Stinking of issy miyake dark rum and the marijuana

At the moment, I smell of a heady blend of Issy Miyake aftershave mixed with the Dark rum and Marijuana I’ve been consuming. It’s quite a potent mix.

Step inna mi lake and swim with the piranha

Metaphorically speaking, I’m so tough that if I had a lake and you were to step into it, you would find it full of Piranhas, which as you know are very dangerous fish and would most likely eat you.

Anytime mi drop mi go put down a marka

Whenever I’m about to drop something, whether it be a lyric or a heavy beat; I’m going to put down a marker so that you’re able to see where it came from.

If it nuh money say whe dem bother talk for?

If you’re going to ask me to perform or ‘drop a marka’ and you’re not considering paying me money for it, why are you talking to me at all? I am a professional wordsmith and expect to be paid for my work.

Dem a try fi hold up a bank wid a banana

Those kind of people I aforementioned are so silly, they’re the kind of person who would try to rob a bank armed with only a piece of fruit rather than a weapon.

Yeah we pree the whole ting panorama

Yes, indeed we watched the whole thing happen and found it as informative as that award winning BBC current affairs show Panorama.

Whole heap a gun talk they don’t really want no drama

Those silly people I mentioned before pretend to be hardcore by mentioning that they have guns but I bet that if push came to shove, they wouldn’t want to cause any disruption or drama so to speak.

We a kill dem a bloodclaat gain

In a soundclash against those fools, we will lyrically decimate them exactly as we have done before. In fact, I’m getting tired of lyrically decimating them. How many times must we do this?!

Got the tings on lock down again

Once more, we have secured our lyrical and musical arsenal for our soundclash combat.

Them a tek ten shots in again

In fact we have 10 hard hitting items to fire at them during our soundclash. These items are so hard hitting, they’re akin to shots fired from a gun.

Dem pon a old pan sound dem again

The technical capabilities of their musical set up leave a lot to be desired.

Man a gash dem and light them again

With reference to the 2006 reggae anthem by Chuck Fender ‘Gash Dem and Light Dem’, we’re going to fight against their negativity and purify their stupidity with our lyrical and musical fire!

Becaa me nah hyping again

Last time we faced each other, I got excited about the prospect. This time, it’s business.

Man are ready fi di war, when it comes on top, ‘ca me nah feel frightened again

We are ready for this soundclash when the time comes and although last time it happened, I felt nervous energy; this time I don’t.

Hope that helps you enjoy the record!

Download it here. Watch the video here.

Well, surprised by how good he was, I was inspired and on my train home last night, I did a few remixes you’re welcome to download…

GMUNNI vs Azealia Banks:

GMUNNI vs Chase and Status:

GMUNNI vs Old Skool Jungle:

GMUNNI vs Old Skool Garage:

GMUNNI vs Skeptikal, Dub Phizix & Strategy:

and GMUNNI vs Dr Dre:

Download all the mixes here

That brings us up to a total of 197 Jam Hots overall since the show started in 2007. Who’ll have the 200th Jam Hot? Find out next year…!!

Last night was night 1 of the 1Xtra Live 2011 tour which sees us hitting 4 cities across the UK. Labrinth, Tinchy Stryder, Dappy & Wretch 32 all hit the stage with all of them bringing their A game and the Manchester crowd going nuts for all the big hits.

Catch up with all the action on the 1Xtra site here.
Here are a few instagram pictures I took during the night:

Setting the stage

Nick Bright warming up the crowd as doors open

Being briefed in the 1Xtra Tourbus

Just about to go live

Labrinth comes in

Tinchy brings out the Ruff Sqwad

Wretch 32 & Josh Kumra perform Don't Go

Over the past few months, the good guys at Creative Nerds have been working tirelessly on creating what you see now. Expect many more posts, lots of great content and more of an insight into my world of amazing new music.

It’s been a long time since I’ve hit up Jams blog. *sings* “It feels like foreverrrrr” (is that even a real song)… never mind. As I was saying, it’s been ages and I miss the little image icon thingy that Jam Jam has on the corner of the page when you refresh it so I’m backkkk bishessssssss.

Do we remember the post I did a while ago about having a show on Rinse Fm every sunday? (11am-1pm, lock in… safe). I think I mentioned that I can’t mix records to save my life. I couldn’t. In fact I don’t even think I’d even touched a deck before (Disclaimer: This might be an exaggeration – if you have a pic of me touching a deck then… don’t quote me). So having a show was wicked and I was glad Rinse had given me and Julie the chance to play some exciting new music and chat about… stuff… on their station. Now it’s about six months down the line, (methinks) and Rinse have their legal licence (WHOOP WHOOP) so in celebration of this. And just because I thought it’d be useful and fun to know how, I decided to learn how to mix. If you’re a beginner then listen up, just follow these steps and you’ll be a badderman deejay in NO TIME!

Step 1: Find Skilliam (Rinse FM badder man DJ) and lock him in a room with you and Julie for two hours with CDJ’s and multiple CD’s.

Step 2: Find DJ JJ (Rinse FM’s badder BADDERMAN DJ) and get him to use his connects to magically hook you up with some CDJ’s.

Step 3: Take them home and ring (any which badderman DJ above) and learn how to hook the wires up to the mixers.

Step 4: Stare dumbfounded at the mixers and flashing lights, squint your eyes really hard and try to remember what Skilliam and JJ taught you.

Step 5: I can’t help you with, this is the part where you need to put your musical knowledge, and your concentration along with your common sense together and work out A) Your tune selection. B) The tempos of your tunes C) How all the channels and cross faders work. Play around a little bit, get to know your music properly, every beat, where the beat drops, where the lyrics begin… EVERYTHING and then spend some time getting comfortable with the equipment.

Step 6: Announce on Twitter (tweet tweet) that you’re going to attempt to deejay and then bobs your uncle (INSERT FLYERS HERE) you’re booked at some NEXT HYPE raves.

Step 7: Realise you’re actually moving way to fast for your own good and feel a bit sickly and panic that you’re about to embarrass your whole entire life when you flop the mix in front of everyone at the bookings.

Step 8: PRACTISE! FOR HOURS/DAYS/WEEKS/MONTHS/YEARS (In my case days)

Now I was prepared (and by prepared I mean I hyped so much that I couldn’t back down) I cheated though. I wrote down all the songs I was going to play and practised the hour long set over and over again for four hours straight. I went to the booking and BLAM! The CDJ’s were NOT the ones I had been practising with. CRINGE. I panicked. The amazing DJ Motive calmed my life down and I put my CDs in the mixer and waited… and waited… and waited… and… nothing happened. The CD’s DIDN’T WORK. So as you can guess, that was a flop. (No par to me the profession DJ Complex after me had the same problem).

Step 9: Rant on Twitter about what happened and be a moany cow till the very lovely promoter of The Bang Bang event contacts you and tells you to come to his event later on that day and do the warm up set. Accept it and arrive at your destination.

This is the part where you realise this is NOT your bedroom, the speakers are VERY loud and the decks are up 5 foot 8 high and you’re 5 foot 6. See that the rave is infact a Hip Hop rave and although you have Hip Hop CD’s with you you’ve never mixed Hip Hop in your life, realise the venue is fast filling up and (yup you guessed it)… PANIC.

Step 10: DO THE DAMN THING!

Now I wanted to chicken out. Soooo badly. But I thought “what’s the worst that can happen”. The worst that could happen… happened. The mixers were not starting on beat. I wheeled up the tings dem, cue’d it, and started a funky tune. The left deck decided it was going to start playing automatically and you’ve got the cross fader in the middle so everyone can hear what’s just happened.

Step 11: DON’T PANIC

Everyones seen you now, it’s now or never, in the words of Dizzee Rascal… Fix Up Look Sharp. So I did the damn thing, someone came and tweaked the decks a little bit so the tune started at the right time and I was off! DJ Joel (who was “wow” on the decks) was by my side just in case I flopped and helped me with the mix for the first couple when I did…flop. BUT people were vybzing to my selection! Best feeling in the world (other then the feeling you get when you’re eating red velvet cake… yum) and I played half an hour of funky, grime and dubstep…UNTIL some woman came and asked me to turn it down because she’s “trying to have a conversation and she can’t hear herself think”. I had the pleasure of informing her the bar is now a rave. Had giggle at her frustrated expression and then switched up the set to … HIP HOP.

Step 12: Common sense!

Apply everything you practised at this point. It would be silly to not mix them if possible. I was in the groove and thought “what the heck… I may as well try” and I selected a couple tunes that were similar speed, IT WORKED! I mixed four Hip Hop tunes, perfectly! The DJ Yasmin came. We got chatting. I forgot I was supposed to be mixing and she had to quickly lean over the decks (which were facing me NOT her) and listen into the headphones to hear what tune was next on the CD, mess with the tempo a bit and then the cross fader and then the bass and then the volume and BLAM! the tune mixed. She mixed the tune when all the equipment was facing the other way. In a dim light… I don’t need to say it do I? Yeah I do… BADMAN!

So all in all, I clanged a few times, panicked a few times and mixed perfectly a few times. There was a healthy balance. So whilst you were all (hopefully) locked into the Radio 1 & 1Xtra clash (If you wasn’t listen back here:)  I was DJing at my first ever booking. It felt brilliant.

I’ve got a long way to go in learning, and I’m going to try and learn properly because it’s really fun but I have the utmost respect to a lot of DJ’s now, it’s definitely not easy, the pressure, the tune selection, getting the mix right, it might sound simple, but it’s definitely an art, one you have to master. So big up all the DJs. I’m not trying to be a DJ as a career, it’s just loads of fun and I love music so sharing the music I love with other people is very worthwhile to me.

Last night my winning tunes were:
Young Mad B – Superfly
Cleo Sol & Davinche – Addicted
Meleka – Miss Me
Roses Gabor & Redlight – Stupid
Katy B – Katy On A Mission
P Money, True Tiger + Kelly Rowland – Commander
Jay Z – D.O.A
Beyonce – Upgrade U
Cam’rom – Hey Ma
Luniz – I Got Five On It
M.I.A – Paper Planes
Drake Ft Lil Wayne – I’m Going In

That’s all folks.

P.s prize for the person who can correctly guess how many “DJ terms” I used up there. Dun-know-the-lingo.com <http://Dun-know-the-lingo.com>

Catch me here next saturday anyway. It’s going to be wicked (believe I’m practising hard)

Toodles

x

Sarah Young explores the journey of the DJ and reports from the BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ Relay world record attempt.

DJ’S are much  like art curators, in the sense that an art curators job is to select a collection of art  and position it together in the most flattering way that makes visual sense, much the same as a DJ who’s job is to take a bunch of music artists work and position it together to make it sound different, interesting, and sometimes even better.

Back in the day it always used to be that geeky dude in the glasses who spent hours in his room fiddling around with dials and playing around with vinyls. Kinda nerdy, kinda uncool. But fast forward 20 years, now everyone and their Mum wants to be a DJ.

Cool, connected, skilled and friends with just about every ultra sick, ultra talented artist out there; we are seeing DJ’s such as Radio 1Xtra and Roll Deep’s DJ Target not only reach Number 1 in the national charts but also host very successful, critically acclaimed radio shows. DJ’s are also getting involved with other high profile projects within the music and media industries such as tours, t-shirt lines and book deals – we are seeing DJ’s transforming themselves into entrepreneurs and even forming their own successful business empires.

We are also seeing a whole new enthusiastic vibe spreading throughout the industry for us female DJ’s. So with all this buzz around the profession of selection, you can imagine how a new DJ like myself felt at the prospect of attending an event on the scale of the BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ Relay World Record attempt.

Arriving at  the venue at around 4 pm and the event was in full swing. The concept of the day being to make an attempt at breaking the world record for the longest beat matching session.

More than 80 UK DJS mixing one track each into the next with a perfect beat match – no scratching, no cutting, just pure beat matching. Sounds pretty simple right? I mean it shouldn’t be so hard for the selected DJ’s, to put it in perspective, these are individuals who DJ every single day and have been doing so for years, most of them are what you would call music industry veterans. Talking about veterans, not long after I arrived I got chatting with Dancehall Reggae DJ Legend Robbo Ranx, who informed me about the level of pressure each DJ was under: “Its not the actual task of beat matching that is daunting to most of the DJs here, its the fact we are playing in front of all the DJs here! There are some serious legends in the crowd, you know, arms crossed analysing your technique, its hard not to be nervous to be honest, even for the ones who have been doing this for years!”

I also got chatting to Professor Greens’ DJ, IQ who agreed:”Its a lot of pressure, and yeah we do this everyday and we only have to mix in one track, but its hard because if your the one who messes up, well that’s it! I really hope I don’t f**k it up!”

He didn’t just for the record… get it , record, get it?

ANYWAY, DJ nerves aside, and talking about records, the world record attempt was successful and in the end broken, thats not to say there wasn’t any slip ups during the process. To give you an idea of the official set up, as well as the main stage, there was a practice area and back up mix inside the venue, and apparently one DJ whilst mixing on the backup mix made a big time mistake , as he was mixing the next track in his earphones he could hear the beats were matched and it all sounded pretty perfect, but alas, he forgot to put the fader up, so all that came out of the main speakers was silence and so it all had to start again! Doh! Epic epic fail! But Robbo was right, it just shows how nerves can even get the better of the best!

The event, however, was much more than just a record attempt, it was an opportunity for like minded creative people in the industry to come together to chat, network and generally compare and contrast music, mixes, and stories.

The most interesting aspect of the event was to witness the old skool DJ’s mixing with the new skool crew. I got chatting to one fellow new school DJ, DJ Motive, who as well as being ‘nervous as hell’ told me how the UK music scene was having its moment: “This sort of event just represents what musical talent the UK has, its great to see so much talent in one area, kinda scary too!!”

He was right, every which way you looked there were UK music heroes such as Terror Danjah, MJ Cole, Wookie and Donaeo who told me how much the music industry had changed:

“It’s interesting to see all these new DJ’s and artists here, the industry was dramatically different when I began producing and mc-ing. Music changes fast, but that growth is the best part of it, change is good.”

He was right change IS good, But when some of these well known names started out in the UK music industry it was a completely different place. Grime, Garage, and UK Hip-Hop were all genres of music relatively unknown to the wider, mainstream audience. These were ‘niche/specialist’ genres which never got mainstream radio air play. BBC Radio 1Xtra didn’t even exist, so hearing this type of music was only available to individuals who knew pirate radio station frequencies or who could stay awake for late night specialist music shows.

There were no other interactive mediums to listen to these genres either, no myspace, no facebook, no twitter, no itunes, no youtube, hell, no internet!  From then to now it has been a true organic growth. Artists like Dizzee Rascal and Wiley and who were truly underground (sometimes literally e.g  making music in Jammers basement back in the early 2000′s) are now in the the Top 10 UK Charts and with urban music  saturating the market, internet and even fashion industry, these new skool DJs, artists and producers that I chatted to at the DJ relay have many more platforms to share new music , and as a result, the UK is finally receiving international recognition on a mainstream level.

But despite UK music going international, the one thing that was represented and reiterated at the BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ relay was that the UK music scene is a tight community of people who stick together, we have a strong sense of identity and ambition that never seems to falter, and we embrace new and fresh talent.

In the past few weeks we have seen Roll Deep, Tinnie Tempah and Dizzee Rascal at Number 1 in the Top 10, but it is important to remember without the new and old skool DJ’s plugging these tracks on the radio and playing them in the clubs, no one would even know about these artists and their work.  DJ’s are in no doubt the unsung heros of the music industry but for any MCs, artists, Producers and anyone directly or indirectly involved in the scene, it is a very exciting time to be in the UK music business.

For the UK music industry now, the sky is pretty much the limit, and the world is definitely our oyster, and in 2010 I think DJ’s and artists alike are ready to crank up the volume in more ways than one! Question is, are you ready?

Find Sarah  HERE!
Follow Sarah HERE

Ever since the nightmare that was Trexx and Flipside (my sincerest apologies to all for that. Life lessons learned from the experience – I have deep scars that will heal in time from it and I actually may never act again); I’ve been interested to see what the BBC would do next when it comes to comedy with an ‘urban’ edge because, lets be honest, since The Real McCoy finished in the 90′s, we haven’t had anything really decent (The Crouches anyone..?).

The real problem I found while filming T&F is that, on the broadest terms, the producers and exec producers just didn’t quite get ‘us’. Even with us (being the cast) telling them (being the producers) that a lot of the language, situations and reactions weren’t real and therefore weren’t funny, they didn’t listen and unfortunately we were left with what we were left with rather than the hilarious show we’d all signed up to do on the strength of the initial scripts.

Imagine my delight when one of my favourite comedians at the moment Rufus Hound tweeted about a new show vehicle for another one of my current favourite comedians Jason Lewis called ingeniously ‘Sniggers With Attitude’ and on the strength of the preview, seems that Jason didn’t have the same production problems we did with Trexx & Flipside.

If you’re not familiar with Jason’s hilarious work to date, just google him. His impressions of Jay-Z & Giggs alone will have you in stitches. Check out the trailer here:

Rufus Hound, Paul Whitehouse, Noel Clarke, Adam Deacon and Jason Lewis? Definitely worth a watch. Apparently it’s coming soon to BBC Comedy’s YouTube channel. Here’s hoping it gets a TV commission…

Say no more.