Underground house fans who stayed alert in 2009 will already be familiar with the work of DJ Champion.
In the year that saw the breakthrough stars of UK Funky’s breakthrough Summer (Roska, Scratcha DVA, Cooly G et al) find a wider audience and broaden their own horizons, Champion’s ‘Lighter’, ‘Tribal Affair’ and ‘Motherboard’ marked three of the best, and biggest tracks from the UK Funky underground – all three devastatingly simple, bassline-driven floor-fillers of the highest order.
Then, in 2010, Champion released nothing. Why he released nothing is a question we’ll investigate in this interview, but know this: the London-based producer is back with a vengeance for 2011, with two superb EPs pencilled in for his own label and Terror Danjah’s Hardrive, and more in the pipeline, including a set at our next FACT party (details coming soon). We caught up with Champion last week to talk Funky, Fruity Loops, and why music was always in the blood for him.
“It’s in the blood, everyone around me has always been into music, so this was near enough fate for me.”
I guess the natural first question to ask would be what got you into making music?
“What, like what I’m doing now or from the very beginning?”
Might as well start from the beginning.
“Well, I’ve actually been doing music since I could walk. My family’s always been into music – my dad’s a soundman, so he plays around the place, he’s quite local, just in London. My mum was in a UK rap group, just before I was born – they were signed to Island… they were called X Posse, they were run by a guy called Overlord X or something. They were kind of big at one point, I think.”
Yeah, I don’t know the music but the name definitely rings a bell.
“Yeah, way before my time mate. But apparently they were quite good. One of my aunties had a publishing deal with Universal at one point, and even my uncle used to MC with [DJ] EZ and that – he had a track on his compilation…”
“Early grime was the only thing that related to me, and the people like me.”
Which one, Pure Garage 2?
“Yeah. His MC name was Dollars. It’s in the blood, everyone around me has always been into music, so this was near enough fate for me. I’ve been DJing for ages, I think I first started trying to pick up a bit of the craft when I was about nine.”
I guess if there’s decks in the house you’re gonna do it.
“Well everything they played was quite current, so it kept me up to date even then. Which is what I think influences my sound at the moment… what I’ve noticed is that a lot of old school, UK garage, drum’n’bass guys, they like my stuff, they say it reminds them of how things used to be. I can only assume that’s ‘cause of what I grew up around, really.”
Well your sound does seem to cross over quite quickly, when you look at people like Kode9 and Terror [Danjah] who’re into it – I don’t know if those guys necessarily check that much Funky, but they like your stuff.
‘Motherboard’ (radio rip)
“It’s a weird thing with them. Terror will tell anyone he does not like Funky, with a passion, but for some reason he likes what I play and what I make.”
Same with Elijah [from Elijah & Skilliam], he’s grime all day but I’ve seen him raving about you.
“Yeah yeah, even him. He does. Not. Like Funky at all, but he will play a Champion tune… it’s mad [laughs]”
Do you think it’s because… well, put it this way, the first time I properly started buying vinyl records was the early days of grime. I think that’s the case with a lot of London people my age. And your tunes – not so much in the structure, but in terms of those simple but effective basslines – do remind me of old grime.
“Well you know what, I was making grime when I first got on the production. And my main influences were those early grime stages, where Skepta’s ‘DTI’ was big, Davinche was doing his tunes, Terror had ‘Creepy Crawler’, Wiley was doing his eski-beat thing. For me, them times in my life… the music was mind-blowing, there was nothing else like it. It was the only thing that related to me, and the people like me. So when I made my tunes, I tried to make them as effective as those ones.”
“I’ve always been a bassline freak.”
Well effective’s the word. Those early grime tunes, there’s no fat on them – there’s nothing that doesn’t need to be there.
“Even down to the way I live, I’ve always thought simple was more effective… not all the time, but like you see people wearing name brand from head to toe, it’s just ridiculous. You don’t need to scream. I think the same way about my music – so long as I incorporate what needs to be in those tracks, I don’t need anything else.
“I’ve always been a bassline freak. That’s why most my tracks are bassline driven – I think all of them are … I first picked up a demo copy of Fruity [Loops, music program] when I was 14, I was trying to get into that grime scene, but it wasn’t happening. It was down to a lack of knowledge on the production side on my side, plus I was only 14, you know, I was still at school.
“Then the sound evolved, into the Funky thing. A friend of mine was buying a lot of those records [in 2006/2007] … I was quite late to it, like by then, Supa D and Pioneer were household names practically. I’m not fully on Fruity now though. I’ll get stuff down on it, then bounce it over to Logic and mix it. I wish I started on Logic… with Fruity, it’s a drum machine basically, but there’s a certain sound you can get out of it that you can’t get out of any high-brand music software.”
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‘Tribal Affair VIP’ (radio rip)
It’s so easy on Fruity too, like it’s so natural to just get stuff down.
“Yeah, to get a general idea down, it’s good… but when you wanna get into the sound quality, and the warmth, and the kick of your tracks… Fruity can do that, but only to an extent. You get quite distorted tracks. ‘Tribal Affair’ and ‘Motherboard’ were mixed and mastered in Fruity, so sound quality-wise they ain’t the greatest, but as time went on and I started taking the craft a bit more seriously, in terms of mixing and mastering, I graduated to Logic.”
‘Tribal Affair’ and ‘Motherboard’ were released in 2009, and that was a big 12”… but last year, you didn’t put anything out. How comes?
“Yeah, that was all a bit of a mix-up on my end, but I’m here now, I’ve got two releases scheduled for this year, and I’m working on a third.”
“I wanted something that would sound good on the airwaves, where you can picture the DJ saying the name of the track, and then the name of the label.”
So that’s the one on your own label, and one on [Terror Danjah’s] Hardrive.
“Yeah, the first one’s gonna be ‘Tribal Affair VIP’, ‘Motherboard’ again, ‘cause I want to put it out there officially, and ‘Lose Control’. Then the second one will be ‘Lighter’, ‘Lighter VIP’ and a tune called ‘Bongoshot’.”
You know I love ‘Bongoshot’, man.
“Yeah, I know. It’s funny, ‘cause in my ends I don’t get any feedback on that one.”
How did you hook up with Terror for the release?
“Well that was a crazy one – I’ve always kind of known he liked my stuff, ‘cause him and Pioneer are good friends. I was with a record label called 2Envy, they were responsible for T2’s ‘Heartbroken’ and Bashy’s stuff… They were managing me, and I was on their record label. Pioneer phoned me one day, and said ‘my good friend Terror, he wanted me to tell you that whenever you’re ready to put a record out, to hit him up’… and I was like ‘wow’. ‘Cause for me, a lover of the early grime stage…”
“I think a lot of the producers are so confused – you had big labels who came in, didn’t give the producers a penny, signing tunes a year after they’ve been on road.”
He’s a legend.
“Yeah. And so when I got out of my management contract with 2Envy, I hit him up and it went from there.”
So tell me about your own label.
“Well it’s called Formula. Truthfully, I just wanted something that sounds good… I wanted something that would sound good on the airwaves, where you can picture the DJ saying the name of the track, and then the name of the label.”
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‘Lighter’ (radio rip)
Yeah, it needs to roll off the tongue, and stay with you.
“Well you look at the labels around right now – Numbers, Hyperdub – they stand on their own, just from the name.”
Formula just kind of makes sense too, like you were talking about with your tunes… there’s no stuff that doesn’t need to be there. Keeping it simple.
“Yeah, I wanted it to say everything and nothing at the same time.”
I wanted to ask you about Funky… ‘cause I saw you saying a lot of stuff about it on Twitter the other day. Where do you see yourself in relation to it right now?
“Well when it comes to me and the Funky scene… I dunno, I’ve never seen myself as being part of it. Like when ‘Tribal Affair’ came out, everyone was still on the tropical stuff, everybody wanted the next Crazy Cousins stuff. And then you had the MC tracks, the skanks… The instrumentals were there, but nothing like ‘Tribal Affair’ … ‘Tribal Affair’ was so big in Europe, and in the Midlands – In fact, I think it was bigger in the Midlands than it was in London.
“There’s too many things going on in Funky.”
“So I didn’t see myself making it anyway, but as it is, there’s too many things going on in Funky. You’ve got Funky producers trying to make house, people doing their individual takes on house, then you’ve got people making nothing of the sort. People like Roska who’s mad experimental, Funkystepz have got their own sound, [DJ] Naughty’s got a bit of a tribal thing going on. I don’t know what to say right now, maybe that’s why I was going off on Twitter… there’s nothing to it anymore, in some sense. I think the Funky ravers are a bit lost, and it’s reflected in the raves. I’ll play at one rave, and I’ll have to play strictly tunes from 2007, then you’ve got nights like Crazylegs [in Bristol] where I can go and play all new stuff.
“I feel the Funky scene’s got no direction in terms of sound anymore… but then it’s healthy that it’s got so many different renditions of what people class as UK Funky. Look at rap, you could have stuff at 140[bpm], stuff that’s really slow, and stuff that’s in between, but it’s all rap. So this could all be really healthy, in the end.”
Well I think you’ve got to look long-term. A genre, or a scene can die, so you’ve got to focus on your own path as an individual first.
“Well maybe that’s what’s kept it afloat – people making the sound that they feel like they need to be making. I think now, that’s why people like me, Funkystepz, etc are getting bigger now … six months ago, I never thought I’d be in Fabric, playing a UK Funky set, to that crowd. UK Funky’s been mad – it’s gone fully overground, major labels getting involved, signing stuff, and then it’s gone back underground, and then more over to this side, playing more trendy raves, stuff like that.”
“I think a lot of the producers are so confused – you had big labels who came in, didn’t give the producers a penny, signing tunes a year after they’ve been on road.”
Then sitting on them for another year.
“Exactly, [those artists] need someone who knows how things work in this scene… That’s where my label comes in, so when someone’s made a track that they need an outlet for, they can come to me. It’s not even about me – I love this scene, on my laptop and in my CD wallet there’s just so much new stuff I want to play. I’m really excited about it.”
DJ Champion’s next single, ‘Tribal Affair VIP’, is out May 16.
Tom Lea
