Benga
Adegbenga “Benga” Adejumo, alongside his partner in crime Oliver “Skream” Jones, burst forth from the South London borough of Croydon in the early 2000s with a string of minimalist productions that would forever alter a sound that soon crystalized as dubstep. Hanging around the Big Apple record shop and making beats on Playstation, Benga’s infectious energetic take on the new London sound made him a household name while still in his teens. Following dubstep’s global takeover in the late 2000s, he joined forces with Skream and early mentor Artwork to form the trio Magnetic Man, blending their bass knowledge with big room pop.
In this lecture at the 2007 Red Bull Music Academy, Benga spoke with Emma Warren about the experimentation of his early years, cutting dubplates and the science behind using bass to drive the energy of a dance.
Hosted by EMMA WARREN Where did you record it and what happened? BENGA Well, I was at my house ’cause everything's at home. I use software. I'm a software guy... Anyway, Coki just came round, and we was building like every three weeks. And we came up with so many things - normal basslines, string riffs, and we thought that just doesn't sound fresh enough. So, the actual noise in there is just a normal sine wave with pitch bend, it just sounded right. I don't know how we got to that stage, but it just sounded right. EMMA WARREN So you were playing around with sounds, and that one came up and you said, ”That's it!“ So you built around the sound? Can we play now? Let's give it a try. (music: Benga & Coki – “Night” / applause) BENGA Wheel-up! Wheel-up! (laughs) EMMA WARREN I’m so glad you wheeled it. So this record has burst out of the dubstep scene to a certain extent, hasn't it? People in Malia are playing it, the grime lot are playing it, it's being played by all sorts of different people. What happened
with it? BENGA Well, as far as I know, it first went out to
Skepta from Boy Better
Know, and they went out with it to Malia and Ayia Napa. And what I heard was
[DJ] EZ got hold of it, and he played it as his last song. ’Cause he was more on the vibe of "What is this?", E more played it as something weird at the end of his set, not as something that hit him directly, but it created a vibe like how it is in dubstep, and that’s why it’s where it is today. EMMA WARREN Someone was telling me about YouTube clips of people who aren't from the dubstep scene going absolutely mental to the tune. BENGA Yeah, I saw that myself. It always shocks me when I see people from different genres going mad for a song. It must make sense because of the hook. When I speak to you all afterward, that's what you're gonna all be doing the little “di di di di,” it’s catchy. EMMA WARREN There's a funny story, too, about Skream ringing you up to tell you about a bus load of people in Israel going, ”Boo boo boo!“ BENGA [laughs] Yeah, it's a universal language that little noise. EMMA WARREN We’re all speaking in night tongues. Before we listen to some other stuff, I think we should talk a little bit about how important your dubs are. I see in your record bag you've got a lot of dubs, and they're all looking quite battered. How important is dubplate culture to dubstep? BENGA Well, it's more to do with the sound. On top of it, being something that people can see you take out of your bag or on the deck. It’s more … when you cut it to vinyl, it gets a slight master, the needle doesn't pick up certain frequencies from a dub. And the fact that you can wheel it up, ha ha! So yeah, dubplates are really important in dubstep. EMMA WARREN So is the cutting house a meeting point where you all meet up outside the
club? BENGA It's another thing I might go cutting on a Thursday and so will Skream. We can't hide tracks from each other. You got to try and keep something exclusive. If people know what time I'm gonna be going in there, they'll come in and hear it and be like, ”I want that one!“ EMMA WARREN So, if you want to keep a track on the super down low, the trick is to get it cut on Monday morning? BENGA [laughs] Don't even go, just send it in over the internet. EMMA WARREN Ah, that's the trick. So exclusivity has a really important role in dubstep, ’cause maybe only you or one or two others have a tune, and you might not let anyone know what that is for a long time. What does that bring to what you do as a DJ, and what you do as a producer? BENGA If it was more accessible, people might not come out to the raves. Whereas, I don't have a radio show. People want to know what I'm making and creating, but the only way they can hear it is if they come out to the raves. That's what it is. EMMA WARREN It keeps it really special and really fresh. If you think about the commitment you have to make, it's not just remembering to listen to the radio, or playback something off the internet, you don't have to download something with one click. Find yourself some people who are gonna come with you, get yourself to the rave, that level of commitment means that people are gonna get more out of it, doesn’t it? BENGA Once you get to the rave, all you've done is create a hype in itself, so you’re like, “I'm here now, and I'm anxious to hear the song” or “I wanna hear what the DJs gonna bring to us.” EMMA WARREN Certainly, the energy levels I've seen in dubstep clubs this past year have been higher than anything I've seen for quite a long time. What's it like for you? BENGA Well, for some of you who might not know, when I play, the energy levels are crazy to the point where people are wheeling up my tunes for me, I don't even wheel them up myself anymore. Tunes like
"Spongebob". I would say, it's not just only new people getting into the music, but it's where the music's going, like really dancefloor and really ravey. EMMA WARREN Most people won't have heard "Spongebob,” can you describe it? BENGA I can play it. EMMA WARREN A burst of "Spongebob" would be the best way to illustrate what we're talking about. I was telling some of the American guys that we’ve got here about the wheel, that if a tune at a dubstep rave is especially good, instead of shouting for a wheel or a pull-up, they'll literally lean over and pull it up themselves. And they said, ”If someone did that to me, I'd punch them in the face.“ What do you do when someone wheels up one of your tunes, Benga? BENGA Clap! [laughs] (music: Coki – “Spongebob”/applause) EMMA WARREN So that's "Spongebob" by Coki. What did you think when you first heard that? BENGA I thought it's a really uncontrolled bassline. It's mental. That’s his personality in his record, I reckon. EMMA WARREN We talked a bit about the competitive energy that helped propel dubstep forward, and make it really interesting. There are some other records with that mad Coki energy in them. Are there some producers there that are engaged in what you might call a weird-off? Trying to out-weird each other? BENGA [laughs] It's more like if another producer comes to the club and sees the reaction that Spongebob got, you go home and try and get that same energy. EMMA WARREN Yeah, I suppose there was one period where everyone was engaged in sort of a wobble-off. Now they're in a weird-off. Who knows what will come next, maybe a 'melody-off’, I don't know. BENGA But saying that, I was in New Zealand and I heard one of the radio jingles and they called me “Benga, Wobble Warrior,” [laughs] Is that what I've come to? EMMA WARREN But your album that's coming out is called Diary Of An Afro Warrior, right? BENGA Which all makes sense looking at my appearance, ha ha! I think it's more
about my appearance than the actual music. EMMA WARREN We're quite lucky because Benga's going to play us something from the new album. And I thought there's quite a few different styles. Sure, you might be the wobble king here and the weird-off king there, but at the same time, there's loads of other styles that are coming out on the album. You've come up with
some stuff that people wouldn't expect from you, basically, which I think is really hard when you're known for a particular sound. So we're going to listen to two tracks - first "26 Basslines", which is not what you'd expect in a negative way, but not in the vein of these records that you've already heard. And then we're going to hear something else, which takes something of a beautiful swerve, but we'll see. (music: Benga – “26 Basslines”/applause) EMMA WARREN So there we go, we've given the speakers a bit of a workout, getting them warmed up. How important is the sound system to a dubstep DJ? BENGA Big. The songs ain't as full as drum & bass, there's no breaks, so you need the bassline pressure to understand dubstep. There's not loads of melodies going through the songs, it's more about the bassline, so it all makes sense to have a massive system. EMMA WARREN ’Cause there's a big difference between how you'd hear it cold on a normal system or even worse through your laptop speakers, and what you're hearing properly. It's probably two-thirds of the record, it's like an iceberg most of it's underwater and you're not going to get it unless you're hearing it properly. What sort of sound system do you really like to play on? BENGA Well, I can tell you a few clubs that I think has the system correct.
FWD, which is in
Plastic People in London and happens on a Friday. EMMA WARREN There’s a big wobbly bass wall. One of the walls on the side has turned into a big wall of bass. BENGA It's more that that system... No matter how they've got it, it's just correct. Most of the music you hear inside there is perfect. But you do get that rattling wall. EMMA WARREN Where else? BENGA DMZ. They've got a system
at Mass in Brixton. There's other systems like in Leeds, Iration
Steppas. EMMA WARREN I was going to ask you about Iration Steppas. The first night I went to DMZ was the Nexus night in Leeds. It's in the West Indian Centre in Chapeltown, a small area of Leeds. I walked past the speaker stack and thought if I was actually three stone lighter, I would have been knocked over by that. It's very, very, very powerful. And you know that bass tone rattle you get underneath your ribcage? You also get it behind your cheekbones. It's really incredibly powerful. What's it like to DJ there? BENGA Well, I'm behind the decks where the system's not hitting me as hard, but
it's still hitting me hard, and I actually feel sorry for people, ’cause it feels like I'm gonna be sick constantly. But if you like that sort of thing, Leeds is your place, everyone. EMMA WARREN I was talking to someone who had gone to DMZ, and they had a bit of a problem with their knee, they had water on their knee, and they were on crutches. But they really wanted to go, but they had to leave after ten minutes because it was wobbling all the water in their knee. [laughs] BENGA I can see that as well. EMMA WARREN Yeah, because if you look at the pint glasses, you can see the waves in the pint glasses. Wherever there's water, it's moving. BENGA The vibrations are nuts. Even your feet! I think the bassline helps to get you dancing because you're just shaking from the bass. I dunno, it just starts off something. EMMA WARREN It definitely does seem to get people in the zone. I think at some point we should get some psychological acoustic person down to DMZ and get them to work out what it's doing to people because it really does seem to have quite a strong effect on people. BENGA Definitely. Even myself, even the really slow half-step, you can tell it's 70 BPMs sort of thing. The bassline just gets me moving because of the frequencies and the rattle in your body. EMMA WARREN Obviously, people are getting into that zone. The internet is spreading it far and wide. Traditionally, when scenes have exploded like this, there's been a bit of a time lag, like something happening in New York or London or Berlin or wherever, and it sort of spreads rather slowly. But this [spread] is happening pretty much at the same time as it's happening in London, hasn't it?
When you've been traveling around and about, are you finding that people are having the same kind of responses to records as they are in London? BENGA Yeah, I always say, I get somewhere, and they'll ask me for something
like "26 Basslines,” and I'll think, “How do you know?: But it all comes down to the internet. The internet spreads things at like four times the speed and makes everything just so accessible. EMMA WARREN How about we listen to one of the other songs that show another side to what you're expressing? Can we do that? BENGA Yeah, of course. (music: Benga – “Loose Synths”/applause) EMMA WARREN Where did that come from? Croydon? BENGA [laughs] Would I sound a bit of a weasel if I said from the heart? EMMA WARREN There's nothing weasel-ish about saying from the heart. There's something heartfelt about it. I mean, when I first heard that, I thought it sounded really beautiful. BENGA [laughs] Now you're putting me on the spot. People are so used to so much, like wobblers … they don't know that I do actually listen to music. If you listen to all the stuff I played you before, there's nothing in it, nothing to say that I listen to music. It just sounds more like I'm in a science lab, mixing chemicals to make those basslines. No chords involved or keys or nothing. I'm not saying I'm a specialist of chords or keys, but I do know a little bit. EMMA WARREN So what's the musical side of your music? What do you listen to that's musical? BENGA Right, this shout out is going out to my... dunno. I can't think of the word, but I'm just gonna say his name: Michael Jackson. [laughs/claps] I listen to
different types of music, but as I was saying to people before, I couldn't really put a pinpoint or tell you names of people ’cause I just turn on TV or the radio and just listen to music, listen to what they got. EMMA WARREN I think we've got to talk a minute about Michael Jackson. What are the songs coming into your mind? BENGA Loads! I even watched the film Moonwalker the other day. I'm gonna sing it to you, ’cause I don't know the names. [sings Michael Jackson
"Leave Me Alone"/laughs] Does anyone know that song? Everything that he
writes, even though sometimes you don't know what he's saying, ’cause
sometimes he makes up words and stuff, but the music is bad. Quincy Jones, he's another producer who's wicked. It's inspiring to hear what they done with what they had back then. Even before that. EMMA WARREN Is there anyone else like Michael Jackson that you love? BENGA Yeah, Stevie Wonder. He's big. Loads of names, but I can't put ’em down when I'm on the spot. I feel blank. EMMA WARREN Maybe what we should do is perhaps listen to something on the album that's tapping into your more musical side. Can we have the last track that's on the album? BENGA Yeah, it's on there... technical. EMMA WARREN You might have to do that. (music: Benga – “Zero M2”/applause) I think we have to let the music talk for itself. BENGA Please don't ask me any questions about where that came from. EMMA WARREN Of course, I won't! [laughs] It's quite obvious the music does all the talking there really, doesn't it? Have you played that out? BENGA Yeah, it's normally my intro. I think you have that bit in the middle where it goes into the bassline part just for DJs. EMMA WARREN So I want to talk a bit about how you started making music. We should rewind a bit. There is another thing that I wanted to play from the album, but we can talk about that in a bit. How did you first start? BENGA I was a DJ before I started producing. I went to see another dubstep DJ called Hatcha,
and he had so many songs that I couldn't get, that I couldn't go to the shop and say, ”Do you have this and that?“, because they weren't out. And it's made me want to make my own music and have songs that other people couldn't have as
well. I got home and it's taken a while to get what I could start making music with, and there was the solution of Music on the Playstation. EMMA WARREN That's Music 2000? BENGA That's Music 2000. I think they had one before that, but that was the one where I started putting things onto minidisc, and taking it down to the shop. EMMA WARREN I think people used to think it was a joke, or not a real thing, that people making your kind of music did actually use the PlayStation to make their tunes, but you really did, didn't you? BENGA Well, I never released a tune that was out of my PlayStation, but So
Solid, I think people know who
they are... EMMA WARREN So Solid Crew. BENGA They released a few songs from their Playstation. I'm not sure about "21
Seconds",but "Dilemma" [was], which is a So
Solid record. Romeo done a song called "Oh No", which came out on... label's racking my brain, but... There was so many other things around at that time. Like, even "Pulse X", which was a big grime record, that came off a Playstation. EMMA WARREN What can you do with those things? Do you have to push yourself to do
anything good because you're making stuff on a PlayStation? Or does it make things easy, just because it's what you got, and you can do what you want with
it? BENGA Well, to come up with anything that could even be released was really hard. Obviously, the sound, and you have eight seconds sampling time, things like that where you have to put a CD into your PlayStation and hit record for eight seconds. But other than that, the sounds were just claps and basic things, so
to come up with anything good meant loads of layering and stuff like that. EMMA WARREN I guess using pretty shitty stuff like that makes you be good. It's like learning to DJ on really terrible equipment, it elevates your skill quite quickly. BENGA Hmmm, you almost learn little things like layering and how to make things
sound a lot better. When you get onto other programs, you obviously don't take a lot from the Music 2000, but yeah, it does help. EMMA WARREN One thing that might not be clear to people is just quite how much experience you've got under your belt at only 21. How old were you when you first started
making dubstep or first started making music? BENGA I was 12 coming on 13, so... EMMA WARREN And how old were you when you first went to FWD to heard Hatcha playing your record? BENGA I would've been about 14, ’cause my first record came out when I was 15, and back then, songs circulated on dubplate for about a year. So yeah, I was about 14. EMMA WARREN So you're 14, you're getting your music being played out. You're almost being chaperoned to FWD so you can hear your record, and then you got to go home again. What were you doing? Were you going to school and then going to the record shop after school? What were you doing? BENGA I hope none of my teachers sees this, but I just didn't turn up to school sometimes. I went into the record store - well, I'd take my clothes in a spare bag, and then change and go in there and act like I had a day off. I think after the first seven times in a week they were thinking, “Hold on a minute, you don't have seven days off or seven bank holidays,” so they kind of clocked. I think when you're at that age, you have to make your own decisions. I'm not saying you have to be really responsible, people can't tell you what to do at that age, so you have to start making up your own mind. EMMA WARREN So at that age, at 14, did you know that music was something that was for you? Did you know really strongly that this was something you wanted to follow full-on? BENGA Yeah, I made a decision. I did play football while I was making music and it was more I couldn't do both. I know people who can do both, but I'm one of these people who has to concentrate on one thing. EMMA WARREN So you're saying a bit of football, but it wasn't just a bit of football, was it? You were playing for the Arsenal youth team. BENGA Yeah, I was at YTS level, but I was playing with Steven Sidwell. Well, he played for Reading, ’cause he left Arsenal because there wasn't much chance of him playing a first team game. And at that time, I was still 13. They had a lot of internationals, so for me to still be there, they hadn't said anything about my place. I mean I was OK, but I just made that decision. Music appealed to me more, I could get home and make music and not wanna move, but then I couldn't go outside and practice with a football and not get bored, you know? EMMA WARREN So basically, just to put it in context, you potentially had a professional football career in front of you, you were at a point where that was a distinct possibility. But you made a decision that music was what you were going to put all your effort into. BENGA Yeah, like I said before, it appealed to me more. I could sit there for hours and hours making music, wake up, still be in the same clothes and make
music. EMMA WARREN So during this period, you and Skream were knocking about a lot down at Big Apple record shop, and I
understand the pair of you used to go upstairs with Arthur
Smith and Danny
Harrison, who have recorded as
Menta and D'n'D amongst other things.
So what was that like? BENGA When I first heard their records and the things they had done, they'd made loads of popular records at that time. They made "Gotta Get Thru This" with Daniel Beddingfield, they
helped on a lot of Ms. Dynamite tracks. Even at the moment, they're working on a Jennifer Lopez remix. They're constantly doing big records but then I was like star-struck. Anything they told me got through to me. I'm not sure there was a lot of other people who would have been able to do that. Telling me to keep doing this and keep doing that, and I would actually keep doing it because I could see what they was doing, and I wanted to get to that stage. So yeah, it was a big part of my life as well. EMMA WARREN So can you paint us a picture about what that was like? What would you do? What happened? BENGA Go up the stairs, Arthur would see me. He'd stop what he was doing and he would start getting out the keyboards. He had I think it was a Nord Lead, a
number 3, and he'd say things to me, like, "If you keep making music, one day you'll get a keyboard like this," ’cause I was still on Playstation then. Don't know if it leaves much to your imagination. EMMA WARREN Were you sitting in there while they were making their records, Menta Records or the D’n’D stuff, or were you there in the downtime? BENGA There were times when I would come in and they'd be in the middle of a
mixdown, but I never really saw them play riffs, not sure if they were hiding what they'd done from me. But I saw them on their Allen & Heath desk. I saw them mix and picked up little things like EQing and that. EMMA WARREN I suppose there's two things there. One is having that insight into how
studios work and how they do things for you, and also that must have given you a big sense of connection with the music when you were hearing it out and about knowing that you’d been there somehow. BENGA Yeah, when you hit the age when you're going out and doing underage drinking and clubbing, you start off in the clubs where you hear the big music. Every time I'd hear a song
and I'd think to myself, "I can hear how it's produced:, from quite young, you know? I could see what he's done to do this and do that, and I could go home and learn how he'd done that. EMMA WARREN When Skream was here last year, he talked about how when he first started making records, he was trying to do his version of
El-B. He was trying to make dark
garage, he started by almost copying it, and then that helped develop his own style. Did you do something similar? BENGA Yeah, I was on the same sort of thing, but I didn't really go for the same people. I was more into the Wookie side of
things and the Bingo side, the breaker sort of things, but I just couldn't make it. But then, when we were making the songs and giving them to Hatcha, what we were making was quite different, trying to get to that stage. He started playing it, so instead of copying fully we went down our own route. EMMA WARREN We definitely want to hear some of your early stuff, like "Judgement", but before that can we hear a bit of Wookie, please? I think it would illuminate a really key musical influence on you as a musician, and also Wookie said something to you, didn't he? BENGA It was like you'll probably hear some of the sounds he was using back then that are
in my music now. (music: Wookie - unknown) EMMA WARREN Wookie's sound was really tough, but really musical at the same time. Is that what appealed to you about it? BENGA Yeah, also the way the beats were so broken. They weren't on any sort of step. And there’s a darkness as well. He had such good musical knowledge and darkness as well. EMMA WARREN So moving on a little bit from something that influenced you, to something that you made. Obviously, the first track that really got your name was "The Judgement," but what was one of the first tracks that you made that really felt madly happy with? BENGA Probably, only the thing I made three days ago. [laughs] EMMA WARREN Which we're going to hear right at the very end, aren't we? BENGA I can't really ever say that I'm madly happy with a song, but there are things I thought I did well, and pat myself on the back. You never sit there and straight afterward think, “Yeah, that's the one.” It's more when you hear it out and you hear it somewhere else and it sits right, then you think, “I’ve
done a good job.” EMMA WARREN So can we have "Judgement"? (music: Benga & Skream – “Judgement”/ applause) So that's you and Skream. How old were you then? BENGA Well, when we first made it, we were both 15 [laughs]. I hate talking about my age, ’cause I always lie. Everyone, ”I'm 25! I'm 25,” everyone! EMMA WARREN What were you two like in the studio together when you were 15? BENGA Kids eating chicken, getting grubby fingers on our keyboards and that. I
dunno, we hardly ever got things finished. We were just so playful and just couldn't do anything except talk about the things we'd been doing beforehand. That was about one of the only ones we got finished together around that time. I think I was 15 when that came out, ’cause it was one of the quicker ones to be released. EMMA WARREN And what was that like for you? BENGA Apart from going into school telling people I had releases and had been in magazines, and everyone would be like, "Yeah, whatever. How come we ain't seen you
on Top Of The Pops yet?“ ”’Cause it ain't that type of music.“ EMMA WARREN So what was the progression? After "The Judgement" came out, what was happening to you? Were you starting to DJ, were you starting to produce more? Were you seeing it as something you were really gonna do? BENGA It was more there wasn't a lot of sales or money in dubstep. There wasn't a lot of bookings, so I made other things as well. I made house music. Well, I joined Arthur making house music, and I also worked with a guy called John P,
we made electro house. I never stopped making dubstep, don't get me wrong. But I made other music, and I learned a lot more about music and different tempos and drum patterns and stuff. EMMA WARREN So what was the house stuff you were making? BENGA Can we keep it a secret? Do you mind if I keep it a secret? EMMA WARREN Well, it won't be much of a secret if you tell everyone here. BENGA Can we move on? EMMA WARREN So it's quite interesting, really. Obviously, you don't have to talk about the secrets, but you have got some musical secrets, haven't you? So, we're not going to talk about them ’cause it's good to have secrets. But what do you like about having musical secrets? Secret musical personas, maybe? BENGA I do have aliases, but it's not that I'm not happy with the music, but I'd rather just keep it down low. I did learn a lot from making that kind of music. I learned a lot about edits, production, ’cause obviously, when I was making dubstep then you can hear the beats were quite thin. I knew a bit about layering, but how to layer and not fill up space. So it was good to make some other music. EMMA WARREN I suppose, it would be an interesting point to talk about your DJ style. Because obviously, you're being booked a lot, and as a DJ to watch you're really interesting ’cause you're really live when you play, aren't you? You're not some guy standing still playing the records, it's like you're almost
physically connected to them. You move around quite a lot. How would you describe your DJ style? BENGA Bit erratic, really. I'm gonna show you a few of my cases and what they're like just because of how quickly I try and mix and get my records back in my sleeves. Maybe I might be in luck, ’cause some of the record cases aren't so bad because they're quite new. But I say this is new, it's a couple of weeks old. But that’s what it looks like. [shows record sleeve to audience] EMMA WARREN I think the bit you need to see is this bit [shows sleeve opening, all
battered and worn]. BENGA You're exposing me. You're into this exposing me bit, aren't you? EMMA WARREN This is not about exposing you. We just want to get into your mind a little bit. The bits you want to share with us, we're very happy to be party to. BENGA I'm gonna hold this up. [laughs/lifts ripped and tattered record sleeve] EMMA WARREN So where did you hone your DJ style? Where did you become the DJ that you are now? BENGA It sounds funny when I say this or big-headed, but I thought, once I was 13, I thought I'd mastered it. I was backlashing, scratching and
stuff. It was back then really I learned how to DJ. With DJing now, I'm really quick cueing up. I almost put the record on and cue it from anywhere and find the tempo and then find the first 16 [bars] after that. But then I learned that when I was really young. So when I stopped DJing and went more in the studio,
as soon as I got back into it, it's like riding a bike. You don't forget how to do it, you just get a little bit rusty. So I was back in the little pubs and at my friend's house and taking my decks ’round to parties back in the days when I learned how to DJ. EMMA WARREN So you just had decks in your room from when you were 12, 13? BENGA Yeah, I think the first decks I actually got were Technics. I got ’em for my 12th birthday! EMMA WARREN So you're the guy who's just sitting in the bedroom for hours and hours
working out how to do it, and then just annoying your neighbors? BENGA Yeah, I must have so many enemies. My next door neighbor must be my arch enemy. That, and kicking my football into her garden. They moved out shortly. EMMA WARREN If you've got teenage neighbors, you've either got the footballing ones, who kick the football over, or you've got the DJ who's there all hours of the night, making a lot of racket. All you hear is “wooom wooom woooom,” and you did both. BENGA Innit? They wanted to murder me after a while. No hellos, no byes. They'd be kicking my footballs back and they'd be burst. Or saying, "Do you know how loud your music is?" And I'd be like naive saying, "Oh? No, sorry!" EMMA WARREN Which are the DJs you like watching? BENGA I watched Skream for a while, now I’m kind of bored with him. Joke, joke! That doesn’t go anywhere but here. There’s Hatcha, he’s on the same sort of quick tip. There’s N-Type, these are
all dubstep DJs by the way. There’s
Mala, Loefah, there’s a few. Outside of
dubstep, there’s Derrick May. EMMA WARREN What do you really like to see in a DJ? Is it speed, is it selection? BENGA It’s hard, really, because selection’s got a lot to do with the crowd. Obviously, I know a lot of DJs that play for themselves and try to bring across their vibe. But what is a DJ without bringing a party as well? I see certain other DJs, it doesn’t what kind of music you play, but I reckon as a DJ, you should always bring energy. I’ve seen other DJs they’re not making people move. And if you come to a rave, you come to dance and have a good time. I say people like N-Type and Hatcha because their energy that they bring, the way they put records in really quickly, rewinds and stuff. EMMA WARREN Didn’t N-Type got 40 tracks onto his dubstep single CD? BENGA Yeah, if you calculate, it's not even like two minutes per track, is it? EMMA WARREN There's a lot of 58 seconds. BENGA Yeah, that's the sort of thing I like to see. Dunno about everyone else, but that's the one. EMMA WARREN Do you think it's possible to be a dubstep DJ in the bigger sense of the word if you're not a producer as well? BENGA Well, N-Type and Hatcha are the proof of it, but it is really hard. I think you have to make your own music, even just because a lot of the producers now try and hold their tunes back, and that's what people want to hear. They want to hear fresh music. They don't wanna hear everything they could buy from the
shop. EMMA WARREN Well, this might be a nice moment to listen to a couple of tracks that have been doing that for the last year or 18 months or so. We talked about playing
maybe "Evolution" or "Flame", maybe? Would you like to select one of those? BENGA Before I play this, before this came about there was no dubstep with this
sort of vibe. The percussion was all seventy [BPM], there was no garage vibe from it, there was no 140 vibe from it. But when this came about, it created the sense that it doesn't all have to be straight, kick on the first, snare on the third. EMMA WARREN So before you press play, what's this that you're talking about? BENGA Almost like a soca vibe. EMMA WARREN What's it called? BENGA Oh, my bad. This is called "Flame", off the Big Apple EP. EMMA WARREN You just mentioned the word soca. Can you expand on that at all? BENGA It's more the drum pattern, the energy and the way it flows. I couldn’t explain to you why that comes to mind. EMMA WARREN OK. Well, let's let the music do the talking again and press play. (music: Benga – “Flame”/applause) Emma Warren One of the big ways that dubstep has gone through this expansion is because of radio shows. A lot of people have radio shows, and a lot of the radio shows are highly entertaining and really essential to listen to. Why don't you have a radio show? BENGA It brings it back ’cause I like the fact that people have to come to the
raves to hear the music. I like the way it keeps it exclusive. I think that is the only reason I don't have a radio show. EMMA WARREN Which of the radio shows do you listen to or do you like? BENGA Well, sometimes I listen to N-Type's show. Just ’cause he's crazy. Skream, he's another one. He makes so much fresh music. He's still on that vibe where he makes ten songs a week. So I have to listen to him to know what he's doing. I think those are the only two shows I listen to, except from Hatcha, he's on
Kiss, so you can pick that up wherever you are. EMMA WARREN You were involved in an epic 4-hour version of Skream's show Stellar
Sessions, which is on Rinse at 9-11 on a Wednesday. Can you tell us something about that? BENGA I think it was someone's leaving party, but the whole idea was to get me and a few of Skream’s other friends, Pokes, he's from
DMZ. We had LD who works at
Transition, he cuts dubplates. We also had Geeneus, he makes house. We had a
few others down but the whole purpose was that we all bring our new stuff and play three songs each. It kinda got a bit over the top, ’cause we had beer and dubplates about and spilled beer on dubplates and a lot of nightmares after that. But there's not more I can add to that, really. We got down there,
and it turned into a bit of a massacre and we played a lot of new music. EMMA WARREN I seem to remember Chef playing
"Ghost Town" by The Specials, so yeah. There was all sorts going on. What I thought was interesting about it, despite it being a brilliant bit of radio and thoroughly entertaining, well worth staying up for, that obviously a big part of dubstep is good times, you
know? People having a laugh and having a lot of fun. But somehow, probably because of the radio shows and the internet, us as fans, I suppose, we're a little bit party to what's going on. We have a bit of a sense of what's you're doing. ’Cause you're about at the raves as well, you know? You go to DMZ, there's Benga in the corner, there's Walsh in the middle of the dance floor, there's Chef over here. All the people who's records you're buying and radio shows you're listening to are out there and you're all approachable people. Do you think that helps add to the amounts of fun that people seem to be having when they're going out and listening to it? BENGA I think, sometimes, people as artists come across a bit like it's work, but hearing the music and playing the music isn’t really work to us. We have a lot of fun, and everyone knows each other. I don't think we'll ever get to the
stage where we're gonna be like, “Oh, we're too good for other people.” People like to interact with the artists. EMMA WARREN Now you're gonna play one of your older records, then we'll talk a bit, and then you're going to play us something super double triple fresh, literally three days old. So you'll give a little blast of "Evolution"? BENGA Yeah, two secs [Benga unfolds the sleeve]. EMMA WARREN [laughs] Is that the special book version? (music: Benga – “Evolution”/applause) BENGA It's jumping too much. EMMA WARREN I like the fact that you're all big sound people, and your dubs are all
fucked. BENGA [laughs] Does that show my personality? ’Cause it's not that at all. Emma Warren They are well used aren't they? One thing I did want to touch on a little bit was we haven't heard a particular example of this. But you know when people have taken reggae vocals and done stuff with them on dubstep records, you've done a couple of things that do that. I wondered what sort of... If there's been any reaction from Jamaican artists or the reggae scene and what they're making of it? Benga I think there’s a big hype around dubstep, and theres been things that i dont think certain artists really like dubstep but they get involved. There are a lot of artists as well, let's say like Baby Sham, he likes the thing that... I didn't even do the bootleg. I think everyone knows what it means, I don't need to explain. Emma Warren Do you want to tell us what the record is you're talking about? Benga The record I'm talking about is... Let me start again, getting tongue tied. The Baby Sham vocal is "I Remember Those Days" and the record of mine that was used was "World War 7" off New Step. I didn't do the bootleg, but I just heard it and I don't know how it got back to Baby Sham either but they wanted it to come out officially but I never got around to it. Emma Warren So why didn't it come out officially? Benga Mixdown reasons and having to bring back an old piece of vinyl. We didn't really want to do that. Emma Warren What about generally in Jamaica, are people feeling dubstep? Benga I couldn't really tell you. Say, there's this artist or that artist , but I have had a few things on MySpace where an artist will come to me and say, "I like dubstep, I'm feelin what you do, can we get on the remix or make something?" Emma Warren In terms of your musical background, are you connected to reggae? Obviously, because the reggae side of it is really important in dubstep. But personally is that something that you grew up with? Benga Not really. I'm Nigerian so I never really listened to a lot of Nigerian music but then reggae wasn't a big part of my life. More like rave music, hardcore was more part of my life. But there are a lot of people like Mala that was reggae-influenced, Coki is reggae influenced. So it's really never come out a lot in my music. More when I work with someone. Emma Warren I know some of the people who are a bit older than you in dubstep, Loefah for example, when he was 14 he was going raving at Labyrinth in Dalston and was the real young one in that scene. Then he kind of moved on to jungle and got really into Metalheadz and stuff like that. But what about for you? How were you experiencing hardcore and that side of stuff? Benga Pirate radio. As I said before, I didn't really go on the Internet and search for artists and stuff. I would just pick up a radio station and just listen to it all day, that sort of thing. Emma Warren Like what? Benga Oooh. Passion. Certain radio stations that I never knew the name of, I just knew the frequency. Emma Warren Pirate radio has always done that job, hasn't it really? It's like broadcasting through the frquencies that you wouldn't otherwise hear. I think for a lot of people, especially in the UK, pirate radio has been one of the reasons why the UK has kept on reinventing dance music. And kept on coming up with these mad, new hybrids. Dubstep, you know, being one of those. Hmmm... [laughs] I just reached a conversational full stop then, sorry. Just a couple more questions, really. The people who are making it in dubstep are finally - hallelujah - making some money. They're busy all the time, they're flying off to three different countries every week. Skream's attracting pop attention, he's remixed the Klaxons and whatever. What's that doing to the scene? People are getting stretched pretty thin, they're having to run their own businesses, they’re partying a lot, making lots of music, and playing out everywhere. What effect is that having? BENGA It is quite tiring. But I think in any music scene, it's survival of the fittest. You can't complain that you're being flown about, you just got to get on with it. It's not like you get to the airport and you don't know what you're doing, it's all set out for you, so... You don't rest and stuff, but it is tiring and it is a lot of hard work and stuff. But I couldn't speak for Mala, who runs his own label, runs his own night, has to make tunes, he flies about a lot. Couldn't speak for those. I work for a label called Tempa
and the only thing I do is DJ and produce. EMMA WARREN And just mentioning how some people are doing remixes for the pop world, or the outside world, I suppose, which other artists would you like to work with or are likely to work with? BENGA I think my next project will be with Cya. It's just one of those things where I listen to something else and I think that could fit. I've not really done a lot of remixes where I think they've approached me and I've sat down and thought, “This is gonna make me a lot of money, I should do it.” I've more thought about whether it would work. I don't want it to get to the stage where I'm making loads of tunes I don't even like. I never want to get to that stage. I think a lot of producers are like that. If you listen to Skream’s Klaxon remix, it's not like it's some big pop record. It's not like some big pop record, so all the music we do keep the same vibe. EMMA WARREN Yes, it does seem like people are still and will probably carry on doing stuff because they actually really want to, and that's one of the reasons why the music's so interesting. So, before we wrap up are you going to bless us with something special? BENGA Yeah, let's do it. EMMA WARREN Go on. What is it first? BENGA Well, I haven't really got a name for it, ’cause usually, when I make a name I just look around my room or where I am and call it whatever's there. So I got tunes by the name of "Ketchup,” “Chicken", "Nescafe", "Bedspread". Just ’cause I'm so out of names after 700 tracks. EMMA WARREN So you're like the Keyser Soze of dubstep naming stuff after stuff you can see. BENGA Whatever. Let's just hope there's nothing we can see that... Let's not go down that route. Let's just play the record. (music: Benga – “Benga’s Off His Head”/applause) Emma Warren Thank you. I think what we need to do now is open it up to everyone else. I'm sure there will be someone with some questions. Have we got a microphone? Audience Member You said, and Emma brought this up before, that you didn't really grow up with reggae, or with Carribean music. But there is a really strong soca feel in a lot of the tracks you've played. Are you going back and checking out that stuff now? Or are you just getting that influence all from it being filtered through dubstep. Benga To be fair, I say soca cause it wasn't something I listened to a lot. It just came about. That's how I brought my energy to my songs, that's the sort of riff that appealed to me. I never really heard it and thought, "that's what I'm going to bring to my music." Emma Warren Actually I've got an additional question there, was there any Nigerian music that you grew up with in your family or just around you generally? Benga No. I think my mom wasn't really like a musical person, neither was my dad. So I never really got any influence from what they played. I just went to school and picked up what everyone else was listening to. I would listen to 2 Unlimited even, pop music, I liked Britney Spears when I was younger. Audience Member Do you have any of those PlayStation tunes with you? Benga I would love to say yes but, but because I was recording them to a MiniDisc, you see how battered my records get, MiniDiscs just got destroyed. No, sorry. Audience Member But did you bring any of your house records? Benga My house records. [laughs] They are secret, so they're hidden in the basement. Audience Member I was wondering cause you never really mentioned it, if you can talk about the Magnetic Man project and stuff like that? 'Cause that's kinda exciting. Benga Alright. Magnetic Man was my pal. He kind of got really paranoid and doesn't come out of his house much, so we decided to take it over for him and do his live shows. But he's a really good musician and we're thinking of doing live shows, as in we're going to have Abletons and have bongo players and a few singers. We are trying to work it so it can be a festival thing. Emma Warren That's definitely something we should all go and check if we have the opportunity to. Thank you. Any more? Benga Go on, Jabber. Audience Member Hello. Bass is definitely an important part of your music and your sound, how do you do to have this so big bass sound? Benga What instruments do I use and stuff? Audience Member No, like, technically speaking, to have such a huge sounding bass. Benga I think I just got along as it's gotten more and more apparent that bass is the main part of any music. Maybe not in a few genres but in most of the genres I listen to bass is a big thing. So it's always trying to get energy, and the bassline to cut through. Apart from what I'm using, I use an Albino. I use a small plugin called Audio PHA, I think it is. A few other things. Emma Warren If people wanted to make their basslines bigger and badder, and rougher and tougher, even, what would be your one bit of advice without necessarily giving away your own little personal tricks? What would be your one bit of advice to people who want to make their basslines big? Benga Make them loud. [laughs] Emma Warren Keeping it simple. Make it loud everyone. Anymore questions? Audience Member Let's suppose you're playing out, you play some tune that clears the floor, what is the first tune you play afterwards to get everybody back and maybe you have it with you? Benga OK. I'll have a look through. Not sure if I make music that clears dance floors but... Emma Warren Maybe someone else has cleared the dancefloor. What is your one tune to bring them back? Benga Dunno. I've got something by Coki I think maybe here that always gets the crowds coming back. [looks through record bag] Sorry one sec. The tune I had in mind I didn't bring with me, but I've got something else that might work sometimes. (music: Benga - Unknown) Emma Warren Yeah Coki is really killing it, isn't he?? Benga That's not him. That's me. Emma Warren Oh, I thought you were doing a new Coki thing. Blusherama. Benga No, the thing I was going to play was the Coki thing, it's got a Movado vocal on it but the reason why I say this brings the crowd back is because they expect me to play something else, so I play a few tunes that ain't all about distorted basslines. That'll warm them up and get them going and then go back to my wobblers. Emma Warren Any other questions? Audience Member Because you're obviously at the top of your class in the dubstep genre, is there a threat to your credibility if you were to do a remix for a pop artist? Benga Not really, it's more how I choose the records that I do, because if the song sounded good to me and I thought that I could do something that works with what I do, then I can't see any reason why what the artist, or what they do, should stop what I'm doing, or make me have a bad name. I'll do whatever as long as it sounds good to me. Emma Warren Anything else. Audience Member You mentioned Stevie Wonder, what's a particular time of Stevie Wonder? The Motown years or the '70s stuff? Benga I think the CD I have at home, or one of the CDs I have at home, is just his greatest hits, really. So I couldn't pick out times of songs when they came about. But even things like "Isn't She Lovely," and things like that, everyone knows that song, but they are big tunes. They are written well, they're catchy. So, no time, sorry. Emma Warren Have we got any more before we hit lunch? Another new track? Benga OK. (music: Benga - "Pleasure" / applause) Emma Warren Giving pleasure to bassheads, giving pleasure to house heads, thank you very much Benga! [applause] Benga Thank you!