I'm DJing at a party with David Rodigan tonight. I'm pretty excited. In mental preparation, I've uploaded some of my all time favourite classic roots reggae songs on my blog. Go and check them out maybe. Also on the bill is a more recent DJing hero of mine, Marcus Nasty, whose UK house set at my last club night (which I wrote about here) was something of a musical epiphany to everyone in attendance. Below is a track I picked up on DJ Naughty's debut EP, which I first heard being played by Marcus. Sit tight till next week for a full report with pictures. Until then, read on after "the jump".
DJ Naughty, "Quicktime"
In much less exciting news, I've discovered that the Dizzee song I posted last week has a fittingly bad video to accompany it, which can be watched (in suitably awful quality) here. DJ Semtex (charmless 1Xtra DJ and occasional tour DJ for Dizzee who has a monthly column in RWD magazine in which he boasts about all the rappers has he met recently and talks about how "real" everyone is) was at the video shoot taking snaps, which he has uploaded here. It looks like Jammer (above) turned up to the video shoot dressed in a purple crushed velvet curtain with a mop handle or something.
On a much more sincere note, Dizzee has teamed up with anti-suicide charity CALM to make a video for "Dean", a tribute to a friend who took his own life, and the best track he has made since his debut album. You can watch the video here.
A few weeks ago, I posted a video of Boy Better Know promoting their awful Rolex Sweep dance alongside former TV presenter Timmy Mallett. Well, if you believe what thelondonpaper has to say (I don't), there are rumours that, following this video, the crew are "set to have their own Saturday morning TV show". Oh dear.
For those who enjoy harking back to the time when grime MCs weren't aspiring TV presenters, a website, grimetapes.com, has been set up to collect and distribute lost and classic pirate radio grime sets. There are sets with Dizzee before he left Roll Deep, Crazy Titch before he was locked away for 30 years, Lethal B before he discovered grindie—basically when everything was better and the world was generally a nicer place.
Finally, once again inspired by someone I am DJing alongside—DJ Guy from the Non Stop DJs, this Friday in Camberwell—I have revisited some more classic music of my youth. This week I dug out an amazing ghetto tech mix by the UK's Non Stop DJs, who were involved with the UK bass scene (our own take on Detroit's ghetto tech scene), which never really took off unfortunately. Anyway, this mix has stuff like Ginuwine into Mr De' and Model 500 into 2 Live Crew. It's easily one of my favourite mixes of all time. Get the tracklist here.
Download: Non Stop DJs - All Cylinders