Roll The Bass: A Walking audio tour

Back in October last year, an app company called Voice Map approached me about creating a walking audio tour in London. I said yes. They make walking audio tours in cities all around the world. It's very smart, all you need do is download the app, then pick your story,downlaod the audio then plug in your headphones and go and take the tour.

Almost 1 year later, here it is: Roll The Bass a part story / part walking tour around central London which tells about the time I first visited the legendary End nightclub, off Totenham Court Rd, whilst taking in some of the old venues and other places of significance. It features tracks produced by my brother Will.Scott Cree

One of the reasons I wrote it was, well, one I was asked to, but two, it bothers me that in London, the home of Jungle and Drum and Bass, there is next to nothing to mark this. This music has spread globally and there are scenes all over the world, yet, walk around Lonodn and you would never know. Guess it's not the Shakespere or lawn tennis. It's a shame, as it seems to be coupled with the loss of so many venues and record shops, most recently of course, being Fabric. The End was a banging club, special to me and many others. I don't get out to many clubs these days but doing this again has got me back enjoying all that again, have even MCed a couple of times since,

It was a big challenge writing this tour, as I had to plan out the walk, calculate the route and the steps, walk it several times and for each chapter I had word limits based on steps which I had to stick to and it wasn't easy, also having to direct people and making sure those directions were clear. There was a lot of going back and forth, and then re-writing and re-recording but at long last, here it is. It's £4.99, get involved, have a listen to a story and you may even learn a thing or two. Nice one

https://voicemap.me/tour/london/roll-the-bass

 

Just A Name Vol 1

A long time ago, in a land far far away (in my head) and an era when in my ignorance I'd never even heard of spoken word and knew very little about poetry or theater, I was rapping.
I still do it. I love it. It's a special feeling kicking a verse over a beat, but from late 2000 onwards for a long time, outside of my work life, it's pretty much all I did.
It's a topic I cover in the show I'm working on A Tale Fron The Besdit in which I moved to Brighton to further what I was already doing, at the time, predominantly MCing in small clubs under the name of Kase One before I began to move towards making Hip Hop and Grime.  
  During that period while I was down there, I wrote a lot of lyrics, which at the time, didn't seem to amount to anything. When I left Brighton in early 2006, the few music projects I was working on had all seem to drift by the wayside and I was left with a shoe box full of lyrics, and one day, whilst sorting through some stuff just before I moved up to London, I had the idea to put a CD together. So I saved up, bought a laptop, borrowed some equipment, went to Bristol  and got a crash course in Logic from my brother Gatekeeper and set about recording some of these words over tracks that I'd selected, or used to practice rapping over.

Mixtapes and CD's were pretty much common place for MC's and rappers even back then, but for me, it was a big achievement and I think I surprised a few people when they listened to it back then. It never really went anyway, at most, I probably gave away 100 copies which I burnt and hand drew the sleeves for, and hearing it back, it's very raw, both lyrically and in the recording of it, and despite most of it making me cringe I'm proud of it, it was a milestone for me. Most of the lyrics were the result of a stream-of-consciousness style of writing I used to do, because it was all I knew to do, I didn't know much else and never really worked with other MC's about from old friends Boogaloo Dee and later on, through the Bristol connection, Grilza, all of which helped me to develop

I've had 3 of the tracks up on Soundcloud for a while, but decoded to stick all up on line (bar 1 track which Soundcloud won't let me, which is fair enough, as I didn't get permission for most of the tracks) and here it is.

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Just A Name Vol 1 Tracklist

Small Town Perspective – RJD2 Ghostwriter (Deadringer)

I Drop A 16 - Metal Fingers – Spikenard (Special Herbs vol 4)

Figure It Out – Metal Fingers – Lemon Grass (Special herbs vol 4)

Story – Black Grass - Toys (Black Grass)

Thursday - Roll Deep - Fire Hydrant Instrumental (Poltergeist Relay EB001) 

Trials and Tribulations - Myst aka Gatekeeper

Remember Your Roots - Various Artists - Distorted Minds In The Mix (Knowledge Magazine Issue 46 / DJ Fresh – All That Jazz (Instrumental) / Q Project – Ask Not

Stevie Hyper D Documentory

For those that have seen me perform before, there's a good chance you will have heard this piece, Jungle Warfare. In it, I make reference to legendary Jungle & Drum and Bass MC, Stevie Hyper D.

I first heard him not long after he sadly passed away. My brother would speak of this legendary rave MC, and when I first heard a few sets from a One Nation tape pack in about 1998, his name was constantly shouted out, and has been, pretty much ever since. 

Not long after that, I heard THIS particular set, which I also reference in Jungle Warfare. My brother had a copy of this tape, from a Helter Skelter event, which I used to play when he wasn't around. The guy blew me away. And still does today.

Whilst on twitter today, I happened to see a tweet for this documentary by The Audio Compund about a documentary they have made, called The Junglist Soldier - The Life And Times of Stevie Hyper D. It's a great listen, and only further depend my respect for this man and what he has done for UK rappers and MC's. I used to copy his lyrics when I first started out. Pure passion. A massive influence on me. 

The Junglist Soldier- The Life and Times of Stevie Hyper D by Matthew Gale on Mixcloud

A Visual Blast from the Past

 A few days ago, an old friend of mine from school sent me an email saying he'd come across some DTP pictures and did I want to have a look. As soon as I saw them a had a wee chuckle to myself, not just because I had a shaved eyebrow, how serious the pictures are and the fact that I still wear that blue Nike hoody (though most of the blue has by now faded) but it made me realise how much has changed since then (I think the pictures must have been from 2002), but also, how much hasn't!


DTP (Digital Transition Promotions) was a little crew set up myself and a guy I was at Crawley College with called Mike (Mickey T, though back then his DJ name was Delusion), we're still very good mates now and speak often.


He was a DJ, I was an MC and we both wanted to perform. They were quite a lot of people doing it back then in the Crawley, Horley, Redhill and Croydon areas but not many places to do it at. Looking back, we wanted to create a small local scene for underground music, but in hindsight, having London half an hour north and Brighton half an hour south, it was wishful thinking!


Anyway, we eventually got a monthly event at this little nightclub in Horley called the Liquid Lounge (which over the years had several name changes and often had it's licence revoked but it was always the same family owning it, just a different brother!). The venue had possibly the most 2 bob soundsystem I have ever come across and was certainly not in anyway equipped to handle sub heavy Garage and Drum and Bass. There weren't many nights that didn't have some kind of punch up either during or after (having lots of different rude boys, and not many girls, from a series of small towns in the same space was never a good idea) but I learnt a lot from doing those and we drove on. We eventually ran 2 nights down in Brighton and forged links in London and many other places. We set up a website, had a bank account, T shirts and business cards, banners and we owned a bit of equipment. Not bad a for a pair of 18/19 year olds, I'm quite proud (There was also a 3rd guy for a while, another old mate called Marc, who was also a DJ, the 3 of us are at the front of 2 of the pictures).


We wanted to run events where it wasn't just the same style of Music all night long. Myself and Mike both had a passion for most forms of underground dance music and wanted to push it all, as well   as give ourselves and others a platform to perform, as gigs were to hard to come by.


In the end, it didn't quite work and it all died down. I realised event running weren't really for me, and often at our events we found some people to be very closed minded about other genres of music, even between Garage and Drum and Bass. However, low and behold, with this new umbrella term of "UK Bass" or whatever it is, DJ's now seem to be drawing for tune across the board. It's not uncommon to hear Garage, Jungle,  House, Dubstep and Techno all blended in to sets now which I think is wicked.


What hasn't changed is my own drive. Back then, all I thought about (apart form girls of course) was how we could push DTP. What was the next thing we could do, lyrics I could MC with, should we set up a record label etc etc, it's never stopped and has continued, in my head, through every job, lunch break, bed time and holiday I've had since. I learnt a lot doing all that back then, one day, I hope, it might just pay off! 

Family Business! Gatekeeper & Grilza: Cuts From the Green Room. Free E.P

Bonjour!


Over a decade ago now, when I started on this journey, it pretty much began in my bedroom at home, after an idea was planted in my head by one of my brothers, who I shared not only a bedroom with (full of rave flyers, records and a set of 1210's) but also a common interest in Drum and Bass and most other forms of underground music. He suggested to me I could be an MC.


It's a story I've told many times since then, in various different forms, so whether it's tired or not, it means a lot to me. The part of the story which I havant spoke of, well, not publicly anyway, is of course my brother (I'm not going to tell it now though, I'd have to speak to him first, it's family business). The long and short of it this, he ended ended up in Bristol producing experimental Bass music (Dubstep and it's various mutations) under the name of Gatekeeper.


On the rare occasions we get to meet up, there's normally lots to talk about in terms of our mutual interests and the separate paths we've both taken. About 5 years ago, I think, he told me he'd began to work with a young rapper from Bath by the name of Grilza. Well, he still is, and the family has grown! Theve gone on to be a duo for a few years now and have some pretty sick releases like Ignite which featured Dread MC as well as being championed by Mary Anne Hobbs on the Bristol Rise Up Documentary and various other tracks played on her Radio 1 show.


They've just released a free EP, "Cuts From The Green Room" which you can download HERE. It's a collection of some of the tracks theve produced over the years now, and I know they were carefully selected (there were 1 or 2 I hadn't even heard!) 


At present, they are working on a project which I can't say too much about but believe me, I've been excited about this for a long time, I've had a little listen and there's bigness to come...watch this space!


As one is my brother by blood and the other by a notepad, a pen, football and pure jokes, I'm going to give them all the support I can. It's what you do with family, and like I said, it means a lot to me.