on the roofs as you know and Geeneus used to be able to climb into roof shafts because he's that small, he'd fit it into gaps and put it in so they couldn't reach it. Somehow, they'd get the keys and get in, so all they could do is chop the wire, they couldn't destroy the rig so you know, they have to probably fence it off and somehow them guys jump roof to roof. I mean go roof to roof and go put them on the roof somewhere else and that's why they call him Geeneus innit. So I remember they started hitting studios, was it Rude FM²³ in North, they were quite big as well. They had another rude awakening, they split in two. When it was still one, theyt started getting hit a lot, they raided them. I remember because Future FM and Deja²⁴ was linked at the time, they raided Deja. That's when Deja got a big hit, I can't remember what big DJ they hit. Because Rinse wasn't taken serious at the time, they were going for the Freek FM²⁵, the Dejas, the Rude FM the Kool FM, that got hit badly because Kool FM²⁶ believe it or not, it was in you remember the jungle record shop in Hackney, in Clapton. It was there so yeah, it's a tyre shop now - but it was deep. 

I remember at that stage of time I was on radio, so I remember, I don't know how true this is, but as long as your records are not in the same room as the transmitter microwaving box, they can't confiscate your records so I had the records, I had my bag in the records in one room then what I'll do is pull out a handful, played a couple then put them back and pull out another handful and play them and put them back, so if I did get lick I would lose a few records instead of losing my whole bag. At the time I was cutting dubs so dubs were £25 at the time then it went to £30. So it's still £25 a dubplate and you're cutting dubs so it's a lot of money, and on top of that to be a DJ them times, you had to pay subs. Subs weren't cheap, cheaper than it is now but I think it was probably £15 a show then so you're paying roughly £60 a month then you're paying for your records which you're spending easily between, if there's nothing out then you might just buy two, three records for the sake, that's £15, or if you're buying ten records, you might get a discount in the shop but that's still about £50 so if there's a lot of 12" come out and especially test pressings, sometimes people take the piss and charge you double for the test pressings, then a tenner a test press and you're buying these records you must have. You can easily spend £100 in the record shop, and you know, being a DJ you have to at least go twice a month. Sometimes you've got to go every week just to keep up in case you miss something so imagine spending £60 plus your records plus your dubs, it's a lot of money you know! You have to spend at least £150/200 a month and I wasn't working. Well I was for a little period of time, but it wasn't easy. Then you're worrying about DTI, then you're trying to be the best DJ you can. 

What about the prestige of it, did it feel good to know that you were like getting out to all those people? 

You know, where I come from, the background, everyone was a DJ so it wasn't a fact of like, “Rah!”, ‘cause everyone and their cat and dog was a DJ. I was saying this to my bredrins the other day, so my missus, she's the same age group as me, and she can mix. It was normal to have Technics in the house and have a chill and mix, like guys playing Playstation, actually no that was later - it was Super Nintendo or Mega Drive, if you’re not playing them, you're mixing, it was just a standard normal because vinyl was a part of culture them times. Most females my age, probably couldn't mix as well as they potentially could, but they could still mix better than new upcoming DJs now, because it was normal to mix. She don't DJ but it's a lifestyle then have a go at the decks, that's what's in most people's houses, it was a thing, that was standard. So everyone around me either owned a sound system or was a DJ or did something. The prestige didn't come into it to when... I think ‘99, 2000 when, I think but guys from Kent and all surrounding areas going [earnest voice] “Oh you're Terror D!” Like [surprised] “Oh okay.” I think when I went on Rinse, that's when it spread because Rinse were hitting far and wide, people taping sets. I came on the ranks where I was one of the main DJs on there, mans from Birmingham all round the place they know of me and people like. I had friends on Kool FM, I had people shouting at me in the rave, I'm getting shouted a lot so I had the hood status already but it was just like, where I come from, I was just like, “OK keep doing your thing.” 

Because the real guys were shotters, they were the real celebrities really. The guys that would pull up in their Ferraris or their Bentleys, I'm still walking on street, I'm still bopping on road. I'm getting off a bus and a man's going “Yo do you want a lift” and they're the ones that all the girls are talking about. It's different, it wasn't internet them times you know so if you're a criminal, on the highest esteem, for them DJs was just like, “Yeah man, come play for me innit.” So if you was a road man them times, they were the celebrities. I was humbled, because you've got to remember, raves then were violent. When I was raving, when I was actually going raves 15, 16, my brother would say “Why you going? Be careful because you can actually get killed in the rave.” Obviously I see nowadays, when everyone's talking about raves now, I don't think it's as serious as it was then because going to a jungle rave, it wasn't a joke. Any kind of rave. Always see someone get stabbed or bottled because you remember them times, you had glass bottles on the street. Even walking around, lucozade bottles were glass so when I go into raves, people bottled, or you are seeing gunshots getting let off or someone being stabbed. It's not a fake thing, I've seen people laid out in front of me. I remember going to raves, this ain't funny, but you know EQ²⁷ in Stratford when it was there, it was called Powerhouse at the time, and there was a Telepathy²⁸ there… what a horror show. This was when gassing was normal, all the raves, some stupid dickhead felt like gassing the rave. 

CS gas? 

Yeah, CS gas the rave - so where there's an argument and you see people running you think, standing there, don't run with them, you'll get trampled. The next thing you see everyone coughing so, do that [holds sleeve over face] you'll be fine. That's gone away. You know what, I don't know why the bouncers were wearing white shirts. You know like Trainspotting, like a film, it's mad. You know when you see the flashing lights and it's black, it's almost like you blink your eyes so I seen two guys doing that dancing, that was the normal dance, sway back and forward and I could just hover around seeing them doing that. There's blinking lights so you're seeing the guys blinking flashing black-light-black-light then this guy now, I thought them people were dancing because sometimes people come up to their faces and do that. I see this guy, back, back, back, boom. “Oh shit that's what's happened,” the other guy, missing. Next thing I know, security are running one way, they're coming back the other way, shirts already redded up, they're picking this guy redded up. Another incident, people running. [screams] Another guy. By the end of the rave, the security's shirts were red. 

I weren't gonna lie, I was there thinking, I remember saying to myself. I'm used to it but I remember looking and thinking, “Fuck this man.” I love raving and I'm so used to seeing this shit but it took the white shirts to make me see this. If they were wearing black shirts it probably wouldn't have affected me but I'm thinking, “Fuck this, man.” I went to a few more raves but I think that was when I went “You know what, fuck these jungles raves, man. I'm going to go to more West End dances.” We had to wear shoes and that, still didn't make a fucking difference. No matter where you went, violence followed and I just think it was like... rah. So when you fast forward to grime and people talk about violence, I'm like “What violence?” The MCs have an argument on stage and have a little tuff, that ain't violence, they both went home and they can both see another day and in the end you're going to see them two dancing two, three years later down the line saying, “Oh that's banter.” Not like it was staged or anything but I'm like, “I don't know one casualty in grime.” I mean it happens, the arguments, and there’s been one or two that went out of hand - that's life - but I don't know one casualty where I've actually seen someone get shot or stabbed or something. I've seen people get away from the scene of real drama but I've never seen in a rave, the most I've seen is fights in a pub brawl or something... 

Kids on the top deck of the bus stuff?

Exactly - but I've never seen anyone get hurt - so when people say about “Grime is this and that” I'm like “Nah, I've seen more people shot at a house rave - or heard the incidents - than in a grime rave” and I think one thing good about grime music coming from the whole sound system thing. Because everyone's relatively young, we're older like me, Wiley, we're the originals, it's almost like, because we was all young, we all ain't like that. As much as the music can portray, no one in the music until recent times is of that. Coming from the sound system culture, I mean the sound system days, the most you get is some stupid 14 year old CS gassing the all dayer. A man's like [old Caribbean voice] “Stop doing that!” It was ridiculous to the point where they stopped doing all dayers because for my age we had all of that, it's kind of my age group, jungle age group, that ruined the all dayers. They still do all dayers but it's got to be almost like a proper fest now where it's gotta be signed off with the council and all that. Before, you'd have all dayer, you'd have a couple street, you could get away with it. It was sick, right now you could go to Stratford rec park for an all dayer, also the park in East Ham an all dayer, you can go to Forest Gate, there'll be an all dayer. Everywhere all dayers. You go to the youth centres, they have parties, all dayers, they have it up until 11pm, up until 1am sometimes. Where do you hear anything going on at the youth centres no more? Because they actually [appreciative] rah! At first, when I was 19, 20 thinking this is sad, I had all this, why can't you do it for the kids? Obviously I'm going to big man raves so I'm not really worried about that but still, now I look back I think fucking hell. It's kind of killed the culture. Now kids are running around doing their knife crime stupidness, same as our generation, it’s different now - but now I think, was it the fuckery that stopped the soundsystems, was it the raves, would it be different if you could still run a sound at the youth centre? I dunno.

It wasn’t even just the reggae, dancehall thing - there was a whole other culture of Bhangra all dayers as well if you look back to the eighties, early nineties... 

Yeah! They're all gone. I think what's happened is a little sight of trouble and they've killed off the whole culture, they want to say [mutters] “ahhh ahhh it's trouble.” I don't think it's that to be honest, I don't think it's that. I don't think the sound system thing is dated because it's coming back in a different way now but I think they heard that and went “Ahhh, no no no.” I think the sound system thing has to come back. The culture is gone as in the whole digital thing has made it a different day because before it was all about vinyl and cutting things but I think it's nice to, I think the next level is people like myself and like minded people - like Dillinja’s got a system²⁹ - if you can, it's a lot of money but build a system. I think, instead of hiring a Funktion 1, if you can bring your own sound in. I wanna do that for real.

Well, like VIVEK did with the System nights, like dubstep connecting with things like Sinai Sound and Mungo’s Hi Fi dubstep's life, putting that emphasis on the custom made sound, it's really given certain parts of dubstep a centre and something to grow around...  but going back to that era, talking of cutting records, would you go to Music House³⁰?

I'd go Music House. Music House did play a big pivotal role. 

And that was part of your like schooling and part of that week to week life you described?

Yeah, more than that, Paul Chue, he worked there, he was like my mentor because when I first met him, he was loud, not obnoxious but Jamaican loud, cussing. I'm used to that but you know like, I went there and then he was a fuckery to everyone. Have you met Paul Chue?

No I haven't, I need to. 

You definitely need to speak to him, he is living music history. He's my close friend. I went there and he just been “Rah rah rah,” he's always been loud. You know who Paul Chue is right? That's Wookie's³¹ dad. So there now, first time I went in there, like ‘96. I just followed my friend in there and he made me wait down the alley, it was on Holloway Road at the time. So I'm waiting down the alley and Paul goes, “What you doing down there? Come, come man.” So, I was like “Oh shit okay.” He goes, “Sit down man!” Why'd he make you wait outside for?” I'm like “I don't know.” So that's the first time, my first encounter with him so I was like “OK, cool.” Second time with my bredrin again, he made a tune, we stayed up all night, fell asleep at his house, we waited for Music House to open again then he was just like, “Yeah yeah yeah,” went into Music House and he went “Yeah yeah yeah, I remember you.” I kept going regular regular to where we just got on, we just clicked. One day I was making my tunes then he came up to me and goes, “Yo. Want a garage tune.” And I was making jungle and I was like, [sulky adolescent mumble] “I don't like garage, garage is shit.” He was like, “I want garage, make me a garage tune.” 

So I was like “Alright,” I went home and me and my mate Desi, he was half of Prizna³², you know, did “Fire”, we stayed up all night making this tune. I mean it was Desi’s tune really, he was gonna do this garage thing, but I was working on it with him, right. Anyway, probably fell asleep for an hour or two, woke up, he was in the chair upstairs, like “What's the time?” “Ah it's 11 o'clock,” Rang him up, “Yeah I've got it you know.” “Alright come. Come down.” I put down the phone, head out. Then I was like, Grooverider was there. I was like “I made this,” put it in and played it and I was outside the hut, I was outside in the alleyway now and Grooverider and all the guys are there and Paul goes [bellows in thick Jamaican accent] “Oi Terror, pussy’ole!” Pushed the Minidisc in my face. “Bag a’ shit”! I was like, [crestfallen] “Ah”. Them man about to laugh. “Only joking! Too bad, TOO BAD!” He sits down, I was like [unspeakably relieved] “Fucking hell.” Then we were laughing. I was like… [mimes hart pounding] because he's raw like that because I'll have tunes where he’ll be like, “Nah” but he weren't that harsh... but he can be harsh. 

There's a real hierarchy in a cutting house about who's allowed in and who's allowed to jump the queue, right?

Ah yeah yeah yeah, all that. Grooverider could just walk in there. Hype could just walk in. It's like a barber shop. You've got time with your barber, there could be bare man in the queue, you go to the guy in front, “Yo let me jump in quick. Nice, yes.” But they know who they are, “Cool cool cool.” I seen the man do it. When I got in there, I can just ring up and say, “Who's there?” “No one, come now.” No matter who's in there, I'm in the queue, but there is a hierarchy but it's also, you’ve got to be prepared... I remember Michael Vegas³³, you know Vegas and Fresh³⁴, I knew them two from way back when. They just started Bad Company and Grooverider just blew their tune up, so they had another tune and Michael took it in, but it was panned wrong, so Paul, I think because of the frequency of it, Paul went “I can't cut this man, it'll fuck up the dub, go back man.” He weren't being rude but he were like “Nah seriously because cutting that it'll make the needle jump when you're cutting on the dub. I can do a mono mix for you but I don't know how it's going to sit.” You know, that's how real they were, I've seen enough guys tunes get rejected. “Nah I can't cut, it's phasing man.” If the left and right of your bass are out of phase, it'll make the groove in the vinyl scraggly. There's nothing wrong with phasing other bits, I phase a lot of my high end and high mids, 1k up, above that, all the niceties and the bubbly synths and the light airy things, you can have it partially doing stuff like it's on Radio 1, sounds crazy, so you know, I kind of learned these production tricks from vinyl. From cutting dubs. Even one or two of my records in the day got rejected, I was like phasing nah. He'd be like “Your bass is phasing man, nah, go back, [sucks teeth] I can't cut that man. Next tune!” 

So you carried on with jungle, drum’n’bass right through Bad Company era, the late 90s? Was there a time you stopped calling it jungle?

I tell you when it went D&B, it was like ‘97, ‘98 when Ed Rush, Optical³⁵, they came in, they started it and Matrix³⁶, they started D&B. 

That was like the hard, industrial, cyberpunk vibe... 

Yeah but it was still, the reggae element in it, Renegade Hardware³⁷ as well, they've started leaning towards it. Yeah, it's actually 95, a tune called “Dead By Dawn”,³⁸ that started it. I've got that on vinyl. That was when I was like, “Whoa, I don't know about this tune but I like it.” I remember hearing it on Kiss one of those guys, damn… not Fabio, he was on Radio 1….

Was it Hype on Kiss then?

Nah. It was... who used to run Good Looking records? 

Bukem. 

I think Bukem was on Kiss that time, I think Bukem played it. I never used to listen to Bukem. Yeah it was LTJ Bukem because my friend was more on that, I was more on Shy FX, Brockie, he was more like, my friend, black guy as well, he was more on the intelligent stuff. We met halfway so we used to talk about tunes like nerds so I know that side and if I didn't, he'd be showing me a tune, say for example Krust, “True Stories”. I knew of the tune so I was up on it but I was like “‘True Stories a weird tune man,” but he would convince me to like it. We would start talking about the textures, the layers and I'm like “You know what, yeah, tune's hard,” so I bought that record. I've got that in my record box. I've got all those kind of tunes, 31 Records, “Shadowboxing”, when they came out, it was like, yeah you needed certain tunes but I still was on that so it was 98 the turning point where it was almost like, I think I was the only one that was still finding those records. A lot of like Full Cycle went a bit weird, but I was playing tunes like “Bad Girl”, Krust’s remix of DJ Rap, because I knew DJ Rap as well because she's from Walthamstow,she was cool so I was playing her remix. Boom boom boom. I was finding those tunes still…

The rollers!

Yeah, all the rollers, but everyone else couldn't find them or I would get them early and I'd have certain Roni Size tunes where they were very obscure but because by that time everyone was on the noisy thing.

That's another thing, record shop, you had the normal customers, you get what's on the wall then you have the mandem, we get what's in the box, the test pressings, so I get what's in the box. I went to Boogie Time I said yo! Why don't I get what's in the box? "Who are you?" I'm on Rinse innit. "Ah okay, so what time do you play?" I play seven to nine on a Saturday. "Yeah! So what's your name?" “Fucks sake, Terror Danjah.” "Yeah oh, I know who you are, don't worry, you'll get what's in the box". So when I walk in there, never on the shelf is [flicking] and I just, I ring up, “Have you got...?” “Yeah yeah.” Another place I had it was where Slimzee was working in that place, Total Music³⁹, that's how I knew Slimzee. Used to always go in the shop and he always from morning, we just had that click, that was when he was skinny, he was DJ Slimfast that time on Rinse. He knew me as well because I was big on Future and he was big on Rinse, that's why Slimzee and me have that affinity, even to now, we have that both respect so he always go, “Terror, he was here from morning.” We was both jungle DJs... but yeah that was another key culture in the music thing. You had your normal record section and you had that box, that was the privilege of being a DJ. 

But then the MCs started to dominate - you describe the early days of Rinse and Deja, and what stood them apart was their MCs, right?

Vocals are always there for me, because coming from a sound system again, I did it! I could always host and MC, I weren't the greatest but I've always had the projection and that matters. So early, I could either have went to being an MC or host or being a DJ - but because I was a bit shy, I more lent towards being behind the scene, being a DJ but then when I was doing raves in houses I was one of the main people holding the mic. So you had your top MCs but I could hold or even upstage them easy in the dance, even now. I used to write a lot of things for certain people, especially jungle. Guys say, I was an idea guy, I always have been. If you ask any artist around me and they'll tell you, for example, what's never been said and I think I've got to start saying it more is “So Sure”⁴⁰, I wrote that. The only thing I didn't write was the chorus because I left it for Sadie⁴¹ to write, I didn't want to take all the glory, Shola⁴² mended here and there too - but basically I wrote “So Sure”. A lot of the After Shock singer songs, I wrote, so I'll come and write them. I can actually song write but people don't know but I've never taken credit so that's why now I gotta start speaking up. So when MCs are MCing, I got the ear to say, when I record, I can vocal produce an MC or a singer because I can be like “Try it this way, hold your throat up, try the tone down, give the emphasis here, take away the emphasis,” because sometimes I'll say to a singer the same thing, “It doesn't matter what you're saying, it's how you deliver it.” You say, “Baby I love you,” how many times have do we hear that? But if you've got a talent and you can phrase it and make people go “Ahhh”, like, say, a gospel singer can touch you with it. 

So MCing was a part of my culture because the dancehall side of things and the hip hop side so I'm used to MCs. I've always had MCs on my set so when the grime thing came along, it lent from that jungle part where we had Shabba, Skibadee, Stevie Hyper D, Stevie was my MC. Doesn't matter what DJ was there because sometimes the DJs would bore me, but if Stevie was on the bill, that's one tick. Nicky Blackmarket, that's a tick, what other DJs? Hype or Rap was exciting me the most. If they were on the bill and Stevie was there, I'm gone. It could be a Roast, it could be Telepathy, it could be One Nation, it could be whatever it was, I was there because I wanted to hear MCing. I want to hear guys to hype me up. How I see the grime kids now, going up front to see MCs, that's how I was. When grime came along and all the MCs came out, I'm the opposite now. I dunno. So you have to be that good for me to go, but that's where I've come from, I've always had MCs around me. 

Well it’s something I keep coming back to, MCs in a rave had a real training. They weren’t just doing their latest bars on a radio, they had to keep going and going.

I've seen Stevie spit for straight ten minutes, commanding the crowd where he'll start spitting and he's just bubbling, up a notch, up a notch. he'll get more and more tense and tense and tense, to where four, five tunes in, he'll know I'm gonna reload now and he'll say “d-d-dingding, hold up if you want 007,” from the time he's done that lyric “We don’t need no” [rewind sound] That was it, you're like “It's coming,” he'll start kind of rapping half time, you're like “Alright,” he'll start getting more from hip hop-ish to dancehall to dancehall, [1:15:27 lyric about chatterbox unclear] I'd be like, alright, he's rapping then [sings] you're like “It's coming, he's coming,” building. I don't think MCs have got that power to possess a corwd. Maybe a few of the modern era… but I can't think of an MC that can do that to be honest, that can start off easy, reel you in and still spit over the mixes and no one to plug out the mic. When they get to the point climaxing, they're 15 mins and spitting straight and it's “Pull up!” and then what's good about Stevie, he wasn't just going straight, he will pause and toast a bit but then when the DJ's building, as the set's rising, he's rising. The problem with grime MCs, there's a lot of them like, they don't pace themselves, they'll go on the set, it's all bass energy straight away [revving noises] after like ten minutes of a grime set, you're like, you're worn out already. What more can you do? There's not an MC that can... it's almost like being with a woman and you can’t go in there and go [slap noise] right from the beginning but you're just going to burn yourself out, pace yourself, go mad at the end, that's the trick, do you know what I'm saying? 

I think that's the same thing for a set, after half an hour of an MC, you don't want to hear no more because they've burnt you out. You know like when I do a DJ set, that's why I like to play the vocals at the front end, start with singing vocals, DMZ tune, warm them in so when I've played the instrumentals now, then the MCs can go high but if you started from the beginning and did that... it's almost like the set goes “Eeeeeeeeeee!” [high pitched noise] There isn't much MCs that think about.... I think dubstep was the other balance where the MCs would MC here and there but I think they had the better balance but I think if they had a bit more of the grime emphasis, it would have been perfect. With MCs still, I get it though, it's about grime, it’s that energy, because if there's ten MCs there, there's no time to play around - but if you're on your own... 

Crazy D⁴³ is one of the ones who find that exact balance. 

Yeah! You just have that, complimenting the music and I think with jungle, jungle was obviously, you had two types, you had the Crazy D style. They all learn that from jungle, the Shabba, Skibadee type. I think with grime, when grime I think wins over D&B - I mean, it doesn't win over D&B don't get it twisted - but musically, when the MCs have come, the MCs are more in touch with the music as in there’s more artistry so with the grime MCs, they're getting the more prominence because to be honest, I don't know... the problem with D&B, with those MCs is flawed, you don't really have a good D&B MC type of tune. Not saying it can't be done but I think... People don't want it. 

There are SO few. 

I think the music don't want it. Not just the DJs but if you go to a D&B rave, you don't want to hear a song, you want to hear hype, “Dibby dibby wayyyyy”. You just want to go “Rah!” - enough of them are off their nut. You don't want to feel the feeling of grime, I think you can give it a sound stage, it's still got the sound man mentality of how I used to go to raves where you start off the rave old school hip hop, R&B then you put in newer stuff, newer stuff, then when you play the jungle part, the jungle part is the hype part of the set. Then you bring MCs on for 20 minutes, buss it up, then you bring it right down, playing the classic hip hop again, the slow down section, if you ain't got a girl at that time it's time to go home. But I think, with a grime set, I think it keeps the sound system thing. I play it, I play that way, I play the type of set where I play all my classic tunes, with the bait tunes, then I play all the tunes that you know what's been played on radio like side by side and all that. I play it again then you start the instrumental set now, the instrumental segment, the MCs are ready now, you play a bait tune then you play a couple new ones, throw new ones in there. Just like a sound system, I think that's what good about it. With D&B, I can't say they don't happen but MC wise, they're just there to shut up and just get the crowd hype. You know what I mean? That's why I'm working with Trigga⁴⁴, Trigga is one of the only few from that sound I can put on grime music and it makes sense because he does the dancehall thing. Shabba and Skibadee style... 

He's schooled in drum’n’bass from young too.. 

Yeah. Shabba and Skiba can do it but they're more, they try to, but it doesn't correlate as much as it should. I shouldn't say that because now they're going to probably shoot me, nah nah they're my close friends, Shabba's my close mate but I think Stormin⁴⁵ does it well when he does Teddy Bruckshot but on the D&B scene, I don't know. But if I went to a jungle rave, I don't want to hear an MC...

In fact, there is one exception, there's the Ragga Twins. They're the ones who can tour a record and do it. 

Yeah but they've been doing it before. 

Exactly. They're ragga. 

That’s it, the soundsystem element again, they've been doing it since when I was in school. On D&B, on jungle, they're just about sitting on the music, they do it right - but if they was to do a tune on jungle, it wouldn’t be big like when they do breakbeat or dubstep.

Maybe... So let's get to the birth of grime proper. 

Yeah. 

Was it Paul Chue demanding a garage track that forced your switch into producing a different style that wasn't D&B? 

Nah. That wasn’t my tune really, it was Desi’s’. I did it with him but it was his tunes. What really happened was I made millions of jungle tunes then I had a friend... 

[interjects] Did you ever release any jungle tunes or was it all just dubs for your sets? 

Yeah. Never released them, just dubs. So what happened was like, I think at the time, I had the bredrins, there was a guy called Looney⁴⁶ and Skanker⁴⁷ and Leon Smart⁴⁸, you know Leon Smart, Scratcha, yeah. They've been around me but it's more Looney, he said to me, “Rah, make garage! Make 130 [BPM].” I'm like “Ah man, not that stuff, I'm into my jungle, man.” It's almost like, “Really dude, jungle's dead bruv.” I was still in it bruv but I know it's time to let go of what it is. So I said, “Yeah, alright.” So I made my first garagey tune, the first garagey tune I made, Slimzee played it straight away. This was when Slimzee was making the transition so my mate was like, “See!” Them man were spitting on my track, but he played the instrumental - I went “Alright, cool. Then the second tune I made, Slimzee played that. I was like, “Okay,” - this was for Pay As U Go - so then the third garage tune I made got signed to Solid City - that was “Firecracker”, with “Highly Flammable” [on the b-side], that was the name of the crew we started because of that, Highly Flammable. So that third garage tune, that was when I didn't really go back to the 170 but I kind of stuck at 130 something, 135, 136. 

I mean those tracks were not exactly garage anyway. Already you were doing something else. 

Yeah. That's when it weren't two step though because you know what happened at the time, I think I had Wiley's “Nicole's Groove”⁴⁹, I heard Wookie...  I remember D.O.K. - he lives on my road - coming to my house and that's when I had the turntables and decks, and I still didn't really like garage yet, but D.O.K.⁵⁰ played a Wookie record, the bootleg of the Brandy tune [hums tune] I was like, I was mesmerised. I just sat there like, this is, turned the flip over, I remember [hums tune] I was like, I'm not one to like this, fighting not to like it but you're sitting there like, this is garage yeah? Flipped it over again, this is garage? This ain't garage, this is jungle. He's like what you talking about? “This ain't garage, this is sick.” Wiley's “Nicole's Groove”, I went, “I can do that!” It was the biggest tune around at the time. I was like, then I heard [Wookie’s] “Down On Me”. That’s jungle programming, D&B structure, so you build up before the tune drops. But I just did my take on it, so when I got there, a lot of people in there said, nah, “Terror's shit, that’s weird man, don't like his stuff.” But I kept at it. I took the shit as a drive to be good. I didn't take it as a disheartenment, I knew it wasn't what I had potential to do, I knew I was still fine tuning myself then when I kind of clicked then I went, “Aah, fuck it, I don't care if you like it, this is it.” 

In East London, no one touched me. I went South, I had to do adverts, things like that. At the time, I was still hanging around with Paul Chue, Paul said to me, “I got a friend that wants to do music.” I said “Alright,” “You should go with him” - because I don't trust no one - but Paul went “Go with him.” When I met the guy, I’d met him previously when he was on East Iz East, guy called Flash - we eventually started After Shock - but yeah, so I done a tune for him called “We Told You”. I had to dumb it down into a stupid garage mix - so to speak - because the original was the one I put out on my Lost Tapes⁵¹, the original was [beatboxes complex drum sounds] but I had to tone it down to “bom-bom-tish” [simplified pattern] I was like, “This is shit man.” But they went, “Nah I'll do it.” By this time, too, I found Statik⁵² in music. I'm the one who found him so he was part of the family as well. I said “Yeah, I got this thing coming man” so I said, “Yo, have him do your garage-y shit while I do my shit” so Looney and Statik linked and we all linked up and Statik had the tunes. Statik was tight with Heartless Crew⁵³, but they didn't really take him serious at the time but he was tight with Fonti and them guys because they were from north innit. When I met Statik I said “Yeah!” So when we had a meeting with Timmi Magic⁵⁴ from Dream Team, okay now I got overlooked. I didn't have a change of heart, I was cool but they signed Statik and Looney's record, and my bredrin's record. I was like rah, okay. But I was like, that's cool. When I showed him the “We Told U” one, he was just there like “What the fuck is this?” So alright, we shared one. So I shown him the one with Looney, the stripped down one, it had Magnum Force, K.T. on there, Looney was on it and a couple man was on it so done it, played it. He went “Yeah, this one's nice, I'd play this though.” 

Imagine the record he signed, he played my tune which he didn't even sign, so I got paid for 12 weeks straight on Radio 1. So imagine 2001, it was mad. That's when I turned a ghetto celebrity. I got played on Radio 1, Dream Team played me and they had two shows innit so they played me in the morning, on a Sunday morning or on the Saturday afternoon, that was a big thing to be played by Dream Team innit. He played the tune that got signed too but I thought the tune he signed, I weren't being badmind, I thought it's not all that - but the same time, he's my bredrin and I'm happy for him. But the way my tune was the one that got blown up and that's what started me getting things, people going “Terror man, play me that tune.” I'm like, “Really? I don't even like this music.” I was still making jungle at the time but I weren't getting nowhere with it. When I showed people my mix, the original one, everyone's like [puzzled screwed up face]. Mak 10⁵⁵ was the only one that got it and played it and battered it. Then things started happening but it's not until when I started going outside it and doing adverts and putting my tunes out where I seen Wiley selling 100 in a shop or Dizzee's doing the same and I was selling four, five in a shop then next release I sell ten. Then yeah, so I think, yeah, just watching all that then when we actually started After Shock, the first actual record “We Told U” we just did 100 white labels because we weren't too sure, then the second release, it went from there, was “I Can C U”⁵⁶, and the third release was “Cock Back”⁵⁷. 

That's when I noticed the change where we were walk into Rhythm Division⁵⁸ and I'm going in there and I've just gone “Yeah, here's the next instalment, it's ‘Cock Back’”. “Ah yeah yeah yeah, the usual, yeah yeah yeah, SOR [sale or return] yeah?” Jumped in the car. “Give us two boxes!” “That's a bit ambitious innit, two boxes?” But at the time, “Cock Back” was getting battered, it was on Power Play on Deja Vu, everyone was playing it. That's where you could get away with rawness because it was Deja, it was pirate. Everyone was playing it by the time, everyone were getting played but everyone was particularly playing my tunes but at the time, didn't go to my head, I thought “Whatever.” We're there for about half an hour just chatting to Sparky⁵⁹, chatting to him, he's like “Yeah yeah yeah,” all casual. Jumped in the car, it was on Roman Road at the time, we didn't get down two junctions there’s a call [screeching brakes noises] “Yo! Come back. We need another couple boxes, they're sold out already.” I was like, “What?” “We got money for you. Turn the car back around.” You know when like, I was number nine in their chart, but “Cock Back” went number one. I was like “Fuck... what?” Yeah, you know like they change their attitude because they've always been supportive but it was like, [excitable] “Hey man! Yo!” But it was more like, they're happy for me, it weren't like they were being beggy, wasn't like they were friending me. They were like “Yo, yeah man, happy for you, congratulations!” I'm looking like, “Number one, shit, I never thought I’d ever get... rah!” I'm just sitting there seeing people go yeah, with bags, like they’re cutting out food, like they’re cutting out cocaine and everyone's coming to buy the record. I'm watching with my own eyes. They don't even know who I am. I'm just standing there like.... and Flashy's just like. We're looking at each other like... “We finally got our fucking record. Yes!” I was seeing people walking in wanting it, I'm like... “Did that just happen? Nahhhh!” 

And all of that's happening completely with no contact from the mainstream media, record industry, distributors, anything?

Nah. 

It's just cutting house, pressing plant, take it to the shops. 

Radio, pirate radio. People did talk about that, RWD mag⁶⁰ was around them times. Chantelle Fiddy⁶¹ was around then, did have a press but yeah, mention in the magazine like that, but not to take away from that, but it was mainly radio. Channel U⁶² just started then too, that was new.

Those magazines were really for the people who were into it already - but you weren't reaching the NME or anything like that. 

Nah. That came after. That came shortly after though, but when that happened with “Cock Back”, I was just like, “Rah!” That was it. That changed everything. That tune. 

So how many copies did that do in the end?

A good couple thousand, about 10,000 eventually. At the time, that was good comparison because beforehand records could do 100,000 but the record sales were dwindling so I came off the late end but I still got a good portion so I remember I was signing on because I had just left my job in May, we put a record out in July so I remember I walked out and I was broke you know. So that day I turned the car around and was like, “Rah, I've got no money”, then we're splitting the cash from the record. I was like, “Shit, I've got to buy a phone!” You know the time, Three [mobile network] just came out, you can get £35 credit and you can get unlimited things, so from that day, 2003, I had two phones. I bought two phones. From that day, I've never been offline. I've always been able to call out. It's only probably a week or two or couple days I can't call out. My phone gets blocked or anything, I always a pager, always have credit. From that day, I remember Loudmouth⁶³ saying to me years later after that, one thing: “If you ain't got no money, you've always got your phone, you can always call out. That's integral for your business business.” I didn't think of it like that, I just thought, fuck not having a phone, I need to chat to girls. I need to phone people if I need anything because I can't keep using the house phone because I don't want to get fucking kicked out [laughs]. To even think that, rah, I always had money somewhere somehow. That day changed everything. 

After that, obviously I did “So Sure”, I’d made that at the same time so that was blowing up. I remember Raw Mission⁶⁴ at the time, it got seven reloads and I thought, “You're just doing that because mandem are telling you to…” No no, he got 80 missed calls⁶⁵. I was like, “What, 80 missed calls?” We was listening. I remember I was with Sadie [Ama] and them lot and I'm going, “The tune got 80, are you listening?” I rang him up and said, “You just gassing that innit?” He said “No! No! Seriously!” I went, “Alright, I know you won't lie.” “No no no, bruv!” Then the next day, phone was ringing, Elliott Ness⁶⁶, he cut it [to dubplate], bare DJs started cutting the tune and that's another one that just went [whoosh noise]. Then when I done a tune⁶⁷ with Shola, that's when the magazines started contacting me, you know what I mean? “Shola's on your music! How does it feel?” Newspapers started contacting me. The thing that they was really after was the other story really, her story, know what I mean, but that rose my profile. First DJ, I did a DJ Magazine, got into Knowledge magazine, got into Mixmag, I got into all the magazines, even i-D, page spread journalists, I'd be chilling at home, phone rings. “Hey!” Someone goes, “Do you fancy doing rah rah? The editor really wants you in.” “Whatever, cool.” “Rah, this newspaper wants you in.” All because of Shola. 

So Shola did bring me. She brought me on the centre stage, to he point where I remember Wiley ringing me and saying, “You got all the white men on your side [laughs], you got the press.” I'm just like, “You're where I need to be. You smashed it.” I'm like, “You've got a deal!” Obviously the XL deal kind of fell through⁶⁸ because they really wanted Dizzee innit, and I think Wiley knew that it weren't going his way, but Wiley should have made the most of it. Wiley, Jammer⁶⁹, they didn't know how I did it. They were like, “You've got the press on side. You've got the white people.” I'm like, “What? You're Wiley though! No but you, though.” I think everyone was surprised, the level I got to was the level where you have to be an MC - as a producer, I got to that level… but it wasn't just because of my tunes. I think because the model I had, I had the label and where every other producer was under a label, someone managing, looking after, whereas I was the head honcho of my label, take care of business with the other artists, so that's why I stood above everyone at the time. 

Was there any thinking behind it saying, “This style needs vocal tunes?” or was it more like seeing it as another garage tune, where vocals were standard?

Nah! I liked slow jams, I still do, I love slow jams, the old style of slow jams. Slow jams and reggae goes hand in hand for me. I love... not R&B as it is now, obviously now people call it neo soul, I don't know why, it'd still be R&B but it'd be slow. 

Quiet storm. 

Yeah. Jagged Edge. “Rain” and all them tunes [bassline sounds] It's got that movements. I didn't even listen to the lyrics. I like all them [hums bassline], I just love the basslines. “So Sure”, I was actually trying to make a reggae tune, how about that? 

Lovers rock is a London thing, it's not Jamaican, it's London. That particular connection of soul and reggae, it’s specific to here.

Yeah. The same thing! By the time, I still was finding my soul, so I was halfway through the tune, halfway through, it sounded like a reggae tune, then as I finished it... At that time, I couldn't control what I was making, I felt like, you know the TV show Heroes, I was on a course like, I didn't know how to come one with the equipment. So now, if I had an idea, I can put it down exactly how I have it in my head. But exactly in my head wouldn't come out like that, it would come out semi like that, but somewhere else. Like that “Sounds cool, sounds cool… ah fuck, that's not what I wanted.” So I remember the first person I rang up, I said, “I got this artist called Sadie, what you saying Dirty Doogz⁷⁰?” Dirty Doogz I called. He was like, [creditable impersonation of Doogz’s nasal tone] “Nah, really want the tune for myself.” “Nah that's not the vision man. I want singing on it.” So the second person I called was Kano⁷¹. People’ll be like “”What?! So Kano was the first choice??” It wasn't even like that though. Because me and Kano, I know Kano is a bit funny because I know Kano will probably say no, that's why I didn't think of Kano first. I thought he'd be like “Nah, I want the tune for myself” so I thought of Dirty Doogz because he was the guy as well at the time, he was for me catching Wiley. He was always my favourite at that time so for me, it was Dirty Doogz before anyone. I went that's who i want to work with. We was talking, like, yeah, I met him a few times. It almost felt I was chasing him, I was like, “What you saying?” But Kano's perfect because Kano was one of my favourites. To this day, you know what? I think Kano's still one of my favourites of all time, it's a shame that we're not on that now, but if we ever worked, I know that we would take out people. You know what I'm saying? I know even now if I get Kano on one of my tunes... it's mad. Kano was technically my favourite as well. Doogz was my dancehall favourite, Kano was my.... he wasn't even on that sound yet, but Kano was like, jeez, no one was touching him for lyrics man. I said “Kano come.” Those are the only two I would think of, if Kano didn't do it I don't think “So Sure” would be “So Sure”. I don't think Doogz would have done what Kano done anyway. to be honest - so what happened was, Sadie, that was the first time Sadie was even in the studio, and Kano walked in and Kano looked at me. He was like, had his head down. It's almost like they were lovers, they both looking down. I'm like “What's going on here??” Then when Kano delivered his verse now, he heard the tune, in the room, and went “Yeah.” Heard the song, nodded, and went “Yeah.” Like, “I’m ready.” When Kano delivered his verse, he was writing it there on the spot. That's what I'm saying. He delivered his verse, he wrote a 24 [bar verse] and it was magic! It was like, [flabbergasted] “Shit.” We were all sat in the room, went, “This is fucked.” That was the first one. First take.

When I made “Cock Back”, I remember making that before I made “So Sure”, the beat, just a month before. It was February 2003. What I was trying to do, I remember Dizzee, I remember when I heard Dizzee's stuff, I always go back to Dizzee. I think Dizzee at the time was my favourite producer⁷² because there was no rules to his music. His music was offkey, I didn't rate Dizzee at first. I remember hearing Dizzee and his tunes get played in the rave in Hackney, stopped the rave, people like what the fuck is this? Six months later the same tune is blasting the rave. Later ‘Wheel” wheeled, that's one of my favourite tunes. When he done “Wheel”, I thought, “Bastard! This is so new. This is sick! It's a vibe.” When Dizzee was more around Wiley because obviously Dizzee was more of the Nasty crew then, Wiley kind of... Wiley's tunes started sounding more Dizzee. When I heard Dizzee's tune, what I got from Dizzee, this guy don't give a shit. He put the tune, went, “I don't care.” I adopted that attitude more so when I did my tunes, I didn't copy Dizzee, but I just said, “Fuck it, this is staying.” When I did “Cock Back”, I was trying to get... you know when Dizzee had the gunshots in the middle of his tune [gunshot noises] So I just wanted to put that as a sound effect to go in time to the tune, the same kind of thing, but as I put the gunshots in, that was supposed to be just a fill [gunshot noises] cocking back, it was supposed to be a fill. I'm listening to this... yo, this is a tune! Nah nah, it's not supposed to be that. I sat there, paused it, stopped it, put everything in. I went “Fuck! This is the tune.” I didn't even expect to do that. The gun cocking [gunshot noises] I was like, yeah. There was no bass in it, just “Boom, tsch, tsch, boom.” “You know what? This is hard.”

So the original copy had no bass, it was just boom. The kick was heavy. I went “Nah, it needs something”. I put the “Boom, tsch, tsch, boom,” just put it in there, “Fuck it.” That's the most simplest tune I've done. I had doubts... “I can't get it right, I'm taking the piss.” Then Hyper⁷³ came in as I was making the tune, he come to check me. He was like “Whooo! What's this?” Yeah it's a new one I've made. Then he went, “Any time we go cock… back, them man there they go cock… back” just out of nowhere, I was like aaaah, yes! You know what, I'm putting you on the tune. He went, “Freeze, nobody move! Right, I'm gonna write the bar, it's on your tune!” so he went off and started spreading the lyric in raves and radio, but no one know the beat. But then Skepta⁷⁴’s got a tune called “Gunshot Riddim”⁷⁵ so Skepta went, “Aah, what you say about ‘Cock Back’, I want it on the “Gunshot Riddim”. Hyper went, “Nah, to be honest, I went to Terror's house, he's got a gun riddim before you have called ‘Cock Back’; but no one's heard it yet and that's what inspired me to write the lyrics to his tune so I can't give that lyric to you.” Skepta had the “Gunshot Riddim” creeping in. 

There was no plan, I was like “I’ll go Commander B⁷⁶ studio”, knowing everyone went Commander . He's a pillar to the grime scene, so went into his studio because he was the guy, he had the “Pum Pum Riddim”⁷⁷ he had the Night Flight show was where there was the Dizzee and Asher D⁷⁸ clash, Wiley and Doogz⁷⁹ - a lot of things happened on his show. He was the one that gave the commercial go ahead, him and his brother CK Flash⁸⁰ because CK Flash was the garage guy remember, he was on the day time on the Saturday, almost the whole afternoon. That's how Sticky got the play, Sticky blew up because he was playing all the Social Circles stuff on there so I went to studio Walthamstow and I remember this guy in there, obviously Wiley and Lethal, that's when “Pow!”⁸¹ was vocalled in the studio, Wiley's stuff was vocalled, everything was vocalled in his studio. I went there and I remember giving tunes to CK Flash because I met CK Flash again when he was no one, through Paul [Chue]. So I knew CK Flash, I said yeah. CK Flash, he actually gave me my chance as well so I'm not gonna lie, so we met Commander through Wiley and Paul so Commander B says “Yeah come up.” 

I remember now, swear this is what happened yeah. Me and Flash was like “Fucking hell!”, not shaking, but you know - this is Commander B now - this old guy, quiet just sitting there, I remember this guy as a kid. I remember that Westwood moment you know what I'm saying, I weren't starstruck or nothing but I was just like, “Fucking hell, so this is the big boss now, the commissioner!” So he's sitting in his chair, you know those studio chairs are high. He's very well calm like “Yeah, what you saying, you alright man? Yeah man.” On radio, he sounds very [smooth radio voice] “Yes, you're listening to the Night Flight,” just chilled, zoot, zoned out, just chill like a monk, like a Shaolin monk. This is Commander B! Looks like he's ready to go fucking sleep. Went in there like “Yeah, I got a new tune.” I remember I used to go there... I've been there a few times with tunes and I was like “I got a new tune” but he always had no emotion. That's exactly what happened. I played “Cock Back”, because the room was like, man in his desk is behind him, the equipment, so he wheeled his chair back, turned it on loud, sounded sick in his studio. I was there like, “Alright.” He stayed emotionless, not moved, sat there. I thought, ah he don't like it, don't like it. The vibe was like, he turned his chair around and still emotionless. Ah fucks sake, oh shit. "Can I have this?" He goes, “Who's got this?” I said, “No one, I've only showed you”. "Can I have this exclusive?" “Yeah!!” "Alright, I'm gonna play this, any time a war starts I'm gonna use this riddim, the Cock Back riddim yeah. Can I get people on it?" “Yeah!!!!” He played that tune for six months straight before the vocal was laid on it. 

He blew the instrumental up so when you heard the Night Flight, you hear “Cock Back” instrumental. He blew that tune on his own! So it was crazy, the lyric was big on the Nasty Crew set, the riddim was separately big over there. I remember Mak 10 comes to me and said “Can I have that?”, I went, “Nah. When we vocal, you'll get it first but let Commander B do his thing.” He’s like [sucks teeth, grumbles] “Nuhhh, but bruv…” I said “No man, this is the one tune that if he's doing the job, who am I to say, no disrespect Mak but Hype is spitting the lyric, don't worry you'll play the vocal first,” which he did. So like, Commander B got different roles, He got Shystie⁸², he got bare different man on it, then when I got the official vocal done, that's when peak week came together like... that's why “Cock Back” kind of blew up. Because he blew it up on Choice FM and everyone was listening so everyone at Eskimo Dance, although it weren't played in the Eskimo Dance but everyone listened to the Night Flight heard that tune. I remember mans going,[hyped up voice]  “Heard your laugh, that gremlin, Commander B, what's going on with that tune?” He didn't say what it is. So when the vocal was done, that's when the record's flying out. It was all natural. If Commander B had said “Nah I don't like it,” the tune could have been dead - that but it was it man. That tune's got magic. Yeah. 

It's funny, you talk about Wiley calling up and Jammer calling up, people from other crews calling up. People looking into the early days of grime, seeing the DVDs or whatever, they can easily think of conflict and arguments as the defining factor, but as you describe it, it seems like there was actually loads of camaraderie too? 

Yeah. The conflicts was like, I think a lot of it was just rivalry of competition to be honest. I knew Jammer way before, I knew Jammer in 97, I knew Wiley before that. I used to hang out with Wiley's cousin so like, the original lot, the pioneers, whatever you want to call us, we were just kids doing this thing together, so when things started to kick off and it started to become what it was, we still talked. I think a lot of it was like, people that didn't know each other all starting their crews. So say I had my label, the kids under me or whatever, didn't know the kids over there... some of them did know each other but it's like, you're creating a community. We're all family in this room then we go off and have children and the grandchildren don't know they're grandchildren because everyone ain't got time to link up so they could be feuding and you're kind of related to each other. “No, you are related so hold it down.” “Ah but nah, it's all rivalry though because I want to be number one!” and that's what kind of happened. But between the original circle, it's like a thing of, if it was beef or if it did get to that, it's like “Bruv, forget music, bruv. What are you saying? It shouldn't even be that.” 

Even, we all had arguments, we've all fallen out but it all comes together like Wiley’ll always say, “You're my brother because that's what we've been.” It's different. Wiley, as much as, we ain't got no love-hate relationship but I can't say nothing bad on him because I know him differently innit so it's like, my missus, she used to hang around with him. That's what I'm saying, we were all a community so she's got stories and we've all got stories on everyone. I know him differently. When I see Jammer and that, I know him as Jermaine, I know him before he was doing that. It's like, if he was saying a lot of stuff, and yeah we have fallen out, we’ve had some stuff. You know what, even Paul Chue kind of said, “Come on man, Jammer I met you through Terror. What you doing? What you man doing, man?” It's like a thing where, if I did fall out with Wiley, it would be let it settle then just go, “Come on, it's stupid innit?” It won't be like the grandchildren fighting. It's different innit. There's no love lost. So I think that's what grime is like now. Do you know, there's no love lost. There's no tie in with anyone over there so I think that's why it is what it is now. 

Same with any scene that grows beyond its roots. I mean, it's natural, hip hop is no longer just one neighbourhood of Harlem.

Exactly. I think the difference, we're not Run DMCs yet. We're still yet to... grime is different. I'm not Run DMC, I'm still a Timbo or Dre in my own right, I'm not millionaire or nothing but we're yet to hit that plateau. You've got to remember, the first generation of grime hasn't even gone through yet because you can't surpass the Hypers, the Bruzas⁸³ and all them. You can have all the AJ Traceys⁸⁴ and Jammz⁸⁵, they’re massive, even Chippy⁸⁶, they still gotta pay, not just homage but you put Hyper on a set who ain't been around for a year or two, he buss in the rave more than them! Obviously Chipmunk's kinda in-between, he's there now, but when you look at the likes of the Bruzas, the Hypers, they're just as powerful as the Wileys. I said to Bruza recently, I said, “The only difference is, when you smacked it with me, you came up in a time that it was too early then you hit a plateau where there wasn't all these things accessible to you.” Anyone will lose heart. It's sad. I said to him, “It's hard but you have to get up on the horse and get it again because you ain't gonna start there again, you're already there. The only thing is, you gotta convince the new audience and you've got to convince your compatriots because they're gonna go yeah, it's my time now. You gotta say, ‘Your time yeah? Let me show you something. Bang!’ You know what I'm saying. So you've got to propel yourself into Jay territory, Kanye West territory.” I feel like even though we’re not Rick Rubin we've got to think Rick Rubin. I'm not being flashy and making like I can make a phone call and go, “Right, this guy's hot with it now” but it's coming. I want to be that guy that younger lots come and I can move them into place. I think we've got to move up for the scene to move up. If these guys coming now move above, not saying they move into position, but there still isn’t no infrastructure so if you look at it now say Kurupt FM⁸⁷, they're managed by... 

Stanza⁸⁸. 

Exactly, so man, they should get in his position. Not saying it's management necessariliy, but myself, you look at me but I'm responsible for Butterz⁸⁹, Champion, then the After Shock lot again, then Bratt⁹⁰. Jammz and them lot are their own thing but they're still around me, they're still close, Spyro⁹¹ came from me, do you know what I'm saying? Still now, still a big influence on people and even the new guys come through. It was only when my old man passed away a few years ago, I kind of stopped everything and had to take a step back, but now stepping forward it's like, who else is going to go and say this is what it is? Not many people can. There’s some, they're doing a decent job but they're not from where I come from. They've watched what I've done and come in and done it which is cool but then why aren't I not doing this? Why ain’t Dexplicit⁹² doing this? Why ain't P Jam⁹³ doing this? Why ain't like Wiley and them. Wiley's obviously doing it and done it and he's alright, but why are we sitting back and letting people control what they do. 

No one can base their careers on Wiley, though, because Wiley does things that no one else in any genre ever could so.

Exactly. But then I think Wiley gets a lot of creditation for things he ain't done as well, but at the same time you can't knock him, because he put himself in position and that's what I've kind of done but as me. If I was an MC and did what I did, I would be just there with them all. I'm not vocal as him, so I'm always a notch behind. Realistically, when you check the body of work I've done, I've done much more. But he has done a lot where because he's Wiley, he just has to associate and that. Not taking anything away from him, don’t get it twisted, Wiley worked for it. 

So to fill in, because we’ve still quite a big gap… so you get this like, 2003, 2004, 2005 period, grime is hot, the newspapers are paying attention, Dizzee is a superstar for the first time, everyone thinks there's going to be more superstars and then you kind of get to 2006 and suddenly out of nowhere, dubstep kind of shoots out. 

You know why because I think grime never, do you remember, the bay between 2003 to the end of 2005, there was no name for it. That's the one problem so history is always blurred. 

Grime was obviously used as a term then but it was also sublow and it was also still garage. 

Everyone who was making it was trying to term it themselves. It's not till when Run The Road⁹⁴ came out when they turned it, the first grime compilation, then people went, “Fuck it, I want to get paid.” Not me because I was already doing it... I watched the artists fold when 679 was giving single deals for a compilation and calling it grime. It was based around promotion of Kano ‘cause they’d signed him, but that's when grime, the name, that's when it stamped its mark when Run the Road came out. That's when the press went bang, “It's grime.” You couldn't change the name, that was it. Chantelle and Martin Clark⁹⁵ were the powers that be at that time so you know, like, not complaining, but it was gonna be called something innit. You couldn't go calling it “what do we call it?”⁹⁶ That time is just bang, gone, but you got to remember as well, except for myself and a few others, there wasn't no business ethics. They came in, the powers that be, fuck it, the majors came in and just stripped us of everything because we had no idea, we didn't know we was the first. I was a kid like, first time, although I was 23, 24, what business did I know? I didn't know fuck all. I was happy getting my remixes between three and a half and seven grand. I didn't need to DJ and everything those times, it seemed easy, so there wasn't no need for business ethics. 

If I saw what I see now, not saying I'd be different, I would have held onto a lot of tunes. I would have had my specials, I would have been DJing then - but it wasn't a trend that time. It was just like rah. Dubstep had business models within business models, when the grime lot, the oldest lot was me and Wiley and we were in our twenties. They saw us from a mile off and just went [rubs hands] I don't want to mention the names but they cherry picked who they wanted and pulled to the side. That's why dubstep, when it came in, those guys watched the grime lot, couldn't get in. They turn around and made it a business and people went, “Why don't we just do that there and that there?” So if you look at dubstep, even to now, there's been this model. It's still more sounder than what's in grime because they had the dances, the business, this was the business. Grime wasn't a business. It was mandem vibing and coming off the vibe and it just happened, but... 

Grime was a lot more people as well. It was like half the city, it felt like. Dubstep was a much smaller core of people in that phase where it was getting its shit together. 

It was business! Nah but the guys who were in it were like, “Come on.” Arthur⁹⁷, guys like Zed Bias and all those kind of guys. Kode9, they're guys that are uni lecturers, this that. They have the sound mind. 

Arthur had been right round the block, he'd been techno, he’d been garage, he'd produced pop records, he'd done everything. 

So all you need, him, then you've got Sarah Soulja works at EMI yeah, who runs Tempa. She's business minded, she was the one that signed my publishing for So Sure. So you gotta understand, who in grime was doing that? No one. We had nobody. The most business minded person was probably me. Yeah. Paperchase⁹⁸, Rob, everyone at grime labels didn't see the point because it was almost like we were hitting a brick wall because we didn't know no better! I think probably Paperchase were because they were doing the Jungle Mania stuff but when you check it deep like, we had no one doing business. We had no one. Who? There was nobody that was doing anything, so in the end it was a thing of like, “[casual] Rah, rah…. [pulled up short] Rah! Hold on a minute. Whoa, hold on a minute”. So we look at dubstep, they had Big Apple records, you know what I mean. They had Big Apple. They had people, business people, lawyers, things behind it but in grime, everyone was just trying to... we was fast food. The lawyers that came in didn't sustain us, they came in and ripped us to pieces so we was left with nothing. It was like we got violated. 

The dubstep scene looked at what we did, same thing with the jungle scene. D&B scene was parallel. Looked at this and went, “Yeah, OK.” With the grime scene, it was the same thing. Wiley, as much as it is, Wiley didn't have the best ethos either because I went from watching Wiley. Wiley's biggest mistake was, if Wiley had put a label on his white label, put a “Eskibeats” label on it, then me, Jammer, DaVinChe, all of us would have been a part of Eskibeats. We would have been a part. It would have been a label. That would have changed everything. He would have the brand where he would be able to sell that different. Wiley kept recording. I would have been one of the main producers. There wouldn't have been no After Shock but because I had so much records, but because I also had the label and logo, that made me synonymous. I became the guy, because he couldn't be bothered to spend £100 more [to print up labels]. That's the truth! Then imagine what I was missing, what the dubstep lot saw. I didn't know! I looked at the dubstep scene and went “Fuck, wow, we got our arses beat…” I saw it differently. We got ripped! Not in a bad way ripped but we just got violated left right and centre from the powers that be. It was almost like, when you're a young buck you come in the game, you had your run, you had your fun, now, strip us down. Go learn the game now. 

That's how I felt so when I looked at the dubstep scene, I was like, What did they do that we didn't?” Then I watched, my tune is still one of the biggest tunes in the dubstep rave and I'm not even getting nothing of it. I've learned and went “Ah right, you know what, I've just got to come back here and be reimmersed.” When I linked to a live show, that's how Butterz thing came about and then that's how the ethos of certain things. We watched what the dubstep lot did and we did certain things. I didn't know about like I said, seeing things like that, I knew because I was short sighted because “Hey, he wants to offer me how much? What, £5,000? Fuck, gimme.” Now when you fast forward few years, them guys were getting that in booking money to play. I'm like, I've seen they had it all locked but I think now everyone's been through the mill, everyone's caught up. But I think when the dubstep, they had the business right from morning because Arthur's probably been through what I'm going through, now so he's come and seen it all and linked up with certain mans. He was the governor. He made bare man happen. He made it all happen because he's been there! You know what I'm saying, the Zed Biases, they've all been there. So when you speak to these guys, you're talking to like a jedi. When people talk to me they say “You're a jedi.” Yeah because I made all the fucking wrong mistakes because I didn't even know I was making the mistakes. I can't go no more wrong now! You know what I mean? I'm like, fuck it. “Let's do this. We're gonna do this,” I can put on dances, I can do this because I made all the wrong mistakes so I think with the dubstep scene, it was a lesson to where, ‘Whoa. We wasn't taught that.” But sometimes you can't get taught unless you go through it. 

So what were you personally doing between the years of you know, say, 2006, 2007, grime instrumentals weren't selling any more right? 

The internet, iTunes and CD came in. 

And it was just MCs selling their mixtapes and stuff. 

Do you know what? I was on the CD thing first and then the rest of the mandem were still on the vinyl thing so I bought myself a CD printer and what I did, I just done a mixtape quickly and I actually, was mixed, got all the bait tunes, got it vocalled here and then I done them in the mix. So I thought, if I put them in the mix and I put vocals on it and I put sound effects, you can't exactly sell the tunes separately as a mix ting. I remember when I had a few people giving slack but I was using P Jam's tunes and that, then I recorded, everyone ringing me saying, look... I'd just come off the back of, I'd just left 1Xtra, all kicked off, anyway. My time was done. You know. I just thought, fuck, I gotta do something innit. So I had all the tunes I was playing because everyone was giving me everything innit so I said, you know what, let me do a quick mixtape so I had everyone ringing me. I said “Look, I'm not selling your tune yeah, it's in the mix! It's a DJ mix. I'm selling the CD but it ain't like I'm making anything, I'm just doing it for my own mix. At the end of the day you're acting like I"m trying to sell the tune, the tune's still available. I've got some on top and it's mixed, sound effects, the tunes are mixing. It's not like you can even play the tune on radio, unless…” And actually I've played certain tunes on radio, on 1Xtra but it was still gone in to someone’s rip because you can hear it was still in the mix on radio. 

So I spoke to P Jam and P Jam's like “That's bless man, what are man making noise for?” Everyone's happy, I'm still Terror Danjah innit. So everyone was like, “Cool man” but certain guys were making noise thinking I'm trying to take the tune off of their label and try and put it on After Shock. It wasn't the case. I was like “Nah, you can do what you want with the songs, I don't give a shit. I'm just trying to turn a CD.” I went to the RWD office and they put it online, I was like “Rah,” that's when I realised things had changed. When I was at RWD, I walked up with 10 CDs, nah I had 17 on me and they went in one day. I was like ah, I went Flash, “This is future.” "Ah, CDs cost too much". At the time, CDs are a bit more expensive than they are now because people trying to, they see the market so you know, they charge a bit more. But I said to my man, “You know what it is yeah, people... tapes don't run, a lot of people are dismissive of vinyl because people don't play vinyl again and such unless you're a DJ. CDs is the course of action, you can put that in your car, rip it and put it on your device, in your iPod.” I knew I was up on the times. But that was the beginning of the end for After Shock as we know it. That was one of many reasons... so my CD sold up with all the big mixtapes but then when I convinced those guys a year or two later, it was already too late. The market's been cornered, True Tiger⁹⁹ was killing it. All the MCs are killing it, everyone's realised the CD market. Vinyl is slumping, vinyl, you're lucky if you're selling 100 copies now. It was just horrible to where like, in the year 2008, I had to walk away. So I'm walking away from something and the dust settles, boom because they're selling the vinyl, it's crazy. I look at 2009 all these no names - not no names but all these names I've never heard of - are the big guys now, the guys where you know, everyone was laughing at are now laughing at us. All the guys that we were like, I remember Cameo was the main guy, going “This is shit, it's shit!” and I’m like “Cameo man, look. My man's hitting all them festivals, he's on about £4,000. I don't think he's shit you know. Have to respect what he's doing.” Not that it's about money but yeah. 

So that was like, dwindling times. That was the hardest time for me, that was the haaardest time. 2008, 2009 was very hard, yeah. It was just like, what do you do? At the time, the only god saving grace at the time, I've always had my head one step ahead so I was chatting to Elijah since 2007 so I met him through Loudmouth and we went to Mistajam, remember he used to do the hip hop thing in Nottingham. We went to a show, me and him, I come back and then 2008, Elijah tried to do a rave so I made a couple of tunes just for that… but it didn't happen. We kept in contact, though, we just talked about grime all day long and that's the time when I was doing my stuff with Bratt so at the time, I had a tune what saved me called, remember that Bratt tune “Who Do You Think You Are”? 

Mhm. 

You know I produced that right?

I didn't know you produced that. 

That electro tune. There are a lot of people who didn't know, I produced that record. I did that as a joke, as a laugh. I did another electro tune with Bratt and Lauren Mason¹⁰⁰, it got played a lot. It weren't like our thing but Wiley come with “Rolex” after so I had to remind Wiley, “Don't try it because Logan¹⁰¹ was playing my record the week before he played Rolex” so I was on the ball but Wiley ain't getting in there. Perfect timing, it's Wiley, it doesn't matter innit. So Wiley did get it in the end but it doesn't matter. After that I said fuck it, it's love. Let's do an electro tune. The second one, let's do “Who do you Think you Are?” Even that was all a concept, meeting Bratt up in KFC, taking the piss. “Let's fucking do this!” So she went shop the next day and I made a beat in ten minutes. Came back, fine tuning it, done it, sat it down and went “Fuck it... fuuuuck it. It's hard innit.” I was listening to a lot of Deadmau5 and Calvin Harris at the time so I'd do this and listening stuff out of the box but it wasn't I was trying to do old electro, because obviously electro is part of growing up as well. I had a manager called Shaurav D’Silva at the time along with Maurice who was part of Butterz too. He pitched it to my man from All Around The World¹⁰², they were like “Ah okay.” My man got it to, what's his name... on Radio 1... he played the record once and it was gone. Blew up.

Pete Tong?

That’s it! So Pete Tong played it three times. The first time he played it, he went [claps] “Right!” My manager went, right. Kano go, watch, I'm getting signed. I went, he played you, that's sick. He wasn't lying, Universal picked it up. Then when we played it a couple more times, they shot a video, everything, sold, money from it. It wasn't great but it was still money. I was like, that was my saving grace. 

I remember my TV broke down just before that time so I was like, “You know what? Books.” So I actually bought books and a couple of the books are actually there [points], I bought lecturers’ books and that. I said “For the first time in my life I'm gonna read.” I used to read magazines like written magazines but I actually said “Fuck it, I feel like I need to change, something needs to change” so I thought, it was an omen. The TV broke in my room, I could still come down here but my dad was usually watching... so I just thought “Fuck it.” A couple months later the record got signed then my saving grace was like, I think, I think it was 2009 it all got signed, yeah that's when I made it. 2010, Paul McCartney wife had a TV show in Australia and they took the syncing rights for the theme tune. “Ah, that's alright, yeah!” I thought because it's great, I went through so much hell, 2010 now, I planned my tact... 2009 as well was when Planet Mu approached me. They said to me, “We'll give you £2000 advance for your tunes.” I was like, “Fuck this, yeah.” I was broke. I got the deal with Bratt, I had that deal so I thought, “You know what. God's great.” I couldn't sign on any more because they threw me off. So when I got that money, I'm like “That's brilliant, I can live off that for four, five months. I'll just treat like that sign on money, I don't need that much. I'm used to not spending money anyway.” 

At that time I was wicked with my money. I was just really like, if I would need to go, because I was walking everywhere so if I needed to eat, I was good at budgeting because I can cook anywhere, do everything. Up and down, doing that. I got the money and I thought “Brilliant.” Then when the Planet Mu thing came along now, I thought alright. LuckyMe¹⁰³ did the artwork innit. They said, “Do you want to come to Glasgow to do a launch party?” “How much is that then? Yeah, £350? Yeah? Oh shit,” no grime DJ gets £350, they get about £150 or £50. I was like “Yeah!!” You know, I'm thinking, I already knew the dubstep scene, they're getting at least a grand. So I was like, at the time I was speaking to Joker¹⁰⁴ and Joker was like, he was saying to me “Bruv what you doing?” “I'm broke.” "What? Why are you not DJing? I'm getting..." I'm not gonna say how much it was... now I look back on it, it's nice DJing, but at the time I was like, “What?! That much?! Oh my…” If I get a quarter of that I'm happy. That spurred me on and I started to understand what was going on. He was considered grime but then dubstep. 

And he could go out to the States and be called a dubstep guy and play American raves. 

He was on the dubstep wave. He was grime, but he was riding the dubstep wave. He pulled me in! So he cosigned me. Then the Planet Mu thing, that was like, when you post a Greatest Hits, that's probably the end of your life. But that was the start! They got me bookings here, there, I was like, “Yo! What's going on?” Then I realised it was Kode9 that was playing all my old stuff, the dances and DMZ dances and FWD>> and that. I approached Kode and I said “Kode look, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on, let's do something man.” He was like, “You really want to do it? I'm honoured.” Fuck, come on - this guy! [laughs] I'm like “Alright cool.” That's how it came about. I approached him but I stated, “I see this makes sense, you've done this and I want to be at this plateau right now and I want to sustain this because this dubstep, how I see, it doesn't hold me but it holds me because this dubstep scene is off the back of grime.” Dubstep was running obviously parallel yeah, I can't taint what El-B and Zed was doing because they were doing things but I still thought a lot of it were grime, Skream, “Midnight Request Line” was a grime tune, he said. 

As soon as dubstep came along, everything was “Naah dubstep!” Plastician was a grime person, “Nah I'm dubstep!” You know what, fuck it. So when I was going around, everyone went, “Yeah man you're a sick dubstep producer.” I'm biting my tongue. If grime's part of dubstep then cool. You know what I mean? After a while I'm saying, “Well it's grime really but dubstep is the closest relation to your understanding, that's fine, fair enough.” So after a while, I never said that my music wasn't dubstep or was, but I just quietly said, “I'm just grime” so then when grime started be the cool kids thing again, dubstep had been big and everyone was getting bored of it... all that “Wob wob wob.” I liked the actual individual bass. I love what Kahn's doing right now, that's sick, that stuff is sick with the proper dubby stuff, but the “Wob wob wob wahhhh”, low LFOs... Yeah, everyone got sick of that. So they turn around and said to me “Yeah, grime... we like what you do with grime.” I was fine it because all my tunes are grime. 

And you could say you were a big part of that turnaround. Your compilation started the reassessment of instrumental grime in the club world, then there was a Best Of Wiley dubs compilation, was there a Slew Dem beats compilation?

Yeah yeah. There was a Ruff Sqwad one. 

And becuase of what you describe as the lack of business sense, or maybe just the fast moving nature of early grime - like “This is the hype tune now, and then move onto the next thing, move onto the next thing” - nobody had ever catalogued it all, not many people outside a few DJs within the scene itself to that point had a sense of the history of the specifically instrumental side of it. 

Yeah. I think with myself, I think when it came to me, because I was out there on my own, that's the problem with After Shock, I was in my own island. Everyone else big as producers was like, Wiley, Skepta, they were all, there was about three, four powerhouses yeah, the Wiley, Skepta, JME, Jammer at least. And they were MCs too you get what I’m saying? There was only just me, Bruza was a thing but by then Bruza had faded away, so around me, there wasn't anyone really, so if I had three more people like me, it would have been a powerhouse When I was only a producer, it wasn't like the producer / DJ thing even, so when it came to my tunes, they were up there, but we was unsung heroes, everyone would be shouting “Wiley!” “Skepta!” I had to go out and do interviews and say, “What about me? Yeah yeah yeah.” I was up there with them, but I couldn't speak on my behalf because I wasn't an MC so Skepta's tunes were always powerhouses. When 2009, 2010 come around, it was the first time that all my old tunes got life because until that period it was always [2003 Skepta instrumental] “DTI” that got longevity, all my tunes went… [thumbs down, blows raspberry] Everyone speaks about “Cock Back” now, but no one played them. It's not until when I made Swindle remix “Zumpi Hunter” and Planet Mu put it out and that's when everyone went, [imitates crowd noise] “Raaaaaaah”. That's when I saw life. 

It's only since 2010 till now that my music has been synonymous, I'm where I should be. When Terror's tunes played, everyone's giving respect, but from 2005 even to 2009, nah, I was getting no love. It was almost like, “Get away.” The only love I got is when I did “Zumpi Hunter”, that stood up with “Rhythm 'N' Gash”¹⁰⁵ or Skepta's “Spaceship Riddim” they call it... “Zumpi Hunter” was the biggest tune - but then “Rhythm 'N' Gash” came out of nowhere and everyone just jumped on that. It was almost like, when Skepta vocalled that, everyone tried to ignore but then like Wiley was on my tune and it was getting battered. It was almost like my tune was still the unsung hero but “Rhythm 'N' Gash” pipped me to it. But if I had Skepta jumped on now, everyone would have jumped on that hype. The test of time now, “Rhythm 'N' Gash” has been remixed so many times, only now me as a brand, I'm up there with the tunes, but if it wasn't for me doing what I did with Butterz and the whole plan with Butterz, I don't think I would have been grime now if it all makes sense. 

OK well we should definitely talk Butterz. That was the other big thing that secured instrumental grime as something with longevity.

With Butterz, I planned it with Elijah but I wasn’t going to be the face of it. People would say it’s the old hat again if I had. And it worked. Everyone went “Butterz!” So I was part of the label but Elijah, he would be the face of running around doing things, him and his guy Skilliam, but I sat back and went [relaxed] “Yeah,” so it was a thing of when people said, “Yeah man it's good to see the new guys bringing back the old guys like Terror,” I'm like “Fucking, really?” Elijah did do his part of course, but I did a lot! I got the East Village and got Cable, I got the whistles and horns, that was all my idea because I went to Heatwave¹⁰⁶ rave and saw, said “Right Elijah we gotta do this!” because I came from the 90s, I come from a raving thing, and I said “Record the audio from the raves and give it away”, again that’s a raving thing, I was thinking about mixtapes from the jungle days. Me and Elijah used to speak from 11pm to 7am almost every day, talking on what we were gonna do next. It's mad how our relationship ain’t like that now but Butterz set off without me and what I can do - so that's why I'm back here going, right, make my own thing. Hardrive was part of the brand, but fine, I’m glad it’s all a success. Same I’m glad After Shock was a success.

The other thing… Champion was a success, and he came off the back of what? Me, again. I heard his tune, I went, “Fuck, who's this?” 2010, Pioneer was going to me, “Yeah I've got this guy called Champion.” I said “Nah.” If I didn’t discover him, I don't wanna know. Still now, if you told me someone, I wouldn't listen to you. I would be like yeah, I've got to naturally go, “Oh my god!” So I was in the rave in Corsica rooms, Champion came, “Dum dum dum”, I was like, “This is a hype tune!” I went to him, who is this?! He went on his iPhone and showed me Champion, I went... “Ah.” I went to Pioneer with my tail between my legs, “Ah Champion is sick.” "Ah! I told you. He's sick man, what I tell you man? I told you." I said, and I don't know why I said this, I said to him, “If Champion wants to make some serious money, come check me.” That's not like me, I don't talk like that, but then he rang me and that's how we got it together. We did the last part Butterz and part Hardrive dance in East Village and then I threw him in the deep end. 

I remember P Money¹⁰⁷ and Jammer came up to me and went, “Are you going on next?” I said “Nah. Champion's next.” P went “If you're not on next I'm going home.” I went “So? Didn't tell you to come.” Well I didn't say that to them, I went “Champion's going on next, it's my dance, who you telling? Champion, go on”. Champion was like, "Are you sure?" I said [sucks teeth] “Fuck them man, it's my dance.” If he empty the dance, there's nothing you can do innit. So Julie Adenuga¹⁰⁸'s there, all the it girls are there, all the people are there. They actually turn up to see Champion, so I've grabbed the mic now. He went on, his first tune, the biggest pull up, it was empty before him, I'm not gonna say who was on before, I'm not gonna lie because it's not good but it was alright, it was a big MC who'd been on but no-one was in the room, it was empty, everyone went to smoke break - but then when Champion came on, everyone ran in the room. It was packed within minutes. So I was hosting, when the set was done, I went on and I came off, we were both looking at each other like, “You’re a good DJ!” “Yeah you've got a good sound man.” We was talking about soundsystem culture. “You play quick!” I said, “Yeah, no long ting like, that's how I play in the dance.” “Yeah man!” I said “You know what, couple tweaks here and there but you're actually the finished article.” His first five sets, I went everywhere with him and kind of tweaked his set for him. Say “Take that out the set, play this, take that out the set, blah, then you'll be alright.” To where, we went to a rave, because normally he'd come like “How did I do?” I remember I went to the last city and I don't need to come to his set no more. I ain't got a bad word to say. You don't need me no more, “You're cool.” Then from that, Champion's sets, you know what I mean? He will tell you. So Champion. 

That Boiler Room set he did a while back with Kieran Hebden is just... perfect, perfect set. Amazing. 

Yeah. So like, yeah. All that stuff. You know what else, I think the body of work I put out with Hardrive them times was big. The climax was “Full Attention”, everyone knew a record that was just me. That was everywhere, that was just me on my own. That wasn't no major label, that was just me doing the legwork and it got everywhere to where it got on compilations, this that, the other where every DJ was playing it. That was just me on my own. I remember the joke of the matter, I shouldn't say this but I remember I showed Kode9 the record first and he said to me, “You know what, like, why are you doing records like that?” 

It was actually coming back from Coachella 2011, it was that which made me make it. I got angry because I remember Kanye was on the same time as me. You can imagine what happened there. I'm playing to a room like… [looks around as if searching for the audience] So like, I'm grateful for the experience, but you know, when I played in San Francisco the same week, I turned over the dance! It was Zed Bias, Roska and what's his name, Joy Orbison¹⁰⁹. I bussed the rave! Even to when Joy O was like [warily awestruck] “Rah, okay, yeah.” So then I've been walking through Coachella, Tinie Tempah¹¹⁰ was there and I see Tinie at an after show. Rah, that was cool, obviously we were close from After Shock, I see him, it’s like “Alright, cool cool.”  Bratt was there, everyone was there and I said “Yeah yeah man, you're doing your thing man.”. I kind of took a lot of it in, while I’m talking to him, Usher's there, standing there. Danny DeVito's there and David Hasselhoff was there, they all was there like with Tinie. When Tinie was on the stage, I was watching thinking “Fucking hell!” that was inspiring still. I watched that then Usher's shaking his hand then like, Hasselhoff and all them guys was like chatting to Tinie. This is like 2011. I'm thinking, “Jeez!” He's not even on the main stage but his stage was proper, the main stage was bigger but it's still big, 3,000, 4,000 people there. So then I see him, I watch Chromeo, then I'm walking back to where all the UK people are, Mary Anne Hobbs, Hype, all the big names, Joy O, Ramadanman, we all were back on the hill way over. They booked us for the sake of booking us, I don't think they booked much UK artists after that year. I think they realised America's went “Fuck these guys.” 

Right - up to that point, dubstep, UK music was dominant for that short period in the US, but then or shortly after was the time when EDM started going. “We've got our own industry now, fuck you buddy!”

[Laughs] Yeah. They needed us then though. We was out there and they needed us, but when I walked through the park by the big stage, it hit me, I'm like, “I don't want to be over there. I want to be here. But I don't want to do commercial but why can't our music be here? I don't want to be over there.” We're back to the park, a couple hundred people, sparse, dancng around you know. Then Mary Anne Hobbs had it nice, built it up, Hype went on, all the names went on. All of us were names, and like, when they got to like dark now, it was packed then as soon as Kanye went on... “Yeah brother, see you in a minute yeah.” [massive sigh] Empty. I was there for Zed's set, I realised, I looked at Zed. That's when I met Zed properly. We connected since then. Me and Zed are like that now. I was the only one there standing there so I remember Zed goes to me, “Respect for hanging around.” He hang around for my set too, but I was vex because I took it to heart - but walking through the park made me realise, “You need to do songs again Terror.” I came back and I was so frustrated. The day I came back, I think the next day I went on Twitter, I went, “Who's a good singer? What's going on?” Then Ruby Lee Ryder hit me up - I heard the vocal and I went, “It's not what I'd normally do but fuck it.” “Full Attention” is a bold statement. Everyone went, “It's a bit... it's not all that…” “Oi! I'll make it fucking work!” 

And I made it work. So when I done the tune, wen I finished everyone was like, “You know what, I actually like this.” I was like “Yeah!” because what’d happened was, she’d sent the acapella, just did it, made the tune, and I remember part way through I was jogging round the park and you know the intro part, that's all I had [hums the bleepy notes]. I’d got stuck at the drop. Normally that's a bad rule, you don't do that. You do the tune first, then you do the intro. It's almost like, if you’re a barber, when you get them brushed and you shape it and you're just taking the brush and wiping the hair off of them. You just go, yeah, “You've finished now, how's that?: That's the intro to me. Sometimes when I do that, I think the intro becomes very interesting because I've got a knack of, I always make my intro not like the drop so I did that now. I was stuck, I was thinking “Shit, this intro is epic.” So I'm jogging around my park. That's why I always say to everyone, “If you’re stuck on work then exercise, not the gym, just do some cardio, run!” So I was thinking, jogging, jogging, stopped. I stopped jogging, started to jog again and I got the idea. I'm going home, running round. I come back home, I felt good about myself. 

I went right in, opened up the files. I had a tune called “East Village” because obviously the club is where we did big things... I opened up “East Village”, put the intro onto “East Village”, tuned the bass a bit, that was it. The intro was [hums the bleeps] so then obviously, I just got the little wobbles here and went [hums]. I went down [exaggerated hums]. Same as “East Village”. I went “Fucking hell, aah.” Then from the chorus back in. I was like “Aaaaah, this is it!” It's a perfect marriage. Sent it to Kode9 first. “Why you doing these records?” “Kode, no, like, you have to do everything. This is for the people that don't understand, I'm not known now. I'm not the Terror Danjah you see in your eyes.” So when I sent Champion, he said, [disbelieving] “Yo you're Terror Danjah!” But I explained to him, every three years, the students changes so at this point, I’d missed three loops of that so no one even knows who I am, they know who you are because you're current. I'm not current. No one, all my old school stuff is missed except by the few old men. The people who bought Planet Mu knew, It's almost like people that are like connoisseurs, sipping their wine like [comedy posh voice] “Yas it's Terror Danjah.” But the kids don't know who I am! 

So when I done “Full Attention”, this is for the kids, this is for the ravers of now, so no one that I knew got in until when the tune bust. I'm getting all the kids that are like, at the time, all the N-Dubz kids. “Aah, love your tune.” When I'm showing them the Twitter response, “Read that,” “Aah, your first tune I've ever heard was Full Attention.” I said, “See, don't ever think that people are where your mind is because they're not. Think like a youth for the first time.” I said Champion, “If I’m some kid, probably the first time I’ve heard you was [Champion’s 2013 remix of Four Tet] ‘Kool FM’, not [Champion’s 2009] ‘Tribal Affair’ and those tunes you're known for. I heard the tune you made two years ago, not the tunes you're synonymous for. They'll check back later.” When the people say “legend”, it's only who it applies to so them kids, you don't make the tune that applies to them, you’re not no legend, they're going to go over here. When they're now seeing “Grime legend”, they just go “Yeah sure you are!” Then mayyyybe, maybe, they check round and go “Oh shit, okay, he worked with X, Y and Z…” But nine times out of ten they're not gonna do their homework, people are lazy. You've got to give it them on the plate. 

Yeah. What's interesting, you've had a couple of years off... when you stepped aside, the whole thing with Butterz, and then with a few other people getting on instrumental grime as a thing, it reached the hipsters, it reached the cool kids, and then just in another couple of years, it went bang to Only Way is Essex, right across the country, grime is now pop again. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a mad time, but remember although I wasn’t around in it, I still was in it though. A lot of people don't know I helped Champion running Formula but I'm more behind the scenes. My head weren't in it, but it kind of kept me sane. I'm giving him my ideas but my mind was not on it, just not on it. Champion's every day, “Come on man, make a tune,” “Ah fuck music man, I just want to live.” Just got my new [BMW] 3 Series, I want to drive around. I've been enjoying life just eating food, putting on weight, I stopped training. It  feels good, I just don't really like the grime where it is at the moment anyway, everyone's fucking pissed me off. Fuck them. Every day people like “Terror don't…” “Ah don’t worry, I'll come back, I'll be back.” I've not lost sight of it. Still doing bookings here and there and I'm still turning over raves, it was never a problem - but sometimes, not about turning over raves, it’s more than that.

I'm glad, I'm not glad what happened but in a sense, I needed that. I needed that reset to where I look at things now and I go, right, I'm more hungry. I feel like it's 2002, 2003 now, my hunger is right back, my appetite is like right, I know I've got to do… You know what, the moves in my head, I know what I'm gonna do. You hear what I'm making now, it's like, I feel like I'm untouchable now because I feel like there's no stipulation for me to do anything again. I feel I've been pushed to the edge where I've gone mad. You know? I've lost the plot now. I think I've gone through so much in the last couple years is like, I don't care no more. I literally just don't give a shit. 

As in, you go back to your original inspiration: hearing those Dizzee tunes where you realise that he just doesn’t give a fuck? 

Yeah. I've gone mad now. I've just gone mad. You know, having a child is just, it's a turning point. Having my old man pass away, and having kids… now, I'm now the responsible role model. I'm probably not the greatest - but I'm not like the worst. I do the best I can. But what's good about everything that happened with After Shock is I'm used to recording 20 artists and making tunes, I can literally make a rhythm in five minutes. It's made me efficient. Not saying many of them are brilliant but I can make a beat in a few minutes, mix, master a tune within a day. So certain man have taken weeks. I can make a tune in five minutes, call an artist, say, listen to this... oh my. Come down, vibing, vibing, you know, get the tune more or less sculptured out. You know, next day, mix it and master it because I don't believe in doing it all in a day because you know your ears shot so I always give it time. There's no point rushing it because it's not going to happen over night anyway. Last couple of years I’ve got D.O.K, P Jam, Dexplicit, I got people doing stuff. But now I want songs again, I’ve got things going where I can do albums now. I’m ready now!

1. Extremely durable hip hop / reggae pirate, running from 1991.

2. Broadcast out of Edmonton in far North London, unsurprisingly played mainly ragga / dancehall / reggae.

3. Weekend Rush fan from 1991, and in the rave years was in rivalry with Kool FM as to who was the leading station for hardcore and promo jungle. According to the Fantazia website, “Weekend Rush ruled the airwaves but were notorious for taking their raving more seriously than the station,” hence many of its DJs… well… defected to Defection FM - see DJ Storm chapter in Bass, Mids, Tops. Meanwhile, “[Kool FM founder, and owner of a reggae sound and security firm] Eastman was more sensible, stockpiling equipment ready for DTI [Department of Trade & Industry, who policed pirate radio, confiscating kit] hits.” As a result, Weekend Rush folded but Kool FM is still operating today, albeit as an online station.

4. Centreforce FM, Newham, East London pirate founded in 1989 with slightly sketchy connections to say the least: its founder Andy Swallow, also a successful rave promoter and club owner, was by his own admission a founder of West Ham’s notorious hooligan group Inter City Firm, with old school East End gangster ties.

5. MC Shabba D aka Daniel Burton, one of the most enduring of jungle / drum’n’bass MCs, he started out on pirate radio station Rush FM aged just 14, and made his way through the scene - in the 21st century he became a regular musical partner of fellow veteran MC Skibadee.

6. MC Det aka Joseph Ellington was the regular MC partner of DJ Brockie. He was rare among jungle DJs in that he released an artist album more or less at the peak of the music’s first success - Out of Det on the SOUR label - and had a steady career outside of raves, being part of jazz / funk band Red Snapper for several years, including an appearance on Later With Jools Holland.

7. Perhaps the most beloved MC in jungle and drum’n’bass, Stephen Austin aka Stevie Hyper D was an expert at sung refrains that became rallying calls - “I’m just a junglist soldier” being the most famous - but died of a heart attack at the age of 30 in 1998.

8. Aka Skibz aka Alfonso Bondzie, Skibadee was one of the top ranking jungle DJs from the sound’s inception, and remained a scene leader in drum’n’bass, up to and including huge success in the late 2010s with the DJ/MC supergroup SASASAS comprising DJs Phantasy and Macky Gee and MCs Harry Shotta, Skibadee and his regular sparring partner Shabba D, and until his death from skin cancer in 2018, original grime star Stormin. Skibadee himself passed away in 2022 - my appreciation here.

9. Popular phrase for Moschino outfits presumably referring to the garish / clashing patterns in their print.

10. Born Mark Myrie, Buju Banton is a megastar in Jamaica and has had some significant international success, collaborating with major hip hop names. He epitomises the contradictory nature of reggae and dancehall gaining fame with brutal “gunman lyrics” including the call to kill homosexuals “Boom Bye Bye” recorded when he was 15 but later becoming vastly popular, but also doing conscious, anti-violence songs. In 1994, shocked by the death of several friends in Jamaica’s gun violence, he converted to Rastafari and recorded the extraordinary Til Shiloh album, ushering in a new wave of conscious dancehall. He remained internationally controversial due to “Boom Bye Bye” but achieved continuing success - however in 2011 he was convicted of cocaine smuggling in the USA and imprisoned, only being released at the end of 2018.

11. Born Rexton Gordon, the first true interntional crossover star of dancehall in the eighties. He specialised in “slackness lyrics” - i.e. absolute filth - and collaborated with everyone from Scritti Politti to KRS1 to Chuck Berry.

12. “The Helicopter Tune” released on the Moving Shadow label by Deep Blue aka Sean O’ Keefe, aka one third of 2 Bad Mice whose track “Bombscare” had been a defining anthem. “Helicopter” was one of the most refined rave / early jungle tracks of the time, relying on deep 808 kickdrum and pitched up and down percussion for its hooks, rather than noisy rave riffs, and ushering in the more restrained repetitions of drum’n’bass even as jungle’s mania was emerging. The track was remixed at the time by Goldie in his Rufige Kru guise, has been reworked dozens of times since, and has never stopped being played in raves.

13. By Shut Up & Dance and Peter Bouncer, a chart hit in the era of novelty rave.

14. The De Underground shop, with studio upstairs, and label was owned by DJ/producer Mike Aymer aka Mike De Underground and run with Randall and jungle producer Uncle 22 ake Desmond Fearon. Aymer’s brothers John and particularly notably Pete both released hardcore and jungle as Reel 2 Reel and Cool Hand Flex respectively.

15. DJ Champion aka Reiss Hanson, London grime / funky / bassline producer since 2009, part of the wider Butterz collective, and mentored by Terror Danjah. His distinctive style often includes samples from old jungle records.

16. Almost everyone in jungle raves carried lighters - not only for smoking, but because flashing them in the air (a “sign” or “signal”) was part of the rituals of appreciation for the DJs. Hence shouts of “lighter crew!” from MCs and key tracks like DJ SS’s “Lighter”.

17. D Double aka D Double E aka Darren Dixon, one of the most charismatic and entertaining of grime’s first generation, known for catchphrases, adlibs and outbursts like “bluku bluku!” and “woarrrrrrgh!”. Part of the original N.A.S.T.Y. Crew alongside members like Kano, Ghetts, Demon, Jammer, and the late Stormin plus DJs Marcus Nasty and Mak 10, then formed the Newham Generals with Footsie and DJ Tubby; they were signed to Dizzee Rascal’s Dirtee Stank label.

18. Darren Joseph, prodcer / DJ for Roll Deep, now a staple of the BBC 1Xtra schedules, published his autobiography Grime Kids in 2017.

19. Denzil Cameron, a popular MC in jungle, garage (he was part of Pay As U Go with Wiley, Slimzee and co), Grime (including in East Connection and Musketeers), UK funky and beyond.

20. Born Roger Mance, one of the most high energy MCs on the jungle / drum’n’bass circuit from the outset, still heavily active, also a house DJ these days (aren’t we all).

21. Big name on the 2000s UK hip hop scene, coming to prominence alongside names like Skinnyman, performing with live musicians like Mark de Clive-Lowe and The Herbaliser, now known as MysDiggi and still performing internationally.

22. This was before Radar Radio - founded by Ollie Ashley, son of the controversial Sports Direct magnate Mike Ashley - collapsed in recriminations around sexual harrassment cases. At the time of the interview it was still, its dubious funding notwithstanding, a respected station and platform for a large amount of London grime talent.

23. One of the most extraordinary success stories of the hardcore era. Beginning in 1992, they managed to stay online for over two decades - always with drum’n’bass / jungle as their main sound - managing the transitioin to digital too, while still transmitting on FM. There’s an excellent article about them on the Quietus.

24. Deja Vu FM, founded in Stratford, East London circa 1997, by underrated DJ / producer Diesle aka D Power. It rapidly became a vital station for MC-led culture, and as such a crucible for grime, with almost every major name in the scene passing through its doors. In some accounts it started the practice of crews and MCs lyrically clashing one another, which then became a vital part of grime via DVDs like Lord of the Mics.

25. Freek FM, founded in 1993 and originally broadcast from a tower block in Finsbury Park, North London, was an outlier among the pirates of its period in that it didn’t have its roots in acid house and rave, but in US house and garage. It became instrumental in the emergence of UK garage, with key UKG names like Timmi Magic, EZ and Ramsey & Fen among its lineup, and close commercial ties to the huge garage club night Twice As Nice. It was still broadcasting online as recently as December 2017 and its website is still live at the time of writing.

26. Founded in Hackney in 1991, Kool FM was in competition at the time with Weekend Rush (see DJ Storm chapter) as the leading pirate station of hardcore going into jungle, but was run as more of a serious business, so depsite many ups, down and raids by authorities, has survived until the present day - albeit since 2010 rebranded as Kool London and broadcast online. Its lineup through the peak jungle years speaks for itself: DJ Brockie, MC Det, DJ Ron, SL, MC Co-Gee, MC Five-O, MC Moose, MC Navigator, The Ragga Twins, Skibadee, Mampi Swift, Devious Dee, DJ Dextrous, Shabba D, Bryan Gee, Trace, Nicky Blackmarket, Stevie Hyper D, Billy Bunter, and Crissy Criss.

27. Notoriously rough-and-ready warehouse-style venue.

28. One of the biggest post-acid house rave organisations, founded in 1990, with psychedelic flyers, often featuring an eye-in-a-hand motif, that were probably second only to Dreamscape for the frequency of their appearance on ravers’ bedroom walls. Became synonymous with jungle, and are still operating today.

29. The Valve Soundsystem, run by Dillinja and Lemon D, is one of the most fearsome and beloved in drum’n’bass, and the pair’s productions, which are blunt, brutal and unmatched for sheer ruggedness, are purpose built for it.

30. The Tottenham mastering and cutting studio that has been a vital nexus for London’s reggae, jungle and related scenes for decades. The etiquette of who got to cut the queue to get dubplates cut at Music House became one of the defining factors of the junge / drum’n’bass DJ heirarchy. It was run for a long time by reggae songwriter/producer Paul Chue. One of his sons, Leon is an engineer there now, and another son, Jason, is Wookie.

31. Aka Jason Chue - “Wookie” is a play on “Chue” sounding like “Chewie” i.e. Chewbacca the Wookie from Star Wars. His UK garage songs were some of the greatest, most foundational of all, a heavy influence on many dubstep and grime producers for their ability to combine sparse and bass heavy constructions with a cool musicality. He was mentored by Jazzie B of Soul II Soul and his key releases were on the Soul II Soul label; he still DJs, produces and releases, albeit sporadically, today.

32. Trio of Desi (Des) Marks, Charlie Bucknall and Tom Francis, highly prolific from 1992 through 1996, but best known for the 1995 track “Fire” featuring the dancehall vocals of Wayne Decordova aka Demolition Man.

33. Michael Wojcicki aka Vegas, best known as one quarter of Bad Company, also a frequent collaborator on one-off projects with his bandmates Fresh and Maldini.

34. Daniel Stein aka DJ Fresh was unusual among the drum’n’bass contingent in being a public schoolboy, but was very quickly accepted into the extremely tight knit core of the scene. He was 19 when his first release came out in 1996, and 21 when the supergroup he joined, Bad Company released their era-defining track “The Nine” on Grooverider’s Prototype label. In the 20th century he would take bass music into the pop world, in 2012 scoring the first number one singles for both dubstep and drum’n’bass with "Louder" and "Hot Right Now" respectively, the latter launching the career of pop star Rita Ora, as well as a further eight top ten singles. At the time of writing he had reduced his involvement in music after successful treatment for thyroid cancer in 2017.

35. Aka Ben Settle and Matt Quinn, producers from the hardcore era, who crystalised the darkside aesthetic in 1993 with Ed Rush’s era-defining “Bloodclot Artattack” on their close ally Nick Sykes aka Nico’s No U Turn label, and then proceeded to technically enhance it with ever-tougher high-tech production creating the sound known as techstep, which they released copiously on their own Virus imprint. (No U Turn would inadvertently have a strong and direct influence on the birth of dubstep, too, when its Turn U On side label for garage influenced beats put out key early records by Horsepower Productions.)

36. Aka Jamie Quinn, London producer who started in the jungle boom of 1994 under the patronage of Leicester’s DJ SS  but found his stride later in drum’n’bass. He would go on to significant commercial success in the 2000s in partnership with Brendan Collins aka Futurebound, as well as having a top ten hit under his house guise Goldtrix.

37. Vital drum’n’bass label which ran from 1995-2015 - originally a sub label of the more party friendly jump up label Trouble On Vinyl, Renegade Hardware became an entity of its own specialising in the harder and darker sounds.

38. Actually 96, “Dead by Dawn” / “Point of Origin” was by Future Forces Inc. - Darren White aka dBridge and Jason Maldini, both later of Bad Company. “Dead by Dawn” has a fanstically nineties stoner video.

39. Shop in Bethnal Green, which gave rise to the house label fo the same name (notably for putting out early, terrible, production work by Judge Jules) and the hardcore / jungle label Soapbar (named after a dense, oily variety of hashish, the label was probably most relevant for releasing the early work of Welsh experimental junglist T Power).

40. 2004 white label by Sadie Ama feat. Kano, produced by Terror Danjah and a highpoint of R&G (rhythm & grime).

41. Sadie Ama aka Mercedes Hall, younger sister of Shola Ama, and vocalist for various garage, grime and UK funky artists in the late 2000s and 2010s.

42. Shola Ama aka Mathurin Campbell became a UK R&B star in her teens when her 1997 cover of Randy Crawford’s “You Might Need Somebody”, produced by Acid Jazz band D’Influence, was a huge chart hit. She crashed and burned amid “my cocaine hell” stories, but managed to piece back together an impressive career as an independent artist in the 2000s, working with Terror Danjah, becoming a regular on the UK funky and underground house circuit, and recording with Toddla T.

43. Croydon MC, resident at FWD>>, regular presenting partner with Hatcha on KISS FM, occasional producer, and pivotal part of the dubstep scene from then until now.

44. Aka Tundy Smith, MC from Moss Side, Manchester, who was working the mic on reggae soundsystems from the age of seven as Junior Shanti. Extremely visually distinctive as he lost an eye after being shot in the head as a teenager in 1998, he has worked in hip hop (with his group Moss Sidaz), dancehall, grime (collaborating with Flowdan, Wiley and Skepta), dubstep and particuarly drum’n’bass. His Shadow Demon Coalition promotions team put on huge raves across the North and Midlands, and his birthday party in Birmingham regularly attracts 2,000 ravers. He regularly works with fellow Mancunian bass heads Chimpo and Virus Syndicate and adopted son of the city Zed Bias (their Madd Again project emerged on Swing Ting).

45. Aka Shaun Lewis, grime veteran Stormin died from skin cancer not long after this interview. He was just in the process of achieveing huge success with the SaSaSaS collective with Shabba, Skibadee, Harry Shotta and DJs Phantasy and Macky G, which combined tightly drilled UK hip hop, dancehall and grime MCing over jump up drum’n’bass beats.

46. MC Looney Tik, whereabouts now unknown.

47. Wherabouts also now uncertain.

48. Leon Smart aka Scratcha DVA aka Scratchclart, Essex-born producer who was prolific in the early days of grime as an affiliate of Terror Danjah’s After Shock collective, had a couple of big tunes in UK funky, embraced soul vocals, and as part of the Hyperdub crew has diversified into ever weirder and more visionary productions. Also sometime host of Rinse FM’s wild and unpredcitable Grimey Breakfast Show.

49. 2000 single, released on Relentless under the name Phaze One, lifting the vocal from Nicole Wray’s 1998 R&B tune “Boy you Should Listen”.

50. Grime DJ / producer, long time associate of TD’s - released on both After Shock and Hardrive and co-produced several tunes on TD’s releases.

51. Actually The Lost Minidiscs, a digital collection of tracks from 2002-3 that TD put out through his Bandcamp in 2016.

52. Prolific early grime producer - although he released few singles under his own name, he was possbily the first to release a producer-led album on vinyl - Connected, featuring pretty much every major MC in the scene bar Dizzee. He also achieved the rather more dubious feat of launching “grindie” as a genre, collaborating with the likes of Pete Doherty, The Rakes and so forth on a mixtape of the same name in 2006.

53. Trio of DJ Fonti and MCs Bushkin and Mighty Moe, formed in 1992 and became huge names in the garage era and the rise of the MC culture that would become grime, but in fact their style was far more based on dancehall soundsystem culture, with a mash up of genres - jungle, garage, reggae and hip hop - and hugely interactive party starting style. Though they broke up acrimoniously in 2011, they put their differences aside in 2016 and they are still treated like gods by generations of Londoners.

54. Aka Timothy Eugene. Unlike most DJs in rave, jungle and garage, Timmi was a musician first, playing in soul bands from the age of 15. He began playing house music in the acid boom, playing on Rave FM and holding a residency at the notorious rave den Sterns in Worthing on the south coast, in partnership with Mr C of Clink Street parties notoriety (see Youth chapter). He briefly made jungle in partnership with Lennie De Ice, but quickly switched to garage with a Freek FM residency and then the formation of the Dreem Teem.

55. Born Nathaniel Ramsey, one of the best loved DJs in grime and later UK funky, and original member of Nasty Crew alongside his brothers Marcus (Marcus Nasty), Theo (Lil Nasty) and Joshua (Griminal).

56. By Crazy Titch - full title “I Can C U, U Can C Me (Say My Name Crazy T)” - produced by D.O.K. and Magnum (credited as Magnum Force).

57. By N.A.S.T.Y. aka Nasty Crew, produced by Terror Danjah with a Magnum and D.O.K. remix on the flip.

58. The shop, in Bow E3, became as crucial a hub for the grime scene as any pirate radio studio. Features in MANY music videos and other shoots.

59. Manager of the Rhythm Division store, and co founder along with Roony Keefe of the Risky Roadz series of documentary / performance DVDs that became one of the crucial documents of the grime scene.

60.  Founded in 2001, and distributed free, the music, fashion and lifestyle magazine became the de facto print voice of grime. It gave columns to key grime DJs like Logan Sama and Semtex, and its editor Hattie Collins and writers like Chantelle Fiddy became influential figures in grime. It lost its identity somewhat as grime’s initial flush of success died down, but at the time of writing it is still published online.

61. Journalist across mainstream, music and fashion press, hugely influential blogger and compiler as grime was breaking out, now an artist manager.

62. Cable TV channel, that aired back to back, endearling low budget, grime videos, from the grittiest to the silliest. It launched in early 2003, rebranded as Channel AKA in 2009, and finally closed in 2018.

63. Aka Loudmouth Melvin, hip hop MC and producer from Walthamstow, East London, sometime collaborator with The Streets and recently featured on TD’s Hardrive releases,

64. Raw Mission FM, short lived but important grime heavy East London pirate station.

65. A way to show appreciation for a track on pirate radio, without having so spend money on phone or texting, would be to call the studio number and hang up, so the DJ could see X number of people had called in.

66. Popular R&B / hip hop club DJ and wing chung fanatic.

67. With U”, credited to After Shock feat. Shola Ama, with TD’s enduringly popular instrumental “Creepy Crawler” on the b-side.

68. Wiley signed to mega-indie XL Recordings for his first album Treddin on Thin Ice - but in a pattern that would set the tone for the rest of his career, fell out with them almost as soon as it was released.

69. Aka Jahmek Power, the effervescent Jammer was a prime mover in the grime scene from the start. Raised by Rasta parents in Leytonstone, East London, he was encouraged in his efforts to follow his father Jerry’s musical path, and was running a soundsystem playing dancehall, dub and jungle from the age of 12. The studio in the basement of his parents house became a mecca for the grime scene, with Jammer overseeing the Lord Of The Mics MC clashes. He was known as both producer and flamboyant MC from the start, famously dressing up in green and purple as the superhero Murkle Man, and has maintained a steady career, in crews like NASTY and Boy Better Know, and solo, releasing on Ninja Tune and collaborating with Toddla T among many others.

70. Born Dwaye Mahorn, latterly known as Durrty Goodz and OG Rootz. Known from the very earliest days of grime as one of the most verbally gymnastic MCs, often sailing closer to dancehall and later golden age hip hop rap styles, he was set to be an early success, with a major label deal in 2005 - but he walked out of it due to lack of creative control. Since then he remained independent, putting out copious mixtapes and albums, until signing to Brighton jazz / funk / hip hop label Tru Thoughts in 2016.

71. Aka Kane Robinson, the charismatic Kano again was one of grime’s premiere league from the outset and was many people’s tip to follow Dizzee Rascal to superstardom. He also signed to major label offshoot 679 and stuck with them for two album, before going independent for one album, then signing to Parlophone and scoring a top ten album in 2016 with Made in the Manor. He has also collaborated with Damon Albarn, appearing on the 2010 Gorillaz album Plastic Beach, with Albarn returning the favour on Made in the Manor.

72. At the same time Dizzee Rascal was bringing grime centre stage with his releases as an MC on XL through 2003-4, he was also putting out instrumental tracks on white label via his Dirtee Stank imprint (which he would later revive to release his own music and others like Newham Generals). They remain as radical sounding as TD suggests.

73. Caused much confusion - as it was also known as “Pulse Eskimo”, and emerged on Wiley’s Wiley Kat white label series on a 12” with two Wiley instrumentals, it was often assumed to be by Wiley himself.

74. Hitman Hyper, original member of Nasty Crew, part of TD’s After Shock collective, not overly prolific on record but a continuous presence in the scene, still performing regularly today.

75. Born Joseph Adenuga, Tottenham’s Skepta now rivals Dizzee Rascal as the most famous of the original grime generation, but from the beginning he was a patriarch to the scene, and like his brother JME was equally influential as a producer as MC. 

76. Patriarch of London radio, broadcasting on stations like Vibes, Choice and lately Capital Xtra a reggae-based format but always willing to incorporate new styles, whether that be jungle or grime. It was on his DJ set at Lambeth Country Show that General Levy did a now-legendary performance of “Incredible”.

77. Instrumental released with various vocal versions by grime MCs over four 12”s through 2003-4, all with extremely graphic labels reflecting the subject matter (“pum pum” is a Jamaican term for a woman’s underparts).

78. Now better known as successful actor Ashley Walters, Asher D was one of the main MCs for So Solid Crew, and his ongoing clash with Dizzee Rascal marked a huge shift from garage into grime as such.

79. Wiley and Durrty Doogz’s back-and-forth lyrical clashes started with a dub cut by Wiley in Commander B’s studio in 2002 in response to a perceived slight, and sparked an enmity that was only quashed 15 years later when the two finally worked together.

80. Aka Michael Pusey, successful UK garage DJ, awarded the MBE in 2016 for his work running a successful BMX club in Peckham, Southeast London, which has produced many international cyclists including Olympic competitors. He continues to DJ house and garage worldwide.

81. Originally the high energy “Forward Riddim” instrumental by the then 17 year old producer Dexplicit, in the hands of Lethal Bizzle formerly of More Fire Crew, with a large cast of guest MCs, “Pow!” became a breakout grime hit in 2004, reaching number 11 in the charts, but making even more of fan impact in clubs where it was frequently banned from causing too much riotous behaviour when played. It still provokes moshpits today.

82. Chanelle Calica, one of the few female MCs from the first wave of grime to achieve lasting success. She came to prominence making a response record to Dizzee Rascal’s woman-berating “I Luv U”, and has collaborated widely - although perhaps not been offered the opportunities her talent warrnated by a chauvanistic industry. She starred in the Channel 4 “ineractive drama” Dubplate Drama in the late 2000s, and the film Adulthood, and continued recording and performing, reaching international audiences when she supported Kendrick Lamar in 2014. She also made one of the biggest, bashiest anthems of the UK funky era.

83. Shuan Barker aka Bruza, MC from Walthamstow, East London, key part of the After Shock crew, distinctive for his particularly gruff, Cockney delivery.

84. AJ Tracey aka Ché Grant, West London MC of the new generation of grime, son of a rapper and a jungle DJ, extremely prolific since the age of 17 in 2011, at the time of writing at the end of 2018, he was preparing to release his debut album and celebrating the 2018 single “Butterfliess” being certified gold.

85. Aka Jama Little from Hackney, another new school grime MC, who has built a name as one of the hardest working rappers in the game, tempting both T Williams (in his Dread D) guise and Plastician back to grime production, and featuring on Hyperdub producer Ikonika’s 2017 album Distractions.

86. Jahmaal Fyffe aka Chipmunk, baby-faced Tottenham rapper who started recording at the age of 13, and was catapulted to success when Wiley brought him onto the Tim Westwood show in 2007 when he was still 16. He quickly signed a major label deal, and was one of the most successful rappers of the era around 2010 when grime merged with commercial electro-house, working with the likes of N-Dubz, Emeli Sandé and Chris Brown. He has uneasily straddled commercial success and grime credibility, bitterly clashed with several other grime MCs, publicly spoken of depression and suicidal thoughts, but nonetheless maintained a prolific output solo and in many collaborations.

87. Spoof, but talented, garage / grime collective, who have moved from short TV sketches to a successful sitcom and hugely popular festival appearances.

88. Aka Neil Thakaria, garage, grime, dubstep DJ producer from St Albans, turned impresario, first forming the major label signed True Tiger collective, who for a time looked like they might be in a unique position to fuse dubstep and grime, then moving into management with his Stripes brand - as well as Kurupt FM, he also managed DJ Barely Legal for a time.

89. The label, promotions team helmed by by the duo Elijah and Skilliam since 2010, emerging from the blog of the same name, Butterz spearheaded the revival of grime instrumentals as rave music, taking cues from the rise of post dubstep labels like Numbers, Hyperdub and Hessle Audio, using sharp visual marketing and putting huge focus into running successful events both in the UK and abroad. In the early years Butterz operated as a broader collective including funk/grime dynamo Swindle, Terror Danjah and others as part of its operational team, but has since narrowed back down to be core duo.

90. Cleopatra Humphrey aka Mz. Bratt, and latterly Cleo., East London raised daughter of MC Scallywag from outlaw traveller techno crew Spiral Tribe. Bratt was mentored by TD as part of After Shock, then by Wiley who recruited her to be part of his short live A List crew. Despite obvious talent and collaborations with major dance producers and international stars, she has struggled to find an artistic identity, and many of her album projects stalled.

91. Karl Joseph aka Sir Spyro is one of the most respected club and radio DJs in the second generation of grime for his mixing ability, selection and connections, with influential shows on 1xtra and Rinse FM, where he has been for a full decade. He is no slouch as a producer either, releasing on his own Dragon Punch label and even - unusually for a grime producer - on Mala’s Deep Medi Muzik.

92. Aka Dean Harriot, extremely prolific producer of both grime and, unusually for a Londoner, bassline house for the Northern England rave scene. Despite early success with the beat for “Pow!” and production credits for many of grime’s biggest names, he’s actively preferred to stay out of the limelight. In 2014 he told Clash magazine: “I don’t want do chart music. I’ve got a solid passion for edgy music and I always will have. I don’t think I could ever drop it out.”

93. Aka Shaun Dyer from Enfield, North London. Of the first generation of grime producers P Jam had some of the most direct, ravey sense of dancefloor impact. He released copious instrumental 12”s in the mid 2000s but eased off for some time before tentatively coming back in 2011, and more recently putting out a steady stream of jungle/rave influenced bangers, mainly on TD’s Hardrive imprint.

94. Two volume grime compilation in 2005 and 2006 released on major label offshoot 679 Recordings in conjunction wth Vice mag. Volume 1 was co-compiled by Martin “Blackdown” Clark, and Volume 2 by Chantelle Fiddy.

95. Aka Blackdown, Martin Clark has been a crucial documenter of London’s bass music since his Blackdownsoundboy blog began. Together with Dan “Dusk” Frampton, he has run the Keysound label since 2005, releasing their own productions and fascinating individualist tracks from the interzones between dubstep, grime, UK funky and other styles. As a journalist for RWD, NME and other titles, he was a key early populariser for 21st century UK bass: it was his 2003 cover story on Horsepower Productions for US magazine XLR8R which first put the word “dubstep” in print.

96. Referencing Wiley’s 2004 debut single for XL, "Wot Do U Call It?", themed around the names being flung around for the music: “What do you call it? Garage? What do you call it? Urban? What do you call it? Two step?” etc.

97. Arthur “Artwork” Smith has been there, seen it and done it. Raised by a hippy mum who would drive him to find raves at the age of 17, he’s been involved in underground music ever since. He notably assisted Steve Bicknell in running Lost, one of London’s most notorious techno nights, which various of the dubstep generation have credited with inspiring their sound’s “dark room” vibe. He has been involved in pop production, notably co-producing Daniel Bedingfield’s pop-garage smash “Gotta Get Through This” - but is best known for his role in dubstep. As a founder of Big Apple Records, shop and label, he gave an early platform to Skream, Benga, Digital Mystikz and Hatcha, and he formed the Magnetic Man supergroup with Skream and Benga. He now plays mostly house and techno, and is still considered an a-list DJ. I once spent a day making cider with him.

98. The label affiliated with South Londo crew Essentials centred around DJ Bossman, who had a striking parallel to TD’s East End Aftershoock crew - in that they were centred around the musically sophisticated producer DaVinChe, who could just as easily roll out the grime bangers (most significantly in the early days he produced Kano’s breakthrough hit “Ps & Qs”) as produce R&G bump and grind specials for soul star and Basement Jaxx collaborator Kele Le Roc. The label put out a run of stone cold classics, mostly credited to DaVinChe, but only lasted the two key years 2003-4.

99. The True Tiger collective, built around the business nous of DJ Stanza and his collaborators Sukh Knight, Blue Bear and Gowers rose out of the East End grime scene around 2005 with successful mixtapes. Unlike almost anyone else, bar a few outliers like Plastician and Kromestar, they existed with feet in both grime and dubstep camps, and for some time in the early 2010s, were groomed to be the major label dubstep supergroup, but it sadly misfired despite their collaborations with P Money, Paloma Faith and Professor Green being immense records.

100. Essex singer-songwriter, worked with TD on After Shock, and various grime, UK funky and house records.

101. Logan Sama, wrestling, comic and arcade game obsessed, Essex raised DJ who began his life in grime driving Wiley to raves, got a Rinse FM show in 2002, and has since had prominent slots on KISS and 1Xtra. He’s often seen as a kingmaker in the scene. He also sporadically runs the Earth616 label, which helped reboot the market for professionally released instrumental grime on vinyl in 2009, followed shortly aftewards by the likes of Butterz and Oil Gang.

102. Label built on commercial northern club friendly dance music lke Cascada and N-Trance, which, licensed through Universal Music, successfully rode the wave of late 2000s electro house and grime crossover records, and remains one of the most successful dance-pop brands in the UK.

103. Edinburgh/London design studio, party crew and record label, latterly closely affiliated to WARP Records, responsible for the launch of huge bass music names like Hudson Mohawke, Jacques Greene and others.

104. Aka Liam Maclean, Bristol born and raised producer of funk-influenced, high production value grime beats. Mentored at a young age by Roni Size - becuase he was a schoolfriend of his son - his accomplished studio technique saw him crossing scene boundaries with ease, playing the biggest US events at the height of dubstep’s mega success. He signed to large indie label 4AD for two albums, but appeared to creatively thrive better when he went back to being entirely independent on his own Kapsize label.

105. Atmospheric beat by elusive Walthamstow producer Rebound X on the Land of X EP in 2006, which erroneously got called “Spaceship Riddim” when it came to public attention due to Skepta and JME doing verses over it on radio. It became a endurign staple for DJs and gained new life a decade later when multiple producers reworked it; it remains one of the most played instrumentals of the late 2010s.

106. ondon dancehall evangelists DJ Gabriel Myddelton and MC Benjamin D, promoters of the Hot Wuk party and longstanding Rinse FM residents.

107. Paris Moore-Williams from Lewisham, Southeast London, fouder of the Fatal Assassinz and OG’z crews. P Money came to prominence slightly after the first wave of grime, but quickly gained a formidable reputation as a lyricist and sterling rave MC. He was notable around the turn of the decade for keeping the flag flying grime as ugly and heavy rave music at a time when many were leaning towards pop and funky house - he often worked with dubstep producers, in particular vocaling Doctor P’s ludicrious “Sweet Shop” and the brilliant “Slang Like This” for True Tiger. He maintains a strong presence and release schedule today.

108. Skepta and JME’s sister, and an outstanding radio personality, formerly of Rinse FM’s drivetime show, now on Apple’s Beats One online station.

109. Aka Peter O’Grady, South London producer and nephew of jungle legend Ray Keith. Broke big in 2009 with the euphoric “Hyph Mngo” and has become an international superstar in the area between techno, tech house and post-dubstep.

110. Patrick Okogwu, Brixton MC, posessed of Stakhanovite work ethic and huge charisma, member of After Shock sub-crew After Shock Hooligans from 2005-2007, later global superstar following the 2011 number one chart single “Pass Out”.