Mavado interview

Photo by Jamie-James Medina

Here is a short interview I did with Mavado after his Stratford Rex show at the end of last year.

Prancehall: I heard you first started singing in public in church when you were a kid. Did you have a good voice back then?
Mavado: Definitely. I have a good voice now, so I must have a good voice back then.

Were you using your "Gangster for life" catchphrase at church in those days?
No.

What's the situation with you and Vybz Kartel?
Well the situation with me and Vybz Kartel, that kind of gone for along the while so I don't really talk about that any more.

Okay. Are you selective about the producers you will work with? You seem to have done a lot of work with Stephen McGregor.
Daseca – my management team, my producing team - they are the ones who do most of my riddims, you know what I mean? And then you've got Stephen [McGregor] so it's like a family so every time they've got a big riddim they know I'm the one to take it off to another level. Every time they've got a big rhythm they call Mavado.

You could have covered your album with collaborations from much bigger dancehall artists and I'm pretty sure it would have sold a lot more. Why did you decide against that?
Well, I could've had more guests on it but this is my first album and I think the people wanna hear more about Mavado, from Mavado, you understand? So that's why I even done this album with so many of my songs.

Is there anyone you would like to work with?
Well, a lot of producers like Sly and Robbie and all those people, and right now I'm really getting together to work with Sly & Robbie. You know, I'm already in the international market by doing some songs with international artists like Foxy Brown and Akon and Busta Rhymes for his album, and Wyclef, Uncle Murda and so many more, you know what I mean?

After blowing up rhythms like Red Bull & Guinness, you must get a lot of people these days asking you to vocal their rhythms...
People always try to approach me with money to do songs for them, but if I nuh like the riddim, if it nuh sound like my kind of riddim, if it nuh sound like my kind of thing and all of that, then me nuh go voice no matter how much you have, 'cos I'm not a person that cheat the music.

That's very noble. Tell me about your upbringing.
Well, you dun know, we from the gully – Kingston, Jamaica, Cassava Piece, Kingston 8, Kingston great, you know what I mean? Growing up now from the gully and ting, life hard, you know? But we still have to pull through and we have to still make it through life and came out to be a better man today. Cassava piece is a ghetto. It's just like you hear about Jungle and all of these places, and Tivoli Gardens and all of that. It's just one whole ghetto, that's why we say "Gully side." You know, 'cos it's just one gully side.

---

MP3: Lewi White feat. Busy Signal & Mavado - Vice Dub

Thoughts

Is it just me or does Eminem look like Brian Dowling (of Big Brother fame) these days?



This Benga album, Diary of an Afro Warrior, is pretty jazzy in places. Some of it sounds a bit like the soundtrack to a really epic soft porn film. In theory, I should really hate it but it's so different from what I was expecting that I think I like it. Btw, did I ever mention that "Night" sounds a bit like a pigeon being gently prodded by a nail?

---

Here is a very short Mavado interview by me translated into Italian. You can't say I don't cater for you lucky 0.2 per cent who accidentally stumble across this blog in between looking for pizza recipes, cheap slip-on brogues, Roberto Cavalli thongs, Brylcreem and cures for crabs (only joking about the last one).

Grime's not dead, it's just resting its eyes

This video falls somewhere between this and this with some definite echoes of this.



This was done at the room right at the top of the Stratford Rex a few weeks back. If you pause it in the right place you might be able to catch the shadow of the end of one of my fingers on the wall to the right of the screen. You might also have seen the side of my head for 1/10th of a second on Channel 4 on Friday night on the Nike Supersonic programme. So famous right now.


Here is my new regular feature where I list events that grime MCs have been booked to play but were too busy to show up.

Last week the MCs who were otherwise engaged when they were supposed to be performing were:

*Trim in Brighton
*Boy Better Know in Bristol

Have you booked a grime MC who hasn't bothered to show up? Let me know below in the comments or email me. The best story wins a plastic clothes hanger with the words: "Grime's not dead, it's just resting its eyes" scrawled across it in Tippex.

Stratford Rex: The dick inspector

I didn't get any pictures or videos from the Mavado show last night. Pretty annoying. The whole thing was filmed anyway so maybe I'll get the DVD. When I got to The Rex around 10, the police had already shut off two lanes of traffic outside the club and lined up at least eight police cars and vans along the road. They also had police dogs and guys with M16s. Pretty insane for an event where there wasn't a hint of trouble all night. Total over reaction in my opinion. On the way in they were taking no chances: I got the metal detector and full search and then I was ordered to go and see a woman in the corner. I had no idea what was going on so I walked up and stood next her and without saying a word she put her hand between my legs and cupped my piece before nodding to the other bouncers that I was allowed in. I think that was her job all night: dick inspector. She checks to see if you're packing a big enough piece and if not she sends you out to be gunned down by the police. There were no shootings last night, thankfully.

Inside I saw Chipmunk, Badness and Logan Sama in a full suit with a red tie and overcoat. I told him he needed to wear a white suit next time to fit in. He didn't seem so keen. I saw some pretty amazing fashion in there. There was a guy who looked like a fat Benga who had Air Force Ones covered in gold sequins and he was the most under dressed person there. He performed later on but I had no idea who he was. He did some bars over "Baddis Ting" rhythm and got a pretty massive reaction. Mad Cobra didn't show but there were lots of random Channel U types performing a song each for a half an hour segment. There was even one girl with some cheerleader-esque dancers performing with her. She wasn't so good.

I won't bother to say too much about Mavado. Some people who like dancehall genuinely don't seem to like him. For me, his album is the best album of the year in any genre. No question. He performed most of the songs off Gangster For Life with a full band. The crowd knew every word. I wasn't standing in the best spot but I enjoyed it. It was nice to see a crowd of 1,000 people all having fun at a night they've paid 40 quid for. I don't get that all the time at nights I go to where people have paid a fiver.



It seems like I am the last person in the world to know that Jammer has an album deal with Big Dada. Why did no one tell me? I'm upset. It's like people didn't want me to know or something. That's not nice. Anyway, I think he'll do well. Jammer's obviously not the best MC in the world but he can make good songs and he's funny and has a bit of charisma. It was a big fuck up that "Murkle Man" never got a proper release. It had a great video already made and could have been as big as "Pow".

---

After A Breath of Fresh Ears and Lend Me Your Ears I've come up with an idea for the name of Ears' next project: Play It By Ears. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. "Play it by Ears." Get it? It's like "Play it by ear", but slightly different. Play It By Ears.

---

Saw a rather interesting article in The Voice called, "Is rap turning our girls into ho's?" There are some pretty choice quotes in there. It's an excrutiating read so if you can't be bothered to go through the whole thing, I think the gist of it is that hip-hop videos are making black girls become promiscuous and do drugs and the main consumers of hip-hop are "young, affluent, white men" so that is who we should blame.

Anger Is a Gift

I've finally finished my mixtape. It is available to download here and the best tracks can be previewed on the MySpace page. You may have thought it was lost in history never to be heard (like Sharky Major's mixtape that was supposed to come out 3 years ago) but here it is. Most of the tracks on here are specials, dubs or exclusives. One or two were given to me as exclusives but ended up being released before I finished this because it's taken me so long to do. The others are just favourites that I always play when I DJ out. Here is the tracklist:

01. Intro
02. Virgo feat. B-Live & Flirta D - The Clack Riddim (Prancehall Special)
03. Tempa T - Tempz
04. Terror Danjah - Zumpti Huntah
05. Jammer - Toxic Freestyle
06. Yung Joc - Do Ya Bad
07. Brains - Plastic (Instrumental)
08. Scratchy, Skepta & Breeze - Vice Freestyle
09. Jitset feat. Jammer - Mary Jane Remix
10. Brains feat. Slinga, 2-Pac & Biggie - Thug Love
11. Matt Shadetek - Bump Bump
12. Lewi White feat. Busy Signal & Mavado - Vice Freestyle
13. Brains - Neva Eva
14. Big Kuntry feat. Yung Joc & T.I. - Yeah (Remix)
15. Mavado - Wah Dem A Do (Dexplicit Remix)
16. Rossi B & Luca feat. Scorcher - Not No Talker
17. Tinchy Stryder feat. Fuda Guy - Sick Ina Head
18. Matt Shadetek feat. Skepta - Reign
19. Jammer feat. Delishus - Vice Freestyle
20. DVA feat. Badness - Prancehall Dub
21. Ruff Sqwad - Untitled
22. Jammer feat. Ce'Cile - Prancehall Dub
23. Syer B - Badboy (Prancehall Special)
24. Slix - Down and Out
25. Statik feat. Faction G - Lily Allen Remix
26. Ce'Cile - Tell Me What You Love (Cheerful Riddim)
27. Ears feat. Flamin - Fergalicious Freestyle
28. Brains feat. Knuckles - Damn (Remix)
29. Riko - Prancehall Dub
30. Statik feat. Tempa T, Kraze & Esco - Bad Guys
31. Statik feat. Cham - Prancehall Story
32. Outro
BONUS TRACK:
Fish Go Deep - The Cure & The Cause (Jitset's 'The Chop & The Screw' Remix)

Some notes:
For track 5, I asked Jammer to do a vocal of "Toxic" after I heard him freestyle over it the night David Banner played at The Old Blue Last. For track number 10 my friend Jamie-James (who helped loads with this) had the idea of doing a track using the most famous deceased grime MC, Slinga from YGC, plus the two most famous deceased hip-hop MCs. He got some Slinga a cappellas off Jammer and then gave them to my friend Brains to build a track around the vocals. For track number 12 I got one of my favourite grime beats ever and gave it to VBS when they were going to Jamaica to film a documentary and asked them to get some dancehall MCs to vocal it. Mavado and Busy Signal both obliged and then when they got back, Jammer blended the two together to make one song. They followed Mavado around for a week to convince him to do it and then they had to sit around for seven hours on the day waiting for him to finally record the vocals. Having heard a different version of track 31 that Logan played on Kiss last year, Fuda Guy called up asking could he be on the mixtape. I went to meet him at some random train station in east London late one night to pick up a CD of tracks from him, only to discover when I got home that he'd just given me some really old track featuring him and Stryder that was released ages ago. He later emailed me track 17, which was an exclusive at the time, but I think it was released recently. Track 19 is another dancehall dub that VBS got for me in Jamaica, this time over a Jammer beat. Track 20 is the track I first heard Badness on. Faction G hooked it up for me some time last year and I've been a big fan of Badness ever since. Track 26 is by Ce'Cile and is all about my "big stick". This was another one from the VBS documentary in Jamaica and you can watch the making of the song here. The beat is an old Jammer classic.

There is a bit of a Bugsy Malone theme on this mixtape. Track 24 uses a sample from the "Down & Out" song off the Bugsy Malone soundtrack. After giving Slix the idea and sending him the song, he got Scholar (I never knew he produced either) to make a track for him to vocal. I really wanted to get Ears on the mixtape because he sounds good on pretty much any beat but wanted him to vocal something non-grime because I thought it would be more interesting, so went for "Fergalicious" because it's probably one of the most ridiculous songs ever. Riko made me two specials in return for DJing at his birthday bash last year. One made it on (track 29), the other was hip-hop tempo but I will use it for something one day.

Over a year ago, we held a studio session till three in the morning at Jamie-James's house with Statik, Esco, Tempa T and Kraze. Wiley was supposed to come down too, and kept calling Esco, but in the end he kept to tradition and didn't bother to show up. The sample in track 30 is another one from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack, as you probably already know if you've seen the film. I was going to get Tempa T to do a vocal of that "So You Want To Be A Boxer" song (because he boxes) but it never happened for some reason. The Cham freestyle (track 31) was one of the first songs I got for the mixtape. Statik went to Cham's hotel while he was over in the UK last year and got him to record a special for me over the "Boy" beat. Statik then licenced the beat to the Babyshambles' album or something, so he re-did the vocals over a new beat (which I think I prefer anyway). I can't be bothered to go through all the drops but I managed to get some from people like David Banner, Juvenile and 5th Ward Weebie. I was promised loads more but just didn't have the time to chase them all. The New Orleans drops were hooked up with contacts I got while I was over there last year. Finally, the bonus track is a chopped and screwed version of a funky house song that I got my friend Jitset to do.

Special thanks goes to: Jamie-James, Alex Sturrock, Daniel 7 Year Glitch, Ben, Statik, Brains, Jammer, Faction G, Jack Adams, God, Jesus, Mary, St Joseph, my gran, my two cats and Robert Mugabe.

(If the download link at the top doesn't work, click here to download the mixtape directly.)