Mista Pierre's Fortified 45s Show
Mista Pierre's Fortified 45s Show
Mista Pierre's Fortified 45s Show - Season 4 Ep 1 with Charlie Dark MBE
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Navigating Identity, Community, and the Transformative Power of Hip-Hop
As we catch up with the remarkable Charlie Dark MBE, prepare to be inspired by tales of creativity, community, and cultural journeys. Charlie takes us through his transformative roles—from the vibrant club scene to the joys of fatherhood with the arrival of his third child, Baby Zen. Our conversation unlocks the power of music and subcultures that shaped us, particularly hip-hop, which offered a refuge and a voice during the turbulent days of the 1980s. Charlie’s encouragement during lockdown was pivotal in my own podcasting journey, and together, we celebrate the personal growth that springs from shared experiences and passions.
Charlie's Selections
Run DUC - Sucker M.C.’s (Krush‐Groove 1)
Fela Kuti - Africa Centre of the World (feat. Roy Ayers)
Roy Ayers Ubiquity – Running Away
Richie Rich - Salsa House
Black Renaissance - Harry Whitaker
Mista Pierre's Fortified 45s Website
Mista Pierre's Instagram
He's back, he's back.
Speaker 3:Yes, people, I've returned. What do you think that I was going to give? You didn't think it was all over, did you? For those who believe the hype, you are sadly mistaken. You know, sometimes life gets in the way, but listen, rest assured, I'm back for 2025. A late, happy new year to you all. I hope everybody's fine and well To all my regular listeners. Thank you for all your support and welcome to any new listeners, but please like and subscribe Now. Today's guest is a splendid chap that I've known for a very, very long time, but we parted ways when he went to private school and I went to state school. We discussed the similarities and mainly the differences in both experiences and, of course, our meeting of minds decades later. So strap yourself in for a very personal and emotional conversation with my main man, charlie Dark, mbe, on 4545s.
Speaker 4:It's not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is it Battle of the Planets? Man, Battle of the Planets. You don't remember them. I do remember, but you grew up in one of those liberal households where you were allowed to watch cartoons, and so that's why you know about these ones.
Speaker 3:What do you mean? You weren't allowed to watch cartoons. Listen Ghanaians in the 70s, don't know. Welcome to 45 for 45s. My name is Mr Pierre. I hope everybody's doing well. I'm a fine and dandy as usual. Listen before we get started. 45, 45. Welcome to 45 for 45s. My name is Mr Pierre. Hope everybody's doing well. I'm fine and dandy as usual. Listen before we get started, man this guy is laughing already, this guy.
Speaker 3:I've been waiting yonks right to get this guy on. He's a busy man. He's got many accolades which we'll talk through. I don't want to do the long intro, but let me welcome to 4545's my man, charlie Dark MBE. No less.
Speaker 4:Come on now. Thank you very much, Pierre. It's so good to be here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man, thank you for making it. I want to go and thank you, for you're the main reason why I'm doing this, because you gave me a big nudge during lockdown. Do you want to talk about that for a bit?
Speaker 4:Well, it always amuses me when I get the notifications that you just recorded a new podcast and it's out into the world. Because during the pandemic, when I set up running radio, yeah, I was like I need to get pierre on the radio and it did. The convincing that it took no man I can't do it.
Speaker 4:Like no, no, no, it's not really me, I'm more of a behind the scenes guy, like like I can't really do it. I was just like you know. I was just like you know. I was just like why is this guy so reluctant to share his magic with the world? So I had to be persistent. But I'm very happy that you know the seeds of that have blossomed into this.
Speaker 3:Listen, it's the main reason why this happened and I want to give you a flower on this show for multiple reasons, for a lot of reasons that people don't know that I want to share, but it's my selfish thank you, as well as sharing music to the world, because you're the reason why this happens, and this is 45 45, the soundtrack to inspired lives, and you're more than an inspired life to me and many others.
Speaker 4:So let me give you thanks for that props thank you very much, man, you're gonna get lots of slaps today. Take your licks. All right, I'll take the props now. No man, no, no, no slaps isn't like the good slaps you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:The thank yous.
Speaker 3:Listen, how are you man? What's going on? I know you've got a new one into the world, man, congrats, I'm good.
Speaker 4:I feel life is really good right about now. Yeah, my son, my third child, was born four weeks ago.
Speaker 3:Wow, congratulations. A wicked name. It's a great name. I love it. I love it. How'd you come up with that man?
Speaker 4:as soon as I heard that he was on the way, this serene sense of peace just descended on me and I was like we're going to call the baby Zen. Wow, if it's a boy, it's called Zen if it's a girl, we're calling it Zen wow, we've had a name for like since day one. Yeah, yeah, how's mum doing? Mum's thriving. Yeah, sancho is thriving at the moment Big up to Sancho man, it's been really interesting because obviously you know you meet these girls in the club.
Speaker 4:Okay, and then you know you see them transform into partners and then kind of, you know, now into motherhood. It's been.
Speaker 3:She's an original garage girl and she's a boogie-ister. She is a lot of energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4:But it's been good. Yeah, life is good right now. Yeah, and you know, yeah, I can't really complain about life. Yeah, yeah, life, I feel like in a really good place, both career-wise and family-wise and my head's in a good place and health is good, and so yeah, yeah, is good and so, yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 3:Well, we're going to talk about all of that. Your multifaceted career, I mean, you're one of the reasons that inspired me and many others to have multiple careers and keep them going and be able to reinvent yourself but still keep all the things that you may not either shed or not do as much, but still keep out as well. Yeah, that's a lot of energy to remain relevant and still that. So I watched you a lot and and learned how to do that as well and in my way, and I think, before the entrepreneurs came into popularity, I think you were doing a long time anyway, in terms of the hats and doing that how did you manage to do that, um, at a time where you know there's other stereotypical or cultural pressures on us to be a certain, as is you know?
Speaker 3:wow it's so funny you say that.
Speaker 4:I think one of the things is from being in a school which had people from lots of different kind of private things going on yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was never one of those kids who was only in one friendship group, because I was like man, the goths are cool, yeah, yeah, yeah, and the punk kids are kind of cool, yeah, yeah, the hip hop kids are kind of cool.
Speaker 4:And also because I was kind of absorbing this idea of hip-hop, kind of being taking its influences from everywhere yeah I was just like, okay, well, I'm gonna do the same thing, you know, because the people I like, inspired by fab five, freddy yes, you know, I'm seeing him hanging out with madonna patty astor, you know, as well as hanging out with blondie you know, hanging out with man's in the hood as well as people downtown.
Speaker 4:So that was always kind of a blueprint. And I think also when you grew up in a time when there were so many obstacles and there were so many people saying, no, you can't do that. No, you can't come in, that is not possible. It's a no, not a yes. Eventually you just kind of learn to just kind of keep pivoting. Yeah, you know, because it's like going to the club. You go to the wag club for the first time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And you get turned away.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And then you go around the corner.
Speaker 3:So, if you're pivoting, what was your fulcrum, what was your cornerstone that allowed you to go to all these different angles of culture and absorb it?
Speaker 4:I like to say to myself I'm like I've never really mastered any one thing. Yeah yeah, I kind of get to a point where I'm like I've taken this as far as my interest and my brain can explore. Yeah, yeah. And now let's get into something else.
Speaker 3:So were you a body popper or a breaker? Because you're spinning your head in that.
Speaker 4:I was an amateur breaker and a bit of a body popper. You know, yeah, a body popper. You know, yeah, yeah, nice, but I, you know, when you don't grow up in a house with space, yeah, it's hard to be physical with your body. Yeah, yeah, because you just physically don't have the space in your home environment to do it. And if you're under curfew and under rules and regulations yeah, yeah you actually kind of like djing took up less space.
Speaker 4:Yes, Could be done inside Body popping, breaking graffiti. Yeah, that involved leaving the house to go and do something that may bring an encounter with authorities and I don't want to get.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, we need to get to that. Let me just take a step back and just share with the audience how we know each other now. Yeah, exactly. So what a lot of people don't know is, first of all, you and I. We grew up in East Dulwich. I grew up in East Dulwich for a while before I was catapulted into the hood really nice middle class affluent area.
Speaker 4:Well, it wasn't really back then well, that's, true it working class in the 70s and then, it started to morph during, you know, the tail end of the 80s and by the 90s it was kind of going wild.
Speaker 3:Sorry, you're right.
Speaker 4:actually, I mean, it's the thing whenever I tell people I grew up in East Dulwich, they're like oh my God, it's so amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. East Dulwich was a hole, yes, back end of Peckham it was like, yeah, yeah, no, it's true, and I'm not gonna lie, I was jealous. Well, I mean jealous not in an envious way, because you went to Allianz and I so much wanted to go to that school man because. Allianz was a really, really good school where you could meet all different people, some famous people which you can allude to later. I wanted to go there because I used to hear the music at the beginning.
Speaker 2:This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.
Speaker 3:Age of Aquarius and then the political bit will come on. Then I ended up watching a little bit of the political segment before I get bored and go somewhere else.
Speaker 2:But I wanted to go to your school.
Speaker 3:Ramsey. Oh my god man, badly I wanted to go to your school Ramsey.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, man Badly. My mom just was not having it. I can remember the conversation as well. She was just like there is absolutely no way that I've traveled all the way, you know, from Ghana to New York, to London.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Been through all these trials and tribulations and you're going to go to the comprehensive no way. Yeah, you know what you no way you know what you better get your head in those books and start studying you know what?
Speaker 3:your mum made? The right choice because, I mean, I met loads of people who were into hip hop and I learnt about hip hop there, but it was really a single swim school and there was no right or wrong way to survive that school. Right, it was just luck that I I had thick glasses but I was into hip hop and I was playing the drums and that gave me a lot of kudos because I wasn't particularly good at sport and had those sort of things there. The school was mad. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4:There was no round one. Ramsey was mad. In fact, most of the South London schools at that point were pretty wild. Yeah, yeah, it's funny now because I kind of like you know when I talk to have that inter-school rivalry thing that we had.
Speaker 3:No, there were fights all the time man Stab ends and all that sort of shit Back then. Do you know what I mean? So well, listen, let's get into the first tune, right? Okay, that related to that, and this tune just resonates a lot with me. I get emotional. Now, right, this is Sucker MC by Run DMC, their first single, yep.
Speaker 1:Let's get into. That was there for then it went this way took a test to become an mc and orange became amazed at me. So larry, put me inside the strap to lack the sugar drove off and we never came back. They cut the record down to the bone and now they got me rocking on the microphone and then we're talking autographs and tears and laughs, champagne, caviar and bubble baths. But see ya, that's the life that I lead and you suck at mc's. It's who I be. So take that and move back.
Speaker 1:Catch a heart attack, because there's, I got a big long cat and I drive a big long cat and I'd like to surveil. And written right on the side and read just to kill. So if you see me cruising, girl, just a move and step aside. There ain't enough room to fit you all in my ride. It's on a first come, first serve basis, cooling out girl, taking you to the death place, one of a kind, and for your people's delight and for your sucker MC, this just ain't right, because you're biting on your life, you're cheating on your wife, you're walking round town like a hoolim with a knife, you're hanging on the app and chilling with the crew and everybody knowin' what you've been through. I'm with the 1, 2, 3, 3 to 2, 1. My man, larry Lab, my name's DJ Run. We do it in the place with the highs and the bass. I'm rocking to the rhythm. Want to rock your dog, my face? Go uptown and come down to the ground. You're Sucker MC. You're sad face clown. You're five dollar boy and I'm a million dollar man. Use the Sucker MC and you're my fan. You try to write lines or rhymes of mine. I'm the Sucker MC in a bad Calvin Klein Coming from the wackest part of town Trying to rap, but you can't get down. You don't even know your English, your verbal noun. You're just a Sucker MC to your sad face clown. So, dmc, and if you're ready, the people rockin' steady. You're drivin' big cars. Get your gas from Getty. I'm DMC in the place to be.
Speaker 1:I go to St John's University and since kindergarten I acquired the knowledge and after 12th grade I went straight to college. I'm light-skinned, I live in Queens and I love eating chicken in college drinks. I dress to kill. I love the style. I'm an MC. You know who's versatile. They say I got good credit in your regards. Got my name, not numbers on my credit cards. I go uptown, I come back home and fool me myself and my microphone. All my rhymes are sweet delight. So here's the number one for y'all to bite. When I rhyme I never quit, and if I got a new rhyme I'll just say it, because it takes a lot to entertain and suckin' MCs can be a pain. You can't rock a party with a hippie in house. You gotta let her know you'll never stop. Your rhymes have to make a lot of sense. You gotta let them know you'll never stop. Your rhymes have to make a lot of sense. You got to know when to stop.
Speaker 3:When the beats come in. Ooh, okay, come on Listen. That's Run the MC, sucker MC. It's their first release in 1983. Yep, that was a double A-side, because it's like that, the one that got bastardized by what's his name, nevins, later on in the year 2000.
Speaker 4:Talk to me about that shoe man. I first heard sucker MCs coming out of a car with Blout Point speakers. It was a Ford Fiesta XR2i. It was blue.
Speaker 3:I forgot. You're a car.
Speaker 4:geek, carry on, I'm a car geek and I remember we were actually on our way to a PE lesson. So we're coming out of our lanes and we're walking across the road to go to the playing fields valenes. And we're walking across the road to go to the playing fields and this, you know, this car zooms down townly road and this is blasting from it and we're all like transfixed. We're just like what on earth is that? Because the way that record is mixed it's so punchy, it's raw and it's just kind of like relentless rhyming and there's a bit of storytelling in it. It's just a really clever record.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sonically it just captures your attention and I think a kind of like relentless rhyming and there's a bit of storytelling and it's just a really clever record that sonically just captures your attention. And I think a lot of the records at that time that were coming out sonically was exciting, they were futuristic and I was just like that record is. That's the one. I'm like you know what, if there's ever been any doubt about my involvement in hip hop, whether I'm really going to get into it.
Speaker 3:Now that I've heard that, yeah, I want to hear as much as possible I think for me as well, that track it the style of rapping and obviously you had rappers delight and they had electro. But the way the drum machines came in and that kind of funky way they use, that it was a fast tempo used for popping. It was that funky, nice, danceable sort of tempo, head nodding tempo with that rhyme flow and there's no melody, music based on anything, it's just raw drums, it's raw.
Speaker 4:It's just brilliant. It's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant record and it's a record I still play to this day. Yes, and it's guaranteed to have at least one person come up and be like. What is that?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And you're like this record result there I don't say that it's crazy. It's crazy, like you know. Yeah, we've been around a long time, okay, yeah all right, I'm gonna delete that out later.
Speaker 3:I don't hear that I'm joking, but you know that for me that was like who are these people? Two black guys on the front of a sleeve, um, dressed in like leather, um and um there was.
Speaker 4:There was a thing, though. There was a disconnect, though, between when you heard the records, yes, and you finally saw the sleeve, that's true, and actually saw what it was. Yeah, you know, because I always say to people, as often you go to the jam and you hear the record, but no one's showing you the sleeve it's true, it's true, I didn't know Madonna was white when Holiday came out, yeah, for example, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3:And they just keep it as a 12-inch before and that sort of stuff. And for me that song was just like there was actually a disconnect in the rap. Not in the rap disconnect, but like the Melly Mells and their style of rapping. And then they ran DMC and DMC came along. They were like who the hell is this?
Speaker 4:Because they just changed the whole game the flow, the style, the sound, and that about hip-hop when it's when it's at its best.
Speaker 3:yeah, it's constantly evolving yeah, I think one common misconception about hip-hop is I'm not talking about the, the audience or the contingents that listen to it now, but back in them days and even up into the early 90s mid 90s we were all into loads of different types of music. Do you know? I mean, I think, the rapping part of hip-hop, which is one of five elements yeah, it's just one of five, and that front front end is usually just epitomizes what hip hop is and it's not. We're into rock, punk and you're buying public image, limited records back in the day and stuff like that. Talk to me about your musical influences then, and how hip hop affected that or consolidated it, perhaps for you.
Speaker 4:Okay, so my mum is the big musical influence because my mum basically studied in New York um during the 60s. So she got a scholarship to go from Ghana to go study um to be a dietitian in New York. I didn't know that, yeah, so my mum arrived in London via New York big up.
Speaker 4:Auntie, tina, big up shout out to Auntie Tina man, go on. So, um, she's living in New York opposite the Apollo Theatre. What? Yeah, it's crazy. And you know she's in a house with a load of, like you know, ex-vietnam vets and it's kind of like you know, ebony Magazine models and it's all very kind of pan-Africanism and it's the 60s and we're all dressing up in our gums and basically you know that kind of cultural cross thing that was happening between Americans and African students.
Speaker 3:So is this post? Is this the middle of civil rights, then, or is this leading up?
Speaker 4:to Martin Luther King. Yeah, this is kind of like 65 onwards.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:She's there doing all of that and she's buying records religiously because she's going to the Apollo Theatre. This is dope. So she comes to London and and she's got this collection which is, you know, lots of Polydor, lots of James Brown, you know four tops. So we always had that music in the house, along with country and Western music. Yes, because obviously a lot of African Caribbean had holds. Of course, jim Reeves, jim Reeves.
Speaker 3:So what people don't know? Let me just cut you there, right? People think Jamaica is about dance or reggae. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Let dancehall reggae blah, blah, blah blah. Let me tell you something there was a big country and western influence.
Speaker 4:You were Shella Dance with a country and western, you know, with a Jim Rees record. Yeah, of course of course. Yeah, so she's got you know this mad collection. And then, of course, there's all the African highlife records as well. So music was always, and then you suddenly got to an age where you were trusted to load it up. Of course. And, bro, you had a piano in your house, man, you had a piano, yeah, when?
Speaker 3:I saw that I just lost my, and when I first saw that man I was like wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's my mum, again into music, wanted to play piano, wanted me to learn to play piano, and so we had a piano. That's amazing man which up three flights a day. I don't know how they did that and yeah. So music was always a big part, and so when you know, when I went to school, secondary school, basically you're trying to find a way of fitting in, because it's a very alien world when you've kind of grown up in the hood.
Speaker 3:What was that secondary school? Like I know, it's quite prestigious in terms of its quality of education and facilities. What was it like in terms of contingent and how you felt going there as a young black boy?
Speaker 4:I kind of had no, I didn't want to go.
Speaker 4:I wanted to go to William Penn or Michael Ramsey or Thomas Colton or one of the comprehensive is where other people like myself were going to, and my mum was just like you're going to do the entrance exam. We're going to, yeah, and my mum was just like you're going to do the entrance exam. We're going to try and get you on to get assisted place to get into this school, and so you know, I just went along with it because I had no choice and I managed to pass the entrance exam so I got a full scholarship to go one you know.
Speaker 4:And for you, man, what I did find is you come from the environment where you're one of the cleverest kids in the school and then you're suddenly plundered into an environment where people not only have they already been to france, but they can speak french yes, and they got a french au pair at home and you're just learning the language for the first time. Okay, so there was a lot of catching up to do and definitely a lot of self-doubt. Yeah, a lot of fish out of water. There's a lot of racism as well. People don't really talk about that. You know, it's all kind of when you do well in the school, like that, and you go on to go and do well, then everyone's always like oh, it's really amazing that you kind of got on to this thing, but they don't really remember the racism that you're experiencing from teachers, from pupils and from the system as system.
Speaker 4:Yes, as well. So music saved me, because music basically gave me something that I could have in common with people, right? So other people are getting into, you know, posh, white kids are getting into hip-hop yeah and you look like the rappers? Yeah, so it's true. So therefore, standing the b-boy stance in the playground, yes, and life is good yeah, for people don't know what a b-boy stance is.
Speaker 3:It's your arms folded and you're in a pose and the b-boy stance is like a buffalo stance, quoting in a cherry. It's like you're standing there, good to go for anything, you're just poised looking, you're flyers to make sure your leg is turned the right way yeah, exactly there's trainers like yeah, yeah, you know sparkling yeah, you put your a point outwards and it's a very proud, but um, it's not almost that aggressive, we're just poised.
Speaker 3:You're good to go for anything really yeah, um so that school, I mean contrasting in parallel, I mean we're probably under the same age, we're a year apart. For me, I, you know, I went to a rough school but there wasn't loads of creativity, but that was. I think it was hidden with everybody because nobody even wanted to express what they're good at, because they didn't want to be a scholar or any sort of you know teacher's pet. Yeah, but sport, yes, you're okay, but anything else to be good at something was very reluctant. So even because there was school discos for obvious reasons, sadly, there's no expression for dance either. So when breakdancers come out, I was just like breakdancing, doing back spins. My glasses were going north, yeah, people used to like pick them up for me afterwards, right, yeah, but I used to just dance, I didn't. I realized the impact of expression and it got me into DJing as well as to hang on people are responding to this, and it's.
Speaker 3:I don't know what it was, but I saw what. There was an energy shift in people. Even if it was only for the 30 seconds, I was breakdancing. I found out how it made people feel, just for a bit of respite from everything well, I think I totally agree with you and also what I think it was.
Speaker 4:It allowed you to be seen, because a lot of us are growing up in households where we're not seen, communities and environments where we're not seen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sean Park said that yeah.
Speaker 4:You know what I mean? Where like no one listens to you. Yeah, like you almost just don't exist.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4:Your only job is to do what you are told.
Speaker 3:And expected to do going forward as well. Expected to do going forward. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I think hip hop arrived and it was like yo, like you can wear loud clothes, yes, you can express yourself artistically, you know, vocally, with words. It was kind of like it was really exciting and it was rebellious and not many people were into it. That was another thing as well, because definitely you could tell if someone was into hip hop by just looking at their feet.
Speaker 3:Yes, what people don't know is I think at that time you had people who were into reggae and soul, or at that time you had people who were into reggae and soul or just soul and just reggae, and my mum hated reggae. My mum was an uptown posh Jamaican woman, none of that, none of the rest of the farinism. So because she's heavily Christian, bless her, that's all good, but she was hating that. So in London there was like the sweet boys, the soul boys, and there's a reggae people as well, and you either have to take a side or you grew up, you know, but hip-hop was like. A lot of black people didn't like hip-hop when it first came out as well. People that know, yeah, you know, and love the old school, all the people. They didn't hate it. What's that we spinning your head for? What kind?
Speaker 3:of foolishness do you know what I mean though yeah, yeah, and dirtying up your clothes. Right, you're freshly pressed clothes. What's going on? So it takes it's a risk to do that as well.
Speaker 4:Definitely, it was like we've got a lot of beats for pursuing hip hop, which is again the thing that frustrates me so much when I meet old school rappers from that time, because they do not realise the influence that they've had on young minds across the world and what we had to go through in order to support their careers. Correct. That's why you get disappointed when people are late for shows. Yes, don't turn up, Yep. Don't give you the time of day yes.
Speaker 3:Or don't give them energy in a show either, or do half a show and walk off.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly Because you're just like, you've got no idea. Like when Public Enemy came to London 87? I enemy came to london 87, I think. Yeah, 87, yeah, 87, 88, the death jam tour, yeah, yeah, yeah, dude, I was never the same. Afterwards I literally walked out of brixton academy and I was like yo, yeah, malcolm x book, let's go, black panther berry, let's go. Yes, these kids I go to school with can't chat to me teachers I'm talking back like.
Speaker 3:What I like about Public Health is they gave us our place in time that we never knew about academically or whatever. So it gave me some a wider yeah, you know, a wider scope of definition of who I am, yeah, who we are yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely, it was kind of so.
Speaker 4:The music was really impactful yeah really impactful because, as I say to people, this music landed on our shores and changed the way that people spoke, the way they dressed their aspirations in life and the dreams that they had in a very dramatic way. It was like overnight, it was like a switch. It was like a switch. That music just came from the radio and it was just like yo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what I was speaking of, radio as well, is what people don't know. We were lucky to live in London and maybe Birmingham major cities, apart from the radio ones, the two hour show on a Sunday. I used to love listening to Mike Reed. We had pirate radio stations, right?
Speaker 4:Not just Radio Caroline. We're talking about radio stations LWR, kiss FM, horizon, solar, invicta, jfm, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:The list goes on right. And they were playing songs that would never make the radio but they were providing the sound of the underground and you know, we didn't have to know where to get them. So that sort of knowledge and musical we were getting was providing the basis for production and future sounds going on outside of that musical genre. So we were just digging it early and we were getting it early and we didn't know what was happening. But there's a huge underground swell that was being fed to us uniquely based on our geographical location. So we're lucky for that man, we're very lucky.
Speaker 4:We're lucky. We grew up in South London because we had Crystal Palace radio tower.
Speaker 3:Yes, we're lucky, we grew up in South London because we had Crystal Palace Radio Tower and we had good pipe radio reception.
Speaker 4:We're very lucky. We feel very blessed about that.
Speaker 3:I don't think about that. Technically, we're lucky.
Speaker 4:We're really, really lucky because we have that kind of weird hill side thing that goes on as you get further out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that, because London is essentially a bowl and when you go further out it's a basin, if you like, and then it goes out and then you get.
Speaker 4:I didn't think about that joke because I, like you know, I was recording everything.
Speaker 3:It was clear, yeah yeah, so were you lucky then, because you had to stay in or you had ground rules for the house, which we'll talk to talk about that, in terms of the rules and the West Indian rules that we had as well, did the fact that you had a confined space make you make the most of your environment and you made you creative?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I kind of was just in my bedroom turning it into a fortress of creativity, yeah, and being like, right you know, if I can't go to the event, I'm going to recreate the event in my room yeah, you know, and I remember when I met you for the first time it might have been when I get to know you the first time right when your birthday partied wimpy, oh yeah, knickerbocker glories, yeah wow, you're taking it so far back.
Speaker 3:Yeah man, yeah man 97, 98, no sorry 97 77, 78.
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, your mum and my mum were good friends my friends and obviously the kids get to meet as a result of that and you were always very studious and quite. You watched a lot. You're an observer and you watched a lot, but we were cool, we all got on. And then when I found out you were into hip hop. I don't know what happened. I must have bucked you on the street somewhere and I just knew you were into hip hop. I could just tell we're like wow like we're on, there, we're in the same you went to.
Speaker 3:We went to different schools. I had to move to Peckham and I saw you. When I saw you, do you know what I mean? Because you know it's like, even when you're two or three miles away and went to different schools, our lifestyles would just change as a result of that, you know when I bought you, I found you.
Speaker 4:It's like you know, dref, of course. So Dref is, like you know, is a cousin, yeah, of mine. What, yeah, family relations, yeah, so Seriously, yeah, man, okay, I'd go to family gatherings and Dref would be there. My mum would be cussing me out about his. He's listening to hip hop and he's shaving lines, painting trains and he's like I mean, he's doing graph pieces. Like you've got no idea about Dref sitting in the same room, and I think there was. You know, again, this is this almost like underground code of like these kids African kids, caribbean kids growing up who were like children of immigrants, who often were children of parents where the dream hadn't really worked out how they'd imagined. So there was maybe a bit of bitterness there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know I managed to because I was an only boy and sort of like in a single parent family, the man of the house sort of provided protected at the same time at 12, you know. So I might actually get out a bit and do things because you know I used to bring in music for Artful Dodger Plaz, south East Vandals Tough Arts, so I managed to watch them do creative stuff.
Speaker 4:So it's my first actually, apart from doing the community centres, my actual was DJing.
Speaker 3:I used to make mixtapes for graffiti artists wow, I didn't know that and also look out for the police and around certain places. But I used to bring my dad got me a second hand big Sony heavy cassette deck and a decent bass for that time and I used to play and I used to make soundtracks for graffiti artists artists I didn't know that yes, tough Arts. Plaz Big Up to Artful Dodger. All those guys. Rip Drum2. Yeah, that's my first wow, so I used to get feedback on it that's really cool.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:I learned how to sequence sounds to keep energy and down. I played that afterwards that made me feel that's taking me down, that's dry. So I learnt how to learn about energy and undulation and stuff like that. I've got to ask you did Scarfe go to your school? No, scarfe, no, he didn't. But you remember Scarfe of course I remember.
Speaker 3:Scarfe. Scarfe lived. No, scarfe came back from South Africa, right, okay, he went to South Africa, yeah, in 86. So he grew up in South Africa and he came back in the late 80s and he had a rich and it was troublesome for us to take for them to bring him back into the crew Because what that accent meant to us, if you think about apartheid back in those days and we just showed some compassion when it comes to hip hop and saying individuals, people are people and if they're into it, they're into it and we shouldn't bring that onto it. And he was like trying to, he was trying to fit in as well with that accent that he couldn't really hide before he accumulated his Cockney accent or London accent In terms of identity.
Speaker 3:when it comes to all that, did you have a multifaceted identity and what was it like? Like, my identity in my school was you just had a working class, usually a black, but it was a working class black and we all had similar and the school actually, actually it was 50-50 white black. I'd say yeah, but we had a heavy working class identity. So we had the hood stuff from the Peckham black side, but we had IRAs.
Speaker 3:Irish people we had our Vietnamese, but we also had the craze, that sort of Bermondsey energy as well. So for you whereas a primarily maybe upper middle class thing, but you're all Ghanaian-ness and all that stuff how did you form your personality or your energy yourself?
Speaker 4:well, first of all, there weren't very many black kids in the school right and I was on my always remember it like at one point there was like four of us and it was like you know. So it's kind of and it obviously what happens is there's so few of you and you're not actually clever enough to be like let's hang out together, because that just brings attention and focus on you. So you're really almost like trying to like yeah, not be, we ain't doing no. African Caribbean society in LA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So I think for me a lot of it was time was spent trying to find my voice. You know, obviously, as you were saying, you're growing up in those times, so you are. You know you're coming encounters with, you're getting chased home by skinheads. You know National Front leaflets through your door. You know new crossfire. You've seen that happen and go down Brixton. Riots has happened. You've gone to Brixton market and get through. You smell the embers. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that going down politically. You know fascist governments in there.
Speaker 4:It's kind of like things are hard, yeah, man, and if anything, again it's kind of the hip hop introduces me to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and kind of like stuff that I've never really heard yeah and then the big point for me is I got sent to Ghana when I was 13.
Speaker 3:For the first time, wicked.
Speaker 4:So, like many kids, you know, you get sent home for the summer Because your parents are just looking at you like this kid has turned what I don't understand. What do they think? They don't understand what you know, because I think what people don't realise is growing up in the 80s as a black teenager was hard. Yeah, and you know, as you said, you either reggae or your soul, or you're going to be in the criminals yep or you're going to be studious yep or you're going to be doing an apprenticeship. You've just got not very many options for you, yeah, and and. And. So I think that you know I basically got to the point where I was just like I just got to start to get pissed off. Yeah, I was pissed off with the system. Yeah, I'm like start to question why. And also you start to see the privilege that you're in yes, this world that you're, you know, and the things that people have where you're just like it is a reflection of the school you're going to.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this is crazy like you've got a swimming pool in your garden like bro. You've got a swimming pool in your garden like we used to go swimming like once a month in primary school and you've got a swimming, an actual, real life swimming pool and tennis court in your garden and your dad's an architect so he's designed your bedroom to your spec. We're growing up in housing association and squeezed in like sardines, yeah, plus, we've got parents that like to keep stuff. Yeah, you know, the first time you go to your like friend's house, it's a minimal. You're just like whoa, like what's getting on? Like where's the stuff to be taken home? Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, you know, probably feeling very depressed. You know, definitely just felt like there was no light in my life. Yeah, yeah, just because I think what happens is your parents come to the country and then they try and have this life for you, but they're not preparing you for what you're going to encounter.
Speaker 3:So did you get sent back because you weren't pulling your cultural?
Speaker 4:weight. Yes, I wasn't basically doing what I was supposed to be doing. I wasn't studious enough. I wasn't getting the grades because you're bringing home a B. Your parents want A's. They're not interested in a B. They're not interested in a low B could want A's. Yeah, they're not interested in a B. They're not interested in a low B. Could be a C, they're not interested. They're not interested in you hearing my teacher called me an ape. Today my teacher called me a monkey in school. Yeah, well, you just have to basically suck it up because once you learn, once your mum comes to the school the first time and causes that scene.
Speaker 3:Yes, you're like never again, yeah, yeah. So then you're just like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I have to internalise this and keep it to myself. Yeah, but dealing with the racism and stuff, it was really hard, you know, and the bullying was like it was wild, yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, you know, eventually you get to the point with the music and your prowess, with the music and your. The one thing that's really interesting about middle class kids is they love to be around road men.
Speaker 2:Yes, they love it, yep.
Speaker 4:So basically now you're this like fulcrum into. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the kids are a bit more edgy from South London. Yeah, yeah, you kind of come along to the 18th or the 16th birthday party. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then suddenly all these worlds start mashing up together and you've got, you know, Sydenham Girls and Sydenham High and Alleynes and the. Spinning Pen and Thomas Cotton. Do you know what I mean? It's like Kingsdale they're all mashed up in this one scene that's united by music and space and gatherings.
Speaker 3:I think that's really, really important, because I experienced the same at school, but mine was a. It wasn't an all black-black school, it's a very hardcore working class. Yeah, parents who almost some people all come from criminals yeah parents will come to school and beat teachers up. Yeah, do you know what I mean yeah, right, um, slap the teachers up and beat them up, saying that's because they they said something rude to their parents. And we're talking about craze.
Speaker 3:People come from the crazy thing, bring the tools down and we'll have to say no, no, don't do anything, because we like the teacher. Yeah, but we also had a lot of um violence because everybody just hated each other as well. They didn't know how to mix. Yeah, like they. So, for example, I had a lot of white friends who were into the hip-hop and stuff, but their dad didn't like them hanging around with black people. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, and they love song music and hip-hop and the dancing and everything like that, but their parents didn't want to have anything like. You know, dude, I have I was.
Speaker 4:I tell people this story. I can distinctly remember going to a white friend's house and their dad being like he can't come in yeah, man and be in our kitchen whilst we're eating. He has to stand in the garden. Yeah, man standard. Yeah, minimum, yeah, minimum, it was just a feat. Yeah, okay, fine when you're finished.
Speaker 3:So me leaving the hood and we're having crabs crying out of a barrel. It was really hard for me to be inspired by Public Enemy's call for unity and when some of the people are trying to kill me, what do I take from this? It was the music that acted as a filter for me, the people who were into it, but into music and into hip hop as well, and they became my tribe, because that was used as a filter for me to find out who were the people that I had affinity with. It's hard, if you don't have any individuality, to find out who people are in terms of familiarity and similarity. To get your way out of that. Do you know what I'm?
Speaker 4:saying, skating was another thing that saved me oh, were you a skater, yeah, hardcore, deeply into it. That's enough. That was the thing, because, again, skating just kind of introduced me to traveling to different areas of the city, yeah, of the city. And then also this idea like people didn't care, they were just like, oh, you skate, yeah, wicked great.
Speaker 3:We don't care what class you are, because you skate right, it was like roller skating or skateboarding skateboarding, right, okay I mean, I was never on the road.
Speaker 4:There were too many good roller skaters in my neighborhood yeah, yeah. About to say because I said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I mean, it's like again, people don't realize that at that time you had these characters pre-internet, pre-instagram. You had people like you know, they were just famous because of who they were. Yeah, you know what I mean. You go down to their school just to look at them coming out of school like, oh my God, the guy's got real Jordans on Wow, or they could skate backwards fast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And this is all before vans, before that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4:This is all after he saw that proper red hand, gangs, skateboard, you know that sort of stuff but skating was the thing, that kind of skating, and then the whole warehouse party scene wow that's what really kind of opened the doors for me and cemented this idea for me that like, look, the people that I'm listening to on the radio are getting things done because they're linking up with people who are different from them and being brave enough to do so being brave enough to do that.
Speaker 4:So people like norman jay you know, when I saw norman jay doing parties with judge jules. You know linking up doing family function. Shake a finger, pop thing, yeah you know mutoid waste company and the punks are kind of. The reggae guys are bringing the sound system, the punks are doing the decorations. You know, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3:I was just like, right, that's the way I'm going to go because when I went to America and I come back and I was having my relationship, transatlantic relationship, as I was building everything up from hip hop in London and hip hop in America, and I used to check you and watch your stuff. You're doing all this stuff and you're mixed with different people and you've made that jump already.
Speaker 3:I hadn't made that jump, even doing something in terms of production and collaborations. I was watching you do that and I was like, wow, how did you have the guts to do that? And was it a conscious thing or you just went and just did it?
Speaker 4:I think it was a conscious thing because ultimately, I didn't feel welcomed by my own community. Can you imagine? Because I was different, can you imagine? So I just was just like, well, I'm just going to go where the love is. Yeah, because you know. You know what it's like. Of course you've grown up in that time. You ain't got. You're not a sweet boy. You don't have no big muscles. You ain't rocking the chops big chain. You ain't got no like posse of girls hanging around you, you've got nothing, man.
Speaker 4:You've got no thing that intimidates or makes anyone interested in you.
Speaker 3:I think hip hop gave us a forced individuality that we couldn't if you felt it, you couldn't go anywhere else and do that, and I think it pushed us out of our comfort zone or anything that we had to do for survival to what we have to do inherently from our soul to survive.
Speaker 4:I think, like two lessons I learned is one thing about going to our lanes and being in that environment is that you, though you are with a large amount of kids who've got money yeah, you've also got those kids who had money and now longer have, and no, no longer have it, but they're still in the school so is that for them, that's at a um, not a bridge, but they were.
Speaker 3:They were, uh, in the middle of haves and have nots, if you know what I mean and then you've also got the the.
Speaker 4:Suddenly you've got people who've like you know I'm coming there, as you know being raised. There's no father figure in my household, so I'm being raised by my mum. And then you're going into the school first year. Most of the people it's like it's mum and dad. Year two, three divorces start happening just go for it.
Speaker 4:So now you're seeing these kids like, wow, you've got money, you've got a big old house and your parents are splitting up and actually you're reacting the same way that I would. So maybe there's a similarity here. And one of the most important things is meeting kids who've come for money but don't want anything to do with it, who want to be self-made. That was really inspiring to me. Your dad can sort you out and you are not interested. You're going to go the hard way and I'm watching you build this thing. So that was really kind of inspiring. And then ultimately, you know, o-levels went well, a-levels kind of messed up, and then the system that you've been part of for seven years is like it's done, and I literally came out of Allens thinking I'm Allens old boy, the whole boy network is going to sort me out, I'm good.
Speaker 4:And the doors just Neil Poir started closing around me and it was like you know, star Wars the compactor the walls just closing on you man and I was just like wow, I've just spent seven years in this kind of like dream, thinking that this whole world like I, was like them, and now I'm realising I most definitely am not.
Speaker 3:You know, can I just jump back to when you said about divorces starting to happen. And now obviously I come from a not obviously, but I came from a single parent family as well. But I know what that pain was like to not have a dad and you dealt with it. But then you found that people are people having divorces now and they're going through some of that pain and difficulty. I know that you were ahead, but you had a, so I didn't realize how much I've learned or experienced and dealt with that. They hadn't at that point and it was an advantage. But that was another affinity that I did with some people.
Speaker 4:Yeah, help them out, I mean I mean, my missus was like you've got to go and have some therapy because you've got some ptsd going on from you know this, because I'm very much kind of like I'm just going to get it done. I'm going to do as much as I can until I can't carry this weight myself. And then finally, I might ask for some help.
Speaker 2:But it's going to burn me to ask for help.
Speaker 4:That all comes from you. Know your experiences growing up.
Speaker 3:You were the one of the first people that not only encouraging but validated having therapy as a black man who has that sort of thing, therapy as a black man who has that sort of thing. Yeah, you're one of the first people that I realized had it. You can tell somebody's had therapy, has done the work. But you're one of the people that encouraged that um, especially at random, random crew, which we'll talk about going forward. But you're one of the first people I knew could do it because the energy that you had when we first reconnected at um, when I first saw you at, uh oh, the j dilla yeah yeah, yeah, marduk's, yeah, we.
Speaker 3:I knew that the energy you were bringing and where you were, I felt that. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's really important.
Speaker 4:I was just an angry teenager, angry in my 20s, angry in you know my 30s and then we kind of got to like you know, mid 30s was just like you've got to grow up. Yeah, man We've got to make some changes now. This is not healthy. And also you start being, you start meeting people kind of who just are not as aggy Military and aggy yeah, they're just not as like, oh, you stepped on my shoe, so now I'm going to have to stab you, yeah. It's kind, they're just a bit more chilled.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you can say I'm scared about that and someone will say yeah, I know I'm scared too, what? Okay? Well, listen, let's play this next tune. It's called Africa at the centre of the world. Sorry, africa centre of the world, by Fela Kuti and Roy. Thank you, africa.
Speaker 2:Africa, africa, africa, africa. Thank you, africa, africa, africa.
Speaker 3:Africa, africa, thank you. Okay, that's called Africa, the centre of the world by a fellow Kutia Royers man yep, that's the record talk to me about this one man.
Speaker 4:I would be. There's nothing that I would have done over the last, you know, 37 years if it wasn't for that record. I get sent to Ghana when I'm 13 yeah, yeah under the pretense, like I actually don't know I'm going. So it's a kind of like one of those like oh, you could be going to Disneyland.
Speaker 4:You could be going on. You know, you just end up in Ghana. Was it because you became unruly? I was considered to be unruly, wow, so I get sent home to my dad and I don't want to go. And then, basically, you know, I kind of have a pretty interesting time. Go on, man. The first time, yeah, I actually really loved it. Yeah, because it was freedom. I memorised all the kind of trotter or bus routes so I was just walking them, I was doing mad walks. Yeah, found out where the British Library was, so I was like in there every day reading NME, you know, keeping in contact.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:First even get to that.
Speaker 2:What is it like? The heat, the smell?
Speaker 4:um, it's remember you arrive off the plane and you know, it's kind of like you're at a lot of guardians. Yeah, the plane's packed, there's a lot of luggage in the aisles, the luggage, I mean. The door opens and it's really super hot. And then I see my dad for the first time in like you know, in like 13 years, do you mean?
Speaker 4:wow? So like that was wild. So you know, we had that whole time. Then I get sent back to London. So you went there for the summer holidays a good six weeks. Well, I think my dad was just like you know what man's got to go back. He was like because you know what I mean, I turn up man's b-boyed up, got fat laces in b-boy. He's not trying to hear that. What are you talking about? Wow? So I got sent back again when I was 15. And the 15-year-old trip was the big one.
Speaker 3:Hang on. So you were there for about a summer. I was there for the whole summer, and then get sent back.
Speaker 4:And then you know the grades don't reach the standards. You know it's not really working academically for me to the level that is hoped. Yes, and he's still listening to that hip hop stuff again. And he's getting onto this other stuff now and he's getting rebellious because he's in a school with rebellious kids, rebellious kids that come from money. They're just rebellious. 15 to get sent back. And this time I really do not want to go and this time it's like you're going and you are not coming back. So I'm there with my dad and then I start my dad I've got. And then I start my dad, I've got two half brothers. Yeah, I start exploring Accra. I'm going ham, I'm like right. Because the thing that happened is I remember meeting some local kids who realised I was into hip hop and they're looking at me like I'm a god because I've got all in their eyes. I've got all the gams, I've got cassettes, I've got Walkman.
Speaker 4:They're like this guy's got some moves, he's the new hero of our neighbourhood right right and I start going to markets and I find this Fela Kuti record and I, you know, I don't really know who he is, I kind of I know his name, fela Kuti, but I've never really checked his music. There was a like arena bbc documentary. That was kind of like a thing I remember watching. Yeah, so I knew the name. I've been bringing that record home and playing on my dad's gramophone and just being like yo.
Speaker 4:This guy has just spent 17 minutes singing about how wonderful africa is and how it's on the center of the world. And on the other side the roy is dude who dude who I know from Running Away and all these kind of soul funk tunes, is basically also made a tune called 2000 Black, talking about the future of black people and black culture and Pan-Africanism. I'm just like yo. And guess where I am? I'm in Ghana, accra. I'm actually in Africa and I'm actually African. Yep, wait till I get back to London. Uh-oh, it was on top. So then it all clicked. I was like, right, okay, there's a system. There's a system that's basically in place.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 4:I just need to ride this system and get out, yep, and then I'm good, so you do what you need to do. I just need to ride this system and get out, yeah, and then I'm good. So, yes, yeah, do what you need to do. I just need to do what I need to do, yeah. So I literally was like right, let's buckle down, let's get into it, let's get in, like, let's take advantage of the you know the environment that we're in.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, start carving out our identity in our bedroom. Yes, so let's be serious. Like you know, like no one in my family wants me to do music.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I'm going to show them how good I can be, and and that has been the driving, the driving thing yeah, that's so good, you know, for me, um, just to jump in there, very similar, um, but music was, is an escape and did love it. But it gave me a plan. It gave me a route. It wasn't a plan like I drew it all out in six months. I'm going to do this like I'll do as a mature adult, yeah, but it gave me a drive and a route and an angle or a target. Yeah, an approach and a way to go.
Speaker 4:Do you know, probably discovered Face Magazine around that time and now and then what I'm seeing is, like you know, your soul to souls of the world and all these other kind of like black kids that I know who are out there now, and early black entrepreneurship, yeah, yeah, and they're making bits happen and I was just like, right, okay, we can do this.
Speaker 3:So with your identity, that, you found with the Roy Ears. What people don't realise is there's a lot of West Indian black people who came from West Africa anyway, who hadn't met Ghanaians and Nigerians prior to colonialism Do you know what I mean? And they all came back to England and they were like we've got Jamaicans and Nigerians and we're all the same right, all the same tribe, and we haven't met since then. So there was a cultural clash and West Indianism was, at that time, the forefront of black culture in terms of popularity, reggae, etc. Etc. What was it like being an African boy?
Speaker 4:I mean it's horrid you were just basically because, also, the way that your parents are describing Ghana, yeah, yeah, you're just like this place sounds wild. Yeah, it sounds wild. Also, the way that your parents are describing Ghana yeah, yeah, you're just like this place sounds wild. Yeah, yeah, I know Like it sounds wild Because everything to do, you know, it's kind of like you're like yo, why is our house filled with all this stuff? Yeah, that we're keeping to send back to these people? Yeah, in this other place, yes, like, I don't know, like we're keeping everything. We're keeping the Flora, yeah, margarine carton. Yeah, of course, what have these people like? Have they not got this stuff? And then meanwhile, you're looking at the TV and it's Live Aid, thank you, and it's basically, you know, all you're shown is starving. You know people who are starving.
Speaker 3:Or having petrol. And what was it? Tyres around their neck, getting burned Tyres around their neck in South Africa.
Speaker 4:So you're just like this place sounds wild, yeah, and then you go and then you're suddenly like hold on a minute, my man's got the latest BMW, like the latest Mercedes. This thing hasn't even touched London yet, Wait, wait thank you.
Speaker 3:I went to Jamaica for my third at 12, right, and I was so ignorant. I was like mum, do you have runways? Mum unboxed me, right, of course you have runways. And I was thinking mud huts and all that ignorance. Right, I got there and, as we're saying, in a mansion, like you know, big mansion, a house where the guy pick us up, a chauffeur or whatever drive, I was like, yeah, I was like what's going on also on on.
Speaker 4:That trip was, like you know, 85 yeah. I also went to Labade Beach and basically had these big beach parties and they had the big, one of the biggest sound systems I've ever heard in my life right and they had Technics what in Ghana bruv? And they were like the best mixers I have ever heard and I've heard some of the best DJs in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no one's touching the, whoever they were.
Speaker 4:Yeah, killing it, it was like seamless mixing yeah at a time when no one was really like people could mix, but it wasn't really a thing. It was like harmonically in key. Yeah, yeah, it was amazing and that and it was like again, I was just like man, this place is wild, so I don't want to come back that's interesting I don't really want to come back.
Speaker 3:So you don't want to go and they're the person to stay, but you't really want to come back. So you didn't want to go and you had the perfect place to stay, but you didn't want to come back, that's interesting.
Speaker 4:I was like I've got to come back because I kind of have to finish, get finished the mission. Yeah, and my dad's just like he's got to go back. He's like why?
Speaker 3:because just finish your mission or he's got his family.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also I think there was this lot of friction between us. I've never really spoken about this. It's quite interesting, but it's a lot of friction because, basically, when you don't grow up with your dad in your house and later life start having encounters with this father figure, often what happens is just as dads, they try and put the authority on you straight away and you're just like shut up. I'm like my mum's the my mum is the authority yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I don't know you, for you to be telling me what to do, how to speak, what to dress, how to think?
Speaker 3:same here, same here, and don't forget, you've got the young man growing up, you've got the man there and, I think, with me. I think I had the authority and I was right in my head in terms of my values, what to do, and we locked on and that was it. After that, we got on, but it was like there's gonna be that lock at some point. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4:So I kind of that was a big trip, that record saved. That record saved and changed my life because basically I didn't appreciate the fact that I was from Ghana. I didn't want to be from Ghana, I wanted to be from Kingston, like all the kids in my neighbourhood. They were Jamaican. That was the kind of like. That was how everyone wanted to roll so how's the resurgence?
Speaker 3:but you never. But you, you never hid your African-ness though no, never, and I rate you for that. I rate you for that because some people change their names to like John or Gary, gary, steve, paul, which I mean.
Speaker 4:I never did that. You come to my house, we are eating fufu with our right hand, like same way. It's kind of like you know, I've never hid it, I've never. You know I probably, after I got back from that trip, I was no longer embarrassed. Yes, good, I was very happy about it. And then, obviously, you know, you've got Public Enemy, you've got X-Clan.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, you know suddenly KMD, it's like now, it's like it's cool to be from. Oh, you're not a pretend, you're like you're not wearing all the garms, I'm actually from there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Do you know what's good, though? Do you think the resurgence of the new stuff, amapiano now Does that help this now full circle? Yeah, does that help solidify your African-ness in this country? Are you glad it's happening now?
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely. I think it's amazing to see it come full circle where you can go to a jam and they'll be like we're the Nigerians in the house and there's like, oh, this is brilliant, this is what we worked for, this is what made all the beats and obstacles worth it, because people from our generation, whether you're West, indian, african or whatever, wherever we are we worked hard to open the doors for this next generation to come in and celebrate like that.
Speaker 3:And I think that even the younger generation of ours. You know a new middle-class black researcher that's coming up and they're all going to Ghana and they're going to Iron Nap and they're all going to the parts of the world now and they're just spreading our new generation of blackness or pan-Africanism worldwide, which is great.
Speaker 4:They're doing all the stuff where they don't know about going to Berlin and getting off the tour bus and people are just looking at you like what are you doing here? It's like, yeah, man, we're in Berlin. Or they don't know about going snowboarding, where you are the only black snowboarder on there? Yeah, exactly of course, and people are looking at you like what are you doing?
Speaker 3:You're like, I'm just here, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a breaker, I got a good set of balance.
Speaker 4:It weren't working. You should go back to it. You should go back to it. Snowboarding is great. It's one of the best.
Speaker 3:I fractured my elbow snowboarding which is the reason why I stopped. I'll speak to Norbski about that because he did Board Stupid. But it wasn't as good as I thought, it wasn't as easy as I thought it was.
Speaker 4:It's not easy, but it's one of those things. I think you have to be persistent and I think the thing about snowboarding is good for black people's mental health yeah, it is Really really good.
Speaker 3:Well, let's get into this next tune called Running Away, and we'll talk about random crew, we'll talk about physicality and we'll talk about all that, thank you. Hey, I'm in my bag and I'll give you, cause your birthday's on me and I've been doing it to you and I've been going to you. Hey, I'm in my bag and I'll be running away now, cause you've been made to be and I've been judging you and I've been judging you and I've been. Oh, so true, hey, ya, ya, ha ha ha. You don't spend the time when I'm in need. We don't love each other Like we used to do. Maybe I'll come back Another day. You don't do the things you used to do Running, run, run Give me juice.
Speaker 3:Running, running, running far away Give me juice. Run, run, give me juice. Running, running, running far away. Give me juice. Run, run, give me juice. Hey, I'll give my back and I'll give you when you make it. Give me your name. I'll give you my name and I'll give you my name, cause your birthday's coming, and I'll give you my name and I'll give you my name, give me your name. Running away by Roy is When's that man 70-something?
Speaker 4:I think late 70s yeah, pipe Radio, of course First heard it on Pipe Radio. I think the day that I tuned into Pipe Radio for you know the first time is when I heard that record and it's the lyrics like running away. You know I've spent a large amount of my life either running away from something or running towards something, yes and so for me it was kind of like it was a freedom song for me.
Speaker 3:I put that on my tapes on my. When I first went to america 87, when my a pan am ticket came through the door yeah, pan am ticket came through the door for my aunt just addressed to me I was like open it, there's a ticket. I didn't know it was coming, my mom didn't know it was coming, it was just there and I went and that was like when I first time I got, not saying I'm gonna play, but it's like me running away from the hood because I knew it's gonna change my life. Yeah, and I put that on there.
Speaker 4:So when you chose this song that resonated with me, gentlemen, yeah, yeah, it's a big record man and I remember it's just so funny we haven't even talked about it like the first time because I didn't know you, even though you were a DJ. Yeah, Come around your house. Man's got techniques. I'm like what, what's?
Speaker 3:going on.
Speaker 4:I mean, we always knew that you had one of the best high tops in South London. Yeah, before I lost my hair is for me synonymous with pirate radio and discovering this sonic world and the world of characters like real life superheroes, you know we're always into comics. So this idea of like Jasper the Vinyl Junkie who's that, you know? What I mean. Like you know, gordon Mack, you know what I mean love bug like there's all these like crazy people.
Speaker 3:Wilbur Wilberforce. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So, and I just remember that record and listening to it, because at that time on Pipe Radio they would record the do live broadcasts from these solo days. Yes, so, although you're under lock and key and you couldn't go, you could listen to it on the radio.
Speaker 3:That's such a clever concept. Can you be part of it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, before live streaming and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:This is the first sort of like you know, iteration of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it's great. You know it's funny because we're about to bring all this back with you know. I bought sound systems in the pandemic, like how we're going to run the dances, and I'm like, yeah, just old school, like all the things we used to do back in the day, bringing them back. Everyone's like you can't do it.
Speaker 3:I'm like, yes, we can, yes, we can and we can bring a level of unity back again and that sort of thing that music. That's a great idea, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4:It's kind of like yeah.
Speaker 3:I remember another film and while I got those techniques, I used to work in the film industry for a while in Powell Studios, right, oh wow, electrician, because you know I was geeky, right, and I got a little pseudo-apprenticeship and my friend who worked there gave me a hookup. That was the most racist place I have to laugh I've been to, because this is like jobs for the lads, right, a real nepotism. Sort of like very, very clever people, right, but sort of like very, very clever people, right, but you work in the film industry. I was doing the lighting and they were just, they were just throwing so much racism at you, but it was casual and it's what we do, it's what you are and it's like do you know what I mean? And it was no sort of HR or anything like that.
Speaker 3:Do you know what I mean? This is like you're working on a film industry and when, like you're working on a film industry and, um, when I got that ticket, it just flew me out. I just got ejected. I was so lucky I just ran off. A lot of things, you know violence in my estate, racism at work yeah, not selling drugs, but also not succeeding on what I wanted to do because I couldn't finance it. Do you know what I mean? And then, um, that that because I had that my walkman, so I'm glad you you chose that, but that was my relationship with it as well, because that's sort of the soundtrack to my. I went to New.
Speaker 4:York around the same time I got a courier ticket 200 pounds, did you? Yeah, I went to New York around the same time. I started religiously going. We'd always been going with my mum. Mum had family there, obviously because she studied there where did you stay, do you know Queens?
Speaker 4:in a place called Whitestone. Whitestone, that's nice man, it's a very nice area, nice. But I would like old school black family. Great-grandmother was a slave, given the house by the slave owner. You know my mum had met them in Harlem. Yeah, you know super religious, but it was great. You know, big old house, big old house, just like old Ebony magazine, and they were all. You know these two sisters who'd lived through all this stuff. I mean they talked to you about Willie Mays playing baseball. You'd be like what this is like real life historian.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I think it was really good for me. You probably had the same thing where you kind of you've got this idea of what New York hip hop culture is like in your head and then you go and start experiencing it in real life and it's different. And then you suddenly again it kind of opens the door of like oh, I can be part of this, because this is not how but I really.
Speaker 3:What I didn't realise is how much I knew about hip hop and we were on the same level as them. We actually knew just much, if not more, with some people yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 3:And what I learnt as well is that my aunt had a great. She had a, not a business model, but a way to. So my aunt was she's probably about she'll be about coming up to 100 now right, because she's older. First born she came from Guyana to New York. She bought a big. She bought a big brownstone building and she brought people, family, over to set and then a place to live it. It was safe and then they'll move them out and this was like a factory of the whole generation, of her brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was the last one because my dad's one of the youngest in the family. I was the last one from britain. Yeah, that she wanted to bring it in there because she could see it wasn't working for me but she could somehow work out that I was, yeah, out there. I wanted to do something. I mean, mean she bought me a ticket. She goes, come and see your family and see what they've done, and just to do that, and I thought it was a really clever way of giving people I mean this is.
Speaker 4:It's amazing to me that basically, people like to complain so much about how much better things were back in the day, but don't want to apply any of the back in the day values. Thank, you.
Speaker 4:Now I'm just like, of course it's going to be like it is, because there was a way that things were done. Then, yes, that have been dismissed, yes, and you know, actually they were really nurturing, yes, and if you bring some of that back, you know, then basically people have an appreciation for what they have now, and then they also understand how they can expand on what exists already exists.
Speaker 3:That's what I find when I'm DJing how nurturing it can be to bring people in from all different, and just just psychologically for them as well, let their body movement and movement with their body, and how that releases so much tension. Do you know what I mean? And for me, djing for me, I much tension. Yeah, do you know what I mean? And, um, for me, dj, for me I find that quite nurturing as well. It's not that I'm better than them, but I know what the power is and how it can be nurturing for myself as well we, because we, as I think, we grew up in a time when there was so much division.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like people say it's divided, now I'm like this isn't like, this is not divided. My thing today was divided, polarized, oh my gosh. So when the music came and you were in a dance with people from North London, yeah or East London, yes, and you're all in like for that.
Speaker 4:Six hours that you were in a dance, yep, there was tension, but you're cool, but we're cool, so come outside, it's back on. But once you're in, yep, you know, the music brought together so many people, like, the first time you go to like a house rave yeah, that's a house rave and you're dancing to the same Millwall football hooligans who'd be chasing you through Bermondsey. Yep, and now dancing together with you and hugging you up and being like you. Alright, mate, yeah, can I get you a drink? Like what? What happened happened to you?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know I mean I'm post, that I just want to move it forward a bit. In terms of running and random crew and how you came up with random crew in terms of coming out of the rave scene or coming out of djing and some djs that didn't make it, yeah, and how we decided to look after ourselves, yeah, post djing or during djing. At the time when you get older, yeah, and um, you go through popularity to no popularity and reinventing yourself and dealing with all that, because, as you know, both of us know a lot of people who are famous or have been famous and when they've lost that fame, how psychologically they deal with that and also, at their height, how they manage their fame as well. And I think the concept you came up with, rondim Kuri, about looking after yourself and running, because it's a really good thing to do, where did that come from? Was that from those learnings, do you think, or that?
Speaker 4:all came from the, you know, combustion of Mo Wax yeah my deal with Mo Wax and Sony Records, yep and Attica Blues. So in the early 90s, you know, met this guy, james Lavelle, who starts his independent record label called Mo Wax. That goes on to be really successful. I formed this band called Attica Blues with Tony Wachiku and Robert Esaway and we are basically kind of recording and putting out albums and 12 inches and doing remixes and having a very successful career. And then we signed to.
Speaker 4:Sony for this big, you know major label album deal and it doesn't work. It doesn't work out, we get dropped and then depression and the mental health gets really bad. And so run them was kind of like my you know thing that I was like, look, look, you know, running saved me. It's put me back together, it's know, it's introduced me to new experiences, new people, new worlds. I want to share this with as many people in my music community as possible, because when DJ Swing died I was devastated. I remember going to Swing's funeral and it was so many people there. I'm looking around this room and it's been like yo, like I love the fact that we're all here, but I don't like the fact that we're all here. Because of this reason, what can I start doing to kind of start helping the people I love and care for, who've influenced me and shaped my life?
Speaker 4:just be a bit around a bit longer, and so, you know, the idea for the crew came up, and I'm a big, you know reggae head, so I think I'm looking at a Scare them record one day. Scare them crew, run them, you know reggae heads.
Speaker 4:So I think I'm looking at a scare them record one day and I'm like, scare them crew, run them, you know, and then to run them comes about and then basically, you know, we just kind of make it as anti running, traditional running as we can. So we give it untraditional name and we run it in an untraditional manner and we call on untraditional people to come through.
Speaker 3:And it grows into this phenomenon, you know, which has been amazing. So I mean, this man's so humble, you know, and he's so humble. That's the sort of periphery you know I mean. So what he did, people, was bring a lot of people from all different parts of the world or genders, sexuality, creative, right on a vibe and create a family of people only for socialising and to share their life stories.
Speaker 3:And what Charlie did was he used to have a thing called housekeeping at the beginning, and he would share a lot about himself. He would share a lot about his trouble not troubles, but difficulties and he's working through it. He made himself vulnerable. He showed us how to express vulnerability and to show the benefits of it, and that was a very, very brave thing to do. And I think what it did was it created a large community of people to help express, get therapy run together, and there was nothing about anybody who came, who were famous or not. It was stripped of all that and it gave a huge community and beyond a new way. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3:That's what you did thank you very much thanks for the all edge the highlights but, that's what you did you know what it is.
Speaker 4:It's kind of obviously that kind of growing up in South London. There were the big characters who they walked in the dance.
Speaker 4:Everyone knew who they were yeah, yeah, yeah and then there were those other cats who came in and you didn't really know who they were, but they just had a thing about them. Energy, yeah, energy about them. And I've always been more drawn to kind of like those kind of guys. They walk in with a plastic watch but underneath the bed they've got a million quid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I always say to people I'm known by those who need to know me thank you you know.
Speaker 4:And so when you you know, because all the young kids who come running, they're like man, I can't believe that man don't know about you, man, and I'm just like, yeah, it's cool, that's fine.
Speaker 3:When the time is right, they will know how do you manage to handpick the right people to bring along? Because what you can do is start something and it can go out of control. Keep that vibe and that love.
Speaker 4:I just run it like it's a warehouse party from back in the day.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:So when I literally look at it, when I'm at the front doing housekeeping, I look at who's arrived and I'm like, right, okay, who's not here? And then we go out and recruit those people.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, because for me, it's never about who's in the room, it's about who's not there. And what can I do to get them into the building?
Speaker 3:Do you know what the skill that you brought that I realised is, and it switched back on my? It's your reading of energy and energies and the wholesome energy that you have to bring. So you know if it's working and it's not. So just to give you guys some context. Right, I was at a concert in Barbican, a Jay Diller concert. Jeff was there, you know. All the guys were there and I'm going home really amped up with all the classical music. It was a classical hip hop. I think it was fantastic. P P. I was like who's that? Only certain people call me P in a certain way from back in the day, because nobody can be that familiar, right? I?
Speaker 2:turn around.
Speaker 3:It's this man here, charlie Dark, and he's now and Sancha, and he's Sancha on me right and Sancha, bless her peace to you. Sancha did the work and said why don't you come running? I ain't doing that running and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I play football. I do that. Why don't you run? That's typical ignorance or something like that. And she had all the answers and then I said let me go because I knew you from back in the day. And I said let me just go and I was curious and then everybody just made me feel welcome and I didn't have to have oh, I know this person or I'm a DJ, and that was all stripped and I actually found that welcoming, so I could just be and slide in there and just be that and I didn't make a big deal out for you and you didn't special me out or anything like that. Special me out or anything like that. And you just conducted it and the way I saw you do that it was amazing. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4:so I just chilled it just like, brought some calm, just like instantly yeah it's important for me to have people in there, you know, who know me from back in the day, and I mean know me from re. You know me from back in the back, in the back in the day, yeah yeah there. Then there's people who know me from DJing there's people who know me from the teaching.
Speaker 4:You know people know me from running, but it's really important for me to have the people who know me from back in the, back in the day, because when they're in there, that's when you know you're doing something right you know, that's when you know you're like some magic is happening and my whole thing is like I really do not care who you are, what you've done, how much money you've got, what school you went to, what class you're from.
Speaker 4:Do you mean sexuality? It doesn't, it's irrelevant to me. All my thing is are you bringing good energy into the space and are you willing to be open to the energy from other people? Because if you are, then we're going to have to run the best gatherings that we possibly can.
Speaker 3:Do you know what? It acts as a filter for me because obviously you and I know loads of people, right, yeah, but you're like me, I know loads of people, but loads of people don't know me, if that makes sense. Right, you let certain people in, but, um, and I think that's reset the criteria of friendships that I was going to have going forward. Yeah, you know, whether they've been from back in the day or not, and it acts as a filter. I thought I sort of shared a lot of the negativity in my life in terms of the criteria, because I learned that from kids who were younger than me to older, and they all, just sort of like, completed where I wanted to be in the gaps, and I think that was really helpful. So, respect for that with the flowers and that, no problem at all, man.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think one of the things that we don't realize is that because we came into hip hop at the time we did we grew up around a lot of toxic male masculinity, yeah, energy, yes, it's actually pretty toxic to be around and I think actually you don't realize it. You know, I didn't really realize it until, like, and I go back to new york and I might spend time or bump into like old school cats and be like yo man, you know what? I can't believe that I've followed you like the bible. Yeah, because you are really flawed human being, totally just like I can't even believe it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so that's been kind of like, or we've grown, or we've grown, yeah, but I just yeah, but definitely. But I think energy and the energy people bring is really important. Yeah, yeah, it's like, it's really, and I think that having kids taught me that, yeah, because the kids come home from school, they'd be like I'm not friends with Jenny anymore. Yeah, like, what are you talking about? I was your best friend yesterday. She did something I don't like and then as parents, we like, we try and force yes, them to have the relationship, because I'm not having it. And that's okay, you're allowed to do that. What do you mean? You're allowed to do that because no one has the right to make another person feel bad.
Speaker 3:But you're absolutely right. But what I like about what Run them Crew did is it's also celebrating who we are and not feeling bad about who we are. So, what that means is yeah, we're going to bring street style into running. We are going to bring street style into running, yep, yep. We are going to bring hip hop and house and all those music into running, because it's quite middle class, especially long distances, not 100 metres and 200 metres Long distance, the Sebastian Coes, the Steve Ovets, you know, that was the front of that.
Speaker 4:Steve Ovets was those super, wasn't he super working class, though, was he? Yeah, coes was the stush one.
Speaker 3:Was the stush one. Was the stush one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, even though the really long distance Ethiopians and stuff were doing the long ones in terms of British long distance running or jogging, that was quite a white middle class activity. Yeah, definitely, we weren't allowed to run on street back in the day. We'd be getting arrested. We couldn't run like that, that for no reason, especially if you don't have the clothes.
Speaker 4:If we're running, we're running because we're doing something criminal or we're running for survival yes, exactly you know, like many hip hop jam, yeah, had to run out of course.
Speaker 3:So to run for leisure or for fitness, now with a different, is what I thought was really helpful, because running because you needed to do something. So running away, yeah, is a really new good perspective on exercise and you're outwardly showing the society where you are.
Speaker 4:It's empowering and it's funny. What's really interesting now? I was thinking about this on the way here. Remember back in the day like every kind of black neighbourhood would have the one black guy who had the racing bike, of course yeah, not the truck, the rally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, the rally.
Speaker 4:And he's like he'd have to like the gear as well the helmet and the proper cycling tights. And you know, you look at him. The equivalent now is the roadman runner yeah you've got like these characters who, basically they run every day and they're just out there doing their thing and I love it.
Speaker 3:I think it's really, really, really brilliant. I love it. You've got a roadman right. You've got a roadman doing poetry and doing self-expression and then you're bringing the younger working no, not working upper class young ladies and whatever right and you'll teach them and you'll speak to them in street slang. So what you're doing is you're teaching them, you're letting them reach out into areas culturally that they otherwise wouldn't do that.
Speaker 4:I run it like a party.
Speaker 4:It's amazing the best parties I've ever been to you know, this is the thing that I always say to people is like, obviously I love DJing to a room full of my own people, but the best parties I've ever DJed in the world is where there are people from everywhere in there, because they just all. And also at the time I started running them, you know East London was going through mass gentrification Yep, so you got this thing. It's not like in New York, where it's like the black families had the brownstone for like 50 years and then they're selling it to another black family.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You got people being like I bought my house for five grand in an area that no one wanted to live in. Now it's worth a million, I'm selling up and I'm going back to Jamaica. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm doing. Yeah, exactly, I'll sell it to whoever pays me the most money, so you've got these people moving into these new areas who don't really haven't come from community. Yeah, Don't know about how to be in community.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 4:And you know one of my, really someone I know, jane Howarth. Norman, jay's wife taught me a really big lesson because she, when I first met her, she lived on the Barrier Block estate in Brixton. Do you know that estate?
Speaker 3:Is that the one leading up to? Is that one of the zigzags on the front of the estate? Yeah, yeah, yeah like it looks.
Speaker 4:It looks okay now, but back in the day that place looked crazy and she's, like you know, probably like five foot, just you know I love it, five foot.
Speaker 3:Just I'm still doing that white woman art student when I met her and she's living in this estate and it's just yardies, crackheads.
Speaker 4:And I'm just like how are you on here and you're just safely, she's raving coming in three, four in the morning, no one's troubling her. And I remember one day asking her like how are you doing it? And she was just like you know, when I first moved in I just went round and introduced myself to like all of the most notorious people on the estate.
Speaker 4:And now I don't have any problems. So then that just made me this thing. I'm like you know, because I've got people coming running and being like you know, I just bought this house and these kids are sitting on my wall and I just want them to get off. I just don't understand what to do. I'm just like yeah, no, I'd rather just go and make some cakes, exactly you know what that's so scary we had.
Speaker 3:I suddenly had a murder around the corner from my house and they're having a wake and they're all sitting on my wall and people don't know what to do. All my neighbours who are mixed from all different areas and gentrification and stuff like that and they're having a drink up. I went to the off-line and got them some ice yeah Right, and gave them the ice to put in their drinks and they can have them at the success signal Don't worry, because you know they may not have had. You know boundaries and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:But I said, look, do your thing people don't understand about community and it's like this idea of like I can just exist in my neighbourhood as an island. It does not work exactly don't work.
Speaker 3:You've got to reach in or be scared.
Speaker 4:You've got to reach in or be scared, and the thing I know again about growing up old school South London is like if you didn't have people you could call on, life got really lonely and hard because at some point to call on someone Exactly, or you need to know who to call on or know who your enemies are yeah To do with certain situations.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, Run them.
Speaker 4:I'm super proud of Run them and I love the fact that there's been this running renaissance and there's all these young cats out there doing their things and it's been brilliant and it's transformed my life.
Speaker 3:And many others exponentially. And not only that did that people. So I'm going from interview mode to talking to the people out there. The only thing that he did right, I'm slapping him up with more flowers is he created Random Radio.
Speaker 3:Now, this is the reason why I'm here and why I created 45 to 45. But during the pandemic, you know, we're all stuck, et cetera, et cetera. We didn't know what to do.
Speaker 3:Fortunately for me, when DJing dried up or it did definitely dry up because of the pandemic I had my turntables and I always get them. I've got money in my, it's like in my passage, but it's like a side. Do you know what I mean? So I can walk through it, so they're always in my eyesight when I'm and my record was always there for inspiration and it was always there so I could go to there and do it, so you can reset to your hobbies. And I was listening to the music, I thought, oh, I'm a DJ and this man, you know, when Charlie Dark calls you, you've got to come right. But the way he does it, he just comes in like whoa, this phantom attack. I was like, uh oh, am I either in trouble or he's got an idea that he's going to run by you and he's going to peel your head off right and well, you tell me what the conversation went like it was mad.
Speaker 4:it was like I just remember, you know I've been doing World Wide FM during the pandemic. I started getting back into DJing during the pandemic again and you know the idea was like let's start an internet radio station wicked brilliant. Let's an internet radio station Wicked brilliant, let's get some people. My thing is always like I don't want to just have the usual suspects and I like creating situations where people I love, respect, admire, can come in and thrive. And so obviously I've known you since I was at primary school. You're one of the first DJs I've known, one of the most skilled DJs I've ever met in my life, and so I'm like this guy needs to be on there. And then but why? You know what I was interested about the conversation was like why doesn't he want to do it? I don't understand. Does he not see the light that I see?
Speaker 4:so now I've just got to relentlessly be on this guy's case because, ultimately, it's really important that people like yourself are out there, sharing your talents, telling your stories, because we haven't heard them. Yeah, and there's like so much we hear from the usual suspects all the time, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are all these other characters who've got amazing stories, who can help fill in the gaps of knowledge, so we get more of a complete story. You know, and you saw that and like I saw that, I saw that I was like this guy has to be on there but the dark just came down right and I sat on it.
Speaker 3:I was fighting with myself, but what I was trying to do is solutionize. And you guys, you said to me don't overthink it, just do it just come, do it because I never I never overthink things.
Speaker 3:Before when I was younger I just did it for whatever reason. So you and he made it fun and I did it and then. And then he said I was like you said to me, this is really, really deep. You said, don't think about why you're doing it, but you don't know what's going to come out of it. So you didn't put pressure on me to make your thing a success. You put you sort of about you never know what it's going to lead to. As a result.
Speaker 4:So it's like a rebirth of who I was. I'm always doing that. If I see something in you that I think you haven't seen, I'm calling you up to tell you, like do you realise that you're doing that and I do this for so many people?
Speaker 3:across so many different industries and that's what we love about you, charlie man.
Speaker 4:Thank you I think you know, for a long time I started to question my purpose, like what's your purpose in life, charlie? Yeah, yeah, and I think my purpose is just to kind of create spaces where I can bring people together and they can encourage other people to be the best that they can be.
Speaker 3:You've got a lot to answer for boy, because I'm loving it it's a great show and it's doing so much for other people and it's bringing that that little light that you reignited. I thank you for that man, the flowers you know.
Speaker 4:This is just a thank you for you giving me the light, because I can remember coming to your. You know your house. I can't remember if you were living in an estate or not?
Speaker 3:yeah, man same one.
Speaker 4:So I remember coming there you know, which again is a bit of a mission. Oh my god, this is your state and then walk into your bedroom and it's like mini New York is in there and this guy's like do you want me to come out and get you to make sure you can come in.
Speaker 4:Remember those ones, them top boy ones and this guy's got turntables and the mixer and he's in it. But also he's kind of like he's taking this to the level. And when you meet, you know, when you walk into someone's house and you look at the mixer and it doesn't look used, you're not serious. And those days you go in someone and their mixer was battered, you can see the fader and I can just see the fader the paint that's gone off. Yeah, I can remember the silver poking through on the black paint it was even like a Gemini.
Speaker 3:Gemini.
Speaker 4:I can remember was it one with the wooden side yes, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like okay, this guy has got the actual mixer that Cash Money uses, yeah, and he's in there practicing. Yeah, stop messing about Charlie, let's get on this music thing.
Speaker 3:Let's make it happen and you know what I think about Reconnected Review at that time because my mum didn't want me to speak um slang because, my mum didn't want me to speak slang, but she realised that I had to speak slang to communicate across the board to survive.
Speaker 3:but I had to speak both and you and I were both well spoken people, we were both bilingual. We were bilingual, we were both well spoken, so we could speak all quite erudite, and that was quite rare, and when police used to come and try and grab me, I'd just switch it on. Yeah, and I just realised how powerful music and language was at that time. Yeah, most definitely. But anyway, listen, we're going to rock on to the next tune here. What I like about this tune is it's a great choice, and I'll tell you about Richie Rich and Daddy Rich and why Daddy Rich?
Speaker 3:changed his name, have the same name, but this tune as well Sass at House by Richie Rich.
Speaker 4:this tells me, but this tells me about your transition and your wider, non-ignorant, inclusive approach to music no-transcript where the transition between hip-hop, early jungle, early rave, early hardcore is starting to mesh up, early house. And then we're having the parties with the reggae guys and the dub guys providing the sound system. So you get the B-line, which now means that people are making tunes with the sound system in mind and it reminds me of Carn are providing the sound system. So you get the b-line, which now means that people are making tunes with the sound system in mind, and it must be carnival, yeah, and shock sound system yes um, yeah and yeah, just kind of like again this opening of a new world, because again, I think people don't remember like at that point it was like house.
Speaker 4:You know, hardcore jungle was seen as like devil music, techno was like devil music what are you listening to that for? And then you'd go to these raves and have this amazing eye-opening time. It was almost unexplainable.
Speaker 4:It was a multicultural, multi-generational, all people from all over the place it was great and this tune just reminds me of that and it's like often when people ask me about records, that's like that's the one. It's the first time I've actually spoken about that record, richie Rich's House, house. It's the tune. It still works to this day. The bass drop everything and it's one of those tunes, I think, that sorts the good sound systems out from the bad sound systems.
Speaker 3:Frequency wise. Yeah, you know, for me this tune was like I was battling because I was a hip-hop, hardcore, hardcore hip-hop person, right, because people used to hate it so much I was like, but because I liked all different types of music and I was even though I liked house music, like from Chicago that was from Americans, and when they're trying to do it over here and they merged it, I was like this song's like, oh okay, this song's good Richie. He was into his hip hop but you could tell he had a wider idea of what he could do and what can be done and I think he was very brave and had a very wide expression and he showed what can we do as a black person without being stereotyped.
Speaker 4:I mean, I don't, didn't he become like a born again Christian or something? That's why he gave up production? Yeah, wow. But I would love to like I don't even know if he's still alive, still around. I'd love to find out, like the story of that record, because it's it's like an alien tune yeah, yeah, it was it's the B side, not even the A side record what is it?
Speaker 3:the B side? I can't remember Flash or whatever.
Speaker 4:I can't remember what the A side is. I've never played the A side. It's actually like the second tune on the B-side.
Speaker 3:So my cousin Danny Rich obviously heard about Richie Rich and instead of having arguments he just changed his name to Danny Rich, so both of the people could exist. And I thought that was quite mature for back in those days when they were fighting over that as well.
Speaker 4:I keep forgetting that Danny Rich is your cousin. That's so crazy.
Speaker 3:So he changed his name. So there's no scuffling, because you could see what used to happen when you're making music and you make music at that time to escape something else. You don't bring what you're running from to that and I think some artists can still bring that with you and then you're not advancing, you're just bringing your shit to well you know, I always say to people I wish that hip hop had arrived in the UK with De La Soul.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because I think when it arrived, it kind of arrived at this kind of super hardcore attitude which just meant that people got into it and then they thought, well, in order to be into this, you've got to be super hardcore yeah, yeah and then that's when you have this whole period when people are getting taxed at jams and it's all a bit violent and a bit scary and it's kind of like every time you go out you don't know if you're really going to get home with one piece.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, but you know what Della Soul and my friend they were. They epitomised who I was in terms of geeky, quirky, bit goofy, bit nerdy, and into all different types of music.
Speaker 4:I see you and you and us very similar to that sort of ilk of being yeah, I'm posh it's like yeah, I just think what happens is when you've grown up in areas that are a bit gnarly yeah, there's nothing glamorous about violence yeah it's just like there's not really and I, although I used to love DJing in the clubs, where there was a possibility of a firearm being pulled out, yeah, yeah, yeah, or some altercation going on.
Speaker 4:Actually, you know, the thing I do remember is that whenever I've been in those environments and something's gone down, it's not, it's not, it's not like the movies yeah, exactly you know, and um, there's a lot of trauma, there's a lot of yeah, dude, I had a situation after like a live to London jam, westford, jam, yeah, yeah, in Vaux in the queue, and then there was a fight inside, and then this fight spills out afterwards and I'm at the cab office, you know, waiting for my night bus to go home.
Speaker 3:I know exactly where you are you know exactly where I am.
Speaker 4:The bus around the corner, yeah and the guy comes to me with a knife like he's just, and I remember just staring at him and I had to kind of front the guy out and I just thought at that moment I was like I'm done, yeah, that's it. I'm like you know what? The jazz dance scene is sitting over there quite nicely, and the house and rave thing is there and let's get into that.
Speaker 3:You know, some decisions are made are naturally inspired, but some of them done out of fear or a negative thing where you have to do that. I make that change, and well done for surviving that as well, man.
Speaker 4:I wasn't rolling with. You know, some people would roll with a big crew when they went to jams. Yeah, yeah, I was rolling either solo or with one friend, yeah, so I'm kind of like this is too much for me.
Speaker 3:There's other elements of this hip hop thing that I can be into and still have my foot in the culture about having to actually be at every jam yeah, and again, the front end of hip hop can be the rapper or the face, but it's not actually the characters behind it. Like me, you, de La Soul, who actually love different types of music and are geeky and will not play necessarily hip hop in our house, will play rock or some.
Speaker 4:I mean Latin jazz and stuff like that and it also figures you go to America and you hang. You know you're in New York and you're hanging out with rappers and you're just like you lot. Some of those guys were just like you're actually not cool. Yeah, exactly, there's nothing about your life that I'm witnessing in real life that actually is as attractive as it sounded on the record exactly so I'm like you know what, or DJs I was hanging around in New York fortunately were.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let them get on with it. Or sit down, listen to breaks or watch you know a cool film or independent film and look for samples in soundtracks and do the homework for our next albums or for our next ideas to move the thing forward rather than being at the front of the camera doing stuff.
Speaker 4:Well, also you had. You're hanging with dudes who understand the power of the UK.
Speaker 3:Yeah they do.
Speaker 4:Because we've all had that thing where you're hanging out with the American rapper who thinks they're a bad boy, until they come to South London, exactly, exactly, and then all of a sudden he's just like Fish out of water, fish out of water. Or you had that thing where you're in New York and you're black and you speak with an English accent and they're actually looking at you like you're putting it on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, I know, are you for real? Are you for real, exactly?
Speaker 4:I actually really speak.
Speaker 3:Well, look, let's get on to this last tune. Man, this is again Black Renaissance by Mr Whittaker. This is a really good, pivotal point for us to talk about where we were to, where we are and where we're going, and the Renaissance, how you see it, and I want to talk about it as well yeah, no-transcript ¶¶ guitar solo.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:So that's Black Renaissance by Harry Whittaker man, break that one down, look at the smile on his face, man.
Speaker 4:If you only have one record and you own one jazz record in your record collection and you don't want it to be John Coltrane Love Supreme, then Black Renaissance Hollywood's Car is what you need. I first heard this record probably around 1987.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 4:Maybe 87, 1988. I heard it at Dingwalls. Giles Peterson played it Sunday. Yeah, I heard it at Dingwalls, giles Peterson played it. Sunday yeah, Sunday session at Dingwalls. Giles Peterson played it and the. I remember when it came on it was in darkness, the whole room was in darkness and this bass line, you know, the start is very kind of atmospheric, spiritual, and then the bass line comes in with the bend yeah, atmospheric spiritual, and then the bass line comes, being with the bend, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then it the roads, and then it the tune starts, and I'm just like yo what is this tune?
Speaker 4:and at that point, through good speakers as well, through good times, yeah, it's through like jerry j sound system yeah, jay's brother's sound system, so it's like you're listening to it on the reggae sound system.
Speaker 4:So the bay line is like crazy yeah and you know I couldn't get to the record box in time and the dingwalls record box at that point was on a platform, yeah, yeah, raised. So it was like you know and I can just remember giles taking it off, putting the record back in the sleeve and just catching a little bit of it's a black sleeve with like a red sunset yeah, yeah, yeah and that stayed in my head and I'm like what is that record? Never, ever knew what it was. Fast forward to plastic people. So we've got to be like three years later.
Speaker 4:No, this is like. So I would have heard this for the first time in 80 kind of 87 88. Okay, yeah and then I've been a bit in plastic people at 99, 2000, yeah, so it's a good, like you know time yeah and I'm in plastic people one day and you know class people was like pitch black.
Speaker 4:And then, out of the darkness, I hear this record. I'm freaking like, oh my god, that's the tune, yeah, yeah, yeah, the actual tune. And no one's got this record like. This record was mythical. It was kind of like you know, I'd found out that basically I knew what it was by the time I heard it.
Speaker 4:For the second time, but it was a thousand pound record. You didn't see this record. There's no discogs, yeah. Yeah, this is not, and I'm travelling the world at this time and I'm hunting. No one knows it. No one's got it.
Speaker 4:I've been to Japan three, four, five times, never seen it you catch it in New York downstairs records nah man because it got bootlegged, yeah, and pressed in Japan, and so I'm in Plastic People and Ade plays the record, and you can always tell a great record, because all the producers suddenly appear out of darkness and just rush the things like what is that?
Speaker 4:and I'm like, oh my god, that's the record. And then he tells me this whole story about kind of like you know, being a student and him selling like loads of stuff to buy, you know, this thousand pound record, you know, so he could, and then building this sound system so that you could hear this magical record in his own club, and I'm like, yo, this is a moment. I've got like three, four copies of this record now.
Speaker 3:Make sure.
Speaker 4:It's been reissued a few times, but it's an amazing, amazing record and I think it's kind of one of those like it's one of those records when it's in my record box and particularly when I'm doing an overseas gig and we get to play it, then I know it's been a good night how many records you got you on 50k? Nah, not at all like I used to be. It used to be mental, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know I was mental, but now probably between 15 and 20. Yeah, yeah it's not mad anymore.
Speaker 2:I can't you know. Yeah, yeah, can't you know I've got children. I've got.
Speaker 4:You know, mrs Partner, I've got dogs, cats. Like you can't have the mad record collection because, again, it's kind of like I realised it's getting to the point where I had a bit of a museum and a lot of stuff, but I wouldn't really listen to it. So, um, you know, it's an ever growing battle. Well, my reason my record collection away when I was a teenager, on one of them, garden trips. One day I came home and the whole record collection was packed.
Speaker 3:And she was just like you know because she was like.
Speaker 4:You know, this guy, all he wants to do is DJ. Yeah, yeah, so I had to sell something.
Speaker 3:Man yeah, Finance stuff yeah.
Speaker 4:So I just got to the point where I said to move to move, but in terms of how does that sound like a show?
Speaker 3:I think the title is very important, especially now.
Speaker 4:I mean, that record made me was one of the records that encouraged me to do Blacktronica. Yep, you know, and this idea of like for people that know, you know, I started this night at the ICA called Blacktronica, which is all about kind of blinging black culture around from various different places and putting it together in like a mixing pot and kind of like presenting this night, you know, from Carl Craig to Coltrane and everything in between. Yeah yeah, because there's more to black music than hip hop and R&B.
Speaker 3:See another one of his pioneering vibes while covering on, go on.
Speaker 4:So you listening to has been marginalized and also my experience of being an attica was just like people are like we love this music but you're the wrong shades to be making this music.
Speaker 4:Why are you doing this? It was over to explain ourselves. Yes, yeah, like, because I like suck at mcs by running mc like you're not hearing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and I've been to america and cleared the floor of a disney rascal record, like just cleared 500 people off the floor in like a new music seminar. People were just like what is this? Like you're playing. The guy made it on a Playstation. Take this shit off, man like so in terms of relationships.
Speaker 3:What's next for you? Where do you think you're going as a person?
Speaker 4:alright, so for me going forward.
Speaker 4:I want a school, I want to have my own school wicked and it's a school like a school of a difference, you know, because I think there's a lot of stuff that you go that school doesn't prepare you for, wow. And then also, I, I want to have a school where basically creatives can come and learn from other creatives but the stuff that they don't teach you in university, because, as you know, it's kind of it's like being an mc, yeah, but the mic has never dropped out, the cable's never dropped out it's funny that you should say that because I'm teaching at the architectural association big up, uh, thea lorenz and I'm teaching sound and sound acoustics.
Speaker 3:now they're. Now they're learning how to be an architect and design buildings and they're looking at traditional design. It's not going back to Egypt, but it's also looking at the Renaissance, ironically with Italy and all the buildings that was happening there. But what I'm teaching them about is bass and treble, those frequencies, what they mean and why they're important in music. And you know, I've got different students from china yeah korea, japan and from a colonial sonical thing.
Speaker 3:having classical music and having that knowledge is where they, where they go, where the money, um or class comes from in that. But talking about 808 sounds and beats and drums and sound effects and how um, bass, bass is not oppressive, it's actually in your soundscape anyway. So I'm filling those gaps in terms of sonically, how they have to do that and those are the gaps that I'm filling in. And it's also putting black music in their place in time as well to give them a full, well-rounded education as well.
Speaker 3:So, those gaps is what I'm trying to do, that as well. So I hear where you're coming from with your school things as well. Yeah, so those gaps is what I'm trying to do, that as well so I hear where you're coming from with your school things as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, school of Dark, we're trying to bring that to life. Obviously, we bought this sound system, so we're now kind of in sound system life, going to start taking that around and doing dances and events with that. Are you excited about that? Yeah, really excited. There's something really amazing you love? Yep, on your own sound system. The way you very first heard them. Yes, and I realised there were so many records that the first time I heard them, I heard them through a reggae sound system.
Speaker 4:Yes, and I've been searching for this sound for so long yeah and now I've finally found it, I'm like, oh my gosh, like finally I can play these records how I want them to sound but I used to listen to, because I didn't have decent headphones or, back in those days, or a crap sound system so.
Speaker 3:I'm a radio at home when I've heard them on a proper speaker, I had a whole different relationship with them.
Speaker 4:When these frequencies came out, I was like wow yeah, yeah, it's just like Sonics is really, you know, interesting to me. Yeah, and it's, I think, a lot of times the problem we have with a lot of music at the moment, particularly music black music from my past, yes is people are not getting to hear it how it was supposed to sound, right, so you're listening to like you know. There's a difference between hearing royale is running away through like a dub system yes, at carnival and hearing that same record in a bar on a friday night for a little mackie speaker Exactly, it's not going to hit you the same way and compresses an MP3.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's not going to hit you the same way, and so my thing is like I mean let's have this again. Let's basically have this thing that we can share with people, because the whole idea of come and learn about sound systems stringing boxes you know what I mean. It's like you know, because obviously, as soon as you announce you've got a sound system, everyone's like I need to come and play. You're like the first thing you need to do is come and lift some boxes.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:Box boys. Yeah, Do your apprenticeship. You've got to do. You know what I mean. You've got to feel the cables you've got to feel the science there's a thing. It was really interesting because we've had the system out in like a couple of days over the past weekend by the time you get home, you physically feel like you've been lifting the music.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, exactly because it's like exactly you're knackered you know, and I love that yeah, you've got a better relationship and appreciation for it all more.
Speaker 4:Run them, of course. Keep doing. Run them more public speaking. You know, being the best dad that my kids need me to be, not the best dad that I wish that I'd had wow yeah, mic drop, that's a mic drop, yeah that is deep, that is deep that's because you can spend a large amount of time trying to be the dad that you never had yes, as opposed to being the one.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm learning? That I've got a relationship with my I hate to say it great-grandnieces and nephews, and they're looking to me for that as well, and I'm learning a lot about myself in terms of parenting and it's making me more rounded as an individual, and that you just encapsulated exactly what that vibe is. I can't articulate it for everybody, but what you just said there was really, really important yeah, that's like that's the big thing for me, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's kind of like kind of really crazy, because obviously we have kids.
Speaker 4:It's kind of like you know, they take up time of course, of course my son this morning learnt how to put his in his mouth to soothe himself. I actually had half an hour just staring at this boy doing that, you know. Meanwhile there's like a thousand emails going off. I'm actually like you know what. This is an important time we need to spend this time.
Speaker 3:Well, last thing I want to say one quick thing is Charlie Dark MBE, right, right like not MC Charlie Dark like MBE right? What was that like? Like meeting the royal family, getting that free letter through the door, bro, that's a mad thing, man, that's a mad thing.
Speaker 4:Erm, I found out on the way I was on the way to New York, so I was at Heathrow.
Speaker 4:I was literally just about to get on my plane. I was late for my plane. I was running through the airport and my phone's pinging off. It's like ah, sanjay, why are you calling me? Finally get to the gate, pick it up. She's like, babe, there's a really important letter that's arrived. I think it's official. She's got official writing on the outside. I think I'm going to need to open it. I'm like, okay, cool, she opens it up and she starts screaming. I'm like what's going on? I'm like what's going on? She's like you've just been awarded an MBE for services to running and young people. I start crying. I just start crying in the airport. And the reason why I start crying is because I've been through so much tribulation with my family about my life choices and career choices and actually I was like I've done it. I've actually done it and I remember calling my mum. She was so super excited and you know know, meeting the royal family. I've done.
Speaker 4:I did a tv program in the royal family, about um, about running london round from before. So I've met them before. Mad call um. And you know, going to the palace and having all of that is pretty wild, it's a pretty wild, it's mi5 and all of that you know, but it's kind of I there was no doubt in my mind about accepting.
Speaker 4:I spoke to a few people though, yeah, because I think, particularly with black people now, if you accept an honor, yeah, man, there's a lot of backlash. Yeah, yeah, but my thing was kind of like you know I'm doing, I'm accepting this for my mum because we've been through some stuff together yeah, yeah, and you know, and also I'm accepting this for my mum because we've been through some stuff together, yeah, yeah, and you know.
Speaker 4:And also I'm accepting this for my kids because I don't want my kids to think that you can just keep being lackadaisical.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:Turning things down, because eventually what happens is the opportunities stop coming.
Speaker 3:But, this is listen first of all. Well, done, thank you much it epitomises what to do perseverance, but also maximising opportunity, creating opportunities and being known. But you did it the right way, you got acknowledged for it in the right way and you're still inspiring people and you're still approachable.
Speaker 4:I'm still trying to be approachable yeah, man, you're approachable.
Speaker 3:You took your licks very well, thank you for the flowers? No, man.
Speaker 4:Thank you for doing everything, man, and thank you for having me and thank you for being, you know, just a beacon of light during some dark times in south london back in the day. I mean because you know you definitely were like one of those people that I looked up to and just was like, well, he has done it. I mean, man's gone to new york, he's djing, he's living the culture he's kind of, and then he's come back and it's, it's possible. And to have someone else in your friendship circle actually has gone through kind of similar life story, yeah, and then arrived at the djing as well, was really empowering, because I think that a lot of people don't realize it's kind of.
Speaker 4:You know, there were certain individuals who just like just seeing them in the jam, just seeing them see you and give you the head nod like I see you it's unspoken language, because you know how hard they've had to work in order to be able to be in that moment, to enjoy that moment. And I always say to people there are certain people who if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing and they don't even realise the influence they've had on me and whenever I talk to them about it they get embarrassed. But I'm like it's really really important because I think you know you deserve your flowers because you were the guy, you're like one of the guys from foundation people who helped build this culture, and you know London would be very, very different creatively if it wasn't for people like yourself, pierre.
Speaker 3:Thank you, man. Listen, I'm not really going to take compliments, but You've got to learn to take compliments.
Speaker 4:As young black men, we've got to learn to take compliments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have to thank you for that but shut me up listen, thank you for joining 4545.
Speaker 3:Getting emotional here, love to you, man, thank you for everything you've done and what you're going to do, man lovely man, wicked, man, love you, man.
Speaker 4:Love you, take care, man Cheers.