Goldie

Goldie meets the fans at London Electronic Music Event

Those three are all people who’ve really stuck to what they believe in.

They’re my three ultimate people. Then you’ve got, for me, the ones that carried me. Jazzie B.

Jazzie B doesn’t get the credit he deserves.

Jazzie was doing fucking stadiums in New York and America while we was still sucking teat, man.

Exactly. Not enough people appreciate what he did.

Yeah but people don’t appreciate what I’ve done. Look at me. Fuck it. Let ’em have their time.

Times come and go.

Times come and go, man. We’ve had our time and we’re having more. To be honest, out of all of the genres we’ve lasted longer than anything. Drum and bass music is fucking really strong.

Did you expect to be around this long?

Yeah.

Yeah?

I ain’t really going anywhere. What the drum and bass scene did in this country has influenced the world big time, but it’s never had its just deserts. You can all rally round and be like, ‘Let’s have the Drum & Bass Awards!’ but you know it’s all cack, you know it’s all fucking rubbish. We’ve been here since before there was even a name for this music.

Where does it need to go?

Looking at the elasticity of Ableton, it opens up a whole world of possibility. It actually suits what I’m doing now. It was there already – I think it was six or seven years ago I did something called ‘Fear Heaven’ on it – but I didn’t like it because it was too easy. The discipline and the learning curve hadn’t really found its way. It was that kind of sweet shop thing where there’s loads of sweets piled on the table, the owner ain’t here, which one do I steal? Wait, this ain’t right, it’s a set-up, it’s a fucking set-up! Ableton was like that for me. I thought fuck that, I ain’t going back to that. It’s a great tune but it was too fucking easy.

Every interviewer must ask you what you think of the state of drum and bass compared to the past?

Yeah, it’s a load of fucking…

It’s too obvious.

Yeah.

How many people ask you the same question about graffiti?

Graffiti’s really the future. I saw a wall that Totem from our crew, Tats Cru, did. It was samurais having a fight, writing out his fucking name. Some of the stuff that this kid’s doing is just the future already. The concepts. You can’t beat graffiti writers in their purest form because they’re doing what programmers emulate.

You said when you put out your first record as Ajax Crew it was about just getting your name out there. It’s basically the same idea as tagging.

Just get your name out, that was all it was. Be known. There’s no other thing about it. There certainly wasn’t a fucking financial premise to it. You just wanna fucking get out there.

Do you miss the old days of writing? Do you ever get tempted to go rack some Montana, pull your hood up, go out in the middle of the night and paint a wall?

Why would I rack it when they send it to me for free? We did it. We did a wall in Hunt’s Point. Sixteen of us in the Bronx, illegally, on a wall that the police can’t stop us doing. We just did it. In the daytime. We’re so strong on the overground that they can’t fuck with us on the underground. That’s a fact.