Chew The Fat interview Tayo

Breakbeat's champion of all things dub is interviewed by Chew The Fat!

Never being one for pigeonholes, Tayo is a truly genre busting DJ. With sets taking in dubstep, techno, breakbeat and more, it’s easy to understand his nomination for best DJ at this years Breakspoll Awards. Ahead of his back to back with Baobinga at ‘Troublestock’, the fundraiser being held here at The End & AKA to support Paul Arnold through leukaemia, Tayo took some time out from his studio work to answer interview questions about tunes, new labels and his rampant ego...

Chew The Fat!: You were there at the start of breakbeat. How have you seen the scene develop over the years?

Tayo: Well first of all I’ll say we are talking about ‘breakbeat’ in a certain context right? Trust me there is always at least one person who will point out that it started with James Brown or Afrika Bambaataa etc…so anyway…since we all started our little thing years ago, the music has changed immeasurably. First of all the scene actually became a scene, because at first it was just a collection of DJs, the odd label and lots of hype. To start with, me Adam Freeland and Ali B all started out as press officers and spun a lot of shit to get attention for our Friction and Air nights as I remember. Back then there was Breaking Point, then Chew The Fat, ourselves at Friction, Air and Beats and Bobs as I recall. Now there are breakbeat nights all over the world, the festivals are still full for acts like the Plumps DJs, Krafty Kuts, Stanton Warriors and the rest of the top boys, so on paper there should be no complaints. But as it has got bigger, things have got more fragmented and a lot less varied than when we started. But hey it’s all progress so excuse me if I don’t go into a ‘back in the day' rant.

Your recent Fabric mix took in elements of breakbeat, dubstep and minimal. What sort of sounds draw your attention when listening to tunes?

Bass for a start is a deciding factor. I’ve always loved a breakbeat, from my hip hop days to my drum & bass raving, and I like hearing that in the music I play also. But bass vibes, an organic flow, and a b-boy flavour are important to me in the tunes I make, play and listen to.

Are there any other music genres that heavily influence you?

Dub of course. If I was gonna only listen to one thing for the rest of my life it would be this - for the bass, and the deep meditation it brings me. But all music really – I started with hip hop, got heavily into drum & bass and on discovering the miracle raving pill developed a deep love for house music. These days as far as making and playing music goes, I’m influenced by dubstep, B-more club, drum & bass and UK garage.

Being a producer / DJ / label boss, what’s a standard day for you?

Well I’m not a label boss at the moment – I’m always reminding people I left Mob about 5 years ago. But I am starting a new label called Cool & Deadly with Lloyd Seymour from Supercharged / Against The Grain so let me mention that while you’re here. A standard day starts around 7am with coffee, checking who said what about Arsenal in all the papers that I read online, and a check of all the music blogs, MySpace pages and mp3s in my inbox. Then I fire off excited emails to Sick Rick telling him who I have just discovered or what I’m into that morning, to which the general response is “I told you about him last week / month / year” or “yeah that one’s good but have you heard THIS one?” Then I generally call him a wanker for trying to get one up on me (when I taught him everything he knows) then I get over it and head for gym / football / squash depending on what day it is, then studio business. The end of the day is like the beginning – checking music blogs, MySpace, and tunes, but swapping the coffee for a joint. I’ve left out the constant Facebook checking, the pointless phone conversations about football and doing the crossword in the Guardian because it doesn’t make me sound as cool.

In terms of your production, do you approach it in the same way that you approach your DJing?

Never thought of it that way before but maybe yeah. When I’m DJing I play the records that I like and hope that other people like them too, that’s why I maybe jump around between genres so much, and in the studio I shoe horn the sounds I like into whatever tune I’m trying to make. I tend to make music and play music for myself first, then the audience, which is probably why I’m not as popular as some of my crowd-pleasing colleagues I guess. And that isn’t a criticism.

Are there any production techniques you use that might surprise people?

Not really. The set up we have now in the studio has me on Logic and my engineer Max on Pro Tools. He’s a stubborn fucker who won't learn Logic because he’s so brilliant on Pro Tools, which means I have to do my homework before we get to the studio, making samples and writing beats, then it all goes into audio where we stick it all into Pro Tools. The plus side is that once we are in the studio I have more time to fetch the biscuits and the coffee.

Do you find some crowds are more responsive to the Tayo sound than others?

Maybe once upon a time, but as I have got more established I get to play to good crowds wherever I go. The Tayo sound, as you so politely call it, is a broad enough church for me to adapt to wherever I go – I played a dubstep set at Tuesday Club in Sheffield, a 4/4 set in Loughborough at a night called Shivoo, more straight ahead breaks at Spectrum in Nottingham, and whatever I damn please at Fabric and it went off at all of them.

You were nominated for Best DJ at this year’s Breakspoll Awards. Were you surprised by that?

It was totally unexpected but nice I guess. Seeing as I don’t play straightforward breaks really these days it’s nice that the people who voted have been feeling what I have been doing. Plus I have never sent out an email asking anyone to vote for me in all the years of Breakspoll. I was surprised when the Fabric CD won best mix album in the DJ awards last year. I’m not really a great one for awards to be honest, which will surprise anyone who knows me well enough to be aware of my rampant ego.

What tunes are currently big in your sets?

Not telling you…oh ok then. Today’s top 8 is:

TRG – ‘Everything West and For’
Tayo – ‘March of the Soundbwoyz’
Tayo – ‘91 was Fun’
Dubchild – ‘Go Wid Jah’
Dubstitutes – ‘2 Faced Rasta (Reso remix)’
Curses – ‘What I Need (Drop The Lime Remix)’
Rusko – ‘Cockney Thug (Buraka Som Sistema remix)’
Tayo meets Baobinga – ‘Choppa Riddim’

When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Either a stuntman or an actor. Then I went to university, got into DJing and wanted to be involved in the music industry.

If train A leaves Chicago travelling 100MPH and train B leaves New York travelling 150MPH and the distance between the two cities is 600 miles, how far from New York will it be when the two trains meet?

Who says they are going in the same direction? Ha!

How have you found this interview?

Better than most! You didn’t ask me “what’s your take on the state of breakbeat and where is it going?” or “how’s Mob Records doing?” Oh and you didn’t say “you play dubstep now don’t you”, which is another standard. I’m in the studio as I do it so it’s taken me longer than it would have done, and I haven’t checked my spelling…that’s my excuse for not working out the puzzle above by the way.

Published: 31/03/2008

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