I WENT TO FORWARD AT PLASTIC PEOPLE LAST SUNDAY!!! WHICH TO MY LIKING TURNED OUT TO BE A NIGHT OF OLD SCHOOL UKG RATHER THAN DARK AND DIRTY WOBBLERS!! THAT WAS UNTIL THE "YOUNGSTA" HIMSELF GOT BEHIND THE WHEELS OF STEELS!!! HE PLAYED SOME DARK TUNES WHICH MADE ME MOVE CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE SPEAKER AT THE THE BACK OF THE ROOM! YOU KNOW THE ONE I AM TALKING ABOUT!! UNTIL I WAS ACTUALLY SAT INSIDE IT!! YEAH IT WAS DEFINATELY A GOOD NIGHT, UNFORTUNATELY I FORGOT MY CAMERA.
BUT ONE THING THAT DID BOTHER ME WAS THE FACT THAT YOUNGSTA LOOKED SO BLOODY ILL!!! YEAH I KNOW ITS ALL WELL AND GOOD BEING DEDICATED TO THE MUSIC, BUT DON'T FORGET TO EAT LOVE!!! YOU GOT TO MUCH TALENT TO WASTE!!!
HERE IS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE MAN HIMSELF...
MEET DJ'S SCRATCHA AND YOUNGSTA
Power your day with the Scratcha breakfast and Youngsta's eternal youth.
Scratcha is famous for his mouth. That's why we decided to give him a breakfast show. And he has lived up to his words; he even once got man to eat a slug so that he could MC live for us. You probably know some of the tunes he makes as DVA, including grimey 'Keep Up' and funky 'I'm Leaving'. Enter interview
Don't you mind getting up early? Not at all. Do you know what the response the show gets that's what makes me get up!
Are there loads of people on the msn and stuff? Ah love it love it love it. It's nang, people have a different attitude in the morning. Some people are grumpy in the morning but the people who come on there it's just vibes. In the morning it's like all different types of people, they'll be telling me what they eat for breakfast, everything.
8-11 every day is quite a lot of work? Yeah man but I love radio init!
So you grew up with it? I grew up listening to Rinse. When I got to like 15, I was arguing with my mate from school at the bus stop about 'you got my tapedeck', 'nah you stole my tape', and there was this guy at the bustop and he was like 'you into music yeah?', and he gave me his number. That guy happened to be back in the day the owner of Rinse FM. That's when I started listening to Wiley, Target It's mad I speak to them now, they were all on there then, it's like they never got old or something!
Did they sound really different then? Do you know what I played 'Know We' the other day and Wiley sounded like a baby on that tune! He sounded like a baby!
So why do you talk so much? I dunno! The other day I had an 8 year old on the show. He was nang! I just brought him on, it was the school holidays, so we had a good chat about school. People loved that show. It was wicked, things you remember from the playground and that. So much stuff has happened on that breakfast show you wouldn't believe(We had to cut this bit because he talked so much) I done way too much, shit that's got me in trouble.
What has got you in trouble? Oh I open my mouth too quick. If someone tells me something, I'm one of those people that you gotta say 'this is a secret'.
If someone says it's a secret will you keep it a secret? Of course! Standard. I'm good at keeping secrets you just gotta tell me first!
What do you think about everyone's trying to do the raviest tune at the moment? I see that as a good thing, I've not really been known for making them kind of beats, I've always been more making music, but I got one at the moment called 'Nasty Nasty Nasty' that's kicking up the dancefloor. People need to keep them beats coming. Grime is dance music innit! I know there's that relationship with like grungers and grime right now, that Shoreditchy thing, the CDs leaning towards that market. I don't know enough about that, I just wanna wear tight pink trousers. That's all I wanna do! Trust me, I just wanna wear tight pink trousers!
Youngsta got his name because he started DJing as a little yout. One of the handful of DJs playing dubstep on Rinse when it was still a niche, he is also witnessing the genre his name is associated with spreading out to unforeseen audiences
When did you start playing on Rinse? Do you know what I can't actually remember, there must be some information about it that's true but I don't actually know. I think I was about 20.
So does that mean you were one of the first people playing dubstep on there? That's right, me Hatcha and Kode 9.
So were you getting a lot of feedback then as well? It was at the time when it had a good little cult following, a niche following but still a strong one. So it was a good little time, we were introducing it to the airwaves a lot more, it was a good thing for dubstep and a good thing for Rinse. But then it's been the last two years that's been massive.
Is there a particular point where you thought 'it's really taken off now'? Last year. The bookings were just silly. I knew it was going to, from early early.
You must have seen your audiences change a lot! Yeah - back in the day at FWD I'd be the youngest person in there, it would be full of like 30 year olds and that. It wasn't an automatic raving thing, you could get down to it, but basically in the early days dubstep was older. And the sound has totally changed, and there are a lot more younger people into it now, which is good cos it's gonna grow. And obviously the sound has totally changed from resembling garage to not resembling garage at all.
What about those two-steppy sounds that are about at the moment? It's just a phase we're going through. Music goes round in a big circle and it keeps going round and repeating itself in different ways. For all the people that's been in it from day one it's like hearing early Horsepower stuff or El-B, when it was being born out of garage. Early dubstep sounded like the two-step stuff that's about now, more dark and deep and bass lead. Whereas other styles of dubstep sound nothing like garage. So I'm in it, stuff like Martyn and TRG, it's cool. Everyone's going mad about that now - they'll be bored of it next year and going back to minimal half-sounds.
You've got a reputation for you technical skills as a DJ Really?
Didn't you know that?!?! Honestly, I don't go on the internet at all. I know I'm good, but if I'm not good by now I might as well give up!
Yeah but you're one of the most technical DJs in dubstep. Yeah I know what you mean, but basically I play what I like and I don't just play tunes cos they're gonna smash it.
But you do really technical stuff when you're playing as well! Well I like to think that I ain't just playing the records! I'm mixing them up and I'm entertaining, not just with what I'm playing but how I do it. That's what I do. There's certain DJs that play great tunes, that might not be that technical.
Have you always just been really into that side of it? Yeah do you know what it is, that's just how I think records should be mixed. Whether you wanna call it technical or not if you wanna mix records that's how it should be done. There's a lot of people who ain't even about mixing no more, with all the technology that's out there, keeping two 1210s a lot of people are using CDs and Ableton or whatever, and I feel if you're mixing music that's the way you should do it.
So are you sticking to vinyl now? Yeah vinyl or dubs. For the moment.
I once heard you beat-juggled dubstep at FWD. Yeah. It ain't DMC style, it's doing something that they would do but nowhere near as complex. Whether you're gonna do a quick beat-juggle or do a tease, tease an anthem in and out, it makes things a little bit more interesting. Going back to what you said about being technical or not, at the end of the day, people are still there to dance and have a good time
