Mini-mix #4: Funkystepz

2010 was less critically kind to UK Funky than previous years, but Funkystepz made waves with a hard-edged sound that paid zero attention to the genre hybridization going on elsewhere, focusing on club-ready Funky cuts – the highlight of which was ‘For U’, one of the best vocal Funky cuts to date. They’ll be following it with their first outing for Hyperdub in February, the unstoppable ‘Fuller’.

There’s a few of you in Funkystepz – who does what in the group exactly?

“There three of us in Funkystepz which is Stimpy, Renay and Maxsin.”

How did you guys form?

“Renay and Stimpy were in a grime production team together in the past so knew each other through there. Maxsin used to DJ for artists such as Black The Ripper, Wretch 32 and Nasty Crew and used to pick up grime tracks off Stimpy. Then Renay and Stimpy decided to join forces again and get back together to make another production team. Stimpy showed Maxsin the tracks and ideas and he wanted to get involved in the movement as he was already playing house and Funky music. There were two other members in Funkystepz but they went on to focus on their careers as music artists, not so much producers, so shout out to Scrufizzer and Twitch. We are still all family and you will still see work with them here and there. Make sure you check out their music.”

‘For U’ was probably the first thing a lot of people heard from you – what had you guys been doing musically until then?

“Before ‘For U’ come about we had other instrumental tracks being played on radio and mix CDs. We also featured on the Ministry Of Sound CD mixed by Pioneer, Supa D and Footloose called Sounds Of UK Funky; we had two tracks on there called ‘Sounds In Moruga’ and ‘Trinity Hill’. Also had a track called ‘Touch On Me’ on a Supa Dupa CD, and the insrtumental for ‘For U’ is called ‘Bounce’ – that got a lot of love from the Funky scene and was also featured on the Marcus Nasty Rinse CD. So we were working hard even before ‘For U’.“

And how did the track come about, particularly the collaboration with Lily McKenzie?

“This is why we miss the good days of Myspace because you could find very talented musicians such as Lily. We heard her acoustic music she had on there and contacted her to ask if she wanted to work on a track with us. We sent her five instrumentals, she picked out ‘Bounce’, and we rearranged it for her. We’ve worked on some other tracks with her that you’ll hear in the near future called ‘Circles’ and  ‘Switching Roles’ featuring Scrufizzer. Bring back Myspace people.”

Funky doesn’t seem to be as hyped as it was in the ‘Do You Mind’ days, so I love how you guys are pretty defiantly UK Funky, right down to the name. Do you ever worry that it’ll restrict you as artists at all?

“The hype of Funky has died down a bit but it’s still played all over England in lots of clubs. But there is always a big hype when something fresh and new comes about. Katy B just went to number 3 in the national UK charts with a track we would consider as Funky. All that needs to happen is record labels need to pick up Funky tracks earlier and push them properly and they can do well. Certain tracks were picked up too late by labels for release when they were rinsed out by the general public and people had mp3s of the track already.

“Do you know what, Funkystepz does not stand for UK Funky or Funky House Music. We love UK Funky/Funky music and its what we are known for, but we do many other types of music that in the near future you’ll hear. We are Funkystepz because the word Funky means something different – it’s not the norm, and we’re taking different stepz compared to everyone else and making our own sound and style. So when you hear certain tracks you will know its us – basically we are saying we are taking different stepz compared to everyone else but those stepz are forward.

“If people don’t listen to our other styles of music because of just our name you must be very narrow-minded. If music is good it’s good. No matter who made it, the name of the track or the name of the people or person that made it.”

What do you have in the pipeline for this year?

“2011 should be a big year for us. We got more releases, more music and more work. We got a release coming out with Hyperdub ['Fuller'/'Hurricane Riddim'], our next song with Lily McKenzie coming called ‘Circles’, a song with Rhian Moore called ‘No More’ and another track with a singer called Louise Williams called ‘Lovers’. So make sure you watch out for us because we got many other instrumentals and songs with other artists.”

Tracklist:
Gyptian – Hold Yeh (Funkystepz House Mix) – Ministry Of Sound
Funkystepz – Hurricane Riddim – Hyperdub
Funkystepz – Cut Above – F.L.Y
Funkystepz – Fuller – Hyperdub
Funkystepz – Warrior – CDR
Funkystepz Feat Lily Mckenzie – For U – Safe & Sound
Funkystepz – Leave With You – F.L.Y
Funkystepz – Malibu – F.L.Y
Funkystepz – Kingtowns Vip – F.L.Y
Funkystepz feat Louise Williams – Whispers (Trinity Hill Vocal) – F.L.Y
Funkystepz feat Rhian Moore – No More – F.L.Y

Next page (6/6)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.