Tim Westwood

Shaheen Ariefdien

What was it like at the time you got involved and what attracted you to this?

Tim Westwood

I started off as a club DJ. Originally, I used to carry boxes for a soundsystem in Northwest London, I was just a box boy. That’s where you hump the records into the club.

Shaheen Ariefdien

For free then?

Tim Westwood

Yeah, you just do that for free – you were humping the big speakers in there, setting up [the soundsystem]. And then what was happening, is at that early part of a party, like if it was in a house or if it was like in a hall, like a community hall, none of the DJs wanted to play while there was nobody there. So that’s when I used to jump on the decks and that’s when I got the real love for it. You know, just putting on records and just being the DJ, even though there was nobody in the dance. So from there, then I had a job as a glass collector in a club called Gossips in the West End of London.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Sorry, what was that?

Tim Westwood

A glass collector. What a glass collector is, is if you are in a party and you’re getting your drink on and you’re putting your glasses down, there is like some kid with no money at all, collecting those glasses and washing them and putting them back behind the bar. I was running around in clubs the whole time when I was a kid. And then from there, I got an opening to be the warm-up DJ at that club. That club had two great DJs. It had David Rodigan, who is quite a legendary reggae DJ back home. I think in a lot of ways people don’t know Rodigan back then as the force that he was back in the day. But as a kid I grew up listening to Rodigan on Capital Radio and at that time there was no pirate radio back home. So, that was your only outlet for reggae music and that was at the era when reggae music was being called ragga, at the era of like Yellowman. You know Yellowman, then came Shabba Ranks and the whole DJ thing off the back. So I was his warm-up DJ at Gossips and as a young kid, that was just…

Shaheen Ariefdien

What did you play back then?

Tim Westwood

Warming up for Rodigan, I played reggae. It was like reggae and also the other thing back home was called jazz-funk. It was just soul music and shit like that, you know Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, James Brown. So, you know, that’s what we were spinning in the clubs at that time. And there was another DJ called Steve Walsh as well, who was like a very big DJ in that era, may he rest in peace. And what happened off the back of that, that was just as hip-hop started to happen. It was a real street club, you know, real ghetto spot and the crowd wanted the hip-hop. So I just started playing more and more of it and then suddenly that was an early hip-hop club and I was a hip-hop DJ. So it wasn’t like a conscious decision, but it was like following to what was going on for the party I was playing. So that was Gossips, that was like my early years. And then looking at my club history there, we used to do a Saturday lunchtime at a club called Spats, which was actually a gay club. But they used let to us hire it Saturday lunchtime 12 till three and that was where we used to play nothing but electro. And that was nothing but like four hours of lunchtime breakdancing, body-popping and all of that. One thing, which I always remember in my career now is to see how big hip-hop is now. I’ve done hip-hop when it was small and I’ve done hip-hop when it was broke and nothing was going on for anyone and I certainly love it as it is now. I definitely respect it back then, but to see how big and powerful and rich it is now, that’s the real revolution, which hip-hop has given us and I think that is a beautiful thing. And then from there, I went to work at People’s Club, I mean I’ve done a lot of other parties in London, but Peoples Club… the guy who ran Gossips was the first black guy in London to own a club - and he gave me more opportunity.

Shaheen Ariefdien

What year are we talking about?

Tim Westwood

Man, it must have been in like ’80, ’81. That’s when we started out. And then Ken Suttle was the dude who owned the People’s Club. And the People’s Club was legal for two years and then it was illegal for like 18 years. He lost his license, but he used to bribe the police. So that party used to start at ten, used to get full about four in the morning and then finish about twelve midday on Friday. And that’s where I really learned how to DJ. What was important at that time, Jive records had their studios up in Willesden and groups like Whodini used to come over to London and record for four months. Run DMC used to come over and record, Beastie Boys was always over and they used to come every week to this spot. We had these enormous artists in this sort of real ghetto spot – it was crazy. It was like the early days of crack cocaine there as well and I remember like six in the morning and there would just be this cloud of coke over the whole place. As a young guy growing up in that, I certainly learned a lot of hip-hop just being with those artists. And at that time I was on LWR. LWR was one of the early pirates. To tell you just a bit about the pirate technology, those early pirates like Invicta and Horizon, which were the first pirates back home, they were very much controlled by these white guys who were from Essex, which is out of town. And LWR managed to get the technology on how to build a transmitter and that was the first street-owned, street-run station. That was like the founding father for all the pirates back home and the pirate scene is perhaps the most important scene out there in the UK. It’s real hot with the DJs, all the DJs come through the pirates and LWR just showed other guys that they could do it as well. And soon that technology became available, so we used to broadcast every day. There was also a loophole in the law as well.

Shaheen Ariefdien

OK, that’s what I wanted to find out, how could you go and…

Tim Westwood

I mean, it’s illegal now and they’d be shutting you down. Some people have been sent to prison and there’s a lot of fines, but it still thrives. Mostly they just take the transmitters off the roof and it’s a go. Sometimes they bust the studios, but they rarely bust the DJs. But in the era of LWR…

Shaheen Ariefdien

And we’re talking about what year?

Tim Westwood

It must be like ’83, around that era. In the era of LWR, there was this loophole in the law, that if you broadcast from private property, the police couldn’t bust you. Some guy researched this and found this out. And as a result, everyone was broadcasting from their crib and nobody was getting raided. So we were legal stations for like two years.

Shaheen Ariefdien

And then they changed the law?

Tim Westwood

Then they changed the law.

Shaheen Ariefdien

How instrumental were pirate radio stations in getting music out there? Or was that kind of music available in stores, in shops, did you have artists at that time - I’m talking about the real early ‘80s - perform in the UK, or was it the other way around?

Tim Westwood

What used to happen is, the records would come in to the specialist stores, certain stores were known for hip-hop, and on the pirates it would be mostly club DJs. So what guys would be doing in the clubs and the parties would be what they’d be doing on the radio. But there wasn’t much hip-hop in those days. I used to do like a drive time show on pirate, Monday to Friday, four till six, and we used to broadcast from North Peckham estate, which like was a notorious estate in South London.

Shaheen Ariefdien

From your experience, warming up for some of the big DJs or playing the odd hours, what was the value in that for you that you got out of that?

Tim Westwood

I mean, to be honest, this place is not full of established DJs yet, so I am sure that you all have to play your position over the time. I think being a warm-up DJ is a tremendous skill and I think it’s very important to play your position. Some days you have to play the back, you know? If I bring over Funk Flex to the UK to DJ for me, or other DJs, like Cipha Sounds or Max Glazer and I’ll start the session, I ain’t gonna crush those DJs and play all their hits and play records which are prime time at ten in the evening. Those are like main set records, let the main DJ do them at one o’clock or whatever. So I think, it’s important, if you are warming up, that you play your position right.

Shaheen Ariefdien

And to know your place.

Tim Westwood

Exactly! I’m real busy as a DJ back home and we work, we’re out there grinding real hard and I always travel with my own DJs. I’ve got my own DJ crew and they always open up for us, but we always leave time afterwards for the local guy to get on and shine. And that’s important because I learn a lot about what records he is playing and what he is doing in his part of town. And he’ll help me understand how people are getting down in Manchester or Birmingham or Glasgow or Edinburgh or wherever. You know, when I was up in Carfax, my man Dre he opened up for us, just to, that I could do me and wouldn’t be undermined in what I had to do. And then afterwards, you know, the local DJs from Jo’burg they played from two to six and I was really impressed with them.

Audience Member

You were saying that all that music was so important to you when you were getting into it and you see these kids, who are 17 to 19 and Biggie and 2Pac is their old-school. Don’t you want to just grab them and play them a Slick Rick record and say, “Yo, check this out?!”

Tim Westwood

I don’t, man. Because that’s not part of their era, that’s not part of their lives. You know it’s a whole new game now, it’s a whole new generation. It’s MTV. It’s changed, man. It’s moved on, and as much I’ve got my memories and that music means so much to me and the people I was with at that time, I just keep it moving, man. And that’s how I kept hot, you know? I’ve been in the game all of my life, like 20 years man, and if I got stuck in one era, I wouldn’t be here now. I was with Russell Simmons the other day and we were talking about this is being a beautiful journey, this hip-hop game, a beautiful experience, a beautiful journey in life. I met him on the second hip-hop record. That was the first hip-hop record, the second was Kurtis Blow’s “Christmas Rapping.” That’s when I was out there as a club DJ, a pirate DJ. I met him and I’ve known him since then. Now he is a billionaire, he’s got swans in his garden and he’s on some other stuff. It’s an incredible journey, this hip-hop game. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I just feel as a DJ, you reflect what’s going on and that means to me, we are the forefront of this game. We helped make 50 Cent enormous, we helped make Eminem enormous, but we recognize that as heat and may that work.

Shaheen Ariefdien

How do you balance moving with the times with something that you mentioned earlier on about responsibility towards the crowd and understanding the history of where this music comes from as well? How do you balance that?

Tim Westwood

I don’t think that’s a balancing act. I think you have to realise, now and today we are in the hip-hop generation. This is the hip-hop generation we’re in now and this is where we come from, but I’m dealing where we are at now. I feel back home young people have grown up in this hip-hop game from their first experience to music to now and that’s why hip-hop is so powerful, and that’s why it won’t go away. A lot of record companies talk about this being like a rap era for the next five years. This is no rap era; those are the same people who said this hip-hop game would never fucking last. Come on man, it’s the biggest form of music, the biggest artists, a multi-billion industry and it’s a beautiful thing.

Audience Member

You are saying you move with the times and you move with the music, do you still like the music that you are playing?

Tim Westwood

I have a passion for this game, I love the game. I love the music, shit excites me. Now, hearing a new 50 Cent track, which is hot, excites me. Or a Dipset track excites me just as much as the passion I had for “Rapper’s Delight.” No question of that. Plus I enjoy the game, plus I’ve learned how to handle business. Let me just tell you about the business side of things. I’ve learned from a lot of artists. The artists come in the show and we really talk. My Friday show is only two hours long and when 50 Cent came in, he talked for two hours, I think we played two records. When Jay-Z comes in... I really want to learn from these guys. Jay-Z says he is 50% an artist and 50% a businessman. On his new album, he talks about his old concept that was his marketing plan. 50 Cent describes himself as a marketing genius before he talks about him being an artist. You’ve got to understand the business to make it work for you. Don’t get me wrong, you got to have the talent and the passion, but that’s only half of the game. It’s understanding the business. I learned the business early from working with people like Marley Marl, you know, the hottest DJ of that era on WBLS. I learned from those artists of that era and I’ve been learning ever since. People like LL Cool J, who is a close friend, he’s come around my crib, sat down with me and schooled me. Chuck D talked to me, he’s been to my crib, talked to me. Flex, I’m real close to Funkmaster Flex, who is the greatest DJ, in my opinion, in the world. He elevated this DJ game beyond your wildest dreams – he is bigger than artists. You know what I mean? You got to be able to understand the business. In those early days when we were just happy to get on the set and do me and spin, man, I wouldn’t have survived all this years in this game. I wouldn’t been #1 for a minute in the UK, I wouldn’t be #1 for a minute. Realness is with this as well, man. I had to fight for everything I got, I haven’t really been given a lot. I’ve been a bit like a lone soldier in the early days. Now I’ve got a whole family around me.

Shaheen Ariefdien

You moved from pirate to, I guess, mainstream radio. Obviously, on pirate stations you could play whatever the hell you wanted to. What happened on mainstream? Did you decide what you wanted to play?

Tim Westwood

Yeah, that’s always been the given for me. Even though I was mad at the time, just being on the radio for 15 minutes, when I used to do a daytime, drive time show on the pirates. I was only on 15 minutes at three in the morning, at least I made all of my mistakes in the middle of the night. And so by time I got my main slots, by the time I moved to Radio 1, I really made all of my mistakes, really. I mean, I still get into trouble, I still fuck up a lot, but a lot of those dumb mistakes I made early in the game. I made those on pirate radio.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Do you have any formal training?

Tim Westwood

No, you just teach yourself and then when you get together with people like Marley Marl, you know, I was always very keen on listening to New York radio, seeing how they got down. I think New York hip-hop DJs, or American DJs in hip-hop are some of the best in the world without a doubt.

Audience Member

I’m really curious to know, what you might feel is the new business model in this new day and age, as far as music distribution. Especially, for a lot of these underground cats because we have a lot of resources at our fingertips, digital formats and also the ability to burn CDs really quickly, etc. I’m going to be asking a lot of the people who come up, what their take on the new way of music distribution might be or what you just see as a good way for artists to be putting music out.

Tim Westwood

That’s a really good question. Because I’m not on this side of the business, I’ve deliberately kept away from being a record company or be involved in a record company, because I wanted to be able to do what I need to do, I’m not the person to ask. But there is a revolution definitely about to happen. There is definitely a great time to be an independent. Now that are only three major record companies in the world, it is four, but I think it’s about to be three. I think there is gonna be a real revolution about to happen. But I think the revolution, which has happened already in the past, has been the joint venture. To me the revolution of hip-hop has been the empowerment and getting people rich from the ghetto. People have come from the street and now own multi-million dollar businesses and companies. Like Jay-Z hustling on the corner, owning Roc-A-Fella worth a hundred million, owning Roc-A-Wear, which is two hundred million as a joint venture. I think that’s been the power of hip-hop and that’s the thing I’m loving. I really, really respect him. So, I think the existing business model is the joint venture, where you have 50% off. I think where it’s about to go, I don’t know, but as you say, this bootlegging thing is definitely crazy out there. I love that, if anyone ever bootlegs off my radio show, that’s good for them. I’ve been in parties where I played something that night and then I’m at a party later that night and that DJ would be playing that off a burned CD and I think that’s a great thing for you to use.

Shaheen Ariefdien

You also got involved with production in some point.

Tim Westwood

Yeah, you know, when we were first in the game and UK rap was starting to really jump off the first time around with the likes of Cookie Crew and Hi-Jack and groups like that. We produced some records ourselves. We produced the London Posse, they had their moment out there, that era we did a record called “Money Mad,” which...

Shaheen Ariefdien

Which incidentally was big in Cape Town…

Tim Westwood

That’s great to hear, great to hear, man. The thing with London posse, they were rhyming in a UK accent as opposed to an American accent, which was really happening at that time. They were also talking in UK slang about a UK experience, so it’s great that this record came out here. We did Monie Love’s first record, she was from the UK, and we did General Levy, which was like the ragga element on hip-hop. And that was a label called Justice and we did that for a while, but then I just found it too hard, to be honest. Also it put me on the wrong side of the fence in my opinion because I wasn’t used to dealing with artists like that. I wasn’t used to having that type of relationship; I didn’t want to feel compromised. Like “Money Mad,” I never played on the radio once, but it was such a big record on the streets, but I thought people would say… You know, so it just wasn’t where I wanted to be. Plus it was real hard work, plus UK rap never really jumped off either. One of the things I would say about Justice, that was my company – a record label – and then Justice became my company now, Justice Entertainment. I do my radio show as an independent production company and I don’t know if that’s an option for you guys who are into radio. I work for Radio 1, but they pay me a production fee to deliver the radio, so I hire the studios, I hire my own team of people I work with – producers, broadcast assistants. So that is definitely one option to look at. As opposed to working for the station directly, I work there as an independent production company and that gives you a lot more control over your show and what you’re trying to do. Another thing I’ve done, and has been very important to me, is that I have got my own street team. A street team is a concept which is well established in New York and it’s also established back home now. That street team promotes all my own parties for me and promotes the radio show and promotes the album. I find that has been very important because I think especially when you’ve been successful in this game, you have a duty to give back. I think artists definitely have that and I think also DJs, who’ve made money out of the game. That’s one way of introducing people into the business. We recruit the street team literally off the radio, from the streets, from the clubs. I’ve had people on my street team, one of my street team got a job as head of marketing at Def Jam, they got jobs at 1Xtra, and it’s from there I find the DJs who work with me. One day – I’m not gonna do this for ever, unfortunately – so one day I hope that my production company will still have the shows on Radio 1 and a hot DJ who I can nurture and bring up in the game through my street team, through my company Justice Entertainment, get them put on as well. So I’d really recommend that. And also we do a lot of parties, we get booked for a lot of parties and we earn good money out of that. But all the parties I do myself, we don’t look to earn money out of those. We have real mad cheap admission prices, we normally let the ladies in for free and that’s illegal back home and we’ve been in trouble over it a few times, but I don’t care about that.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Why is that?

Tim Westwood

It’s equal opportunities, it’s discrimination against men apparently. But this is just how it goes. But with me I’ve got to have women at the party, otherwise it would just be such a male-dominated thing. At those parties I look to break even or I don’t care if I lose money on that. What you got to understand about that is that if I got a party in London, Birmingham, Bristol or Manchester, which I promote myself that enables me to have a street team that can work that, make that happen and it also enables me to have like 30,000 leaflets out there with my name on it, my show times and it just keeps you hot in the street. Nowadays, if you want to be successful on the radio, you got to be hot in the street. If you want to be successful as a club DJ, you got to be on the radio. Nowadays it’s such a competitive market for DJing, you can’t just… In the days of Kid Capri running New York… You got to be a Flex, you gotta be on the radio, you gotta be doing mixtapes, you gotta be doing everything, you gotta be doing work hard at this game. And not all of it makes money, man. You use the money that you earned from elsewhere to subsidise other things that you need to do. So like my parties always break even or lose money, ain’t no thing.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Do you do mixtapes?

Tim Westwood

Yeah, we do street mixtapes, which we give away and then I put these compilations out. And these are TV advertised albums I do with Def Jam. The whole compilation market is a big thing back home. This is like 50 of the hottest joints on the street that you put together. There is quite a lot of politics in licensing those because other labels are doing there own compilations, so it’s all about trading tracks to get certain tracks. But because it’s with Def Jam, I can get a lot, plus I can call personal favors to get tracks as well. Plus, I can put UK and reggae on there, which are part of that whole major record company business. This has been out for three weeks, it debuted at #1 in the compilation charts, in two weeks time we gonna hit the gift market. These shits goes platinum. This is all part of promoting hip-hop and also promoting what I do.

Audience Member

Just a bit of history... Where does Coldcut and Roots Manuva and DC Recordings and that come into that whole UK hip-hop scene?

Tim Westwood

I think Roots Manuva had one of the greatest, if not the greatest UK rap record of all time and that was Witness. That was a truly tremendous record. But what I will say, and I said this to him, is like, he is so lazy, man. I see him around – not at the parties – but more at these, like some industry stuff. And where is the follow-up to that, where is the next record? If you are an artist, it’s like you’re a crack dealer. People come to you when you got the product. As soon as the product runs out, they will go to the next crack dealer and they’ll forget about you. It’s like you got to keep on beating people in the head. Look at 50 Cent, he was dropping mad freestyles, he gave away like two albums for free, before he dropped his album. And then he’s brought out G-Unit, he ain’t stopping. With Roots [Manuva], the greatest artist out there, what has he done in the last two years? Do you know what I mean? You got to be out there. It’s like as a DJ, if you are not doing the parties… People that are coming to your parties, as soon as you stop, they are going somewhere else. People ain’t stop going out if there is places to go. You just gotta be out there working. As I say, it’s like selling crack, man. You gotta have the product, you gotta keep putting it out there without a doubt. As for Coldcut, I don’t even know where they’re at, but when I was in Spats, starting out in those early days, he used to come there with this crazy sunglasses on and this mad cloak and he had some mad MC name and he came from those days, so I respect him. I respect Coldcut a lot.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Also, they did the brilliant remix of “Paid in Full” – actually better than the original.

Audience Member

You said, you felt you weren’t responsible for teaching people about the history of music. And I used to work on BBC Radio 1 on a specialist show with Gilles Peterson and the ethos of that program was very much that he told people about where the music comes from. People can always listen to current music and appreciate it, but they never really going to appreciate it, unless they know the history. So, who in the UK is supposed to do that part of what I would see as your job?

Tim Westwood

I don’t see that as my job. I don’t know who’s telling me that’s my job either. I’m there for the audience, man. I’m really there for the people who love this music, wanna come to the parties, want to get their enjoyment from hip-hop. I’m there for them, I’m there to promote the scene, I make it as big as it can be. I’ve been there when it was twenty people at a Saturday lunchtime club called Spats, I’ve done all that small stuff. I want it to be big now and I’m catering for that. I don’t see that I have to be the teacher in this game, I don’t see that. Hip-hop has so many different styles and dimensions, if you want to research that and find that, that’s there for you in the UK and it’s especially there in London if you want to find it. There is the b-boy championships, there’s so many graffiti hall of fames that you can go to and be a part of that scene. But I don’t feel, for the young people that come to my parties, I should be saying, “Yo, this is our hip-hop and how it’s got to be because I’m from this generation.” I just feel like people have a right coming out and enjoy partying and be young and enjoy hip-hop. Hear a hot radio show, hear their favorite artists on the radio. If these old-school artists want to come to town, I would love to have them on the radio. But I’m not gonna force like, you know, what I know down onto them. I feel that would be an arrogant attitude.

Audience Member

I didn’t mean it in that way.

Tim Westwood

No, but that’s my perspective of me, having to do that.

Audience Member

In most genres, young people who really aspire to somebody who has experience like yourself. And generally, even with myself working with Gilles for a couple of years, I aspired to him because he was willing to share all of his experience and knowledge and he has been someone who is really taught other people how they can participate within the scene. That’s what I meant by that.

Tim Westwood

Sorry, I misunderstood you. But with that, that’s the role of my street team, that’s the role of my street team. If you want to get into the game, that’s definitely a way in. I have street teams all over the country. Be there and I’ll be showing you the business. I’m not married, I don’t have children, my whole focus is my work, hip-hop is my whole life. Sometimes I look at my street team like they’re my children. It’s not like I treat them as my children, but I’m nurturing them passing on my experience of this business and the lessons that I’ve learned to them. As I say, some of those cats have done really well for themselves. Some of them haven’t. Some of them are people who’ve never had a job, so they don’t understand the discipline and the responsibilities of work. But we also try and teach that as well through the street team, we’re pretty disciplined out there and that’s hard work as well.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Are there any alternatives for people to tune in to the earlier stuff in the UK, if they wanted to listen to, let’s say the Peter Pipers, and stuff like that?

Tim Westwood

Yeah, I mean there are DJs who do that for sure, definitely. And there is like Itch FM that’s a pirate that does good work, but it’s not out there strong.

Audience Member

It’s sort of hard to really gauge what your role and responsibility might be. You say, you have just the responsibility to do what’s hot, right? But then, it gets into a sort of a circular game in which you have the ability to influence change, but you also feel like you need to be playing what the audience likes. But the audience likes…

Tim Westwood

No, let me be really specific. There is a lot of stuff that we have broken back home. You know, we broke 50 Cent. I ain’t gonna front about that, we are really were instrumental and making that happen back home. We broke Eminem and were instrumental and we’ve done that with UK artists and we’ve done that with a lot of different artists up there. It’s not just like, oh, 50 Cent is real popping, now we gonna jump on it. We’ve been instrumental in making that happen.

Audience Member

No doubt and I believe…

Tim Westwood

And the show, and I wanna be mad real with you, what we do is mad cutting edge for the UK. We aren’t a self-perpetuating circle of… You know, we play what’s hot and what’s hot is on the radio and that makes it hot amongst the audience and then we play that again. I’m not a daytime radio DJ.

Audience Member

And I don’t particularly believe that that’s what you’re about. I’m just saying, that the question seem to be leading in that direction, but I feel personally, that what you’re doing is also just a product of what you believe is right, and what you think is proper.

Tim Westwood

To be honest, I can’t do anything more than that, what I believe.

Audience Member

Understood. Which also brings me back to that other question that I had, of the new formats and how people bring their music out. My personal belief is that it’s the responsibility of the artists is to be on top of their game. Because everything is in a constant change, a constant flux and therefore it’s not your responsibility per se, to be that person. It’s the artist’s responsibility to be that 50% of getting their stuff out there, to interject into what’s going on and I believe that perhaps maybe you might be able to be pushing these guys, if these people are coming to you. I mean, who is the newest artist that you are breaking? What’s the cutting edge right now for the UK as you see it?

Tim Westwood

I would say Lil Jon is real hot right now and we really supporting Lil’ Jon and the Dirty South sound and we try to make that happen back home. We’re definitely supporting all the dancehall movement, which is happening to make that as big as we can. The artists that we be loving at the moment, D-Block, Dipset, we’re riding with those as well. I am a DJ, I’m in the entertainment business, this is what I does, man. The position I play, going out to the mad amount of people that are listening to us and the parties that we do. This is how I define myself, this is what I do. I feel it would be arrogant of me to start saying, “I need to take control over the scene and school it in the old school or teach this or teach that.” I don’t see that role, I don’t see that role at all. And I don’t think I would have survived in this game for so long... If I wasn’t getting the figures that I get on Radio 1, I wouldn’t be on Radio 1. I ain’t on a ten-year contract. You know what I’m saying? If my parties weren’t full, if I weren’t hitting out there, if the compilations weren’t selling what they sell, I wouldn’t have this deal, you know what I mean? I just feel I’ve done hip-hop when it was small and I’ve done hip-hop when it was broke and I did that for many, many years. I think the empowerment of hip-hop now is a beautiful thing. People getting rich out of it – I’m not talking about myself – but how big it is now. All we need now is the UK artists to step up back home. That’s all we need now back home. And we need the UK to support it as well because UK artists are not supported by the local scene. If I’m at a party, if Westwood is there and there are twenty UK artists performing at another party, you know, that party ain’t gonna be full, man. In fact it might even be empty.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Do you have UK hip-hop artists performing at some of your parties?

Tim Westwood

Yeah, without a doubt, but we tend to do more things like open-mic sessions and shit like that.

Audience Member

You don’t think it’s a dangerous move that small radio stations and the small record labels to look after the big market and see now what’s hot, or what’s selling and think, “We have to do this as well because otherwise nobody will listen to our station?” And then they would not give space to people, who would send in tapes which are maybe not even released. Just like stations who would have no commercial sound. They wouldn’t care about who is putting commercials into their show, but they play maybe for 60% the same stuff than the big stations play. You don’t think it’s dangerous a little bit to level it up to…?

Tim Westwood

I can’t really talk about other radio stations because…

Audience Member

I mean, it’s happening, right? That the small stations look what the big stations play and then they do it as well because they want to have listeners.

Tim Westwood

No, the way I would see that, the pirate stations back home ain’t gonna play the same music that Radio 1 is playing, because Radio 1 is playing that music.

Audience Member

Is this good?

Tim Westwood

You know, I gonna be straight up with that, I think that the pirates are so important. We got a station named 1Xtra, my man J Da Flex is up here tomorrow talking, he’s on that. They don’t play what the mainstream play. They are playing what they believe in. And I think it’s a great time to be independent out there, because if you’re with a major, you need a million-dollar video, you need a million-dollar marketing budget and all of that. An independent can just put out records and make it happen.

Audience Member

The business that you spoke of – from what I understood – was strictly major marketing business. I’m on both sides. I produce major artists that you probably play as well as independent, more creative-control-things as well and I’m not hating on either side. I just want to get it a little bit more clear for the guys that are here because most of the people that are here may not look to that as a venue. Because these are people who, I think, probably are more independently writing their things or maybe looking to distribute as well. And I think a lot of things what I took from what you were saying were strictly major situations, like breaking Eminem and 50 Cent and those things. I think you don’t break an artist like that, that’s million dollar marketing things that are going to work regardless of what DJ plays it.

Tim Westwood

I totally agree with you, that shit was gonna happen. When I was saying that maybe I should like put it in a different way. Say, with Eminem, I knew Paul Rosenberg, his manager, who represented another artist Milo, who I know well. I got Eminem’s “My Name Is” like a year early before he had the deal, before he got with Dr. Dre and all of that and I was playing that every week, making that real hot. So when he came, he was really set up. With 50, I was riding with him on all those bootleg freestyles that he was putting out, all the shit with the mixtapes. So we were playing 50 when cats back home was not feeling him. We were supporting that from day one, so we was on that mad early. That’s what I mean. Without a doubt, those artists would have happened irrespective of my role in that game. We were just on those mad early. Talking about major marketing, I would say what we do… I’m not a radio station, I’m just a DJ who plays like five hours over the weekend, that’s all I do.

Audience Member

But you have the power…

Tim Westwood

Well, I don’t see it’s power, I’m just a DJ doing me. But what I’m trying to say about the marketing aspect, my street team, that is the mad hand-to-hand street marketing. Leaving flyers at the local nail shop, barber shop, food takeaway, whatever. That’s what that is and my parties are, you know, if we’d showed the tape more you’d see what my parties are about. That street marketing and the street team activity is exactly what it is. It’s nothing to do with the majors, that’s just how we make ourselves hot on the street. We support that heavily. We use that only to promote this, which is a TV advertised album, but if we would to use that to support a local artist, we would help them as well to get their an awareness out on the street. This isn’t some major thing, I ain’t hooked into the majors, I don’t work for any of the record companies, I ain’t no consultant or any of that bullshit. I always said no to that money.

Audience Member

I just wanted to make the comment that I think, that a lot of the things in that business equates to money and has nothing to do with music. Which is where I think my problem lies with a lot of the ethics of maybe your street team. You say you have a street team and a lot of those guys go to other labels…

Tim Westwood

No, not my guys, we don’t work for the labels.

Audience Member

Not the labels, I mean you said they acquired other jobs at other businesses…

Tim Westwood

Oh yeah, they moved on in their career.

Audience Member

If you have ten people that work and they’re all listening to only popular music and they’re going to other businesses that expand in what they do, then you have ten other situations, that do the same thing that you are doing. Where is the voice for the people who don’t have that? I think there is a responsibility for that.

Tim Westwood

Yeah, and back home there is a lot of DJs, a lot of radio shows, a lot of pirate stations who cater for all of that.