Going off on one with Goldie

Goldie's CV is frankly incredible, having been a prolific graffiti artist and one of the originators of drum & bass with his Metalheadz empire.

He then became a full blown celeb after appearances in the likes of Snatch, Eastenders and Strictly Come Dancing, so it is no surprise that he is still very much in demand as a DJ, as he looks forward to spinning at Mint Festival on Saturday September 20th.

He's been going at it for over twenty years, and as we found out, he has lost none of his energy and sense of mischief, as the interview began in decidedly surreal circumstances.

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The initial conversation involved Goldie putting on a female voice, jokingly asking about two white rabbits and a suitcase full of money, before trying to confirm the identity of our writer as a red fox... a nice reference to the equally surreal Trigger Happy TV comedy vehicle of Dom Joly.

We then discussed his incoming Masterpiece CD on Ministry of Sound, and plenty more in a brilliant exchange which exposed the passion with which his musical fire is still burning, decades after he first got involved.

Away from white rabbits, of all the tracks on this Ministry influences compilation, which is the one that you would say is most influential?

It's very, very hard to pick. If I had my rave head on then I might say Zero B 'Lock Up' was a massive influence in terms of my arrangement, in terms of kinda hardcore drum & bass and beats with sound and euphoria. But if I was walking on Kamala beach in Thailand in Phuket, then listening to Terry Callier 'Lazarus Man' at six in the morning, it's just as powerful.

They're all relevant to me in the way I observe life, so it's very difficult for me to put it down to one thing. I'm listening to music every day, all kinds of music, so I'll listen to (avant-garde composer) Henryk Gorecki in the bath, David Bowie on the tube…

So how does it feel to be a part of this exclusive group that have done Ministry Of Sound Masterpiece… there have been some true legends in this series haven't they?

The fact that I'm associated with a lineage of people; Jazzie B, Groove Armada, Gilles Peterson, Fabio & Grooverider and so on, with the Masterpiece Series is a good thing for me… it's sorts the wheat from the fucking chaff. I've lived it, so I'm happy with that. But I'm even happier to have been exposed to so much music from the eighties…

…you know, hearing it first hand, you know what I mean? People battling in the club, New Yorkers battling on the breakdancing scene, and going back to Rock City and seeing them do the same thing there; listening to bass music in a strip club in Miami - I've seen it all man!

The track that did it for me on the mix actually was Teena Marie's 'Behind The Groove'. I loved it when that dropped in (hear that moment on the mix preview below).

Ah hah! I actually learned to skate backwards to that tune!

You know, I can be really specific with all this. I look at this music within this album and instantly think of Ten Number Six, Park Drive, Swarfega, behind the bike sheds smoking my first cigarette - and you're gonna start questioning me on those now - it takes me back to that place. I'm in the moment again.

They weren't mainstream records when they came out, but they were records that when you were there and you heard them… they were really influential to me. And to me, if you wanna see what that Masterpiece album does for me, it's closure.

Closure?

Yeah, it's closure, because it's all that I've grown up on and now I can move on, so I can say 'there you go boys - that's the blueprint'… now I can just get on with doing a new album. It's about letting go rather than just holding on. Know what I mean? 

You've opened a can of worms with me when it comes to music, because I'm a subject of it, in terms of the fact I'm always a punter.

That's why I don't engineer… I wanna be Steve Jobs. I'll say 'I wanna take this idea and I wanna do this with it - you don't tell me that you can't make it happen and I don't want to hear whatever else… 'oh captain, I don't know if I can get the iodine from the diode to work properly'. Well that's not my fucking job - do it! Try and make it work! Push the boundaries!'

And that's what B-Boys do, we push the boundaries. We've defied it! The Barbarians from within have defied urban culture as far as we know it, and that's where I've come from.

So do you think that you and your contemporaries took this on so energetically because you were angry with late eighties society, Thatcher etc.?

Of course. Where does the best music come from? Subcultures! It comes from a society that feels like it's fucked itself. Blues didn't come from Haringay did it? It comes out of certain places, backwaters.

I guess Detroit is known as a tough place, hence techno...

Exactly. Detroit as well. Look at punk. That came out of Arthur Scargill and fucking Margaret Thatcher ripping us apart, and even ska and The Specials and everyone else as well.

I'm very aware of where we came from - my albums couldn't be what they are without these influences - and that's what Masterpiece shows, so people can say "oh right, now I get why he made 'Timeless' the way he did". It's made out of something, it's not fucking Aero chocolate, you know what I mean? Solid Bournville son, solid Bournville!

We haven't been through all this for nothing. There will always be people trying to gentrify and to make money out of it, as is the case with any genre - that ain't gonna change - but the difference is, we're on this side because we know what we have to do and we know what we came from.

But in terms of taking these philosophies forward, people like you with your values and influences are not going to be around forever… there have to be new Goldies out there with different influences…

Well I think if they get to see what we did, without people looking at the industry as pop bass or whatever… now I don't mind pop music because it knows what it is… but the problem comes when people who are integral from our scene decide that 'I want to use a credible genre, but I kinda want the fame, so let's get the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and put a fucking breakbeat on it'… it's not cutting edge is it?

But there are a couple of kids out there who I rate. I rate Chase & Status and Rudimental (hear their Goldie-approved breakthrough 'Deep in the Valley' below) for example, because they came out of the right guard.

Changing the topic slightly, you first became known as a creative in your home town of Wolverhampton through your graffiti. Terrible news about the death of one of the originators on the London scene, King Robbo.

I was at the funeral last week to pay my respects. Lovely guy man, fucking lovely guy - what a laugh. It was a beautiful send off - a really good send off. He was a lads' man - he was proper. But we all come from that stable man… we were all there as young rebels.

I guess it's like the original American model, where street culture and graffiti culture tied in with creating music.

We've always been like that, and we were pre-internet remember, that's the difference. We built it up beyond that. I think a lot of it now is fabricated. It lasts for two seconds - it's so disposable.

I know what you mean. I look at the typography and detail of graffiti on the London Underground these days compared to what it was back in the day, and I don't think it's as good, probably because of the increased security, camera and whatnot, and the lack of time for people to be artistic.

Well yeah, but that's why poster art came because it's all about getting up quickly and adapting to the environment - that's what culture does. Having said that, if you look at the amount of stuff that Totem's doing and Bio's doing, they're doing some amazing stuff.

But that's just it - you've gotta find it. The thing about us that you must understand is that we went and discovered it - you kinda have to go back to go forward. You're not going to find the answers to the world just looking at your laptop. You might get the top ten of what's trendy or whatever, but you've gotta get beyond your laptop. And if people are too lazy to look beyond it, they can fuck off.

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Like this? Try Fabio interview: return of the original ravers.