Speaker 1: Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: What up, y'all is Liaiah and Welcome to another QLs classic.
Speaker 2: This episode is all about a pioneering DJ and record
Speaker 2: label owner named Giles Peterson. He talks about the politics
Speaker 2: of early pirate radio, how he broke artists like Jamarkua,
Speaker 2: Brand New.
Speaker 3: Heavies, and even the Roots, and his passion for helping
Speaker 3: the right music find the right audience. He is so dope.
Speaker 2: This episode was actually taped Brut's Picnic weekend June twenty
Speaker 2: eighth and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: This is episode thirty eight in June.
Speaker 4: Supremo s s Supremo.
Speaker 5: Roll called Suprema, Su su Supremo, roll call Suprima su Supremo,
Speaker 5: roll call Suprima.
Speaker 1: So sure I want y'all to know. Yeah, I'm being sincere.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Without Josh Peterson, Yeah, I would not be here.
Speaker 4: That was nice. Supremo.
Speaker 5: My name is Fante, Yeah, I say it proud. One
Speaker 5: of my favorite labels was talking loud.
Speaker 4: Supremo call Supremo.
Speaker 6: Sure, my name is Sugar. Yeah, I got that style,
Speaker 6: I got that smile.
Speaker 4: What's up Giant Supremo. Yeah, y'all don't know me. Yeah.
Speaker 4: We in Philly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he.
Speaker 4: Upremo role bass bell present.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: On this call of roll Yeah, quest Love Supreme Yeah,
Speaker 4: will make you whole.
Speaker 5: Braver Rod Supreme Supremo Rome.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah and I'm feeling right. Yeah, goddamn Jil Peterson. Yeah,
Speaker 3: whoa whoa.
Speaker 5: Supreme Suprema Roll Supremo, Suprema Rome.
Speaker 7: My name is Chiles Gill Peterson. Yeah, but I come from.
Speaker 1: Suprema Rome, Suprema So Supreme roudrem Son.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 4: Dog biling.
Speaker 1: Let's all admit that we didn't think that none of
Speaker 1: our roll call moments were going to be hot, but
Speaker 1: there was some bust.
Speaker 4: Of rhymes stealing moments in this rob We have at
Speaker 4: least three of them.
Speaker 3: First time smile whatever.
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Course
Speaker 1: Love Supreme, only on Pandora and our special guest today.
Speaker 1: I have to say, uh, he exemplifies the role of
Speaker 1: my favorite person in music, and that's the music that's
Speaker 1: the taste maker. The taste maker would be the guy
Speaker 1: that was in the know of what you didn't know
Speaker 1: about music. And it would spread. Sort of like what's
Speaker 1: what's a good term for virus?
Speaker 4: The virus?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 4: Is there a positive virus outrection these medical terms because
Speaker 4: they're like.
Speaker 1: They're like negative connotations, like it's influence spread like a
Speaker 1: virus trend.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because they even use the term like viral now,
Speaker 5: like viral marketing.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So yesus Giles is my favorite virus virus virus of
Speaker 1: all time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have to say that if it weren't for Jiles
Speaker 1: Peterson taking our organic CD and playing it in clubs
Speaker 1: in London way before, you know, back when it was
Speaker 1: just a demo that really started the buzz on on
Speaker 1: the roots being here today and us wanting to move
Speaker 1: to London and kind of bringing us to where we
Speaker 1: are now. So uh, one of my favorite people ever,
Speaker 1: literally this is Giles Peterson.
Speaker 4: Last welcome. Thank you very much. Yeah, Giles, now you're
Speaker 4: on my radio show. Yeah you know that you named
Speaker 4: my show. Yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, well, thank thank you for oh god,
Speaker 1: this is going to be a whole bunch of things.
Speaker 1: So okay, so what I'll say is that, okay, as
Speaker 1: of what makes this day really truly special even though
Speaker 1: we're not specifically getting on dates and time period, but
Speaker 1: as of this recording, this specific day that we're on.
Speaker 1: This was the Saturday twenty five years ago that when
Speaker 1: Tarika and I were watching Soul Train and saw that
Speaker 1: Spike lead commercial of the Bucket Drummer Chocolate playing that
Speaker 1: Levi's commercial.
Speaker 4: We looked at each other and like, Yo, why do
Speaker 4: we do that?
Speaker 1: So today, as we speak is the twenty fifth anniversary
Speaker 1: of the Roots as you know it. Not the oh
Speaker 1: we formed in high school and did some talent shows,
Speaker 1: but like when we got buckets, went to South Street
Speaker 1: and us start busting, Yeah, and we were square Roots,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'll say that in I guess I'll
Speaker 1: say in twelve or thirteen weeks later, this is when
Speaker 1: we started the process of recording the Organic's demo, which
Speaker 1: then really material around material material virus materialized into a
Speaker 1: CD so that we could go to Europe and sell
Speaker 1: it on some festivals that we were invited to, and
Speaker 1: somehow it made its way to Giles, who we were
Speaker 1: told with play it in nightclubs, which was like really
Speaker 1: weird for us because I thought the nightclub was the
Speaker 1: last place that the Roots whatever wind.
Speaker 4: Up dance session. I was thirteen minutes.
Speaker 1: No, I was like, see I played over here and
Speaker 1: it clears the floor instantly. But you know, I mean
Speaker 1: Giles's position. I'll say that he was my generation's John Peel.
Speaker 1: John Peel was the cat in London who you know,
Speaker 1: he took a chance on unknown groups. He lets you
Speaker 1: know who this unknown name Elvis Costello was or or
Speaker 1: who the clash was, and Steve frickd up Steve now
Speaker 1: writes for Elvis Costello. So basically I mean that that
Speaker 1: was the role. And then when we met, we we
Speaker 1: thought that we were going to sign to Giles's parent label,
Speaker 1: Talking Loud, Talking Loud. Well, we signed to Talking Loud,
Speaker 1: but we were going to sign to PolyGram, and then
Speaker 1: by a strange twist of fate, it became Geffen. But
Speaker 1: we still maintained the relationship with Giles Peterson to release
Speaker 1: our very first EP, like well widely distributed.
Speaker 4: EP, which was from the ground up on his label.
Speaker 4: And you know we lived over there. So wait, what
Speaker 4: I want.
Speaker 1: What I want to ask about is what you showed
Speaker 1: us in London during that time, Perio that the roots
Speaker 1: quote unquote exiled to London. Was there was such a
Speaker 1: scene going on, and we basically took that scene and
Speaker 1: reproduced it in America. We took everything that we saw
Speaker 1: you do and did it over here. So the idea
Speaker 1: of like clubs having multiple rooms of different DJs playing,
Speaker 1: you know, the jam band on the top floor and
Speaker 1: the disco floor was the third floor, and the you know,
Speaker 1: the techno music was on the second floor, and the
Speaker 1: soul music was on the first floor. Like, is that
Speaker 1: still prevalent now in London as it once was? Is
Speaker 1: this still a scene or you like the one of
Speaker 1: the last Mohicans still holding up?
Speaker 7: I think bigger than ever? Really really yeah, in.
Speaker 4: A way, some people like it's not the scene anymore
Speaker 4: as used. I think it's like, I think it's just
Speaker 4: a bit more DIY.
Speaker 7: I think that sort of the superclubs came along and
Speaker 7: people sort of sort to make something out of it
Speaker 7: bigger and people reacted to that. And I think that nowadays,
Speaker 7: if you go anywhere from Leeds to Manchester, Bristol, London
Speaker 7: on a Saturday night, there's a lot of stuff going on,
Speaker 7: a lot of big raves parties with alternative music being
Speaker 7: played in different rooms. And also there's actually a return
Speaker 7: to a live element which did go away for a
Speaker 7: little while, and I think that certainly at the moment
Speaker 7: in London and the South of England there's a very
Speaker 7: strong live in pro jazz scene.
Speaker 4: We can come back home now, mate.
Speaker 7: Honestly, it's really it's very interesting at the moment, you know,
Speaker 7: I think that maybe maybe it's more towards the jazz
Speaker 7: side of things with what Camasi did and the fact
Speaker 7: that that sort of energy has kind of come over.
Speaker 7: And then from the UK point of view, a huge
Speaker 7: set of musicians, groups like Sons of Kemet and groups
Speaker 7: like you know, artists like New Baio, Moses Boy does.
Speaker 7: A lot of musicians going on, and there's a really
Speaker 7: good community which there hasn't been for a while. So
Speaker 7: the club culture has always been there. That's really where
Speaker 7: I come from. I'm sort of a DJ club culture,
Speaker 7: acid house, acid jazz raves Germany, France, residencies all over
Speaker 7: the place, playing this kind of slightly alternative view of
Speaker 7: dance music because you know, when I grew up that
Speaker 7: I'd go to I used to go when I was
Speaker 7: seventeen sixteen, I'd go to sort of weekenders in horrible
Speaker 7: holiday resorts which were empty in winter and four or
Speaker 7: five thousand people would come from all over the country
Speaker 7: to listen to groups like Roye's Come Over or the
Speaker 7: Fat Back Band or or you know Clear or you
Speaker 7: know artists like Leroy Burgess would come to the UK
Speaker 7: and they would and we would celebrate that music and
Speaker 7: they'd be and they'd be a main room and they'd
Speaker 7: be playing sort of you know, all these big tunes
Speaker 7: from summer madness by calling the gang to I found
Speaker 7: Loving by the Fat Bat Band, and then there'd be
Speaker 7: another room at the back where you'd be hearing DJ's.
Speaker 7: I mean, that's the first time I heard John Coltrane
Speaker 7: Impressions wasn't in a jazz club. It was basically in
Speaker 7: the back of some sort of restaurant in some depleted
Speaker 7: holiday resort near Norwich on the North Sea right, and
Speaker 7: there's a DJ called Bob Jones playing Impressions or maybe
Speaker 7: Giant Steps by John Coltrane at full volume, with twenty
Speaker 7: people dancing to it, backling like like bee boys like
Speaker 7: you know so that and when I saw that, I
Speaker 7: was like, this is what I want.
Speaker 4: I love this music.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, didn't you once tell me
Speaker 1: the fante that the the most the most daring thing
Speaker 1: you ever saw was a DJ you'll played Return to
Speaker 1: Forever in a nightclub.
Speaker 4: It was was it in London or it.
Speaker 5: Wasn't in London, It was in Chicago, and it was
Speaker 5: a guy. It was Detroit guy, the Parish deal.
Speaker 6: Parish.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's Perish because I was going to say that
Speaker 1: the first time that I saw at Ceni, someone went
Speaker 1: back and forth on like the first sixteen bars of
Speaker 1: Love Supreme where they're really grooving, and that was one
Speaker 1: of my open, my eye opening moments, like, oh, like anything,
Speaker 1: if it's groovable, you can play it, because I would
Speaker 1: never think like it has a groove, But I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was danceable and I wasn't ever going to
Speaker 1: try that take that risk here in the United States.
Speaker 1: I mean we had like you know, King Britain and
Speaker 1: Dazi and those guys had a little scene in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: But even then there was no place for me to
Speaker 1: really test it out to see if it were work.
Speaker 1: But once I started going to Iceni and all those
Speaker 1: like those soul kitchen clubs over there, Yeah, and seeing
Speaker 1: you guys do that, that was that's what told me, like, oh,
Speaker 1: anything is playable if you play the right part and
Speaker 1: if you.
Speaker 4: Do it at the right time.
Speaker 1: So for you, when you were observing anything and going
Speaker 1: to these clubs, were you was this in the revival
Speaker 1: stage or was it in the first round, like when
Speaker 1: you were first going to clubs, Like how what year
Speaker 1: was it.
Speaker 7: We're talking nineteen eighty, We're talking cameo, you know, so you.
Speaker 1: Were in the first draft, not in the revival draft
Speaker 1: of like eighty nine to ninety, because by that point.
Speaker 7: You eighty eighty one eighty two. I mean, there were
Speaker 7: some British groups as well. There was a very interesting
Speaker 7: jazz funk scene in the UK. So there was groups
Speaker 7: like Light of the World, High Tension, Incognito. These are
Speaker 7: the groups that kind of precursed groups like Loose Ends
Speaker 7: and Soul to Soul, which came about seven or eight
Speaker 7: years later. So there was a really strong Level forty two.
Speaker 7: I was a huge Level forty two fan. I used
Speaker 7: to go and see them everywhere. I used to love Marking,
Speaker 7: who I met recently for the first time, the bass
Speaker 7: player and uh yeah, wonderful guy, wonderful and what underrated vocal,
Speaker 7: underrated voice, And I used to love that. So for me,
Speaker 7: there was the kind of one hand, there was this
Speaker 7: sort of fan of the band thing, and I'd go
Speaker 7: around like you know, you follow your favorite band. It
Speaker 7: was also a time of punk as well. It was
Speaker 7: just post punk, you know, so there was that thing
Speaker 7: where you kind of were you a punk or were
Speaker 7: you a soul boy? And I'd had to make my
Speaker 7: decision about what I wore and how I dressed. I
Speaker 7: was one of only three soul boys in my school
Speaker 7: the rest of the people and like being an outcast,
Speaker 7: outcast for real.
Speaker 4: The only reason I was only for black people and
Speaker 4: that yeah, it was.
Speaker 7: Kind of all working class in a London people, you know,
Speaker 7: like the urban urban people would be into it. And
Speaker 7: so for me, I had an Indian friend at school
Speaker 7: and a black African friend at school.
Speaker 4: We were the three soul boys.
Speaker 7: And the only reason I didn't get beaten up was
Speaker 7: because I was in the rugby team and by being
Speaker 7: a sporting guy in the school, it kind of gave
Speaker 7: me certain status and swagger.
Speaker 1: So who was when you were listening to radio? And
Speaker 1: I know that pirate radio, yeah, was a big thing.
Speaker 1: When did the idea of pirate radios start in London?
Speaker 4: Well? Was that always a thing, like even in.
Speaker 7: The fifties and no in the in the sixties, it
Speaker 7: came from the boats, so they used to and it
Speaker 7: was on medium wave. A movie about a movie about it, yeah,
Speaker 7: And that was basically they'd go out and they'd sort
Speaker 7: of go in neutral waters in the North Sea where
Speaker 7: they wouldn't get busted, and they'd broadcast on medium wave
Speaker 7: and they basically that was what Radio Luxembourg was and
Speaker 7: that radio station kind of gave the birth.
Speaker 4: Was the reaction to that by the BBC was to
Speaker 4: set up.
Speaker 7: Radio one and that was how Radio one became a
Speaker 7: non sort of talk station because up until that point
Speaker 7: the BBC was controlling radio and it was very classical opera,
Speaker 7: old school you know.
Speaker 2: Open I was about to ask you is to rest
Speaker 2: your radio different over there than here because by now
Speaker 2: you know differences the commercial.
Speaker 7: Radio, well, FM radio started kicking off in the seventies
Speaker 7: because all these radio stations in the beginning were like
Speaker 7: on medium wave, and that's where the pirate stations that
Speaker 7: really interested me, they were on FM. There was only
Speaker 7: a few stations locally, so like he'll have I don't
Speaker 7: know maybe in Philly, how many would there be twenty.
Speaker 3: Well like urban sta like we have BR and B
Speaker 3: and hip hop stater.
Speaker 7: So let's say we have two, okay, but if you
Speaker 7: include all the other types of denominations like twenty stations.
Speaker 7: So in London they'd have been back in the seventies,
Speaker 7: there'd have been maybe two commercial radio stations on FM
Speaker 7: and so maybe three with BBC we're playing a little bit.
Speaker 7: Maybe we'd be sort of doubling up on FM and
Speaker 7: on medium wave. The point was there was a need
Speaker 7: for music to be heard and so they weren't giving
Speaker 7: licenses out. So these people at a time when CB
Speaker 7: radio was quite popular, remember that that was kind of
Speaker 7: it was illegal in the UKCB radio wasn't over here
Speaker 7: because of your long distance lorry drivers, but over there
Speaker 7: is the illegal and you'd get You see, if you
Speaker 7: knew a bloker could build you a CB rig, they
Speaker 7: could also build you an FM rig. And so what
Speaker 7: happened was we started finding out that these guys could
Speaker 7: build us FM transmitters and then the station started popping
Speaker 7: up in the seventies, of which there was one soul
Speaker 7: jazz funk station called Radio and Victim ninety two point four.
Speaker 7: They used to broadcast every Sunday from midday until six.
Speaker 7: Is that where two seven nine started or DJ's seven nine. No, No,
Speaker 7: this is way before that. Okay, this is way before that.
Speaker 7: And that was the first station that I would listen to.
Speaker 7: I would listen to it in the in the bathroom
Speaker 7: of my house because that was the only place in
Speaker 7: the house that I could pick up the signal. And
Speaker 7: sometimes it would go on, and suddenly at fourth thirt
Speaker 7: in the afternoon, it would get busted and it would
Speaker 7: be off, and it would be off for two weeks,
Speaker 7: and you'd be waiting every week for it to come
Speaker 7: back on because it was the only place you could
Speaker 7: hear jazz funk music. The other place was there was
Speaker 7: a disco show on a Friday night called the Best
Speaker 7: Disco in Town, presented by Greg Edwards Life from the Lyceum.
Speaker 7: And then the other show was on a Saturday afternoon
Speaker 7: from midday to two presented by Robbie Vincent who did
Speaker 7: a probe. And the section that I loved from his
Speaker 7: show was the jazz Funk forty and he used to
Speaker 7: play Japanese jazz funk records and he'd play things like
Speaker 7: you know, open and Fire, but That's when I thought
Speaker 7: the first time I ever heard the Jones Girls Nights
Speaker 7: over Egypt was on Robbie Vincent and it was Christmas whatever,
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty two or three, whatever that were you. I'll
Speaker 7: never forget it. And he played it twice on the
Speaker 7: same show. It was that good a gun and I'll
Speaker 7: never forget. In fact, when I played at the Roots
Speaker 7: Picnic the other day when I was over here, I
Speaker 7: played that track as a memory to him, the connection
Speaker 7: between Philly and my pirate radio routes. But anyway, basically
Speaker 7: at that time it was just literally FM radio stations,
Speaker 7: of which some were pirates, and you would get busted
Speaker 7: every every couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: So two questions, how much would it cost you to
Speaker 4: start a pirate radio station? Well, I started my own
Speaker 4: pirate radio station. Oh, I was just that. The was
Speaker 4: that easy.
Speaker 3: Need a boat?
Speaker 7: No, no, this is FM, because by then it's FM.
Speaker 7: Sorry I didn't explain that. So but in the when
Speaker 7: it was mediumwave, it was on a boat. And then
Speaker 7: in the seventies, all you needed was you needed an
Speaker 7: aerial a transmitter, a car battery, a cassette player and
Speaker 7: a high point. Right and if you were if you
Speaker 7: were smart in London, you had the keys. There was
Speaker 7: four keys that opened up every council for block right
Speaker 7: every like block in London, right for you cheap accommodation
Speaker 7: block in London. So any high spot, if you had
Speaker 7: those four keys, you could get on every rooftop.
Speaker 4: So I had the four keys, really right the key.
Speaker 4: I had the keys.
Speaker 7: So that's how I got to know London. That's how
Speaker 7: I got to know London because I started off by
Speaker 7: I finally got my show myself because I sat at
Speaker 7: my little pirate station.
Speaker 4: Cost me with fifty pounds to get a rig.
Speaker 7: My dad used to take me up the road to
Speaker 7: episode where they have the horse racing, which is a
Speaker 7: high point in South London, and he basically helped me
Speaker 7: put the aerial up on a tree, connect the aerial
Speaker 7: to the transmitter, transmitter to the car battery, car battery
Speaker 7: and transmitter also to a cassette player that would play
Speaker 7: a C ninety and the forty five minutes a Saturday
Speaker 7: was my show which I recorded in my garden shed
Speaker 7: and I wanted to be a guy called Robbi Vincent
Speaker 7: who I mentioned before. And the other forty five was
Speaker 7: my next door neighbor called Ross Tinsley but otherwise known
Speaker 7: as Ross Travone. That was his radio name, and he
Speaker 7: wanted to be John Peel. And basically that was the
Speaker 7: hour and a half that we'd broadcast from a tree
Speaker 7: and then we'd leave a phone number on the cassette
Speaker 7: of the recording, which was the phone box by the tree,
Speaker 7: and so we'd go we'd press play go off in
Speaker 7: the phone box, all three of us with my dad,
Speaker 7: and and then.
Speaker 4: We'd and we'd get one phone call. That was the request.
Speaker 4: One phone but that was enough. That was enough to
Speaker 4: carry a pre record your show. But yeah, and they
Speaker 4: go to the Okay, did our priority pre recorder shows?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 7: No, then if unless you're on Radio and Victor, because
Speaker 7: Radiar and Victor was one of the well known ones
Speaker 7: and the only sole station, the one that inspired me
Speaker 7: to get my rig. And they got busted one week
Speaker 7: by the home office.
Speaker 4: Now that was my second question, how do you get busted?
Speaker 7: Well, they used to go around with a little team
Speaker 7: of guys with special equipment and they'd literally find the studio,
Speaker 7: they'd find the aerial and they'd come up there, you know,
Speaker 7: and they sort of you know, imagine sort of you
Speaker 7: know sixties looking policeman, you know, working for the DTI.
Speaker 4: The you know, the the.
Speaker 7: Government was the punishment. You'd get what you get, you
Speaker 7: get fined, and no one got a cent to prison.
Speaker 4: See you next week.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was a small but you know, they didn't
Speaker 7: have a lot of budget for the DTI for this
Speaker 7: particular sort of department. So there's only one guy who's
Speaker 7: called Eric. Eric Gotts was the main guy because he
Speaker 7: got he became legendary. This is the guy who busted
Speaker 7: all the station, especially as pirate radio became bigger and bigger.
Speaker 7: Because this is kind of the early day of the
Speaker 7: late seventies. It was still quite naive and sweet and lovely.
Speaker 7: But then by the mid eighties it started becoming a
Speaker 7: little bit cleverer, and people started becoming twenty four hours,
Speaker 7: and advertisers started coming into it, and then you were
Speaker 7: more likely to get busted by another pirate than by Eric,
Speaker 7: because of.
Speaker 4: Course they wanted. That's when I got out of the game,
Speaker 4: right because it got to carry stuff.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it got a little bit dangerous at that point,
Speaker 7: but it was quite an interesting time and very exciting
Speaker 7: time for me. But initially I got onto radio and
Speaker 7: Victor because they got busted and they and the guy
Speaker 7: built my equipment built their equipment. So I said to
Speaker 7: my guy, they can have my equipment as long as
Speaker 7: they give me a show. And they said, we'll give
Speaker 7: you a show, but first of all, you go spend
Speaker 7: the next six months putting airs.
Speaker 4: Up for us.
Speaker 7: So that's how I kind of went up the pirate
Speaker 7: radio status list.
Speaker 4: And you know that was not.
Speaker 1: So compared to what we have now in the United States, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is total corporate radio. And I mean even being
Speaker 1: or Pandora, it's kind of my version of the middle
Speaker 1: finger of pirate radio thing where we get to determine
Speaker 1: the type of music we want to play in the
Speaker 1: guests we have. You know, since nineteen ninety seven, business
Speaker 1: corporations have totally taken over.
Speaker 4: Radio.
Speaker 1: But I look at how London is operated and now
Speaker 1: you're legit, you're or BBC a government station? Is it
Speaker 1: still half a dozen six eggs and half a dozen
Speaker 1: and the other.
Speaker 4: Like to you? What is I know? I totally yeah,
Speaker 4: we need cliche for cliche busters. Well what I'm saying
Speaker 4: is for government radio.
Speaker 1: Like I look at you guys over the pond and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, government control radio is better because you know,
Speaker 1: it's required that you play a variety of things. You know,
Speaker 1: the idea of one artist getting uh forty spends a
Speaker 1: day like corporate radio, Uh, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 4: Everyone gets their fair share. But look at that. But
Speaker 4: then if you get our government, you really kind of
Speaker 4: negates everything. So said.
Speaker 7: Like do you that's the bucy of the BBC in
Speaker 7: a way, And and and the fact that the BBC
Speaker 7: is always having to struggle to be a kind of
Speaker 7: neutral yet creative body at a time when they have
Speaker 7: to give equal.
Speaker 4: Fairness to commercial stations.
Speaker 7: So the beautiful thing about about the UK, I think
Speaker 7: in terms of broadcasting and the BBC is that you know,
Speaker 7: you can get the RT left field, really creative, weird
Speaker 7: shit on the BBC, but the BBC also has its
Speaker 7: kind of commercial end so because it knows it has
Speaker 7: to compete with the commercial stations. I don't know if
Speaker 7: I'm making myself particularly clear, but that balance between the
Speaker 7: BBC maintaining a presence yet also constantly being progressive with
Speaker 7: the art of radio, and for me one of the
Speaker 7: people that was an incredible inspiration to me. As you
Speaker 7: mentioned earlier. On of course, was John Peel. And John
Speaker 7: Peele changed the way radio was because he was on
Speaker 7: the BBC, and up until that point it was still
Speaker 7: very old fashioned guys on the radio broadcasting in that
Speaker 7: kind of way that you could imagine, you know, you
Speaker 7: had to wear a suit, Winston Churchill, kind.
Speaker 4: Of the war type stuff.
Speaker 7: And up until then it was still you know, even
Speaker 7: up until the Beatles, it was still kind of very conservative.
Speaker 7: But when John Peel came along, because there's been a
Speaker 7: few people before him, and some pirates and stuff on
Speaker 7: the on the boat stations, but basically John Peel was
Speaker 7: he broke He changed the rules of broadcasting and he said,
Speaker 7: you can play you know, television, this new group from
Speaker 7: New York next to Slide the Family Stone, next to
Speaker 7: a punk record that someone just sent me.
Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: He basically and the way he presented radio. He basically said,
Speaker 7: you don't have to do it that way. You can
Speaker 7: do it a different way. And he had a huge
Speaker 7: influence which made which remains an important part of why
Speaker 7: the BBC has a certain standard that he that he
Speaker 7: said needs to be kept up.
Speaker 2: Did commercial radio take he because I know you said
Speaker 2: in the beginning it was only four, you know, But
Speaker 2: now present day have they taken he from the BBC?
Speaker 3: And what is it like now? Like is there a
Speaker 3: few soul stations on the commercial radio.
Speaker 7: Size dance stations, okay, And if you want to go
Speaker 7: more specialist, really specialist, I mean there's you know, there's
Speaker 7: the jazz station that's quite conservative, straight up not bad,
Speaker 7: you know, but I mean there's nothing if you want
Speaker 7: any think edgy, anything that really the kids are into.
Speaker 7: The commercial station is never going to be able to
Speaker 7: react to trend fast enough. So that's why the pirates
Speaker 7: are always coming along, because there's always going to be
Speaker 7: a new type of music or culture to represent because
Speaker 7: the main the mainstream stations try and keep up.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: I mean, the BBC has its own R and B
Speaker 7: network called One Extra. I'm on a station called BBC
Speaker 7: six Music, which is kind of for the over thirty
Speaker 7: year olds, which.
Speaker 4: Is kind of cool in a way.
Speaker 7: Yeah, But in a way I was quite likely to
Speaker 7: be to find myself on there because it's a cross
Speaker 7: between sort of what I'm about and what someone like
Speaker 7: John Peel's about, so they kind of it's quite a progressive, experimental,
Speaker 7: interesting music, experimental it's.
Speaker 4: Just like it's the most out there. It's where you
Speaker 4: could hear.
Speaker 7: The roots records being played every day, you know, more
Speaker 7: likely than on a pop station or in a commercial station.
Speaker 1: So for you, is it more important to be the
Speaker 1: first to bring you Kenchick Lamar, the first to bring
Speaker 1: you a new singer from America Lauren Hill? Or is
Speaker 1: it like, what are your goals because of that? Well,
Speaker 1: I know, I got I can't like I.
Speaker 4: Want you exclusives come in, I know. But a guy
Speaker 4: like Fresh of the Week, Fresh of the Week, what
Speaker 4: their funk master Flex? Oh?
Speaker 1: Now, I know Westwood has his sets on being the
Speaker 1: funk Master Flex, which.
Speaker 7: Is nostalgia though put people like Westwood of no style
Speaker 7: nostalgia I know in the now.
Speaker 1: Well that's crazy, you know, let's see, that's weird because
Speaker 1: the Westward I'm referring to was the nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: ninety seven. Okay, I know I'm hearing myself speaking known
Speaker 1: that's twenty years ago. But back then he was the
Speaker 1: you know, playing the news, the today hip hop, the
Speaker 1: street hip hop, and kinda taking a different stance on
Speaker 1: underground or stuff that he would deem too old school,
Speaker 1: even though he came up in that era. But my
Speaker 1: whole point was that I saw him more as a
Speaker 1: fump master flex guy who you know, where he's the celebrity.
Speaker 1: He you know, it's about him, Whereas I see you
Speaker 1: as wanting to still be a taste maker and put
Speaker 1: people onto stuff that they don't know about, Like you know,
Speaker 1: I think when you first played a I think I
Speaker 1: heard you on the air when you first introduced UFO
Speaker 1: on on, you know, when they first debuted like this
Speaker 1: is back in late night Japanese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: so it's like to me, I feel that I'm asking
Speaker 1: do you feel better as a taste maker or do
Speaker 1: you feel you'll get more done if you were the
Speaker 1: celebrity DJ.
Speaker 4: It's interesting.
Speaker 7: It's a bit of a combination of elements in a way.
Speaker 7: I mean, my role is to on one hand, fundamentally
Speaker 7: excite myself. You know, I don't really care about my
Speaker 7: audience in that sense. I mean in the sense that
Speaker 7: I do care about it, prepare for a fifteen, but
Speaker 7: if it feels right, do it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: The thing is for me is it's it's always interesting
Speaker 7: because I think that people get off on your energy,
Speaker 7: and your energy is your authentic feeling, and as a broadcaster,
Speaker 7: I buzz on new music. I buzz on discovering old
Speaker 7: music that I've never heard before where there's an incredible story.
Speaker 7: I buzz on playing some classics because I like a
Speaker 7: bit of nostalgia. But fundamentally it's that mixture of all
Speaker 7: those elements with entertainment as part of it. So someone
Speaker 7: like Westwood, incredible broadcaster, changed the generation. People grew up
Speaker 7: on him and his radio show, and he brought a
Speaker 7: certain esthetic of hip hop to a UK audience, and
Speaker 7: he did it incredibly well. On the other hand, you
Speaker 7: could say, well, where's your legacy, what did you break?
Speaker 7: What did you do for UK hip hop? Why were
Speaker 7: you so influenced by American music? Why has it taken
Speaker 7: twenty years for grime to finally come through and for
Speaker 7: UK hip hop fundamentally to actually finally have its name
Speaker 7: out there and to be doing something because friendship hop
Speaker 7: was way ahead, different language.
Speaker 4: I mean, as you know, you know, it took a
Speaker 4: long time, so I think there.
Speaker 7: Was certain powers that held it back, and I think
Speaker 7: that's a shame and my viewpoint as somebody who's also
Speaker 7: been very much part of the music industry, as you know,
Speaker 7: because we worked together and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 7: I feel that, you know, Britain has a lot to
Speaker 7: shout about. Musically, the UK is a unique place, you know,
Speaker 7: from going back to the Rolling Stones and led Zeppelin,
Speaker 7: through punk music, through all the different elements of dance music,
Speaker 7: from step to drum and bass to broken beat, and
Speaker 7: I think that it's this unique mixture of people and
Speaker 7: the club culture that make sure the music is constantly
Speaker 7: reinventing itself and there's always something new coming up. And
Speaker 7: that's why for me being on the radio, it's easy.
Speaker 7: You know, it's easy because at the end of the
Speaker 7: day there'll be there'll be a James Blakey'll be you know,
Speaker 7: James Blake will come along, or a Mount Kimby or
Speaker 7: come along.
Speaker 4: There'll always be something happening.
Speaker 7: You're not you know, there's never a time when you're
Speaker 7: like going, oh God, there's not been anything interesting for
Speaker 7: two or three years. So for me as a taste maker,
Speaker 7: that makes it easy for me to be a taste
Speaker 7: maker because there's so much great stuff to be able
Speaker 7: to shout about.
Speaker 4: So do you feel okay?
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like Benji, like, who do you feel
Speaker 1: if you were to start right now, and I don't
Speaker 1: mean morbidly like death or whatever, if you just said
Speaker 1: I've had enough, I've done it, my work is done.
Speaker 1: How many does rifles of yours? Do you fully trust
Speaker 1: will carry on the tradition that you have and in
Speaker 1: spreading Tomorrow's music, supporting Britain scene, keeping us educated on
Speaker 1: the past, because you've got to do like three to
Speaker 1: four different things to keep the train running. Do you
Speaker 1: feel as though there are enough people that have the
Speaker 1: education and the will and the drive to be the
Speaker 1: person that that meets you at the gate, the greet
Speaker 1: the taste maker, Like, I think there's they're all my
Speaker 1: children in the UK for sure, in the sense that you.
Speaker 5: Know Digs, I listened to him. He reminds me a
Speaker 5: loud of you in La Yeah, yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 7: I mean I think Solection do some really great stuff.
Speaker 7: I think Deviation do really great stuff. I think boiler Room,
Speaker 7: you know again, the guy who sat out Boilerroom, Tristian,
Speaker 7: he was working with me, you know, for eight years,
Speaker 7: and then he was like, oh, I'm going to go
Speaker 7: and film us doing a gig down the road in Dawston.
Speaker 4: And that was boiler Room.
Speaker 7: I think NTS another really interesting digital radio station. Again
Speaker 7: it was very much so if you ask me who's
Speaker 7: coming through, there's a whole load of people with that
Speaker 7: certain attitude where on one hand they'll be playing an
Speaker 7: Omar Sulliman record or some abstract sort of record from
Speaker 7: the Congo released on Analog Africa, and on the other
Speaker 7: hand they're going to be releasing playing some sort of
Speaker 7: you know, crazy Mickey Miller, you know which I heard
Speaker 7: you chatting about last week. So that that way of
Speaker 7: approach to music I think is really normal now. I
Speaker 7: think that when there was a time when you played
Speaker 7: of this music in a mix, it was a little
Speaker 7: bit abnormal. Today it's almost expected. If you look at
Speaker 7: even you know, you read Pitchfork or or Resonant Advisor,
Speaker 7: all these really important influential websites and new school writers
Speaker 7: of the culture. It's about the eclecticism, you know, it's
Speaker 7: about having Rufus Harley on a roots record. I mean,
Speaker 7: you were doing this years ago, you know, and throwing
Speaker 7: it all together. And for me, my big thing now
Speaker 7: at the age of fifty two, is it's about heritage
Speaker 7: and it's about the people that really took us here,
Speaker 7: it's about Philip Coran in Chicago. It's about Sun Rah,
Speaker 7: It's about Jimmy Merritt here in Philadelphia, the bass player
Speaker 7: who wrote Nomo and played with Max Roach. For me,
Speaker 7: it's about putting a light on these people, because without
Speaker 7: those guys, we wouldn't be here. And they put in
Speaker 7: so much work and some of them are still alive,
Speaker 7: you know, and of course people like Royez still around.
Speaker 7: I mean, my god, those guys, they did so many
Speaker 7: gigs and we're kind of I don't know, for me personally,
Speaker 7: it's kind of like it's payback time to those guys,
Speaker 7: and we've got to make sure that we use the
Speaker 7: power that we have and the means of influence that
Speaker 7: we have to shine a light on those people. Three
Speaker 7: people that I met when I was twenty two years old.
Speaker 7: I've just been picked up by to London because I
Speaker 7: was a young guy and I was playing jazz records
Speaker 7: in clubs and I met three people in the space
Speaker 7: of one week or two weeks, Wayne Shorter, Jalal from
Speaker 7: The Last Poets, and the jazz singer mart Murphy, and
Speaker 7: those three guys in the space of two weeks. They
Speaker 7: taught a young boy from South London who didn't know
Speaker 7: much about American culture. They taught me about the different
Speaker 7: elements of music within jazz, whether it was spirituality, whether
Speaker 7: it was more of a bohemian attitude, whether it was
Speaker 7: the civil rights. I got lessons from these three people
Speaker 7: in a very early at a very early age, and
Speaker 7: that had a huge impact on me. And I want
Speaker 7: to be able to do the same thing for another
Speaker 7: generation of people, to bring them closer to the roots
Speaker 7: of the music and away from the superficiality of big
Speaker 7: commercial corporations.
Speaker 4: Do you remember the first record you ever brought, the
Speaker 4: very first record you purchased.
Speaker 7: I purchased, Yeah, I remember picking up a record cards.
Speaker 7: I remember buying Blondie d Knee by Blondie.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 7: That was Electric Light Orchestra, mister Blue Sky. I was
Speaker 7: a bit prog rocky at around twelve thirteen, you know,
Speaker 7: Caravan in the Land of Graham Pink, brilliant record, first
Speaker 7: sort of record I bought. I mean, I was very
Speaker 7: thankful for my library in London where I lived in Sutton.
Speaker 7: They just had a new library and that's where you
Speaker 7: could sort of take home records. I don't know if
Speaker 7: they did that here in the States where you could
Speaker 7: borrow records. You still do that for those Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: Myself. That was sorry, that was a good place anyway.
Speaker 7: So that's where I kind of heard a lot of
Speaker 7: you know, I bought Herbie Hancock, you know, really important
Speaker 7: records to me. Actually, Herbie Hancock Mister Hands nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 7: huge record, huge record.
Speaker 4: Way. So wait, who was I mean?
Speaker 1: I know, I say, if John Peel, and I'm using
Speaker 1: American sports terms, you know, for every Michael Jordan, there's Piven.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, there's.
Speaker 1: Definitely ten or fifteen unsung heroes that will never get
Speaker 1: their props that were just as important or vital to
Speaker 1: the movement. But I mean, who was your John Peel
Speaker 1: when you were coming up, Like, who's the person that
Speaker 1: truly introduced.
Speaker 4: You to music?
Speaker 1: Was it a school friend or whatever? Who started your
Speaker 1: obsession with collecting records? Yeah, because you have, Like, what's
Speaker 1: your collection up to now? I don't I don't count
Speaker 1: you stop counting. It's three houses, yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 7: Three properties. Yeah yeah, I keep getting pushed out by
Speaker 7: my wife, but yeah, no, for me, it was uh,
Speaker 7: it was my friend Andrew Crossley's sister fourteen years old.
Speaker 7: I went to his house and she had a copy
Speaker 7: of Mays Live in New Orleans. She had a copy
Speaker 7: of Bobby called Well What You Won't Do For Love?
Speaker 7: The album That's when when I first heart left, when
Speaker 7: the fire. All in all, I think it was around
Speaker 7: then that I'd hear Brazilian rhyme and fantasy, all those songs.
Speaker 7: I mean that blew my mind. I hadn't heard that
Speaker 7: on the RATO in the UK. The most amazing music ever.
Speaker 7: Mays was big for me. I remember going to see
Speaker 7: Mays all the time. They used to come to London
Speaker 7: play at the Hammersmith Odio. Yeah, who would come to
Speaker 7: Who from the States would come? The bands when you
Speaker 7: were when you were I never forget seeing Cameo. Cameo
Speaker 7: disappointingly because they were doing their rock thing at the time,
Speaker 7: and I really wanted them to do this sort of
Speaker 7: slat bass thing at that time.
Speaker 4: But still, I mean, yeah, they were all coming.
Speaker 7: A lot of those groups were coming, and you know,
Speaker 7: a lot of the jazz funk bands, you know, people
Speaker 7: like Lonely Listen Smith would come, you know, this sort
Speaker 7: of slightly offbeat less. There was a motown scene for
Speaker 7: the more traditional stuff. That wasn't really what I was into.
Speaker 7: I was more into the jazz funk thing.
Speaker 1: You weren't into the North. What do you explained to
Speaker 1: me Northern soul? Gosh, Northern Soul is okay, well, I
Speaker 1: mean they like they break, they break, yeah, tune.
Speaker 7: Wise, I mean it's really sort of The UK was
Speaker 7: very into motown and soul. You know, all of that
Speaker 7: Marvin Gaye, Smoky Robinson, the sixties stuff that was big,
Speaker 7: and that was big, and that was that got playing
Speaker 7: the way down there were clubs and you know, there
Speaker 7: was there was the stuff going on and they come
Speaker 7: over to the UK. The DJ club scene started happening
Speaker 7: in the sixties and seventies in the North as well
Speaker 7: as it was in the South, but in the North
Speaker 7: of England they basically had a slightly different taste and
Speaker 7: they didn't want to play the obvious Motown records, so
Speaker 7: they went and found the records that sounded like Motown
Speaker 7: records but were hard to find. And that's really what
Speaker 7: Northern soul was. And it's a certain tempo, it's quite
Speaker 7: high tempo. There's some amazing songs. It's basically, you know,
Speaker 7: it's it's Discog's forty years go. You know, they were
Speaker 7: pulling out the rarest local songs. They there's guys who'd
Speaker 7: come and they'd realize that the music from America was local,
Speaker 7: you know. So there's there were the major labels that
Speaker 7: would release all the big records, but if you went
Speaker 7: to Saint Louis, or you went to Dallas, or and
Speaker 7: you just went to the local record shops, they'd hear
Speaker 7: local music where there was mightbe a thousand copies ever
Speaker 7: pressed just for the local market. And that's really what
Speaker 7: Northern Soul kind of was. It was about going in
Speaker 7: like New Mirror Group for example, labels like that. It's
Speaker 7: just going in that much deeper. And some of the music,
Speaker 7: of course, there's so much music. That's the other thing
Speaker 7: that just to answer you from earlier on about what
Speaker 7: drives me how much music is that? I thought ten
Speaker 7: years ago, I was like, yeah, I've got most of it.
Speaker 4: Even now as you speak, there is stuff that you
Speaker 4: still I'm spending people.
Speaker 7: To make much music on records at the moment, not
Speaker 7: because I'm earning more, you know, but because I'm just
Speaker 7: I'm excited, and there's so many more record shops and
Speaker 7: really great experts. Now you can go anywhere in the
Speaker 7: world and you'll find a place which is where there's
Speaker 7: going to be someone who's going to invite you to
Speaker 7: their house. Maybe it's not in a shop anymore now
Speaker 7: it's a more bespoke record dealer that exists right.
Speaker 4: Where you go to the crib. And yeah, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of those cats.
Speaker 7: But they're good man, because they do all the work
Speaker 7: for you. I mean, I don't have me coming like well,
Speaker 7: I know they're overcharging me for some you know, you've
Speaker 7: got to accept that it's going to be twenty five
Speaker 7: percent over for you. But you will get some good stories.
Speaker 7: And those guys for their role as as great bespoke
Speaker 7: records sort of finders, they if they're really good at
Speaker 7: their job, they'll tell you the story. For example, recently
Speaker 7: there's a guy called Victor Kiswell in Paris. I think
Speaker 7: you might well have been to his house and he
Speaker 7: gave me a record the other day and it was
Speaker 7: in Russian, right, And it was all in Russian, and
Speaker 7: it was from the Ukraine from the seventies, and it
Speaker 7: was a Ukrainian big band version of a Fella Kootie
Speaker 7: song right right, Shakara right right exactly, and.
Speaker 4: You out.
Speaker 7: Right and uh and and he had gone to the
Speaker 7: to the point of translating Russian to find out more
Speaker 7: about the record than you realized.
Speaker 4: It was fella cootie and stuff.
Speaker 7: And then he kind of listened to the track and
Speaker 7: halfway through this little riff that comes in and it's
Speaker 7: Raka by Ukrainian big band in the mid seventies. Wow,
Speaker 7: that's what we want. Wow, that's what we need. That's
Speaker 7: what you need. That's your food, that's your foods.
Speaker 4: It is it is. See yo right in this room.
Speaker 6: Used to that guy used to come up here. Yeah,
Speaker 6: he was like yeah, he was like a fucking drug deal.
Speaker 8: He sent me down. Let this dude in the front
Speaker 8: door go down there. I'm like a Mirea's gonna buy
Speaker 8: some drugs talking about Jean Brown. So you would come
Speaker 8: up here and go back there and whispering. Guys are
Speaker 8: showing them all different kinds, like if you had different
Speaker 8: kinds of weed. You know, these records from here. This
Speaker 8: one's twenty five, this one's thirty.
Speaker 4: I'll take it.
Speaker 6: I'll take you real.
Speaker 1: The best thing is they do the records and the drugs.
Speaker 1: Now to this day, Jean Brown is my professional shopper.
Speaker 4: See that.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's the thing. It's like, I still feel like
Speaker 1: you're actively getting your hands dirty. You're using elbow grease
Speaker 1: to search for the song that you don't got. You
Speaker 1: still actively dig. Like I almost feel even as I'm
Speaker 1: asking you about the comparisons between a Westwood and Appeal,
Speaker 1: I almost feel like I have to make myself personally
Speaker 1: a corporation or a Westwood so that I can have
Speaker 1: peel moments, like in order for this show to even happen,
Speaker 1: Like I have to be quest love, like I have
Speaker 1: to have a corporate day job life. That's the total
Speaker 1: opposite of not what I stand for. But it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five years ago, do you think I
Speaker 1: would be like.
Speaker 4: On late night? Yeah, on late night.
Speaker 5: If I's you went from busking on the corners at
Speaker 5: late night, that's pretty bad.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's that's my point.
Speaker 1: Like I feel I almost have to robin Hood my
Speaker 1: way to keep culture alive. I mean, if I really
Speaker 1: had the monetary, rolling in the money, rolling into to
Speaker 1: do even bigger things quote for the culture, I mean
Speaker 1: I would, but it's.
Speaker 4: Like slow coming. But it's it's like I feel that
Speaker 4: you still.
Speaker 1: You know, you'll you'll you'll dig on websites and look
Speaker 1: up playlists like how active are you still? I mean
Speaker 1: there's a point where before Boss Bill was my ears,
Speaker 1: like he would search for records for me and meds
Speaker 1: because there's not enough hours.
Speaker 7: In there, you know, for you your drummer, So your
Speaker 7: chops is like you know, you're playing, you're practicing.
Speaker 4: You're a musician, right, you're going out the right.
Speaker 7: I'm a DJ, but I'm ninety and other things too.
Speaker 7: So that's that's your prime your your prime role and
Speaker 7: and and I mean, you just got to do your
Speaker 7: thing the way you do. You do such an amazing
Speaker 7: job of bringing culture to people to a new generation.
Speaker 7: I mean, you're the Quincy Jones of this generation.
Speaker 4: Don't say that the way you are because I think
Speaker 4: that you're the you are, because I think you probably
Speaker 4: have a comfortable role index so many ways. You got
Speaker 4: to do your back on the black Man. You got
Speaker 4: to do that. Saying that is super snarky.
Speaker 3: You got.
Speaker 4: No I you know, I think at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, people listen to you.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, I saw what you
Speaker 1: did in London and said by any means which even
Speaker 1: the roots picnic is still an extension of like those
Speaker 1: places that we used to play in a h.
Speaker 4: Outside of London Brighton right. Thank you for saying that
Speaker 4: to me. That's that's the important thing.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know why I think that way either,
Speaker 1: like okay, instead of like living the moment, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of what mark I can leave here when
Speaker 1: I die.
Speaker 4: So besides Djan, I mean, you developed.
Speaker 1: Probably one of the most important dance labels ever, which
Speaker 1: was Talking Loud. Could you talk about your like, when
Speaker 1: did you develop it and what means you want to Well?
Speaker 7: I first started off as a pirate DJ in a
Speaker 7: club DJ from the age of seventeen eighteen by doing
Speaker 7: compilation albums. So my first thing was like the mixtape,
Speaker 7: but I used to do license tracks and compile them.
Speaker 7: So the first series I did was Jazz Juice, and
Speaker 7: I think I am the world record holder of compilation
Speaker 7: official compilation You were Silver. So I always wanted to
Speaker 7: be like close to our Blake keeper from a DJ
Speaker 7: point of view and releases, so I managed to do that,
Speaker 7: and then I set up a pirate a pirate station.
Speaker 7: I stayed upper my first record label, which was label
Speaker 7: called Acid Jazz, and that label was Brand New Heavies, Galliano,
Speaker 7: Jamiroquai and all of that stuff, whoever they are. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that was that was the beginning then. But who got
Speaker 7: to remember at that time everyone used to go work.
Speaker 7: You know, it was like it wasn't you know, there
Speaker 7: was no scene. There was no business really, I mean
Speaker 7: there was a scene, but there was no way of
Speaker 7: monetizing it. And this music was super underground and you know,
Speaker 7: you'd sell a few hundred, couple of thousand records, so
Speaker 7: all the artists were basically, you know, going to work
Speaker 7: during the week and you know, as you were doing
Speaker 7: the other days of the roots and.
Speaker 1: You see him at JK of Jamiquire once had a
Speaker 1: d job. No, he never had a day job.
Speaker 7: But all the Brand New Heavies did, you know, and
Speaker 7: all of Galliano did, and those early groups. And from
Speaker 7: my point of view where I was at being the
Speaker 7: champion of this new scene going on in the UK,
Speaker 7: I got I knew that I needed to take it
Speaker 7: to another level and I couldn't do it independently. So
Speaker 7: I got an offer from Funogram Records, which was PolyGram
Speaker 7: which is now universal, and they said to me, Charles,
Speaker 7: why don't you do this little thing that you're doing
Speaker 7: with acid jazz and do it for us. So that's
Speaker 7: when I said I'm Talking Loud. Because at that time,
Speaker 7: there were no bootique record labels. You know, I didn't
Speaker 7: have anybody to go, oh, yeah, let's do you know,
Speaker 7: what did you do? What kind of deal did you do?
Speaker 7: So I ended up just being brought in by them
Speaker 7: as an A and R guy with my own label.
Speaker 7: And that's why I set up Talking Out because I
Speaker 7: knew that Talking Loud needed to happen to break the bands,
Speaker 7: to be able to break the movement, so I needed
Speaker 7: a major label. So that's when I set up Talking Loud.
Speaker 7: And so the beginning of talking about it was groups
Speaker 7: like Incognito and Galiano and Omar and the Young Disciples,
Speaker 7: which is the best record I think we ever put out.
Speaker 7: I put out, anyway, a very underrated soul hip hop
Speaker 7: record which had Master Race on it. It had Johnny
Speaker 7: Light all the Vibes player on it. And then that
Speaker 7: was that time, and that was the sort of period
Speaker 7: of louse of salt to soul and that kind of
Speaker 7: London sound happening. But I wanted Talking Out to be
Speaker 7: more than just a soul, funk, acid azz label. I
Speaker 7: wanted it to represent UK club culture and all the
Speaker 7: elements directions was going in, from the massive attack to
Speaker 7: what became the drum and bass, and all those groups
Speaker 7: of people like four Hero, people like Ronnie Size represent
Speaker 7: They were natural artists to come through the label. Carl Craig,
Speaker 7: we did him, who was off s course, the Detroit Sad.
Speaker 7: The best record I think I put out apart from
Speaker 7: your EP, was the new Reconsult Records with and that
Speaker 7: was a full on A and R experience because they'd
Speaker 7: released a little twelve inch called the Nervous Track on
Speaker 7: Nervous Records, and I was playing that at Baumba my
Speaker 7: Monday night session, and they heard about it, and I
Speaker 7: was a fan of Louis and Kenny and I said
Speaker 7: to the guys, I called him up, I says this,
Speaker 7: and guys, you know, this is a really big record
Speaker 7: for me. Because the house hit kids weren't by playing
Speaker 7: that record because they were house producers, but they weren't
Speaker 7: on it because it was a little bit offbeat. But
Speaker 7: it was perfect for people like me. So I then
Speaker 7: said to Louis, let's let's develop this into an album project.
Speaker 7: So that's when the new Reconsole thing happened. And now
Speaker 7: and then it just opened up because Louie's got his
Speaker 7: his nephews, it's uncle's Hector Lavo, so the whole of
Speaker 7: Latin music was was in it. Then Kenny had the
Speaker 7: connections with Jazzy Jeff and roy Es, and then we
Speaker 7: had George Benson on it, and then Tito he turned up.
Speaker 7: That was the best ever launched album launched Supper Club
Speaker 7: New Reconsole by.
Speaker 4: They were all there. The pictures from the inside game from.
Speaker 7: A very bad quality day of it, which is up
Speaker 7: on such a shame because it's like that they were
Speaker 7: all the La India.
Speaker 4: They were all there. So that was my official most
Speaker 4: fantastic kind of experience.
Speaker 5: The turn back the term about the song but in
Speaker 5: Needlember is it about that club?
Speaker 7: Yes come the nation of a tribute to Luis Essa,
Speaker 7: who's the Brazilian composer who wrote a song called Baromba
Speaker 7: and bar Rumba because Blue used to come down every Monday,
Speaker 7: remember so, and I introduced him to the music of
Speaker 7: the Tamba Trio for whom luis Essa wrote, So that
Speaker 7: was kind.
Speaker 4: Of a very nice you know that.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 7: The maddest thing for me was when because when I
Speaker 7: ran Talking Ad Records, of course it was a UK
Speaker 7: and European thing, but I was trying to break this
Speaker 7: music in the States. So you're talking about FM radio
Speaker 7: here and stuff. So I had to the first time
Speaker 7: I came to America with music in my hand to
Speaker 7: sell to the A and R guys of the department
Speaker 7: at Mercury Records. It was Ed eg Stein and Lisa
Speaker 7: Cortez who were running it there, and and I went
Speaker 7: in there with my young disciples and my oma and
Speaker 7: they were like, we love this music, this is amazing.
Speaker 7: We're going to try and you know, make it for you,
Speaker 7: make it happen. But it was so hard to get
Speaker 7: that music on the radio over here. But it was
Speaker 7: very interesting sort of learning process for me to kind
Speaker 7: of see how the industry worked here and working with
Speaker 7: those people.
Speaker 4: What was it? What was it like for you?
Speaker 5: Because one of the moments that I saw as kind
Speaker 5: of a breakoup month for Talking Loud was when for
Speaker 5: a Hero two Pages got the Lee review and Vibe.
Speaker 5: It was the first review of the I don't even
Speaker 5: if you remember this, but.
Speaker 4: Remember it.
Speaker 5: But yeah, that record got the first It got the
Speaker 5: Lee review and I actually went and checked it out
Speaker 5: on the stream for that that made me like a
Speaker 5: lifetime Me and Mark we've done you know work. But
Speaker 5: but man, that was what was How did.
Speaker 4: You and fo a hero? We four? Hero? Was it?
Speaker 7: I mean remarkable because they are Mark and Diego. They're
Speaker 7: another kind of super combination like Louis Viger and Kenny
Speaker 7: Dope and two very different characters and personalities who make
Speaker 7: magical music based from a community in West London, and
Speaker 7: they really just developed their sound which is a combination
Speaker 7: of kind of stringy jazzy stuff with you know, UK
Speaker 7: under ground bass music and drum and bassed music. So
Speaker 7: to work with them was unique and fantastic. But the
Speaker 7: break record, the one that really broke talking loud in America.
Speaker 7: This is a mad experience for me. Was I suddenly
Speaker 7: got called that Deep Waters buy Incognito featuring Masonleink was
Speaker 7: a big record in Detroit, and Blue said, yeah, come
Speaker 7: over and see us playing in Detroit, And I literally
Speaker 7: got on a fly it went to Detroit and they
Speaker 7: were playing in the stadium and it was a completely
Speaker 7: black audience, and it was and that's when I started realizing,
Speaker 7: you know the power of a city or a few
Speaker 7: radio stations, how they can break an artist. And thankfully
Speaker 7: they broke Incognito because they kind of went a bit
Speaker 7: bigger from there, sold me a million records which went
Speaker 7: back into my coffers, which allowed me to record four
Speaker 7: Hero and Ronnie Size and all the other groups, MJ
Speaker 7: Cole and people like that. So can you speak about
Speaker 7: the Drum and Beast movement because the British underground history,
Speaker 7: the Frosten Night, I.
Speaker 4: Still feel like it is yet to find its moment,
Speaker 4: it's true moment. And I feel like.
Speaker 1: Now that now that tempos are sort of slowing down
Speaker 1: at least from where it was. I'll say, like the
Speaker 1: tempo of two thousand and six to two thousand and
Speaker 1: thirteen was just straight up boots and cats, gots like
Speaker 1: straight one thirty one. So now that stuff is slowing
Speaker 1: down a little bit down. Tempo, well still, I'm one
Speaker 1: point sixteen is fast. I mean, if you're a public enemy,
Speaker 1: that's vastest shit for hip hop, but for dance music
Speaker 1: it's rather slow, but it's slow enough for drum and
Speaker 1: bass to really find a lane now And the first
Speaker 1: night you ever took us to bar Rumba, speaking of
Speaker 1: Monday night, watching you spend this is like our first
Speaker 1: our first week in London.
Speaker 4: And and the guy on whoever was spending before you,
Speaker 4: his last record.
Speaker 1: Was Anita Baker's Sweet Love, and I was like me
Speaker 1: and TERI started looking at it like the fun So
Speaker 1: the intro to Sweet Love well in a bad way.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, why are they playing a slow song
Speaker 1: at a London nightclub? And when the intro came on,
Speaker 1: big the whole audience are losing his mind right, And
Speaker 1: we just looked at each other like, oh god, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be our life in London. Because you gotta understand,
Speaker 1: we exiled, like we straight up took our budget and left.
Speaker 4: All right, we love y'all.
Speaker 1: We out, So we're here and so the first verse
Speaker 1: comes on, We're throwing hot and on it and people
Speaker 1: are just like preparing like some riots about to happen.
Speaker 1: The second the chorus came in and it went to
Speaker 1: double time and then we just like we'd never seen
Speaker 1: madness marshing like that in our lives. Wow, And.
Speaker 4: I just remember I asked you. I was like, what
Speaker 4: the hell is that?
Speaker 1: And you was like strum and bass, And you know,
Speaker 1: eventually I met Digo and those guys and knew what
Speaker 1: it was. But the religious power that music had that
Speaker 1: I saw that night and subsequent nights and months and whatever,
Speaker 1: I feel like it really didn't cross over to the
Speaker 1: world as it should, but it's still waiting.
Speaker 4: For its moment. Like what do you feel about that
Speaker 4: whole movement? Because you signed Arnie Size.
Speaker 7: And I think that movement was interesting. I mean we
Speaker 7: won the Mercury Prize for Bonnie Size. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 7: the movement is pretty big then and at the time
Speaker 7: ninety six ninety seven and before, I thought the movement
Speaker 7: had some good some good leaders. I thought people like
Speaker 7: Gold the lt J Booker, Ronnie Side, because any movement
Speaker 7: needs a quest love, it needs somebody who can basically,
Speaker 7: you know, plant the flag and shout about it right.
Speaker 7: And I thought that Drumm and Bass had a good movement.
Speaker 7: I think the Broken Beat had a bad so it
Speaker 7: had a bad leaders. They didn't have leadership because for me,
Speaker 7: the music it was ig culture, ag culture and Dego
Speaker 7: really were the leaders. And that music form still resonates today.
Speaker 7: You play broken beats now and they're big to the kids.
Speaker 7: That's the music I think is going to be coming
Speaker 7: through more than druma based, because I think drummer bass
Speaker 7: is already in. It's in our DNA, it's there, and
Speaker 7: it's just morphing into different things.
Speaker 1: Well, certainly in Europe it is, but I feel like
Speaker 1: it should have made it more of an impact in
Speaker 1: the State.
Speaker 4: But time. But what you got.
Speaker 2: Why is why is America slow? That's what I was
Speaker 2: thinking this whole time, like, why does America feel like
Speaker 2: it's so slow?
Speaker 4: Especially I think arrogant? That might be it.
Speaker 3: Are we just too damn picky.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's I don't think it's picking. It's
Speaker 4: I think it's arrogance.
Speaker 1: Really, it's just outsiders, because there's something about the way
Speaker 1: that I feel this generation will.
Speaker 4: Pick I don't know. I mean that generation will pick
Speaker 4: up on it now, Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 9: But previous generations I think it was a problem because
Speaker 9: people just too arrogant, like this is an American music,
Speaker 9: they don't sound like me.
Speaker 7: I think it's the question we're talking about it a little. Definitely,
Speaker 7: it's the d M thing as well, it's like, in
Speaker 7: a way EDM was a good thing. I mean, I
Speaker 7: don't like the music particularly right, but what EDM did
Speaker 7: is it kind of put dance music into the head
Speaker 7: of radio programmers, into the head of people who might
Speaker 7: want to be produced or remixed by David Getter, major
Speaker 7: major artists, and it slowly was the doorway into a
Speaker 7: sound that America wasn't used to. And eventually the drips
Speaker 7: will get you to drum and bass. It's kind of
Speaker 7: the doorwards.
Speaker 4: The doorway is there.
Speaker 7: And because up until then dance music and everything that
Speaker 7: came out of dance music, it was a little bit,
Speaker 7: you know, it was like is it gay?
Speaker 4: Is it you know? You know, is it right?
Speaker 7: You know, so you'd have to go to Miami Winter
Speaker 7: Music Conference and that was like where we'd all meet.
Speaker 7: But it was underground in America a little bit. In fact,
Speaker 7: in a way, it's probably twenty or thirty years behind
Speaker 7: when I was going to my weekends when I was sixteen.
Speaker 7: It was almost like going to Miami Winter Music Conference
Speaker 7: thirty years later. And you know, yeah, that's probably. But
Speaker 7: I think it's getting their radio is changing. I think
Speaker 7: that people are slipping it in and producers are more
Speaker 7: prepared to cross reference.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I mean, like the new Drake record. You know there's
Speaker 7: that song which is kind of a house record, there's.
Speaker 1: This Are you shocked at how I'm glad he did
Speaker 1: it because for me, like I didn't think that quote
Speaker 1: real house. The first president I thought about was like
Speaker 1: King brit I thought about, you know, because if anyone,
Speaker 1: he's been trying to hold this tradition up in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: for so long that it dwindled a little bit where
Speaker 1: you know, it's falling on deafiar's only certain people would
Speaker 1: would would gravitate towards it. And it's almost to the
Speaker 1: point where like we've now throw Sunday afternoon parties, so
Speaker 1: instead of Thursday nights, you know, from nine till three
Speaker 1: in the morning, now it's like Sunday afternoon in the
Speaker 1: park at one pm with you and your kids and
Speaker 1: your grandkids, and it's it's it's that's the moment. But
Speaker 1: now that Drake has has you know, leaned heavily on
Speaker 1: the South African house culture and really opened the door. Uh,
Speaker 1: do you feel as though that's a good thing or
Speaker 1: a bad thing.
Speaker 7: That's a good thing, I mean, there's nothing wrong with
Speaker 7: any of that, especially that he's got Moody Man on
Speaker 7: his record.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm so jealousy. That's I love it. I used
Speaker 4: to just play that sample alone with.
Speaker 3: The Strake song you're talking about.
Speaker 4: Superman is the one he did the Coffee but I
Speaker 4: can't remember the name of that song.
Speaker 1: With the Guys record on again, he's like talking, there's
Speaker 1: a recording of a guy, Moody Man.
Speaker 5: Who's this It's a recording of him DJ. Yeah, No,
Speaker 5: I know the I know the Moody Man reg I
Speaker 5: didn't know the Drink record which one he I didn't.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's on the album. I can't remember what it's called.
Speaker 7: I'll look it up, but it's quite interesting. It's interesting
Speaker 7: that that's happening. But I think it's you know, you
Speaker 7: know all of it. It's just it's just in you know.
Speaker 7: And at the moment the music that I'm finding really
Speaker 7: brilliant and I love it as the sort of subculture
Speaker 7: is all that stuff from Chicago, all the footwork stuff.
Speaker 7: For me, the one sixty bpm stuff is really exciting.
Speaker 7: And I dropped that wherever I dropped that. That's like
Speaker 7: my biggest music if I'm sort of, you know, at
Speaker 7: a festival, the moment I need to kind of bring
Speaker 7: them all in.
Speaker 4: I'll play some footwork, so.
Speaker 2: Another level of Chicago House. Sorry just asking another level Chicago.
Speaker 4: And stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, it's super fast. They'll
Speaker 4: take like the pac Man.
Speaker 3: Theme comusic because that sounds like Baltimore House.
Speaker 1: It's Baltimore House on steroids. It is like move jump
Speaker 1: jack your body. Now play that on forty five, but
Speaker 1: dance to it on thirteen. It's kids, Kids Today. So Jiles,
Speaker 1: You've seen a lot of historical magic moments in your career,
Speaker 1: throwing shows, having people come by to record on your show.
Speaker 1: Half of the show that we did with Pharrell at
Speaker 1: the Roots Picnic last month was based on the performance
Speaker 1: that any art he did on the worldwide show. So
Speaker 1: that was like that was inspiration, like taking off his
Speaker 1: music and then filtering it. I can't wait, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's awesome.
Speaker 4: It was amazing. Thank you, So, like what what.
Speaker 1: What were some of the magic moments that you saw?
Speaker 1: Like some of the first I mean talking to is
Speaker 1: not that said Jazz Caffeice talking to Pharrell.
Speaker 7: Actually there was a week and Winter Music Conference. There
Speaker 7: was a week before Winter Music Conference where I got
Speaker 7: the d demos from from from the demos with Rise
Speaker 7: were too too high on it to fly on it
Speaker 7: and all that stuff. And the same week as that
Speaker 7: I got the n r D album, the first one,
Speaker 7: the one before they went because they the digital version,
Speaker 7: which is always better.
Speaker 4: Shut up? Can I get? Can I get?
Speaker 1: For years we were arguing that in rehearsal, like to
Speaker 1: stick true to the synthetic an e r D or
Speaker 1: the live an e r D. Spot Man, I realized
Speaker 1: it was my band, so I got the last say.
Speaker 1: But why do you feel Neptune's an e r D
Speaker 1: first record is because that's.
Speaker 2: What it was. It was.
Speaker 5: It was when they tried to when they redid it
Speaker 5: and did it with the live iss it felt to
Speaker 5: me like they were trying to make it go to
Speaker 5: a bigger audience, quote unquote, But it was never going
Speaker 5: to be that record. It was always the Neptunes anesthetic
Speaker 5: was always to that point, always just sounds The.
Speaker 9: Digital version just sounds anemic after hearing the live version.
Speaker 9: But that's how all the stuff sounded though. But that
Speaker 9: was the I think the songs benefit better from the
Speaker 9: live arrangements.
Speaker 5: I don't think the song.
Speaker 4: I think the song.
Speaker 5: The songs were like kind of not cheesy songs, but
Speaker 5: they were like cheap and plastic, like the production like brain.
Speaker 5: I mean, I really need to call in a fucking
Speaker 5: band to sing about getting some head like Nigga really,
Speaker 5: I mean he had choice.
Speaker 1: I give Fante's point that I feel like the the
Speaker 1: wonder that is Pharrell is sort of like when you're
Speaker 1: singing in the bathroom mirror with a brush. It's it's cheap,
Speaker 1: plastic sounding music that's made legit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because it's a boat and it nails the performance
Speaker 5: and it makes you feel inclusive because it's like, oh,
Speaker 5: I can do this too. It's not like super intellectual,
Speaker 5: but then it's intellectual.
Speaker 4: I could do this too.
Speaker 3: You'll make it sound so easiest for real.
Speaker 4: But what is farrel singing have to do with the instrumentation?
Speaker 5: I mean, just in terms of the songs, I mean
Speaker 5: just the songs when I'm when I said, just his lyrics, So.
Speaker 4: His lyrics also compliment his musical level.
Speaker 3: Of music Snobberies on an all time high.
Speaker 4: I like disparity, though the expedition of the opposites.
Speaker 1: Juvenile lyrics and why you just think for was cute
Speaker 1: and let's just go with that, we go down rabbit hole.
Speaker 3: No, no, I'm a fan of the music.
Speaker 2: I just don't have those words. And I just say
Speaker 2: again that the album was dope and I don't need it.
Speaker 4: You don't know why when you like to know why
Speaker 4: it works and why it doesn't work.
Speaker 3: It worked for me as a listener, though, what.
Speaker 4: Worked about it for you? What was it about the record?
Speaker 4: Talk talk about run to the Sun? About it? Talk
Speaker 4: about the song? What is it? What is it in
Speaker 4: the song that I was moved?
Speaker 2: Like for me, I'm a listener, so I'm not a musician,
Speaker 2: so I won't go you know, the streams weren't right
Speaker 2: here his people about I was moved like run to
Speaker 2: the Sun with something I never that whole is something
Speaker 2: that the lyrics that yeah, and then once you realize
Speaker 2: about his Grandmam and everybody else has a moment.
Speaker 4: Of like it's it's spoke to you on that level.
Speaker 3: I'm a listener. I don't make it. I listened to it,
Speaker 3: and I get I.
Speaker 4: Don't make it either. I think stuff too.
Speaker 1: You don't try and act like you're just a common
Speaker 1: the comp you've been if anyone of all of us,
Speaker 1: you've been on commercial radio more than anything, you're you're
Speaker 1: you're the system, right I am I have because you're
Speaker 1: the system, Like you're not the listener on you were
Speaker 1: the radio, right.
Speaker 2: And I was the one that was saying, and it's funny,
Speaker 2: that's why I was speaking about the differences between Excepting
Speaker 2: music and Europe and and and here is we had
Speaker 2: to tell people to listen to n E r D.
Speaker 3: We couldn't play it. So I had to constantly be like,
Speaker 3: this is the ship, y'all need to listen.
Speaker 4: You have to tell your program department people like no,
Speaker 4: I told my listeners.
Speaker 9: Oh, like you guys weren't playing the records. You were
Speaker 9: just but you were still telling them to go check
Speaker 9: it out.
Speaker 4: Wow yeah yeah an THERD Yeah, that's stuff didn't get
Speaker 4: no no play like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, there were some commercial records that we had
Speaker 2: to say, like, why aren't you we playing video India
Speaker 2: Area Advance was.
Speaker 4: Getting played on on BT and cut Yes, yes, I
Speaker 4: forgot about that.
Speaker 2: That was it and all the Girls, That's a whole
Speaker 2: another album, Standing in the Line with a Bathroom was so.
Speaker 4: Come signing me on the Electronic Nerd album Full Validated.
Speaker 4: I feel like.
Speaker 1: I feel like people that co signed the first any
Speaker 1: r D record are also the same people that say, like, well,
Speaker 1: I like Off the Wall better than Thriller because you're
Speaker 1: supposed to.
Speaker 3: Nah.
Speaker 9: I mean, I'm not with you then, because I think
Speaker 9: I like Off the Wall better than Thriller, but not
Speaker 9: for that reason.
Speaker 7: Off the Wall, especially as you get older too, like
Speaker 7: always thrill thrill, Thriller was more consistent because I still
Speaker 7: don't you don't see it as equally as great.
Speaker 5: Well, because I don't listen to I skip She's out
Speaker 5: of my life and I skip it's the falling in
Speaker 5: love and Thriller, like I skip beat it every time
Speaker 5: I play Thriller.
Speaker 4: Half a Thriller. I can't listen to.
Speaker 1: We don't listen to Thriller because Thriller is not a record.
Speaker 1: It's not a record, so it's not an album. So anyway,
Speaker 1: y'all beside what.
Speaker 4: Wow, great moments.
Speaker 7: The moment that one of the early great moments that
Speaker 7: I remember very clearly right now was was a weekend
Speaker 7: of that I organized and I remember we put on
Speaker 7: Tribe Call Quest in the UK first show ever, and
Speaker 7: it was in one of those holiday resorts in the
Speaker 7: middle of nowhere again because they were we could hire
Speaker 7: these places for cheap. And it was Tribe Coal Quest,
Speaker 7: Pharaoh Sonders on the same bill, Brand New Heavies, Galiano,
Speaker 7: Jimmy Rokui. So it was like that acid jazz meets
Speaker 7: America meets the sort of spiritual jazz godfathers.
Speaker 4: So that was that. That was that was a big one.
Speaker 4: That's amazing, remember that very well.
Speaker 3: It was a great night, good night America would never
Speaker 3: get that.
Speaker 1: Okay, can I say, now, are your listeners still your
Speaker 1: list from twenty years before or are do you have
Speaker 1: a generation of listeners that are open to new music?
Speaker 1: Because I'll say, the one thing that I find kind
Speaker 1: of unpenetrable, uh in DJing now as opposed to back then,
Speaker 1: is the boldness of playing the unknown without repercussions. It's like,
Speaker 1: I borderline have to trick them to listening to something
Speaker 1: dope because I had to disguise it with you know,
Speaker 1: three songs that they know. Then I'm gonna hit you
Speaker 1: with you know the shit that I like, and then
Speaker 1: right before the dance war clears, I'll you know, it's
Speaker 1: like a system that you have to have. Do you
Speaker 1: find it harder now? Uh, facing audiences of unknown music, I.
Speaker 4: Just need them before. I need more time.
Speaker 7: So if people book me now, I say five six hours,
Speaker 7: you need me to play that long.
Speaker 4: Because the problem you redeem yourself in cases.
Speaker 7: That's the generations I've got, you know, I've got the
Speaker 7: people who come and listen to me and they're like, Oh,
Speaker 7: I really like that record you made in Cuba, or
Speaker 7: I love the Brazilian stuff you do, or I love
Speaker 7: that kind of new bass music you're playing from South London.
Speaker 7: So at the end of the day, all these different
Speaker 7: people are coming for different.
Speaker 4: Bits of me.
Speaker 7: So I need to say, look, I'll do the whole thing,
Speaker 7: the full journey, but I need five to six hours
Speaker 7: on a great sound system. That's why I love playing
Speaker 7: at output all places like you know, like that way
Speaker 7: you can, but it's more work. But that's the only
Speaker 7: way I can kind of give them. I feel better
Speaker 7: at the end of the night. There's nothing worse.
Speaker 1: You're literally the only person I know besides myself. I
Speaker 1: love marathon gigs and love them. You're the only person like, Uh,
Speaker 1: next week I'm going to do an eight hour gig,
Speaker 1: it's and promoters are always scratched. Head scratching because most DJs, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's the normal.
Speaker 3: I said, Wow, that's long.
Speaker 1: Oh oh no, that's normal. I mean you think I
Speaker 1: get long winded answers to see my DJs?
Speaker 4: That one.
Speaker 9: Those ten to four am gigs were my favorite. Yeah,
Speaker 9: I'm just saying that it's not you've got to have.
Speaker 4: I mean, the thing is on.
Speaker 7: When I played Output the other day in Brooklyn, I
Speaker 7: played the full sixteen minute version at peak time off,
Speaker 7: I thought it was you, but I hope you direct
Speaker 7: Japanese version, right, that one? That one right, which is
Speaker 7: the best version of I thought it was you all
Speaker 7: sixteen minutes. I think it's sixty enough minutes long, right,
Speaker 7: But if I hadn't been playing for five hours, I
Speaker 7: wouldn't if that would have been a quarter of my
Speaker 7: one hour set, you know. So the fact, but to
Speaker 7: be able to play that and for people to because
Speaker 7: then people get because at the beginning, people are looking
Speaker 7: at you, especially when you come to America. For me,
Speaker 7: they come and they're looking at you, going give me
Speaker 7: a show. I'm like, no, I'm a DJ. Right dance
Speaker 7: and let me get into my zone because I'm not
Speaker 7: a performer in that way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to ask because every time, like when
Speaker 5: I go out, I see people like now, DJ culture
Speaker 5: is the it, and it's like you're doing it wrong,
Speaker 5: Like how did how have you adapted to that? Like
Speaker 5: how does the audience adapt to you being a pure
Speaker 5: DJ in that way?
Speaker 7: Well, you just have to keep doing it, I think that,
Speaker 7: and you've got to accept that. You know, there'll be
Speaker 7: people taking five and that even though they're not dancing,
Speaker 7: they are into it because I think initially I was like,
Speaker 7: oh no, they don't like it, but they hadn't but
Speaker 7: they haven't left.
Speaker 3: That's when you came here, right, you hadn't experienced then
Speaker 3: a little bit of that.
Speaker 7: I mean the first time I ever went to Japan,
Speaker 7: I remember thinking my god.
Speaker 4: No, no, yeah, you think you're bombing. But after the shi, yeah,
Speaker 4: they love it.
Speaker 7: They give you an uncle. But it's kind of it's
Speaker 7: that's a weird thing. But no, I think it's it's good.
Speaker 7: I think people are getting down, people are beginning to
Speaker 7: understand the etiquette of going out to hear a DJ.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 7: I think a few years ago it was like there
Speaker 7: was especially in the States because they was like unless
Speaker 7: you were going to the proper real clubs and.
Speaker 4: You're going to like a festival.
Speaker 7: I remember playing at Coachella and six years ago and
Speaker 7: I was like, am I really this is terrible, you know,
Speaker 7: but it was just the way because there was no
Speaker 7: you know, there was no festival culture for DJs like me.
Speaker 7: You know, there was festival culture for techno DJs like
Speaker 7: you know, cult, but for people like me who went.
Speaker 4: Through it, it was a little bit odd. But it's
Speaker 4: getting there here in peace. Since I love By the way, I.
Speaker 5: Asked you about the time you came to Philly and
Speaker 5: went to James Poorser's dad's church.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, Yeah, that's right, that's right. Why it's what
Speaker 4: we live in Philly. Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 7: I have to say, the first person I really fell
Speaker 7: in love with apart from Erica bad whilst interviewing her,
Speaker 7: was and probably in fact more so than Erica, was
Speaker 7: Jill Scott. I remember interviewing her when she just released
Speaker 7: her first record.
Speaker 4: Who Is Jill Scott?
Speaker 7: And I was so in like when I met her,
Speaker 7: I just absolutely fell apart and and and really really
Speaker 7: really liked her a lot.
Speaker 4: And obviously that's what it was, but but it made
Speaker 4: me want to come to Philly. We all haven't called.
Speaker 6: It's actually a segment on the show.
Speaker 3: We haven't been all kinds of ways, even when she's
Speaker 3: not trying.
Speaker 6: You never fell in love with James Poyser though, right.
Speaker 4: Was waiting for James. He the Yep, it's Amir Thompson.
Speaker 4: I know, yes, and about uh seven.
Speaker 1: You remember I used to always call you during my
Speaker 1: radio show when someone mentions your name. Yes, okay, So
Speaker 1: I have Jiles Peterson here and he just wanted to
Speaker 1: let you know that you're really really cool.
Speaker 4: Baby. How you do? How you doing? We're kind of
Speaker 4: janky with the communication here.
Speaker 9: So now I know you're not gonna hug Jiles for me,
Speaker 9: but try.
Speaker 4: I will hug Giles just you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have it with Jill.
Speaker 4: Are you in Atlanta right now?
Speaker 1: I am How do you know everything?
Speaker 4: I know everything you do? Jill Scott, I do you
Speaker 4: know everything?
Speaker 3: It's weird.
Speaker 6: He's got jps start.
Speaker 4: Your position. I ask about you often, Jill.
Speaker 3: Oh, you can always just call me Sucker.
Speaker 1: Anyway next time your name on the radio. So thank you,
Speaker 1: love you, baby, bye bye. So I had I had
Speaker 1: a question about celebrity DJs. Is that a thing in
Speaker 1: Europe as much as it is here?
Speaker 7: Well, it is the thing because DJ culture is just
Speaker 7: so normalized now in a way, so you're going to
Speaker 7: get that side of it. But on the other hand,
Speaker 7: you're still going to get you know. The funny thing
Speaker 7: is in the UK at the moment, if you were
Speaker 7: like a celebrity DJ and you were to me, you'll
Speaker 7: probably you know, play to big audiences and stuff. But
Speaker 7: people like full TETs, who's a sort of left field
Speaker 7: techno DJ. They're the guys who are getting the biggest
Speaker 7: numbers and the biggest audiences. It's not the kind of
Speaker 7: celebrity DJs in that sense, or maybe that is happening,
Speaker 7: but the left field, more progressive underground that's what the
Speaker 7: kids are really looking for.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's answering the question, but no
Speaker 4: one from like take that or a rabbie like We've
Speaker 4: got Yeah that was like a couple of years away.
Speaker 4: Who is he opened? Yeah, I forgot. I used to
Speaker 4: do a few gigs with them. But that's.
Speaker 7: Like a musicians saying it's a bit like I don't know,
Speaker 7: it's like a bit like I mean, I think Woody
Speaker 7: Allen takes his music seriously, but I see it as
Speaker 7: like it's like, you know, they're like amateur musicians, you know,
Speaker 7: but they're not the real thing.
Speaker 4: I mean, a real DJ.
Speaker 7: And I really believe in DJ culture and the awe
Speaker 7: of djaying and the heritage of djaying, you know. I
Speaker 7: thank you David Mankuzo and all the guys who set
Speaker 7: it up for us. But there's an ought to it,
Speaker 7: and that celebrity scene is just a little bit of
Speaker 7: you know, bubblegum somewhere.
Speaker 1: But there's there's a word that I'm looking for. I
Speaker 1: think it might be integrity. Okay, that's what you guys
Speaker 1: have that we don't have no more in the United States.
Speaker 4: So from the White House all it's different, like the
Speaker 4: fact that you would still.
Speaker 1: What you said was correct, but because I'm immersed and
Speaker 1: living in this new alternative reality that we're in right
Speaker 1: now where you're competing with like the Paris Hiltans and yeah,
Speaker 1: where you know, I've there's a few DJ gigs where
Speaker 1: I mean I I have an agent that has a
Speaker 1: few actors or whoever, and their money. It's like crazy,
Speaker 1: It's like three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand dollars, Like,
Speaker 1: and I'm just mind blown.
Speaker 4: But that's just.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're just like, that's just how it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you either accept it or you fight it.
Speaker 1: And I guess maybe in my older age, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to fight it. Like there's other fights I can.
Speaker 4: Have out there.
Speaker 1: Besides, why is this DJ giving four hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and not me? You know that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Wow, Yeah, DJ culture is becoming how do I do it?
Speaker 1: See if you were to move to the States. Here's
Speaker 1: the here's the funny thing. What's what's weird about American
Speaker 1: culture is that we are so obsessed with getting in
Speaker 1: the king's throne, like with hip hop, with DJing, with anything,
Speaker 1: like everyone wants to be the top person and they're
Speaker 1: fighting for it. No, no, no other scraps will do that.
Speaker 1: There's a whole middle level that's absolutely empty. And thus
Speaker 1: I've made a home in the middle level, Like I
Speaker 1: would never want to fight for jay Z's throne or
Speaker 1: Drake's throne or I'm in the DJ world right now.
Speaker 1: Pretty lights makes the most. Calvin Harris, who shockingly in
Speaker 1: my conversations with him, is almost like talking to you
Speaker 1: like he thinks like you, an aesthetically has you and
Speaker 1: probably Fonte and Bill's education and knowledge of music, but
Speaker 1: he knows where.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So it's like everyone's fighting for that position. So they'll
Speaker 1: scoff at like a cat. Like Diplo would laugh at
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know, Christmas party
Speaker 1: carper DJ gig for Viacom. They would laugh at that
Speaker 1: shit because they're now playing Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 4: For two three million dollars.
Speaker 1: So it's like there's a middle ground that you know,
Speaker 1: underground is like you're you're you're fighting with everyone else
Speaker 1: to get underground gigs. But if you managed to make
Speaker 1: a name like a person like you could come to
Speaker 1: the States right now and do these middle ground gigs
Speaker 1: and hitching like that's where it is. And I absolutely
Speaker 1: just gave uk get everyone. Everyone unheard what you what.
Speaker 4: I just said to you? Man? So what not? Like
Speaker 4: what's the future for Jalles Peterson? Like is this to you?
Speaker 2: Is this?
Speaker 4: Is this a good end game for you? Is this
Speaker 4: what you always wanted? Yeah? This is the best I'm
Speaker 4: having the best fund of my life.
Speaker 7: I really am. I've been DJing for thirty years. I
Speaker 7: travel around the world. I'm still passionate about music. I
Speaker 7: connect with people, I communicate for the music. My mental
Speaker 7: artists bring it through. I don't think there's a better game. Really,
Speaker 7: there's more there isn't you know. I mean, I keep
Speaker 7: saying I'm going to give up DJing. I was going
Speaker 7: to give up at forty. It didn't happen, you know,
Speaker 7: And I'm actually, I'm actually.
Speaker 4: What made you want to give it up? Well? I
Speaker 4: just thought you had a bad DJ?
Speaker 7: Yeah, loads, But the thing is you have to have
Speaker 7: your bad gigs to enjoy the good ones, obviously. But
Speaker 7: but the thing is with I thought forty was too
Speaker 7: old to be a DJ, you know, when I was thirty,
Speaker 7: I thought, yeah, old DJ. Yeah, But actually no, I mean,
Speaker 7: the funny thing is, I'm I'm better. I'm the best
Speaker 7: I've ever been. So I want people to hear me
Speaker 7: being more experienced thirty years, to be able to mix
Speaker 7: two house records together, so.
Speaker 4: You know, yeah, I want it.
Speaker 5: Which your browns with bubbles cups that you do? How
Speaker 5: much of those are you actually hand pick all those songs?
Speaker 4: Yeah? That's still you going through all let.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, because I mean in a way the radio
Speaker 7: show that I do every week on the BBC, and
Speaker 7: I do or digital radio station called WDFM. But the
Speaker 7: BBC show that I do, which is three hours every week,
Speaker 7: that's it's like my that's my homework. So every week
Speaker 7: that's my dark that's like my painting. So that is
Speaker 7: the build up of listening to five hundred songs that
Speaker 7: week and building a show.
Speaker 4: So that's I have to listen to all that music.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was glad to see you use a Good
Speaker 5: Night by Philippo on that incredible track.
Speaker 4: God, I'm still waiting for that album to drop. It
Speaker 4: never came out. Nope, Oh damn. How long has it been?
Speaker 4: That's four years? Easy.
Speaker 1: What is the process of you auditioning songs that you
Speaker 1: feel are worthy to be on your radio show?
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 1: But I know you have to take in a lot
Speaker 1: of music and a lot of blogs and a lot
Speaker 1: of recommendations, so just personally you're not overloaded like I'm
Speaker 1: personally overloaded and not quite numb yet.
Speaker 4: But it's a process. Like I doose Sundays as the
Speaker 4: days to.
Speaker 1: Keep a certain station on, you know, listen five to
Speaker 1: six hours and then she's saying what I like, mark
Speaker 1: down what I like, and then maybe I'll have seventeen
Speaker 1: songs I never heard of now in my vocabulary. But
Speaker 1: what's their process for you?
Speaker 7: I mean, I never forced myself to listen to music,
Speaker 7: So I just come to it. If there's a week
Speaker 7: that I'm not like in the mood to feel like
Speaker 7: I need to do all this research for A and
Speaker 7: R reasons, for record company reasons, I just go through
Speaker 7: my old records and I'll put on a classic record
Speaker 7: to remind me. And maybe on the radio, I'll just
Speaker 7: play a lot of old music for example. Right, if ever,
Speaker 7: I get to the point where I'm a little bit
Speaker 7: sort of just like not really inspired. But to be
Speaker 7: honest with you, with the amount of music that I
Speaker 7: listened to, whether it's the sort of new DJ music,
Speaker 7: whether it's of hip hop, I mean there's a new track,
Speaker 7: that Buddy track, you know. I mean, all this stuff
Speaker 7: that's been coming out of LA has been incredible, right,
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, from sort of all that Kendrick
Speaker 7: Lamar and Beyond stuff, all the stuff that Flying Lotus
Speaker 7: is responsible for Thundercat, I mean, my god, there's just
Speaker 7: so much good stuff and for example, when I played
Speaker 7: I don't know like when Take the Box was sent
Speaker 7: to me. I mean Take the Box by Amy Winehouse.
Speaker 7: It's a good example of a tune that my friend
Speaker 7: was trying to sign it Max Desarder Atlantic Warners at
Speaker 7: the time before it went to Island, and he just
Speaker 7: sent me the dam He said, what do you think
Speaker 7: of this, Charls? And I was like, immediately take the
Speaker 7: Box And I started playing it as a demo on
Speaker 7: the radio then, because it just had those little things,
Speaker 7: just like when you're talking about any rd run to
Speaker 7: the Sun you hear that, and it's just an immediate tune,
Speaker 7: right or good Night by Philip o Wusu these songs,
Speaker 7: and that's what I'm searching for. But I'm also searching
Speaker 7: for raw dance music that I've never heard before. The
Speaker 7: way they've arranged the bass in this, you can tell
Speaker 7: because it's a bit like we're chefs, you know, we're
Speaker 7: tasting those ingredients all the time. So when there's a
Speaker 7: certain type of onion that comes in, that's it's got
Speaker 7: the right edge.
Speaker 4: We know it.
Speaker 7: We've got you know, I'm rubbish at wine, I'm rubby.
Speaker 7: I've got a terrible palette, but when it comes to music.
Speaker 7: But when it comes to music, I'm not even very
Speaker 7: good at music. But because I've just constantly listened to it,
Speaker 7: I've got a good memory of music. So when something
Speaker 7: fresh does come, I know it's new. I can feel
Speaker 7: it quicker than others.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 1: Well, what I mean is that I feel like there's
Speaker 1: an expectation for you to always have that shit I
Speaker 1: never heard before, or this version of that song I
Speaker 1: never heard before, or that sort of thing. So I
Speaker 1: know that you have to put a lot of research,
Speaker 1: Like what keeps you from repetition like okay you go
Speaker 1: to Okay, I'm always going to play level brings back
Speaker 1: together by Roy Ears, Like what keeps you from saying
Speaker 1: stuck in those saying fifty songs that you know work
Speaker 1: like gamebusters every time, and what like You're still going
Speaker 1: to have to discover tomorrow's music first before the next
Speaker 1: younger guy gets to it.
Speaker 4: So that's what I meant, like as far as your
Speaker 4: research process, like what do you do?
Speaker 7: Good network, great people who know what I like, lots
Speaker 7: of exchanges. I'm over all of the music, from the
Speaker 7: new electronics stuff to the hip hop to the jazz,
Speaker 7: to the old staff, to some new soul that might
Speaker 7: be coming out, to the rock and the alternatives. There's
Speaker 7: some great music coming out of that area as well
Speaker 7: as we all know, and I'm just listening to all
Speaker 7: of it. And within all of that music, I mean
Speaker 7: a lot of it. And you know, obviously there's millions
Speaker 7: of songs being made every week. But amongst my network
Speaker 7: of friends who know, we know each other's taste, we're
Speaker 7: coming from different parts of the world, we are able
Speaker 7: to satisfy with music, and then I take that onto
Speaker 7: the radio, and to be honest with you, I don't
Speaker 7: even think about it that much. I've never really felt
Speaker 7: like I was thinking the other day, I didn't listen
Speaker 7: to the whole Solange record properly.
Speaker 4: Things like that.
Speaker 7: That's those sort of things bother me a little bit.
Speaker 7: I'm like, oh, yeah, I just went through it, and
Speaker 7: something else happened the week after, and I liked, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: but I listened to it this week. Then it hit
Speaker 7: you leader yeah, and I was like, I need to
Speaker 7: listen to that record, because that's a different way of listening.
Speaker 7: Because I listened to music as in a curative way,
Speaker 7: and sometimes I want to listen to music in an
Speaker 7: entertainment for myself way, emotional way. So sometimes I make
Speaker 7: sure that I just hide myself at home and put
Speaker 7: a record on from the beginning to the end. Very
Speaker 7: important to find the time for that. I bought a
Speaker 7: good sound system specifically.
Speaker 4: For that is an American dad.
Speaker 7: No, okay, no, but you know, I bought a vintage
Speaker 7: thing and all the stuff, and it just makes music
Speaker 7: sound remarkable about as it should be. So I don't know,
Speaker 7: I don't overthink it.
Speaker 2: Just to never get overwhelmed by the abundance of music
Speaker 2: on the daily, never even in my.
Speaker 4: Record room, like I'm pretty sure only listen to that's.
Speaker 7: For your retirement, I mean my record collection. That's the
Speaker 7: way I look at it. That's true when I'm retiring.
Speaker 2: Do you know most people, I feel like most people
Speaker 2: who listen feel like y'all have listened to every single
Speaker 2: record in your record collection, because a mirror I would
Speaker 2: have guessed that your record room you've listened to all.
Speaker 1: Those The thing is is that I've absorbed it. So
Speaker 1: it's a it's a thing of it's a thing of
Speaker 1: you know, I'll skim through it. And because I'm in
Speaker 1: hip hop, it's about samples more than anything. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's two ways to listen to records. You either you
Speaker 1: go a record digging and then you Q records and
Speaker 1: then you know it doesn't hit you, you put it away.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to sit and actually listen to it.
Speaker 1: That's what I do on Sundays. I don't skim through it.
Speaker 4: I listen to it.
Speaker 3: So, seriously, that's ten percent in your record room right now,
Speaker 3: those records that you had a chance to do this.
Speaker 4: I mean it's physically impossible. And that's just my record room.
Speaker 4: I have hard drives, and I mean, right, I just
Speaker 4: had to buy I had to acquire a new spot.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to say it.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going you know, I'm a rich judge.
Speaker 2: I'm a judger, but I ain't gonna judge you for
Speaker 2: your next statement, I ain't gonna do.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, would you like me to take care of
Speaker 4: the things that I acquired, I do.
Speaker 3: I would like that.
Speaker 4: Okay. Well, then there's about.
Speaker 1: Maybe one hundred thousand other records that could get damaged
Speaker 1: in the current state that they're in in my storage unit.
Speaker 1: So I had to purchase a building with cool with
Speaker 1: the right air and all that stuff I had. You
Speaker 1: had to like the thing is.
Speaker 4: Is that a New Yorker Philly? Because I need a
Speaker 4: temporary storage spot. I'm I'm gonna tell you what I did.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you what I I had to let
Speaker 1: go to houses because again I'm I'm I'm a sentimental
Speaker 1: pat wreck, and you know, in my mind, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give these close to you know, to the
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Museum, to Timothy Inn or something, you know, like
Speaker 1: I saw my you got me closed in case.
Speaker 3: You know from the video. Yeah, it was a black
Speaker 3: T shirt, wasn't it?
Speaker 4: What is it? Goals?
Speaker 1: It's like, you want to get back down to that size.
Speaker 1: I want to get back that I was. Man, I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you got me. I never want to
Speaker 1: go back there. Yeah, Jesus Christ, he scared the ship out. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that.
Speaker 4: I got judging. There's a picture. You don't even say. Look,
Speaker 4: there's some things that happened on this show. Put it away.
Speaker 3: We're in a mere studio, you guys, personal studio.
Speaker 1: We're in my phillips. This this person triggering. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: only records, records and other stuff too. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: that can I have this A track?
Speaker 4: Steve? Yes, it's yours, Steve.
Speaker 6: You can have my c T I A t PA
Speaker 6: with another Freddy Hubberne.
Speaker 1: Take all the CD I A tracks. Shouldn't you be
Speaker 1: here on the microphone Steve? Steve is like going through
Speaker 1: my records right now?
Speaker 3: Wait, Jos, do you have homes for your albums as well?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Can people? Are y'all really saying like a person live
Speaker 3: in this place with your records?
Speaker 4: Is it just it's just for here's the deal. This
Speaker 4: is a weird.
Speaker 1: Kind of name drop techy thing about you. But you
Speaker 1: always got preface the tacky ship. Okay, so wait, can
Speaker 1: I just deal John Trump yet?
Speaker 4: Come on man? Okay.
Speaker 1: Initially, when I first moved to New York, there was
Speaker 1: there was a there was a chance that I was
Speaker 1: going to acquire or at least couch crash the Destiny's
Speaker 1: Child apartment that Beyonce had. I guess that was their
Speaker 1: crash spot whenever they were I didn't have a house
Speaker 1: where the one by Bloomingdale's. Uh, they have a lot
Speaker 1: of property. There's a lot of their property, one of them.
Speaker 4: Wait, why did you know? I just feels poorer and poorer.
Speaker 2: I know this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to work in the Nose Empire. That's right,
Speaker 1: you did Music World. What damn, I'm interviewing you next
Speaker 1: week on Quest. Anyway, My point was that she was
Speaker 1: trying to make the decision on whether or not she
Speaker 1: was gonna let me have the spot or not, because
Speaker 1: she hasn't been in that apartment forever. But she realized
Speaker 1: that a lot of her clothes were getting damaged in
Speaker 1: the storage units that they had, so she.
Speaker 4: Decided that it's probably better off instead of.
Speaker 1: A month after month after month for storage unit, to
Speaker 1: just buy a house and put your stuff in there
Speaker 1: and care for it there. So the Destiny style apartment
Speaker 1: now houses all of Beyonce's shoes that she's ever had
Speaker 1: and doesn't wear any wow.
Speaker 4: Wow wow damn. Anyway, Yeah, so there's houses.
Speaker 1: So the spot that I have in Philly, I made
Speaker 1: sure it was outside of Philly sort of, and that's
Speaker 1: where my records and I also have like.
Speaker 4: Sixty one drum set. Jesus, it's like.
Speaker 3: A battle j I said. He has one hundred thousand records,
Speaker 3: which you got.
Speaker 4: He has way more than that. I do not think
Speaker 4: I've got that. You and Claude of Claude from Manto
Speaker 4: Jazz Knobs. Yeah, you guys have the largest Where does
Speaker 4: Craig Common fit in that? One hundred thousands a lot?
Speaker 4: Though Craig doesn't count.
Speaker 7: You're counting forty five's in that.
Speaker 4: That is a record, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm counting. I don't even count my forty fives.
Speaker 1: I have a lot now, But you got one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand physical pieces of I have one hundred thousand physical
Speaker 1: pieces of vinyl. Probably have maybe one twenty now, okay,
Speaker 1: But I mean as far as the forty like right now,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people down south that don't know
Speaker 1: that forty five culture is coming back. So what I'm
Speaker 1: running into is there's a lot of widows of say,
Speaker 1: like one stop shop juke boxes.
Speaker 4: Juke Boxes used to be a thing in those liquor
Speaker 4: houses and everything.
Speaker 1: So once people stop using juke boxes in their nightclubs
Speaker 1: and their bars or whatever, especially down south, they had
Speaker 1: to go somewhere.
Speaker 4: So you have a lot of widows or a lot
Speaker 4: of daughters that have haired stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with this stuff, all
Speaker 1: these records, And so that's where Geene Brown comes in
Speaker 1: and he'll just say, all right, I got a collection
Speaker 1: of you want them, Okay, I'll take them, and then
Speaker 1: I'll take them and they don't listen to them.
Speaker 4: Like right now, in that room, I.
Speaker 1: Have Levi Stubbs's record collections, and in it is just
Speaker 1: a lot of white label motown stuff that will never
Speaker 1: see the light of day. Like just so, there's a
Speaker 1: lot that I haven't listened to. So yes, to get
Speaker 1: back to the beginning ten percent, someone's going to all right,
Speaker 1: Elia's judging me, But let me just tell you that
Speaker 1: when you get in my field of business, you got
Speaker 1: to get into something. So I rather this than cocaine
Speaker 1: about saying yeah, really something. Yeah, you're going to get
Speaker 1: into something. You're going to inject it, listen to it,
Speaker 1: sniff it, taste it, or it's going to kill you.
Speaker 4: Like you gotta get into something.
Speaker 5: You have more physical records in your collection than I sold.
Speaker 1: We're getting ahead of our tradition. First of all, listening
Speaker 1: John Speter worldwide.
Speaker 4: So before we end, Bill paid Bill, Yeah, what did
Speaker 4: you learn to day man? Man?
Speaker 10: Taste makers? I like the idea of people being tastemakers.
Speaker 10: I think he's right. I think you're a taste maker,
Speaker 10: and I like the idea of people listen to you.
Speaker 10: I strug off titles. Man, I know you don't like titles.
Speaker 10: You don't like people talking about you.
Speaker 4: You're not good at that. But that's fine.
Speaker 10: This is all therapy here on this. I just like
Speaker 10: the fact that the idea that people listen, and I
Speaker 10: think that you have the platform to do that until
Speaker 10: you open up people. But open up those minds that
Speaker 10: that wouldn't necessarily listen.
Speaker 4: To the music. I'm gonna taste and trade of Joels.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna taste test Steve. Besides my records you just stole.
Speaker 4: What else would you learn today?
Speaker 6: Uh uh? I want to see Giles record collection, go
Speaker 6: through the jazz section.
Speaker 4: He's going to steal all your CTI records.
Speaker 6: You take care of your stuff, like unlike others.
Speaker 4: Supposed to take care of this ship.
Speaker 3: In a year.
Speaker 4: More than that, like nine ship, I haven't been.
Speaker 1: In I've probably only been in this room maybe nine
Speaker 1: times in the last seven years.
Speaker 6: Anyway, suld I have a job.
Speaker 4: Charles Peters, No, yeah.
Speaker 11: Sounds like sounds like you got a nice collection, I
Speaker 11: would assume. But I also think thriller is better than
Speaker 11: Off the Wall. God, Well it's not a fair question.
Speaker 11: Off the Walls better. But but Thriller is not an.
Speaker 4: Album to me.
Speaker 6: Well, it's an album to me, it was an album.
Speaker 6: It was nice to meet you though, really.
Speaker 5: Man, Yeah, it's good to finally meet jobs. We did
Speaker 5: your show a little brother in forunate change really just show.
Speaker 5: Like god, this is oh five six something and uh,
Speaker 5: but I think you weren't there. I think you were
Speaker 5: out sick or something. Something happened. I can't remember.
Speaker 4: But we taped it anyway, Yeah you did.
Speaker 5: No, No, it was you just tape your just taped
Speaker 5: a live It was just a live in session joint
Speaker 5: we did okay. But but nah, man, it's good to
Speaker 5: finally reconnect, well to meet you finally in person, and
Speaker 5: just you know, say thanks for the music that you've
Speaker 5: brought forth and just continuing to shine a light on
Speaker 5: those catstead of coming up. You know, we were certainly
Speaker 5: one of the groups that benefited from you know, you
Speaker 5: showing us love and everything, and yeah, just thank you
Speaker 5: for all you've done.
Speaker 9: Man, built what did you learn to David? Pirate radio
Speaker 9: stuff was quite interesting. I've always been very you know
Speaker 9: intrigued by the whole concept. Like one of my favorite
Speaker 9: movies is A Kid Was a Christian Body. It was
Speaker 9: basically about a kid that had a pirate radio station
Speaker 9: in his basement.
Speaker 6: So Phillips is good to check out that movie.
Speaker 4: To learn about you know, good to get some good insight.
Speaker 4: Also a question that I wanted to ask, I just
Speaker 4: add to good.
Speaker 9: As someone who has been like a lifelong fan of music,
Speaker 9: I've in recent years I've had a very hard time
Speaker 9: staying passionate about new music. How do you How are
Speaker 9: you able to do it.
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 7: I think probably because it's my role two to get
Speaker 7: people I don't know. I think the fact that I'm
Speaker 7: sort of.
Speaker 4: On a mission probably more so than you are. You
Speaker 4: have more of an audience. Certainly.
Speaker 7: I get a lot of pleasure out of seeing out
Speaker 7: of seeing small acorns grow and seeing the journey of
Speaker 7: the artists, From receiving a cassette tape by Jose James
Speaker 7: of him doing versions of John Coltrane songs, to him
Speaker 7: signing to BLUEO. Those things give me a lot of pleasure.
Speaker 7: And and there's enough music for me to be to
Speaker 7: be passionate about. I've never felt more passionate about music
Speaker 7: of all sides in all countries. It's never been more worldwide.
Speaker 4: There's less. No, it's true, there's never been. There are less.
Speaker 9: Have there been any movements that you've just kind of
Speaker 9: been very unsure about that that they took off anyway
Speaker 9: and you just kind of had to play catch.
Speaker 4: Up or idiom No, No, not not really. Yeah, so
Speaker 4: you're a better man.
Speaker 6: The name right, we knew that guy.
Speaker 4: Now you know what I learned to that?
Speaker 7: I learned the grave Washington j that comes from Philadelphia.
Speaker 6: That wow, the.
Speaker 3: First time.
Speaker 4: I'm taking this Washington.
Speaker 6: Washington Jr.
Speaker 4: No, I don't. I don't look like Washington, Okay? And
Speaker 4: whytt net? Can you play? Can you play high draft
Speaker 4: from that from the album? Yes we will, we don't
Speaker 4: play it on the show. Let's play? Yeah, what did
Speaker 4: you learn today?
Speaker 3: I learned a lot.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you first because when I was
Speaker 2: sitting at my desk at RKO Discs for eight hours
Speaker 2: and going to my commercial radio job hip hop and
Speaker 2: R and B, I used you to learn my new
Speaker 2: music because I didn't want my brain to be clouded
Speaker 2: bout what I was about to do. So I want
Speaker 2: to thank you for that, and I just learned your
Speaker 2: journey and I always been a big fan, and I
Speaker 2: think much like Bill, sometimes you fight with America. I
Speaker 2: just take America different in their acceptance of music, especially
Speaker 2: of soul music. So I'm just gonna open my mind
Speaker 2: and damage some more jazz pewterising because there's always some
Speaker 2: to find, you know.
Speaker 7: One of things that I love about America because I
Speaker 7: love about playing here. When people go out in America,
Speaker 7: they make the most of it. They make the most
Speaker 7: of it, and I feel that sometimes in Europe people
Speaker 7: are a little bit spoilt and they're a little bit.
Speaker 4: Here. Really, I do.
Speaker 7: When they go out, I honestly feel when you come out,
Speaker 7: it's like when it's like Japan. People go out, if
Speaker 7: they've paid their money to go into that club, they're
Speaker 7: going to have a good time. In Europe they might
Speaker 7: be hating quicker.
Speaker 2: Really, I think so, thanks Philly, Really, yeah, Philly's a
Speaker 2: snooty town because they're used to so much dope town.
Speaker 4: Why.
Speaker 1: I just thought you guys were polite. So when they
Speaker 1: weren't clapping, they weren't satisfied. We got to change ourselves.
Speaker 3: When they weren't clapping.
Speaker 1: Now, we're actually coming back. You'll you'll be happy to
Speaker 1: hear this, Giles. Initially there was supposed to be a
Speaker 1: Tribe Roots summer tour. Believe it or not. We want
Speaker 1: to play two arena. We had four two arena dates setup,
Speaker 1: but Tribe Tribe anyway, so what was this? This is
Speaker 1: like this It was going to be the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. Wow, we had a three weeks with a
Speaker 1: Tribe doing stadiums. But for the since we booked a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff with the Usher project that we're doing,
Speaker 1: where we decided to instead of taking days off in London,
Speaker 1: we are going to go back to the task Cafe wall.
Speaker 5: For seeing us a very small so jazz. Yeah, it's
Speaker 5: going to be as big as this room. It's like
Speaker 5: three hundred I mean if that and I'm to DJ
Speaker 5: like I we just we just want to go back
Speaker 5: to the scene in the crime.
Speaker 3: And you're gonna go back to South Street.
Speaker 4: I was gonna too.
Speaker 1: There's plans for that too anyway, So Giles, before now,
Speaker 1: we normally don't ask the guests what did they learn
Speaker 1: from themselves? But there is there is a game I
Speaker 1: want to play. No, No, we're not playing that game. Okay, damn,
Speaker 1: we should have played that game.
Speaker 4: We should have played that game. But what I want
Speaker 4: to know is, if you were.
Speaker 1: In solitary confinement, I don't know what crime that you
Speaker 1: would commit that would actually have you put away in
Speaker 1: a room. Pirate radio Okay, yeah, let's say you finally
Speaker 1: you get a judge over there. Well, you guys are
Speaker 1: brexited anyway, so anything can happen over there. So if
Speaker 1: you're in solitary confinement, realistically, let's say three years, so
Speaker 1: that means no outside world for nine hundred plus days,
Speaker 1: but you are allowed five albums to keep you seen.
Speaker 1: So this isn't for the rest of your life, just
Speaker 1: for three years.
Speaker 11: Like the Black version of Desert Island Discs, you're in
Speaker 11: solitary confinement.
Speaker 2: We.
Speaker 4: Wind up in an exact island. We in jail anyway, So.
Speaker 7: What well, if I'm going to be there for that
Speaker 7: for that long, I think I have thought about this
Speaker 7: sort of question before, and I've thought that I don't
Speaker 7: know if I could handle vocals. One of the beautiful
Speaker 7: things about jazz and instrumental music is that you can
Speaker 7: kind of go different places within it. So I think
Speaker 7: that to hear Our Green or Smokey Robinson. It would
Speaker 7: all Stevie Wonder and I think, I think, yeah, I
Speaker 7: think that I'd go crazy. So I go probably more
Speaker 7: avant gardes because that's where I think free jazz and
Speaker 7: sort of in pro music will make the most sense
Speaker 7: because it will always say different. You'll find something different
Speaker 7: within it at most times.
Speaker 4: Interesting. You're my guy, I would see.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't choose my favorite records because it would drive
Speaker 1: you crazy.
Speaker 4: After you hit them your twelve listen and after.
Speaker 9: The three years was up, every time you would listen
Speaker 9: to it, you would automatically taken right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you would think of it, so you would choose.
Speaker 4: So what are those five records?
Speaker 7: Well, I'd probably go for the the History of Sun
Speaker 7: Raw is it?
Speaker 4: Can it? Can it be one record? Or is it?
Speaker 7: Can it be it can be the greatest hits? It
Speaker 7: can't be Okay, I mean, I'd probably go for a Well,
Speaker 7: if there was one vocal record, I'd go with Terry
Speaker 7: Callier's What Colors album with Charles Stepney strings. That's that's it.
Speaker 7: That's that's a great record. I don't think I get
Speaker 7: tired of that.
Speaker 4: I'd go for some.
Speaker 7: Which cold Trane, I mean, maybe it off supreme. Maybe
Speaker 7: that would drive me mad. It probably will, actually, because
Speaker 7: I've heard that too many times already.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's hard.
Speaker 7: Man do one each? I so I've done Terry and
Speaker 7: then you do one? So wow, yeah, because that's not
Speaker 7: so we all get one, all right?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Mine would be no one each, so we do five.
Speaker 4: But you do want to do one?
Speaker 1: Well, well, if I were to take a Coultran record,
Speaker 1: actually I would have chose Pharis Sanders Train of Thought
Speaker 1: record or one of my favorite dealer records are on there,
Speaker 1: which is escaping me right now. Ah, but there's a
Speaker 1: Phara Sanders Train of Thought record I like. My favorite
Speaker 1: culture in that I'd never tire of ever is Coultrane
Speaker 1: plays the Blues, which is actually one of his more
Speaker 1: normal straight ahead records, and have to complete it.
Speaker 4: See Miles's never TD record.
Speaker 1: To him that was his middle finger record to the
Speaker 1: label Brass and him not taking solos on it, just
Speaker 1: repeating the same line over and over again. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's just the most hilarious comical jazz record ever,
Speaker 1: even though it's absolutely a work of art, but just
Speaker 1: the fact that he's that mad to repeat the same
Speaker 1: line over and over and over and over again for
Speaker 1: without soloing. I think that's a stroke of genius. So
Speaker 1: I'd add three of those records.
Speaker 4: Anyway.
Speaker 3: So you lost the game because y'all said, he do one,
Speaker 3: you do one. But I want to tell you.
Speaker 4: You did three. You did for you once and left
Speaker 4: you with one more. Pick the final record.
Speaker 7: Jol, let's give it to I want to go something new.
Speaker 7: I think let's just give it to Camassi. And it's
Speaker 7: three three years. That's a good one. I haven't yet
Speaker 7: listened to it from beginning to end, so I've got
Speaker 7: time to do that. As much as I love it,
Speaker 7: it's epic, it's epic, it is epic.
Speaker 9: My last question, yes, as a man who owns a
Speaker 9: ship ton of records, what's your holy grail that you
Speaker 9: haven't been able to find.
Speaker 7: That I haven't been able to find? Actually, well, it's
Speaker 7: little obscure ones. I got this record on eBay last week.
Speaker 7: Actually I don't do eBay very much, but there's someone
Speaker 7: said to me, there's this record I'm looking for. It's
Speaker 7: from I think it's from Kansas, and it's a seven
Speaker 7: inch by a group called Kalima and it's basically a
Speaker 7: record that Elie A l I m A and there
Speaker 7: was a group called Klima in Manchester, but this is
Speaker 7: the different one. And this song I heard a DJ
Speaker 7: called Motor City Drum Ensemble play on a mixtape a
Speaker 7: couple of years ago, and it sounds like the ultimate
Speaker 7: Royez ballad that Royers never wrote at his peak time
Speaker 7: of when he was working with people like ethel Bt
Speaker 7: and d D Bridgewater, that kind of yeah, searching type
Speaker 7: of period. And it's by Google Khalima and I put
Speaker 7: a bid in for it, and I've never gone very
Speaker 7: very I've never gone more than two hundred quid two
Speaker 7: hundred pounds sterling and and it unfortunately went for like
Speaker 7: one thousand, five hundred.
Speaker 4: Dollars last minute, some bloke fine. I don't know. It
Speaker 4: just really annoyed me because no one knows this record,
Speaker 4: but two hundreds of most you've ever paid for.
Speaker 7: I've paid two thousand records for pounds for Brazilian records
Speaker 7: by Jose prattis called called Tam Tam Tam, which is
Speaker 7: a it's the it's the basis to George Ben's Mashkenada
Speaker 7: record that we all Know and Love and every one
Speaker 7: thought that that Georgia Ben wrote it, practice wrote it,
Speaker 7: but but Georgia Ben got the benefit.
Speaker 4: Damn.
Speaker 6: I have a question, so boring? No I sound boring?
Speaker 4: Right? No?
Speaker 6: Do you have stone bowing the stone? The ct I?
Speaker 6: It was a Japanese only it's like the hardest ct
Speaker 6: I recordified.
Speaker 4: It's J. J.
Speaker 6: Johns.
Speaker 4: That's what he really wanted to ask you at the beginning.
Speaker 4: That sounds amazing though.
Speaker 6: It's J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding. Uh you know,
Speaker 6: Jane k Is there string.
Speaker 7: And stuff or was it quite straightforward recording?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 11: It's from nineteen seventy. I don't can't hear it online?
Speaker 7: Ct Ire Taylor need to get him on here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but he's like in his nineties there, so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mike, Yeah, wait, I have one request. This has
Speaker 4: been the longest, you know, Chiles, I thank you very
Speaker 4: much for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: All right, so on behalf of Quest Love Supreme with
Speaker 1: Laya and Boss Bill and un Paid Bill and fon
Speaker 1: Tickeolo and Sugar Steve and on Paid Bill, which I
Speaker 1: said already, h this is Quest Love and Charles Peterson.
Speaker 4: We thank you.
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.