Mista Pierre's Fortified 45s Show
Mista Pierre's Fortified 45s Show
Mista Pierre's Fortified 45s Show - Season 3 Ep 3 with "Normski" Anderson
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Something is electrifying about the click of a camera shutter capturing a moment in time, and no one knows that better than Normski, the man behind the lens in the golden age of UK hip-hop. My conversation with this photographic maestro takes us from chuckles over technology's quirks in podcasting to the profound depths of personal and cultural identity. Laugh along as we transcend technical malfunction, discourse dysfunction, and life's serendipitous hilarity. Then, journey with us into nostalgic memories of family influence on Normski's craft and the dance show that shaped a cultural era.
The art of storytelling through photography is much like composing music; it's about emotion, narrative, and connection to the audience. Normski delves into the arduous yet rewarding odyssey of birthing his book, 'Man with the Golden Shutter,' a visual symphony of hip-hop's raw energy and street art's vivid stories. Experience the tug-of-war of selecting just the right images, the collaborative dance with editors, and the creative crescendo that is a published anthology of one's life's work.
Preserving men's mental health is important. We wanted to ensure we could talk freely and in our own way, leaving an example of how men can express vulnerability without shame. A change of mindset historically unavailable for many of us in our formative years. A step towards remediating the effects of toxic masculinity.
Normski's Choices
Inner City Life - Goldie
Hold No Hostage - Hijack
My Philosophy - Boogie Down Productions
I Know I Got Soul - Eric B & Rakim
Hosts: Mista Pierre
Producer: Mista Pierre
Mista Pierre's Fortified 45s Website
Mista Pierre's Instagram
Mate, I've just done this. You might have seen, I've just done a little podcast recording with DJ Pierre and it has been the most fun. I haven't talked for a while, which is I don't know why that is. I've been really busy. But I'm going to be honest with you. I really enjoyed the conversation and there's a real lack of it going on. There's a lot to talk about. Apparently, sometimes I don't really like talking.
Speaker 2:Some people, I don't really talk and it's waffle, with perfect timing. As you can see, right now I'm in A state of mind that'll shock and blind, combined with the rhythm inside, and we're unique in the place to be Unique. And watch us break it down.
Speaker 1:Banter and waffle. I miss it a little bit. It's very isolated. It's all very app orientated. It's all very like a text message Send it out and hope someone sees it and wait for the response. It's not instant enough. Sometimes you're in a room and you're having a chat with someone and 18 people want to interrupt you at once because everyone wants to talk. They're all vying for a talk position anyway. I quite enjoyed having a chat with Mr Pierre. See, the powers of Mr Pierre will knock you over. He's like a ninja. But anyone out there who's interested in me doing a podcast, let me know, because I don't want to waste my fucking time. Yeah, well, you know what I mean. You need a bit of vitamins out there. There's not enough vitamins online. It's all a little bit stale.
Speaker 3:Welcome everybody to 45 to 45. 45 to 45, my name is Mr Pierre. That was the voice of my guest, normski, who was slightly sozzled. In fact I was slightly ennoblated as well. We weren't classically mash-up wasted, but let's say we had a lot of fun recording this episode. We experienced some major technical difficulties, which Normski will expand on in a sec, which is probably why it took us five hours to record an hour and a half's worth of footage. Anyway, make of it what you can. Normal schema brother, continue with the backstory, please.
Speaker 1:You look like you're in that studio. We're panicking now because there's an alarm Autopilot.
Speaker 3:Autolock.
Speaker 1:You know, you're not careful, you'll get. What's the word? There's a word for it when you get, you get locked in. It's a horrible word.
Speaker 4:You know what I'm talking about don't you In car service, in car service Bloody hell, he got it straight away.
Speaker 1:What it is is that we've done this podcast today. We started earlier and we got jackknifed in. We got jacked up halfway through the broadcast. We were going in, we were going in and the whole machine just turned off on a timer, took all the information, had to start again, but it was all right, it was a little warm-up. It's like a bloody record. It's like a good record. You've got to keep putting it back on and on, and on and on. Anyway, I'm not going gonna go on now. I'm gonna go. Yeah, if you're local there, keep it global. Yeah, right, oh, look, you've got all the gadgets, haven't you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, man. So this is a mic. Where's my phone? You've got a mic and a phone. You're going home now you've done it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the phone. What are you on surveillance or something?
Speaker 3:mate, where's my phone?
Speaker 1:now. Oh, what are you on about? I don't know, mate. Look there it is, it's just not mine over what are you lying my?
Speaker 3:phone, my phone, my phone. Pick it up, mate.
Speaker 1:Sort your life out. What's your phone doing, mate? I don't know where your phone is. I bloody double-acted it. Give us a thing, then. As you can see, the phone keeps falling over. It's had too much Prosecco. 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 45.
Speaker 3:Dj Mr Pierre. What's my name? My name's DJ Mr Pierre. Welcome to 4545s. Again, I'm with my man, Mr Normski Anderson. Mr Normski Anderson, what's up with you, man? What's going on?
Speaker 1:Hey, well, I'm really glad to still be here. Good, good, good. I mean I'm talking about in life. Yes, I'm grateful every single day I get to see another one, because it's been a long journey up to this point. It's not that long, but it's been a long time. So, yeah, I'm honoured to be here. It's a pleasure to be able to share the broadcast with you.
Speaker 3:Wicked man. And look, we're here to celebrate your new book. Your new book's called the man with the Golden Shutter. It's out on.
Speaker 1:ACC. Is it ACC?
Speaker 3:Arts.
Speaker 1:Books, that's all right. Acc Arts Books stands for Don't watch that they're a fantastic publishers, though, and they've overwhelmed me with the return comeback of what this book turned out to be. I always envisioned an incredible book or a collection, a valuable collection of important photographic documents and memories of a very important time, and I can't you know. Obviously, I've had my work published for years, but you know the book that you're holding yes, it's like a doorstep. I mean, it is heavyweight.
Speaker 3:Yes, man, it's a beast man. It's 262 pages 272. I beg your pardon, no no, no, what about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I have been so in the pages, since it's only been out.
Speaker 1:It's four months last year and I'll be honest with you, it is a quite uh an established piece of um paper. Yeah, you're proud of it. Yeah, very, I mean, it's premium paper. Yeah, uh, in a cover you know um sleeve cover picture covering uh embossed gloss writing on a semi-matte cover, all kinds of stuff I dreamt of black pages, yeah, lots of black pages. Um, it's got a lot going for it. Yep, and you know a lot of praise as well to my designer, mariona, and the uh editor, uh andrew, and of course, uh james smith, the publisher, and and everyone else.
Speaker 5:Excellent.
Speaker 1:Because you know, they really mastered, which. I found out that the company had been going since the same year I was born, which is 1966.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And that kind of had a little bit of a kind of a hold on me. Something was quite special about that. Poetic and yeah, and I also felt that. Well, I know I'm quite well established, so they must be serious at what they're doing. And of course I saw some of the books that they'd printed before. But since that has come back, it's taken me a couple of months to realize that that is my book. How does it feel?
Speaker 3:man, emotionally man, it must have looked nice.
Speaker 1:It is really quite amazing. I mean, I've had every emotion in the process. But if we start from more recently and work backwards, it might be better. But if we start from more recently and work backwards it might be better, but more recently I've been completely humbled and overwhelmed at the effect it's had on people. Since it's come out Brilliant, the response has been amazing. I've actually been featured quite heavily. I was saying something the other day.
Speaker 1:I've said it a couple of times but I'll say it again now that I do feel like, probably because I haven't done any interviews for years, for a the other day after a couple of times, but I'll say it again now that I do feel like, um, probably because I haven't done any interviews for years, for a long time, but I've never seen and done so much um press and getting so much copy back in most of my life to what I have had since this book has come out. I mean from virgin atlantic in flight um magazine to Maxim in Australia, just Obvious Guardian and stuff like that. Face Somerset House exhibition featured some of my work.
Speaker 1:So I had a book signing there. I think ultimately as well, my initial soft launch, which was an open-handed invitation for me to, if I wanted to, do a book signing type thing at the photographer's gallery. I jumped at that because I didn't organize anything and I've still yet to really do a big exhibition and a massive sort of launch thing. But that was a moment where I couldn't believe it, because I remember going into the photographer's gallery when I was a teenager and wanted to be a photographer and I was just interested in looking at pictures and stuff and that was the place to be. That was the place to dream of ever having your work in there.
Speaker 1:Me and my mate Zach over there I went to school with and kind of got into photography at a time together as well we would visit the Photographer's Gallery and we'd say actually quite confidently, quite boastfully, one day we'll have our work on the wall. But we were aspiring to the world's greatest. You know what I mean and so you know, 40 years later, or whatever it is to have my work. You know, in the shop there were like loads of book covers in the shop. The book sold out as well straight away. That first night I had like they only had, I think, 30 or 50, I'm not sure. They had really a quite decent handful of books really. We didn't know how many people were going to come it's a quality book, man.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've still got to go through it all. I'm so proud of you, man, I'm happy for you as well. Thank you, if you can do me a favour, can you keep the audience?
Speaker 1:entertained while we just, yeah that celebration, come on, there you go, yeah. So yeah, it's really quite fantastic because there has been a lot of celebration and of course we are just coming out of the Well, we're not coming out of anything, we're entering a new year now. Yeah, and it is really quite strange for me in a weird way, because I've never really had a vehicle like this, this personal, in my life. Really I've, you know, I could and have been completely busy with just book stuff. You know, I was at um shoreditch house recently doing another panel discussion thing they do up there listen to this, hang on there we go.
Speaker 1:There's a sound. Well, there's a couple of sounds here. I'll be quiet for this.
Speaker 3:The pouring, the pouring of the glass, it's very important. The pouring of the glass? Yeah, let's be brought, it's very important. Let me pour the glass. Blug, blug, blug, and there we go. Ooh the Lithiothor.
Speaker 1:All righty, then, that's a nice one. Sensational sound.
Speaker 3:Sensational sound. Mr Normski man, thank you very much for joining us on 4545 and congratulations, Congratulations on.
Speaker 1:The man with the Golden Shutter Cheers. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Now the man with the Golden Shutter. I like the name.
Speaker 1:It sounds like a James Bond film it is Ah, it is an assassin, an undercover spy. Yeah, the whole thing makes sense with me being a fly on the wall. Yeah, I used to make a joke out of it called CC Ski TV. Yeah, and of course we've got CCTV now. But anyway, the man With A Golden or man With A Golden Shutter was the name of my column, which was really invented by Chris Hunt. I think really was the one that came up.
Speaker 1:That was the guy who was the original editor for Hip Hop Connection magazine which was a 20 year long bible of our hip hop existence, really from the UK out of a little village in cambridge called ely of, which gave me a great break. When they tell me that when I came all the way from london, they couldn't believe that I'd, you know, gone that far.
Speaker 1:And when I'd heard that there was a magazine that was going to be just about hip-hop, at that time I was running around to anywhere and everywhere trying to get myself to work for magazines and it was not easy for me to get into mags, yeah, and so hip-hop connection, obviously, um was perfect for me because I was already in the scene that they were about to become a magazine about, because it was a necessity and uh, became very successful.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, they gave me two pages because I, I was out and taking pictures. I didn't even know that most people were at the beginning. I don't think anyone knew who anyone was and it was a beautiful thing Exactly Discovering. But I would just have my camera on me and take pictures and it was quite obvious if someone was famous, it was quite obvious if someone was, whoever they were and you knew them. But I would take a lot of shots and try and capture moments, like I was doing my version of sort of Hello Magazine or something and uh and then I had a lot of pictures and they were like, oh my god, this guy's got some.
Speaker 1:So they were like when we could utilize more of them and didn't mean I was going to get paid very much money, which I didn't really at the time. But it wasn't really about that. It was just about I was so proud to see my pictures as many pictures as possible on the page and I think, also the scene got much more.
Speaker 3:Uh, you know, got some exposure because there was nothing for the scene and did you mention meet your heroes as well as get into loads of gigs for free?
Speaker 1:I you know actually I probably got into the gigs for free more than was really caring about meeting heroes. I had really, you know um, you know, I noticed something. I felt like I was a little bit older than, um, some of the people, uh, but we were all probably around about the same age, um, but I was outside of a lot of the scenes. I wasn't from Crixton, I wasn't from West, I was from Camden, and my friends that I came out of they weren't all hip-hop heads, they were into live music. We played as a band. We went to live gigs. Our interests were much more than just the latest trend of what was going on at the time.
Speaker 1:Hip-hop was definitely a trend, but it was also more than a trend. To a lot of people, it was really a culture that was reflecting how they felt and what they wanted to wear, and what they wanted to listen to.
Speaker 3:Well, hip-hop is a way of life, absolutely. A couple of misconceptions about hip-hop is just the rap side, the most commercial side of it.
Speaker 1:That's one of the elements rap is a very important element but, like you say, that's rap, you know. B-boyism, graffiti art, you know, and DJing, turntable-ism is is another side of the whole scene. So, yeah, I mean, you know you're not going to be good at everything, but lent towards, which was ultimately watching everyone else. Yes, and I got, you know, I got to enjoy and understand everything about what other people do through my camera.
Speaker 3:Really, and how did you first get into your camera? Obviously, we're talking about harris ovi and your mate zach. But what made you decide? Was it the mechanics of it? The actual?
Speaker 1:object. Yeah, it was, it was all about the object. I think that was the thing that attracted me the first, the most I reckon you know the camera itself, but I reckon you know I, I know I, like every kid, I wanted toys. I didn't have a lot of toy toys, like when I say I had some toys, but when I went around some of my mates when I was younger, like from age eight, nine and that they go and see some of my friends and see what they had.
Speaker 1:I couldn't say nothing because I was wow, you'll always know when someone's got a lot of choice and stuff, because you'll be the one going when your parents go. Where were you? And you say I was at my mate's house and I was always out. And I was out because I was looking for stuff to do. And you know, eventually with the photography, I found something that was interesting. With that, which was, I think, the most interesting thing I've found with photography, when I first got into it as a hobbyist was as soon as I had seen the magazine which was called photo in a shop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, against the football comics and warfare comics, you know, you had all these, certainly knitting yes and now you know interior design magazines, and then the yes, and then you know interior design, yeah, magazines, and then the other crusty, whatever stuff, mm-hmm. And you know knitting and hobbyists and all that stuff. Yeah, my one was Trains and, yeah, train collectors, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:My one was I used to actually quite like model railways. I was very much into mechanical toys. Yeah, I used to, like you know, building. I used to build models like airfix models, flight ones, airplanes. I used to build balsa wood gliders. I was working with scalpels and balsa wood and tracing tissue, tracing paper, trying to make fine wings with matchsticks and stuff and rudders and elastic bands and propellers and like mammoth steam engines.
Speaker 1:I had a mammoth steam engine plate which was just the engine on the base, and you ultimately had the little paraffin heater underneath it.
Speaker 1:A flame water in the tank yeah pressure gauge and two pistons that once it got hot enough it would turn on a wheel and you tie a string to that and I was into all that dude, you're a scientist man well, actually I very much was into all that stuff and I think that's what I loved about the photography was the physics, the idea of the single lens reflex to just always when I saw the diagram in this magazine and I remember seeing my mate. Dad had a camera which was like a canon camera and we mentioned that before and I didn't my god, I couldn't afford canon ever.
Speaker 1:Couldn't afford Nikon ever. You know I could just about afford Olympus and in all of the in Pentax you could definitely afford. But there was something that wasn't attractive about buying a Pentax. And also when I went to college age 15 to 16, I did actually use the Pentax and it was a real workhorse Pentax K1000. But I still had a few little cheap Polish camera on the first night because we were like 20 quid from a second hand shop which was Fox Talbot Photographic which was on Tottenham Court Road at the top end and I say it because it's like sort of what's the great detective from Baker Street?
Speaker 1:Sherlock Holmes so it's the Fox Talbot Sherlock Holmes, right, so you know it's a Fox Talbot Sherlock Holmes. Fox Talbot was probably one of the first British people who was probably just trading in cameras and lenses, but it was the go-to shop. You know antiques, and next to that was a few other stores.
Speaker 3:I know we were yeah.
Speaker 1:And when I was a kid, throughout my whole life I've always looked in windows and just looked at stuff and just like, wow, wow, look at that, look at that.
Speaker 3:Tell me something in terms of subject Do you actually find humans interesting or do you take still life and nature?
Speaker 1:I do find humans interesting now, but I never used to like them at all. I mean, god, I don't know what it was about me or them, but there was definitely something I had to deal with and it was basically all these different personalities. Yeah, but then, in saying that, I come from a very loud and highly personality-led family of Jamaican people and I used to love them, but there was also a lot of intimidation with uncles and stuff and they were very loud and I was a very quiet boy, believe it or not.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just, people are so quiet. They think I'm noisy. People are so quiet they think I'm noisy.
Speaker 6:But I'm still quite shy and quiet.
Speaker 1:I'm very sensitive. Yeah, I can put it all on, but it's all a big act. Everyone does it all the time, yeah, yeah. And I think that also there is something with regards to me reflecting the environment that I come from. Yeah, is that, you know, you didn't have to really compete with anyone? Yeah, so I devised a way of being myself and I think that with the photography, I felt it really good that I could have all these conversations without all the noise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really good. I mean I want to say thank you as well for the book, but also we caught up at the BFI the London Film. Festival.
Speaker 1:London Film Festival.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was awesome and I was DJing there and you supported me. You know you were taking photographs and videos and sent them to me as well. You know I was there right. Yeah, I know you were there.
Speaker 1:We could tell the people why I was there. Why was I there? Because there's a film which is a God Save Given drum machine.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 1:It's about Detroit techno, made by people from Detroit, of films and stuff, and they used the photograph that I'd taken back in Detroit in 1987 of the well six, of the pioneering sort of lead guys that kind of broke out of Detroit and became international names at the beginning of that Detroit techno journey. So yeah, I've been an integral part of a lot of things from the genesis. I wanted to get that out, the word genesis. I wanted to get that out the word genesis. I wonder if anyone even knows what that means. But to be at the beginning, yeah, of something and uh but do you do?
Speaker 3:is it something that you feel naturally or that you're drawn to?
Speaker 1:yeah, it comes. Yeah, yeah, I. You know what I? Yeah, I've got no choice to feel that, naturally, because my life has been in some kind of matrix where I am in the right place at the right time for a certain type of thing. That's what's happened so far. Yeah, yeah, very much drawn to a lot of things. I would say that I was a force of reckoning, if you like, and part of this cultural movement. Just at the time I just seemed to be aligned and come into it. You know, there are other people. I mean, there are a lot of other people that I still, to this day, stand back and look and I can't believe I even know them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like you know and it's quite funny because just I don't really remember you know, like you said before, before meeting your heroes and stuff, I never had one of those. I don't do heroes, really Nah.
Speaker 3:Who impresses you?
Speaker 1:Me. Just you, your dad, your mum, everyone impresses me, but it's not really like I got good, but I weren't looking at everyone else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:I was under pressure when I was watching all my mates that were really good at football and I just didn't like it.
Speaker 3:So I've got heroes. When I've got heroes, I've got influences.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, my mum's my hero. I just don't want to go on and on, but I always go on and on about her. She's the one and, in a way, we, the way we're kind of going back around there. So we have to go back into that depth, which is, yeah, ultimately.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't really be here without my mum and my father who came here, you know, in the 60s from Jamaica and, you know long, popped me in 66. And there wasn't really a photographer as such. As far as I know in our family and prior to me there was not a lot of photographs in our family being taken.
Speaker 1:I think it was a certain level of where records were kept and photography happened, and or just you know how it is and I often wonder if there was a subliminal thing in my mum. When we went to this auction one afternoon to hopefully buy me a bicycle and, like you know, I think, think I heard you say it before briefly about oh, I heard, well, you know, it was quoted and it is true, it was quoted and I did say it that well. You know, you picked up the camera because you couldn't breakdance. Well, actually, breakdancing came out about five years after I picked the camera up, do you? You know what I mean? I mean, I picked up my first camera when I was about nine years old, 10 years old, I reckon, maybe 11. It was a snap thing. My mum bought me and if you got it because there were no bikes left at the auction, it was messed up.
Speaker 1:I wanted a bike. I was like I'm getting a bike today, finally, I'm going to get a bike so many times off the damn thing. I still got around over it To this day. I get hit off the bike.
Speaker 3:I don't know what's wrong with me. It was obvious that it was meant to happen. You became a photographer in a very good way.
Speaker 1:Well you know what? It ran parallel. My hobbies were music, my hobby was music, my life is music. My mates were fun. We were kind of guys. You know Northwest London, camden Cruise, all of Camden, kentish Town down to Somers Town, belsize Primrose, all Chalk Farm up Swiss Cottage.
Speaker 6:Swiss Cottage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Swiss Cottage, Finchley Road, and that you know what I mean. West Amstead. We lived in Kilburn before then. My mum used to work in Wilsdon Garage and then when we moved to Camden she got transferred.
Speaker 3:To Bus Garage. Yeah, yeah, working in Wilsdon.
Speaker 1:Garage and then, when we moved to Camden, she got transferred to Chalk Farm Garage, which, I found out recently no longer exists, which I thought was quite sad. Anyway, that's where she met my stepfather who, it turns out, was an avid amateur photographer or he liked photography even from when he was from Barbados, when he was a young man in Barbados. A highly skilled Caribbean man, indeed, david, sir David Prescott, as I call him, highly skilled came all the way over from Barbados and he can do everything, like everything. Like just what you want cook, tailor what you want, plumbing engineering what you want cement drive, plumbing engineering, we want cement drive.
Speaker 1:We want cook baking cakes, we want husband driver, professional chauffeur for all King and Queen big things. London bus driver, London bus clippy, Anyway. So when they, you know, one day they came back from work in the garage and they used to have all these clubs back in those days, you know, the union, the transport union, and they, you know, keep the workers happy. They would do things like you know, they have the outing, they take them on the outing. This weekend we are going summer months, we're going outing this, we're going salting.
Speaker 3:I haven't heard that for years. We're going outing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at the bus station.
Speaker 6:It's a joke thing.
Speaker 1:I don't think people see this anymore. They're too busy. I don't want to look at their phones. Have you ever seen, if you haven't seen when you haven't lived? Have you ever seen a double-decker bus from London on the motorway?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Well, you ain't lived.
Speaker 3:That's what we used to do.
Speaker 1:You get there about three or four for a little while on the way and we'd always do a toilet stop and you know you're talking about. All the families of all of the workers get to go out and communal lifestyle for a day at a seaside resort in England and I saw all the seasides before I was 10. Nice. You know what I mean. I sat in the front of a bus before and people didn't even know what a bus was Lovely.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about your Brazilian career. Obviously you've been colleagues before. Indirectly You've been on Dance Energy. That's one of the Motley Cruella dancers on there and tell me about that. I mean because that's first of all, uh-oh, it's more of the bubbly. First of all, that was a great show. It covers so many aspects of music, dance, rap, electronica. How did that show come about? I know it was based around the premise of you and your, your photography, but they also went to different countries, talked about the rave scene and the dance scenes in different countries. Tell me about that show in terms of the concept, and I know it was very, very popular at the beginning and then it tailed off after other, like the word and other um dance shows came about. But tell us about the concept of that and um, did you enjoy doing it? Was it fun? Because I had loads of fun on that show with you.
Speaker 1:Tell me about that so could you repeat the question? No, sorry, can you repeat the question?
Speaker 3:I was listening what do you think the question said?
Speaker 1:you asked me about Dance Engine. What did I think about it?
Speaker 3:but you said a lot of stuff well, we talked about the areas it covered. It went to Europe, it went to different countries, different parts of the country. Okay, so I'll give you some exposition we had in the studio is where it was filmed yeah we had different people from different areas, so Manchester came down, birmingham came down, nottingham came down, as well as the London Posse that were there, and we used to all dance and enjoy it and then in between the acts and you were doing your linking pieces on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're describing. You're describing how the show, the format of the show, which is it was a 30 minute magazine show, music show, there we go, 30 minute dance energy. It was a Actually, I found out the first series. They were 45 minutes long was the episode. They cut 15 minutes off of that though, and then they cut, but anyway, we'll stay with when it was on. Basically it was a magazine format, music and culture, light entertainment, documentary television, drama show.
Speaker 1:In other words, we fit under the umbrella of primetime television on BBC 2. In a weird way, fresh Prince of Bel-Air was part of the double bill that I was part of in the programming, so he was on it for 30 minutes and I was on after that. I always thought I was the warm-up for his show, but they've all corrected me in the past over the last few years and said no, no, no, no, no. Fresh Prince was on before your show and one used to rush back to see your show because it resonated with the UK audience, because it was all about our scene that was not on telly especially and not captured anywhere else on TV at the time yeah, you know, I think, production wise, we, I think also production-wise we had a really positive and powerful creative team of people that were trying to make the best TV they could at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with the limited resources, we had no budgets and stuff like that Backroom studio vibes, you know what I mean. It was an independent production that was brought into the BBC. Bbc were a real old kind of horse, didn't really like the flexible friends. That was coming in too tough. So we were breaking new grounds and breaking boundaries and stuff like that and making new boundaries, if you like, or actually no, just breaking boundaries and making new ground, yeah well, the music was so fresh and so new anyway.
Speaker 3:Um, we had Pet Shop Boys through to Hip Hop, to Trap Called Quest Ragga Twins you know what I mean. Yeah, um, the Shaman. I think it's really good just to merge other different scenes together as well. You know unifying people as well, and it's really really good to see other people in different parts of the country, and I think a lot of relationships and understandings were built based on that as well, in terms of the people that were there no, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean over the years I mean I've met people that have told me they've made me feel very, I don't know how. They've made me feel very humble and so very proud, like I'm some kind of parent. But they've actually said because of the show. Sometimes people said because of you, but I know it's the actual time of their lives, but because of the show they found direction in their lives and then many of them have become very professional in something that's that was wow, I just had a real professional moment then. But you know, in a something that, um, you know, the show maybe kind of was giving them an insight to whether it be in, you know, direction. Well, you're a young black man in there and you were that as well. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:I forgot about that.
Speaker 6:That was very unusual. Exactly.
Speaker 1:It wasn't so much that, just me as well. I mean, I looked, I watched a couple of bits. People have been you, you know YouTube and some clips recently and I there was a lot of young people that weren't represented on the dance floor, uh, and, like you said before, we had crowds that would come in from up North and different parts of the country and also, you know, I was doing a star squad item which was going out and just find that street fashion, ultimately the streets, you know. Uh, straight up, kind of you know Vox Pop type of interview. And again it had that rough guide like let's go to Brighton, let's go to Coventry, let's go to Dublin, let's go and meet people, you know, let's get a fixer in the town who knows who's cool and try and find some cool ones. But at the same time I had this thing where I really was quite keen to come on, roll, pick on people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that spontaneous aspect was good.
Speaker 1:I wasn't supposed to do that as much as I did, yeah, but you didn't hold back.
Speaker 3:You're speaking the slang, you're representing us, I mean, and it was always good to see when I used to be at my estate and people would see me on TV. It's like I walked through the Tumor and Show door and we showed them what the art of. To you. For that, thank you. Now, part of this show is, you know, the soundtrack to your life, or, in this case, it'll be the soundtrack to your book. I think one of the first tunes I'm going to put in there is Innocent Life, one of the songs that you've chosen by Goldie big up to Goldie there, because I think that describes what Innocent Life was about the people. Thank you, but I won't let go. I won't let go. No, no, yeah, in the city of love, love, love, love. In a city, la, la, la, la, la. Come to me In those open arms.
Speaker 5:Is where I wanna be, living free. Well, I want to be. Living free, I need to be, I need to be in your love, living free, I long to be, I long to be your love, I long to be in your love. Yeah, in a city, like, like, like, in a city, pressure, pressure, pressure, thank you. Living free, I need to be, I need to be in your love, yeah, yeah, in a city light, in a city pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, love, love, I need to be.
Speaker 1:Made and free I need to be. I need to be Made and free. I need to feel. I need to feel free.
Speaker 1:Obviously, you know I picked that one up because there's a couple of reasons why the Goldie track is very special to me because we came up at a very similar time and probably didn't really meet directly until around the time that track dropped yeah, even though he was, you know, cutting with the tax crew, painting and teeth, and yeah, we were in parallel worlds, at distances and it was in the amount of time and again revolving around the sort of stussy tribe, of course, the ronin guys and and just the, the similarities that we managed to kind of have that synergy eventually.
Speaker 1:And so, um, when it came down to a really, really high point in, I think, goldie's career, with that moment in the city life, yeah, he was having his hair cut down at cuts in soho, yeah, which is that great haircut he's famous for with the, with the sort of tie tread which I think conrad um and mr johnson was um, was um actually responsible for that? Who was the kind of cutter of the brothers down at cuts, to be fair, yeah, cuts of soho. Uh, big shout out to daniel and pete, yeah, and of course the late james, uh, and everyone else who knows the Cuts family anyway. So yeah, so I chose it. And also there was another affiliation with Goldie where he lived in I think it was Dorney Towers in Stuttgart around the same time, because some of the video was shot in the basement and Conrad's also in there.
Speaker 1:Funny enough, who's his stylist? And I lived on the other side of the hill at the same time and didn't really know that. So we had this wonderful time. And that's where I come from. I'm from the inner city.
Speaker 3:What made you decide to do a book now? What made you decide to produce a book now? What was the concept behind it? What did you want to achieve?
Speaker 1:Well, I think I just needed to get the kids out of the house.
Speaker 5:Yeah, go on.
Speaker 1:It was just time for them to leave home, yeah, yeah, yeah, and to go and educate.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And to celebrate in the world and grow.
Speaker 3:Before you released the kids out, were you quite protective of them? Were you keeping them in the house?
Speaker 1:No, no, I just, you know, not at all. It wasn't until I realized I had to get them out, that I had what I had. You know, I just, I always wanted to book. Um, I really did. I wanted to book years ago, it's. You know I then I worked in editora for a very long time, in the sense of a lot of my photographs would make it to magazines and um, so, yeah, and it was only a matter of time before, I you know, eventually we actually sort out getting a fat heavyweight together. And you know, it was a few years later than I thought it would have been.
Speaker 1:I think I've attempted to do a book before and I realized, having done the book, the reason why I hadn't done it before was I was not trying to make the book. I was thinking about, oh I want to do a book, but there's I want to do a book, but there's I want to do and there's I'm going to do. And then there's I'm doing a book. And I got to that point where, when I met the publishers that understood my work, understood me that's James Smith for ACC Art Books, and I met him through a really good colleague and a longstanding friend and a true professional of archive and stuff that has also looked out for me over the years.
Speaker 1:And that's John Swinstead and his team at the Museum of Youth Culture, of which I'm part of the the team down there now. And he had introduced me to this guy and he said to me you know, I think I might find the guy the right guy for your book. And John knows that I had opportunities to do a book in the past, pre-pandemic. We talked about it. He talks about crowdfunding. Thank god I didn't, because we went straight into pandemic, then lockdown, and I'm sure everyone would have regretted whatever they were trying to do.
Speaker 1:The whole thing would have gone stagnant, unless still not. I've done the book. But I also wasn't comfortable with doing that in the first place because I designed, I just decided a long, long time ago, watching the rise of some of the people I'd photographed over the years, um, and how their careers had seemingly just gone so well that to me they were priceless, these people, and were worth more than asking friends if they could lend me some money to get my book out. Hang on, and then people would be like what you're, noomski man, are you mad? You must be, and so I knew straight away I was never going to ask that question. I also wanted to continue to have. The one thing that I've always had over my work and most of the times I've done a lot of stuff is it's my work create freedom well, yeah, the creativity was already done, but now I do need to free them.
Speaker 1:so how can I do it? And I met people that allowed it to represent me the way I wanted to be represented, and then they reproduced that representation at their highest quality.
Speaker 1:So Mariona who designed did the layout and stuff. The font work did the three different fonts? I mean, you know, when you look at the detail of it, I hadn't even come to that, but I did actually have ideas. When she presented how she saw it and explained to me why it looks that way, I had to take damn near award-winning advice and say, yeah, if you think that's right, I'm going to say yeah, okay, I don't know. I just met the book world. I wasn't used to it, man. I was not used to being asked what I want and would like.
Speaker 1:It's normally oh right, don't worry like that. You send pictures into a magazine and hope they use them. They crop one of them, you don't go. Oh mate, I'm pissed off. You're glad they put the thing in the magazine, even if they cropped half of the shot to fit it into whatever their format is. But here we created something.
Speaker 3:What I like about the book as well is I mean, it's a hip-hop artist, street artist, but it's a very classy book. I'm not saying hip-hop's not classy, but it's very, very classy the way it's put together and it's really nice, Thank you.
Speaker 1:I mean I am very, very proud of the way it's turned out.
Speaker 1:He's smiling people. Also, andrew Whittaker was the editor who really pulled me into shape. He pulled me into shape, you mean what capacity? Well, he's a nice guy. He's not really a fan, but he knew me, he grew up on what I'd done and he was very modest and not he wasn't too fanboyish at all and I get a lot of love. But sometimes I'm like, yeah, but just be honest, because I I can't say what I was used to be said to me when I was younger. It's all right, mate, but you need to fucking learn that focus yeah right.
Speaker 1:Once I heard that, I looked at my pictures again and I was like, right, I'm making sure the focus is tight, yeah, yeah. But nowadays people go, yeah, that's good, that's all right, that's nice. I don't want to hear good, all right or nice. I want to say that's incredible, amazing, unbelievable. So the effort levels there. There's a little bit of that that's in me. So you know, when I got that little bit of discipline from andrew, which is look, we need to pull this together.
Speaker 1:We need to know who you know. You send me that, but what you've done you know. And I arrived. I arrived at my first meeting with the publisher after about four, three or four months, after we'd initially said, right, go away, start digging for work and, um, take your time. They said to me take your time. It's a really personal journey. It's going to be really hard to do. And then I never forget James saying to me at any moment if you feel uncomfortable at any moment when you're doing it, just stop, take a break. You can feel uncomfortable at any moment when you're doing it, just stop, take a break. You know you can't do it straight away. He's gonna. You know, we want to do a really good ball. You've got to take a long time. And I looked at him and I said, bro, it's been 30 odd years.
Speaker 1:So I'm not going to take too long, but thank you for that. Yeah, then I started to really long it out. But because I longed it out, I started to dig and I went up to the attic. I went into the stories I couldn't call out. I called out to Andy Cowan. He found pictures from 1989 I hadn't seen. You know, I had a fire in 95. I'd lost photographs in that fire. I knew I was trying to find those photographs. I haven't looked at those photographs since then. So I'm just thinking to myself, man, it was very emotional.
Speaker 3:Did it conjure times of the past tear-jerking?
Speaker 1:past tear-jerking Was it quite emotional, yeah, very emotional. I just yeah, I mean honestly I've done it all. Yeah, I went into because we were in post-isolation mode when I was very comfortable with getting on with it.
Speaker 6:Yeah, Nothing else was going on and so I was very happy going from my work.
Speaker 3:Yes, you were distracted.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, at one point and I sat there and they went out to the shop to get some bits and they brought back two crates for me, two plastic box crates, you know, like like moving house things, yeah, so you get them ones. So then I had the filing going on and I'm sitting there and I'm writing out all the names, all the names of the artists and all the stuff. Giving them numbers, putting them into, was a whole year before I actually started doing the book, so I was always on a mission.
Speaker 3:Uh, the whole what about the selection process? I mean, some of the photographs may have been imperfect, but they meant something to you. So just to you know, perfectionist eye, they meant to be perfect. But to um, to the subject or the audience you want to um address, did you choose some of those?
Speaker 1:there was the selection process, hard it was very difficult because I had an initial idea, which was this book concept. I still have it. I ended up putting out a slightly different book.
Speaker 3:Can you tell us what the original?
Speaker 1:Go on. No, it's like saying I had all these thousands of demos and then I decided to re-record 10 new tunes just using the demos. So, actually, but the demos is another thing I was going to do, but they've now turned into a sound bank.
Speaker 1:And then you have to decide which one represents the artist best for what you're doing. Then you have to go into what other images you've got and how they balance with the images you're choosing. So there was a moment when Mariona and I were having a conversation about me trying to get more pictures in. This is after we'd gone from our 272 page limits max. No overlap, nothing overlap. If you want to bring it down, you can, but that's a very bad idea because we've got 272 pages and two cases to sleeves to fulfill. So at one point we had 300 pages and it was amazing. And then it was like, yeah, but we need to cut the pages down. And I had a blow-up. I'm giving you some exclusive stuff. Like I said before, I had a blow-up.
Speaker 1:Do you know how hard it is for me to take out these pages? Why did you go too far? Oh, that was just to get an idea of how we could make the pages. Okay, right, I get that, I get that. Right, I get it, but it it was a really tough one because I had never seen how we could make the pages. I had all the ideas how I wanted to make the pages. She had her ideas as how the pages should drop and together we got the balance right. But there was a lot of pushing and pulling and I learned a lot from like less is more, and I know that rule. You know, like everyone going on the decks mixing Man's trying to mix eight tunes when the first tune ain't even got to the verse yet. Thank you, it's a breadwinner. Hang on. So then you've got the next one who's just playing the tune so long and your man wants to go to a night and make a burger and come back before he puts the next tune on. Believe me, now, bruv, pick it up.
Speaker 3:So it's a really hard balance.
Speaker 1:So if there's a throw to the reggae vibes early on there's the old school kind of like oh, hip-hop for the first time, covent garden shop, backseat park, venture day, you know there's all this kind of stuff which is like what the hell is this? You know Saxon sound and all that out of New Cross. You know what I mean? Ragamuffin, what's that? Something nobody knows about Smiley culture as what they're in the book. Then I drop into old school, like as in hip-hop. So there goes old school hip-hop.
Speaker 1:Then I just said like I going to have like 5 000 different you know chapters. And for lauer it's a photography book, it's for looking at pictures, and it was difficult. I'm going to artist, but everyone's an artist, most of them are artists. So then I thought but anyone who's just a single artist, I call them my eyes. And then if it's a crew, because there's more than three people or you know, I mean and I call them crews because I thought those are cool names the, the, the method behind the madness or the madness behind the method.
Speaker 1:The whole thing was like a scratch album of getting some bits, some different sounds, and then you want to put them together, you want to mix them together so they have a nice flow. That's where it really really helped to have both Andrew and Mariona remade the book. No one else made the book. We had a lot of people that were looking at it going, oh my God, it's amazing. Oh my God, I love it. Oh my God, I love that, I love this, I love that. But the actual mechanics were put together by my, my free triangle related team.
Speaker 1:And Mariona I've never met in my entire life in person. She that she's getting into design mode. That's eight hours behind me. I'm up ready. I want to talk to her on the emails, I want to see what she's doing. But she's one of these people, like any good producer, you go in, you're singing my piece, I get the fuck out of the studio so that she can do the you know, so that she can produce the track. She would do some stuff. We'd make notes like you've never seen. Andrew then would make notes. He'd make notes. We'd look at the PDFs and what we end up doing is you take a bit of all the best bits and then you collide it all into the best bit and then you go right now there's a gap there. I don't like. Yeah, but you know what we said Feng shui. I can talk to you about yin and yang.
Speaker 4:I love that note.
Speaker 1:No, I thought oh you want to come out. You're like no, I want to come out, I want to get the hell out of this rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:Normski Do you want to go in. The yin and yang is a very important aspect of the black and white aspect of the photography. My initial input into photography was black and white photography. Yeah, black, black and white photography. Black, white, dark room printing negatives, positives this is the kind of shit that makes my world spin around. I love it. So that was a very, very important part of the process. With regards to the balance of what I was trying to show, of course there's going to be color in the book, of course, and I did some sketches very early on which I am going to show you.
Speaker 3:I'm going to show you, but I can't see it, but the audience can't see it.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to show you and you can describe what I'm showing you, which is my balancing. It's like optical illusions of balance. So this is opposite pages. This is me thinking about pages a white page, a black page with a white image in it? Yeah, or you know, I had ideas. And you've got the negative ideas.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, but it was always black and white when we say negative ideas, the idea of a negative from a film yeah, the film strips. Yeah, like the film strips.
Speaker 1:But then also the negative is what is a very big part of the photography. You know speech, which is what you have. You have a negative which is the film strip, but it's also a reverse of what you actually see, and the positive of the negative is the life in real. So that was a very important thing. So everything is magically connected to photography, even though it's a book about photography yeah, but even your book there, it's a book full of black faces expressive.
Speaker 1:You know, you know angry, sad and it just shows all the faces and expressions and the energy it was happening at that time. There's not much sadness in my book, but I appreciate you saying the seriousness of some people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and I think that's really really important that you've kept that.
Speaker 1:Well, I I did tell you that and I'm glad you've kind of reiterated it. But it's very important fact for me that when you know we were discussing um me putting a book out and when people are looking forward to seeing all these great books that have come out in the past and you know I've seen so many books about skinhead culture in this country I don't know if I can quite imagine punk and grunge and it's been working with a museum of youth culture. There's an incredible amount of youth culture. You know we've got the garage scene, we've got all stuff, multicultural stuff. But what it was for me was I haven't photographed everything, yeah, but what I have been part of as a reflective of my life, yes Is is there's been an awful lot of truly talented young people.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That reflect exactly where I'm coming from as an inner city boy, whether they be white or black, and that's what I love about a and white and everything was in it, so let's just forget the colour thing. Yeah, but visually and photographically, and on volume and balance and weight, it's very important to have these things aligned Well you mentioned Hijack.
Speaker 3:I think we should drop their tune. One of the big, big tunes called Hold no Hostage Hardcore hip hop tune. The song is just tense heavy and the energy in this track is where you've got a lot of black youth just want to get a lot of emotion out.
Speaker 1:You're a South London boy, aren't you? Of course you can tell why, I don't know, just from what you got all passionate about introducing the hijack Of course, man, I'll just peck him, peck him.
Speaker 3:I can't help it, man, peck him.
Speaker 4:Let's do it. Hold no hostages down the knell, summoning suckers to heaven or hell. I survey how hip-hop's a trade, as any sucker system of music cannot be trained. Buried is the rhyme carrier of parade. You unscathed. I lay blame to the name A tip wharf, you'll see foretold A rip wharf and a shoulder cold. Pulling a prank at the bank of my rank To check he's blank the deal. A skank Dehyped the cells out of weight To see how they rock this slate Sick in wax, hijacking juice For musical wells, economical boots, but money ain't the matter. It's the principle that makes us invincible. Master plans, insight and suffice. Could you delude Putin? Minds are true. Yin-yang, ulysses, warrior of peace, djs are brain, space is sea to amaze and we're dispatched to southern slay A power play. Yes, I don't pay Star Wars warning to those who get scorned and those we awake up to those who sound boring. Yes, your bunnies dived in the slumage rewind to hijack tape and your rummage through Off. They take it. That was Hold Me.
Speaker 3:Hostage by the group Hijack, a seminal hip-hop track there. I just want to move on a bit and talk to you about photography in these days. What do you think about photography and people's approach and respect to photography now you've got the iPhones and the relative quote-unquote ease of taking photographs going forward?
Speaker 1:I think it's fantastic. It's amazing. I've never seen so much people into photography in my entire life. It's vastly taken over people wanting to be a footballer. It's vastly taken over people wanting to be a footballer. I know that much and I'm going to keep wheeling it back to that because that was the lowest common denominator many years ago. I came from the. I want to be a basketball player generation that just kind of slightly follows on from football with a little bit more international. But I do like the vibe that nowadays you can access and make visual art and take photographs and capture moments Like beyond the joke. And make visual art and take photographs and capture moments Yep, Like beyond a joke, I mean, you know I was quite happy with an Instamatic Snap camera. That was my first camera.
Speaker 1:It was only a little, you know box. You know Then I moved up to another camera that you had to buy rolls of film for Yep. I've been on that for like 100 years. It feels like Yep Never ever thought that that telephone that I had that looked like a brick, that weighed a ton, could stop a door and knock a man out.
Speaker 3:Did you have the original big mobile phone, the chunky one?
Speaker 1:8500, mate. Yeah, Don, I'm on. The original it was Vodafone. What are you saying? You have the ear. You know it was like Life or something. Wow, Unscrewed, and all this plastic doesn't do anything.
Speaker 3:It must be expensive as well.
Speaker 1:Right, it was expensive. No, not really. It was probably not that expensive, but not compared to a free grand phone today.
Speaker 1:It wasn't expensive at all. I'm in the business now. Better off buying a laptop. Oh, that's what it is. It's just a miniature one that you can talk with. It's got 15 cameras, I think it's. Do it, um, but I think that, um, people need to get over taking photographs and being a photographer and they need to indulge in the actual thing that they're actually taking photographs at, or what are the challenges, if any, for taking somebody, a group of still people, posing or capturing their face or mood, versus capturing motion?
Speaker 3:do you find them both difficult or, uh, do you just roll with it?
Speaker 1:I, I, yes, and I think that you have to roll with it. Sometimes circumstances are really comfortable.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Some people are really giving. Most of the times I photograph people because of the circumstances for example, which is probably the first time they've been photographed, and or not many people were interested in taking their photograph. Oh my God, this guy looks like someone who's really cool. I quite like the look of this guy. I've been around other photographers taking a photograph of artists I've taken and I've seen the way the artists look at them and I've seen the way they've looked at the artists from a distance and I've made sure that's not how I'm going to look at them.
Speaker 3:I was about to say do you employ any techniques to get the best out of them? Yeah, I do. Yeah, like I said, don't give your trade secrets away.
Speaker 1:I can't help it. I am the trade secret alright yeah, I just, I just be me. What does that mean? What does that mean? Oh, don't go in going. Oh, I'm a photographer, can I take your picture? I'm cool, what you up to? I'm having a good time, man. So what you saying? I was hanging out taking some photos.
Speaker 6:Oh, you take pictures.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes do you mind if I take a picture?
Speaker 3:yeah, man do it, bam you're very enthusiastic that you can be laid back about the approach.
Speaker 1:I'm being laid back now because I can look back and see how I've done it all, but at the time I was nervous as what works, that's honest man, that's real, that's raw edge, that's like spontaneity they call that shit.
Speaker 3:Survival Serendipity Yep, yep, yep. And what's the worst photo shoot?
Speaker 1:One of my worst photo shoots was when I went to go and shoot Wu-Tang Clan. Yes, it wasn't. I say worse in a bad way, but it was a last minute thing. I did a photo shoot with someone else and I had some Hasselblad equipment really nice movie format film and stuff. And I went to the shoot thinking Wu-Tang, yes, my opportunity, I'm going to do it on the big camera. Definitely, just take out the one bag, go into Town and Country, don't have loads of kit on me, yeah.
Speaker 1:Went country don't have loads of kit on me. Yeah, went up there and uh, had to wait outside for about half an hour. Turned out they're having a bit of an argument and they decided they didn't want to do no fucking interview, no fucking photos, because there's some money management something he did a lot of egos.
Speaker 3:A big group, there's a lot of guys control, you know, big up method man.
Speaker 1:And then they still heard together and in the end they did say you know? And also actually andy cowan, who wrote a wicked wicked actually he did not write a testimonial, he wrote a chapter. I said to andy, I asked andy, who was the editor of hip-hop connection for most of I heard an incredible podcast, uh, with him talking to killer keller recently about he mortgaged his house twice to keep that magazine going. That's the passion I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:Listen, let's get to the next tune. You got music, we got some music. We got some stuff out of BDP Boogie Down Productions.
Speaker 1:Ah, my philosophy. That's right, chris is in my book. Oh, chris Parker. Chris Parker's in my book. I got a couple of photographs of him and there's one particular one of him in the Wag Club that I love, which is just a headshot of him. Yeah, and he's looking rather philosophical, philosophical.
Speaker 3:Should we do that? And no more boos. Let's get into the tune.
Speaker 7:So you're a philosopher?
Speaker 6:Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I think very deeply, I think very deeply, I think very deeply, I think, I think, I think very deeply. In about four seconds, a teacher will begin to speak. I think very deeply speak. Let us begin. What, where, why or when Will all be explained like instructions to a game.
Speaker 6:See, I'm not insane. In fact I'm kinda rational when I be asking you who is more dramatic. Is this one or that one, the white one or the black one? The public and I'll jump up to attack one. A terrorist one is just a gotta lead a crew Right up to your face and diss you. Everyone saw me on the last album cover Holding a pistol something far from a lover Beside my brother S-C-O-T-T. I just laugh, cause no one can defeat me.
Speaker 6:This is lecture number two. My philosophy Number one was poetry. You know it's me, you know it's my philosophy. Many artists gotta learn. I'm not flammable, I don't burn, so please stop burning and learn to earn respect, cause that's just what KRCHs See. What do you expect when you rhyme like a soft pump? You walk down the street and get jumped. You gotta have style and learn to be original and everybody's gonna wanna diss you. Like me. We stood up for the South Bronx and every sucker MC had a response. You think we care. I know that they are on the tip. My posse from the Bronx is thick. In real real life we roll correctly. A lot of suckers would like to forget me, but they can't Cause like a champ. I have got a record of knocking out the frauds in a second On the mic.
Speaker 3:I believe that you should get loose. I Talk to me about Keros One and that tune. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 1:dude. My philosophy is one of the biggest bangers of hip-hop history, a legendary track. As soon as that one just dropped, you know it was serious hip-hop happening 1988. Was it 88? Yeah, it was a big time. It was a big time. Yeah, it all happened for me between 1987, 1989.
Speaker 3:That was the time.
Speaker 1:That was the golden everything after you did Death 2 Dance Energy on.
Speaker 3:Death 2 and Dance Energy on that, and then we had the word that came out and then I did Board Stupid, oh yeah, I forgot about that was that snowboarding stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the first time they ever had a black man presenting a British snowboard show in the history of the human race. I forgot about that the human race, I said is this on the back of the?
Speaker 3:I like to make the genesis of stuff you know? Is this on the back of your skateboarding culture awareness?
Speaker 1:Well, you know. Yes, I would say that the fact that I got the job when I went snowboarding in Zermatt just as a test Really good at it, though, I should say, off the back of the fact that I used to be one of the London Skates Dominates crew, lsd crew down at South Bank what does that mean? That's basically one of the early 70s skateboarders which I wasn't very good at. Because of that, I was able to go on the snow with a much bigger skateboard and know that when I fell on it it wasn't going to be like hitting the concrete at South Bank or Meanwhile Gardens back in the days when you used to chip yourself.
Speaker 3:Meanwhile Gardens yeah.
Speaker 1:You didn't just graze one's butto chip it, you'd go down to the bone. Any time you fall off a skateboard in the United Kingdom. Yeah, with your red crips that were sliding everywhere in their full truck of trucks. Yeah, and you're giving it with your Tony Alva deck thinking you're Tony Alva at Dogtown when you know you're not, and you're Mr Normski at Southbank and you've broke off your toenail. You know that you're not TV presenting. I was game to try anything. They came to me and said look, we've got this idea for a show. You know, would you be interested? I said yes, of course I would. I'll give it a shot. Went out there. The first time I went snowboarding was at Zermatt. It was a one-off show, just to see if they had an idea they were doing. I was there with another presenter. I can't remember her name. She was quite presentable, adult woman, a little bit straight. I was fun, active, colourful, so I also when I sat on that snowboard at the top of the mountain with my snowboard, heli Henson.
Speaker 1:Let's put a point there wearing my Heli Henson lightweight snowboarding kit. This is when stuff was still neon bro.
Speaker 3:I've got my notes here. You've been described as larger than life and effusive. Would you say? That's still you? And what Effusive? What's effusive man? I'll have to Google it. Can I get back to you on that one?
Speaker 1:I'll just say yeah, probably. I mean no, I think life is much larger than me, but I definitely match up. Well, there have been building up, yeah, and I think that that build up and explosion is happening right now. There's also the other thing, where you know, to sustain some kind of activity and or at least still be going, yeah, clearly, over 30 years in the industry that I've been part of is clearly that in itself deserves an award. Yeah, I don't know how the fuck I'm still breathing here right now.
Speaker 3:What are life survivors, man?
Speaker 1:Well, my mum said a beautiful thing. I'd get on my phone. And it was a beautiful thing. She said to me the other day when I was helping one of our family members the best I could in his position, which was a lot worse than I could ever imagine, and I know there are a lot of people who are kind of disposition in life at the moment and I was just keeping an eye out and it just came up to me and I just did the right thing and she said, you know? She said something like, yeah, you know what?
Speaker 1:Because your heart is always in the right place, you always do the good thing and that's why you'll always get through. Even though you've had some hard times, you know your goodness or something will always get you through. And that made me feel really, really good that my mum could say that about me and realise that I cover up and I don't ever really moan about the stuff that troubles me, the way people moan at me about the stuff that's troubling them. And I got to the point with the book particularly, where I finally could stop helping everyone for a minute so I could actually just help myself, because I know if I really help myself, then that larger-than-life personality that everybody needs back in their lives would be able to give back that blessing and it would, I hope and I think it has done infuse and inspire and excite people to feel good about something again because it's been really fucking shit for a long time now and everything in that book came out of a tough time.
Speaker 1:Post Maggie Thatcher 84 lived through that shit. Everyone talks about it like it's brand new. Don't bother to do something about it. Don't bother wasting energy on it. But it's not easy, because it's really tough now?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think one of the things this is why I started the podcast as well. Charlie Dark bless him. I've got to got him back on the show. Charlie Dark started off running radio for DJs to just get back on it and submit their mixes and he put them online. So he was creating a radio show in the middle of the pandemic just to keep everybody entertained through music and what that did was get me back into DJing again and get me back into doing this. And I created 4545. Because what's people's curated music? What are the soundtracks to their lives? What are the soundtracks to their books? What are the soundtracks to their current creative exploits? And also, it's a good way of talking about politics and music and life through music, because, you know, it's a good way to communicate things in a multifaceted way. First of all, cheers Again to have yourself in a vulnerable slash exposed pardon the pun to be exposed like that and to put your life, your life's work like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, bruv, you have no idea how scared I've been listen. I mean you do have an idea, because you just said that you just said that and I should shut my mouth.
Speaker 1:But thank you for seeing that because, brother, I'm really proud now because I didn't realise how little people have had this. But yeah, if you want to go back to it, a lot of stuff follows on from what everyone else has done. I did not and could not do what everyone else had done. Trust me, I could have done a straightforward book and there was a moment and I nearly tried to say it before, maybe I did, I didn't. Mario said to me the designer, when I was trying to cram more pictures, in finding ways to get more pictures in without making it look shit, which it was becoming and when we drew out some pages, I couldn't wait to take some of the pages out. When I look back at that, I said now, get that out, get that out, get that out.
Speaker 1:I started to get really ruthless on myself. I turned into an animal, which is the hardest thing ever. But I realized, because normally I don't get a choice and they put the wrong ones in and they edit out everything else. So this is the first time I'm not being edited by someone else, but it was a real struggle and it was really, really difficult to realize that. You know, there was a very fine line between what Mariana sort of said to me. It was you know well, you know we can do this, but you've got to think about what you want to do here. What do you want to put out like a hardback magazine or do you want to put like a hardback quality, high quality hardback book? And I was like, okay, fuck the magazine, vibe, I don't like the sound of that at all.
Speaker 1:I've done magazines all my life. No, I went. No, right, it's not going to be like. But then I had to get a balance where I was like right, but I'm still going to try and squeeze some more in, but stylishly, yes. So we're going to use that. So we're going to do a little bit, we're going to spread it, that little feel, in and out of the book, because we've got the books for me right now. It's too fucking boring. And I'm getting to shout out Scott, I'm going to shout out Esther, I'm going to shout out Jamie and again I'm going to shout out John. All the team that backed me at the Museum of Youth Culture that I have special thanks to in the book, along with my mum, my dad and my boy.
Speaker 1:No one else got thanks in that book and that's because they were the only people that took any interest when I was doing the book. They were the only people that I would allow to see anything I was doing. They were the only people that I felt I was hiding away from in plain sight, because I didn't want them. They were the only people that made me feel like I was really on my own and really lonely with my book. But I was comfortable because they were leaving me to it, because they wanted it to be my book and they didn't want to have any influence over it. But when I said what do you think of this? At a really late stage I had the words say this is a mind-blowing stuff, just needs a little bit of Nobski touch. Now. And that's when I kicked in.
Speaker 3:Well, nobski, thank you for making the book, thank you for exposing yourself.
Speaker 1:He gave you a little Nobski touch right now.
Speaker 3:Jesus Call him, name call him name For Nobski, in terms of thank you for doing the book, thank you for taking us on a journey in terms of your skill set, your development, making yourself vulnerable, but also to teach everybody about creativity, the journey, the fear and still keeping it moving. Before we go, before we play Eric B and Rakim, you know I've got soul. What is up?
Speaker 1:for Normski. Next, I'm very excited because I'm actually this week doing another brilliant behind-the-book talk with a fantastic place that I'm going to shout out now, which is Photoobook Cafe. People ask me about where do you get inspiration? What do you do? Photobook Cafe, leonard Circus, right there in Shoreditch. It's not a library but they literally are a photobook cafe. They've got hundreds of photography books in there. It's the most incredible bar cafe.
Speaker 1:Every night they're doing zine things, book launches, student stuff, you know, and they have a corner where I've sat in for hours just thinking, book thinking, book writing stuff, you know, and so I'm going to do a talk with them on Friday. There's talk of well, not talk the exhibition. I'm working on touring exhibition and with the staff with the book, to push the book more, because it's only been out a couple of months. I didn't get a chance to say this. There have been times they do it on purpose to sell more books. It's not necessarily real, but there has been a moment when my book has been the best seller of three different categories on Amazon. I photographed that in the monograph celebrity and essays books.
Speaker 1:It's a phenomenal thing to have it's five out of five stars everywhere. Like I say, the response has been because, again, there's not been very many publications that cover that time of our lives.
Speaker 6:It's a shared thing.
Speaker 1:It's not my book, it's our book and it's good. You know, I lived it. I was there, I took the pictures. But actually I'm having more fun now seeing how other people are going. I was at that, I was at that, I was there, that was me. That's what. It's not been funny. Everyone out there. This is the thing. This is the last bit of advice I'm going to give you. I know you're creative and stuff. Yeah, if no one sees it, why are you even doing it? If no one's hearing your music, why are you recording? Because the whole point of this fucking shit is to share the whole.
Speaker 6:Yeah it's not Okay. You want to make money sell stuff.
Speaker 3:yeah, fair enough, you can't take it with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you ain't no man taking that and I tell you you do not want to be cashed in the attic when you're dead and buried and man's finding your negatives. Bruv, trust me and there's a lot of that been going on they will try that. Do not allow it. Get pictures. You were there. Don't let someone own your stuff because you was too lazy and you left it in a cupboard because you didn't think it was worth nothing. Why do it in the first place? And, by the way, if you're not going to do something, don't do it. It's okay, but if you aren't going to do it, do it properly, otherwise jump off. There's other people out here trying to breathe air. You're wasting it. Sorry, did I get?
Speaker 3:mad, yeah, but anyway, normski, normski, normski Anderson. Thank you very much. Cheers, cheers, man, and good luck with the book. It's a great publishing. One more time, man with the Golden Shutter Normski on.
Speaker 1:ACC Art Books. You can find it in all good book outlets, and I mean all good book outlets. It's an amazing response. I'm glad you had me on there today of course man always man.
Speaker 3:Peace to you, bro, love. That's all for 4545, mr Pierre, and.
Speaker 1:Mr Nomski that's right.
Speaker 3:Peace to everybody.
Speaker 7:Let's play the tune good, thank you, cause here we go. It's a four letter word when it's her to control your body to dance, so dot, text the tempo like a red alert. Reaches your reflex and let it work. When this is playing you can't get stuck with the steps, so can say and I'ma still come up with. I get to be swift, follow the leader, the rhyme.
Speaker 7:I go Deaf with the record that was mixed a long time ago. It could be done, but only I could do it. For those that could dance and clap your hands to it, I start to think and then I sink into the paper like I was inked. When I'm writing I'm trapped in between the line. I escape when I finish the rhyme. I got soul. You got it. You got it. You got it, you got it. I got soul Deep in the wind. You got it, you got it. I mean, we got soul.
Speaker 7:Hey, if you think you wouldn't be in here, put your mic. The stage is empty. A beat like this might tempt me To show my rings and my fat gold chain. Grab the mic like I'm on Soul Train, but I wink Because I master this. Let the others go first so the brothers don't miss Eric. We break the sticks.
Speaker 7:Kim will begin when you make the mix. I'll experiment like a scientist. You wanna rhyme? You gotta sign my list, cuz I'm a manifesting bless the mic. I'll hold you on the next. Then you gotta have. So if you ain't got it, I'm gonna make a encore. Take the. Make the people respond for the awe, cause that's the way it'll have to be. If you wanna get on after me, think about it. Wait, erase your rhyme, forget it and don't waste your time, cause I'll be in the crowd. If you ain't controlling it, drop the mic. You shouldn't be holding it. This is how it should be done. This style is identical to none. Some try to make it sound like this, but you're getting me so upset that I'm wet Cause you're sweating me. I drip steam like a microphone theme. Ego to MC is my theme. I get hype when I hear drum roll Rock cameras on the mic. Then you know I got soul, you got it. You got it.
Speaker 5:You got it, you got it.
Speaker 7:You got, you got, you got, you got it.
Speaker 7:I got soul. That's why I came To teach those who can't say my name. First of all, I'm the soloist. It's so patroller Rockin' gets stronger as I get older. Constant elevation, chords, expansion. I write my rhymes while I'm cool soloist. It's so, patroller Rock him get stronger as I get older. Constant elevation cause, expansion. I write my rhymes while I cool.
Speaker 7:In my mansion they put it on tape and in the city I test it. Then on the radio, the R's requested you listen to it. The concept might break you, cause almost anyone can relate to Whoever's at a hand. I'ma give them handles, Light them up, blow them out like candles, or should I just let em melt? Then give em a hand so they can see how I felt.
Speaker 7:I'm not bold just cause I rock gold, rock cameras on the mic. And you know I got soul, soul, soul, soul. You got, you got, you got, you got it, you got, you got, you got it, you got it, you got it, you got it. Now I'ma stop to see what you got. Get off the mic before I get too hot. I wanna see which posse can dance the best. It should be easy, cause the beat is fresh Now, I feel. From uptown Brooklyn bound, the Bronx, queens and Long Island sound. Even other states come right and exact it ain't where you're from, it's where you're at Since you came here. You have to show and prove and do that dance until it don't move. That's all you need is soul, self-esteem and release. The rest is up to you. Rock him or say peace, you got it.
Speaker 5:You got it you got it, you got it, you got it, you got it, you got it, you got it.
Speaker 1:You got it.
Speaker 4:You got it Be nice, be friendly and keep it real people.