Wooki Sticks his tongue out to

R&B

Face to Face with one of the UK's new underground defenders of the streets Wookie, who came to prominence in the year 2000 with the song "Battle" featuring Lain.

Interview by: Titi Lyo

How did you get into production?

I first got into producing when I met Wayne Marshall in about '92 and we worked together for about 3 years doing r n' b tracks. At that stage it was r n' b ballads - swing beat ballads like Guy and Joe. I did three songs on his album which came out in '94. I had a few rarmers with him and kind of had to vacate the premises (he laughs). Then I met Jazzy about 2 months after that and I've been here ever since. That was like '94..... six and half years

So was it a conscious decision for you to start producing garage tracks or was it something that just happened?

Well the thing is, I never really started producing garage tracks. I used to rave to drum n' bass, hip hop, r n' b and I used to rave to everything even garage but I'm talking about house garage I was bored with doing r n' b, you know and 'cos it's hard to do r n' b in this country and get recognition and basically paid.

I wanted to make a different style of music - well actually, make my own style of music rather than trying to conform to what America's doing with r n' b and hip hop. I used to rave to drum n' base so I thought let me slow that down you know what I mean? That's the main thing that was going wrong with drum n' base in my eyes - that a majority of people weren't into it because it was too fast and too hectic. I slowed it down and just used certain little technical things that they did in programming and fused it with the r n' b I was doing to make a more up beat, up lifting music. My music at that time was called Camdino Soul 'cos we're from Camden.

Camdino Soul?

Yeah. Camdino Soul and that's what I used to call it. At that stage when I was doing that, speed garage was out and that was all 4x4's and that was all speeded up vocals and I wasn't a part of that at all one piece. I went to a couple of clubs but it wasn't really my thing. It just so happened that after hooking up with a school friend of mine in '99 - yeah early '99 was when we did one of the Whitney Houston tracks. Now the Whitney Houston track was being played in underground clubs and that's when that change was going on over here.....and that was my first entry into that scene and it just went mad from there. Then became Brandy, Deborah Morgan and so on.

So you've released battle into the main stream.... Do you have any plans to release any other tracks that you've produced?

Yeah my next single 'Get Enough' is coming out only on vinyl, it's coming out soon. 'Get Enough' is leaning towards the Michael Jackson era of vocals. Yeah 'cos the music's quite up and has a slight disco kind of vibe . I wanted a more up lifting, get up and dance thing, but then my album comes out on 30th October and that's like 12 or 11 tracks - 'Down on Me', 'Scrappy', 'Battle', 'Get Enough' and a lot of new tracks

Well going back to 'Battle' and your music, is it your aim to produce something that's conscious as well as appealing to the dance floor?

Most definitely you can't always try. You can always try and be as conscious as you can, but you're gonna end up writing tunes that just conform with the regular dance music scene. But it's not a big problem at the moment because I ain't part of that 'I want to sex you up' business, 'You Remind me of my Jeep' and what ever's going on there. Those are the tunes that you'll remember in the r n' b scene. There's a couple of tunes now 'Be my Wifey' and 'Lets Get Married' - they're all great, wicked tunes but I can't remember them. I want to make tunes that in five years time they still play. It hasn't got any date on it. Like there's tons of tunes that are four years old and you can tell they're four years old. Whatever they're talking about was 4 years ago and doesn't apply now

So what do you think about the current exposure of garage into the main stream market? Do you think that's a good thing? Where do you think it's going?

Most definitely because it's the first time that the underground and the streets are able to come out of their bedrooms and sell thousands of records. They couldn't do that before and like the MOBO's....now they're getting recognition for it and even if there's only one category, but at least it's in there. In the BRIT Awards and all the other one's, there ain't no category for all the underground music. As much as everyone will say it's music of black origin, it is. It's black music - it's street and now it's people like myself now....I'm able to do something that's more indigenous to me rather than trying to be r n' b or hip hop 'cos I don't live that lifestyle.

So do you think it's a good thing that the UK garage scene has come into the main stream, because it's something the UK can have of their own?

Exactly and there's going to be parts of it that aren't in the commercial side of it that's going to stay underground. But that's well and good because you have to have the foundation. The only thing I'm really anxious about is that the record companies don't sign up too many acts who ain't really got any sort of talent as such and they'll bring their records out and they're records flop, and people will think 'arrh that's Two Step'. 'Urh rubbish. Dash it away'. They should take time, and know who's the ones to sign and be building the artist instead of just trying to sell singles because a lot of the time that's what they are.

I know companies release allot of singles and call it garage and there's a lot of music that's put under the umbrella of garage but aren't necessarily so, what do you think about that?

Well everything has to have a pigeon hole especially in this country, and to be recognised it has to be identified with something and the easiest way to identify the music that I do, is with garage. A lot of the stuff doesn't fall under dance music as such because dance music is all 4x4's you know what I mean? It's faster than soul/r 'n b music. Its not exactly hip hop so the only thing it can be is garage you know?

Going back to the record company thing, I just think they.... ok they're job is to sell records but it used to be that they're job was to build artists and build careers that you could sell records over a long time, but now it's turned into... they just want to sell singles. We need to make it ourselves, not one of those genres of music where it's a singles led market 'cos a lot of dance music is single-led. There's is no dance albums. Yeah there's like Chemical Brothers and Prodigy and stuff like that - they've got their own scenes. Well we've got our own scene now so we need to do our own albums instead of putting out all these compilations with all these tunes out on there. Next thing you know, two tunes later you ain't got nothing else to offer them and they're bored of you

I understand you can DJ

I can DJ but I don't DJ

So many other producers DJ on the underground as well...

You know what? Ever since I started doing music or as a kid, I never wanted to be a DJ. My dad was a Selecta - he bought records and had all the gear and stuff... I don't know if he actually played because in them days, there were three or four different titles - you had the Selecta, you had the Operator, you had the man who carried the boxes. Nowadays it's just one man. A man brings his records, plays his records and then leaves. In the old days, it was like four of them - a man would hand you the records. I would rather be a person that played the record do you know what I mean? 'Cos to do DJing today, it's like an art - you have to know what record to play, when to play the record and how to hype the crowd and manipulate the crowd. The old days you had someone else doing that for you and that was their job - to see what was going out there and say 'let me draw this tune there' and play that one, and play this one. I would rather be a person that plays the record but now I'm a person that makes the records so I'm content with my position

So what do you think about the others that decide to DJ as well as produce?

I think sometimes you can be biting off a bit more than you can chew and I think you have a tendency if you DJ and make records.... you have a tendency to play your own tunes so you're kind of dictating what the scene can be like. The only way I can do that is by making the record and if they don't play it then I've got no one to blame. You know it doesn't get forced upon anybody. It has to be good to get out there but when DJ's make their own music, it really gets forced upon them you know. Each to their own really. If you can be a DJ and Producer at the same time, all's well and good....

What about the club scene at the moment, what do you think of that?

You know what? I only go to one club

What's that?

Twice as Nice. I go to one club on a Sunday. That's because I'm 28 years old - I ain't 22. I've done all my raving and raving years in warehouses and them things. I can't be dealing with all that rubbish that goes on in the clubs you know what I mean? In those scenes in the major raves, if music was a really important thing I'd go to them a bit more but I'd rather rave with people my own age. Definitely, a few youths but not 15/16 year olds. I've done all that.

So do you feel that's the only real club now that you can appreciate?

That I can appreciate from my experience, that's the only club that I can go to and say yeah - big people in there enjoying themselves

Do you always plan do garage music or do you plan to progress on to do something else?

Well I've progressed to the music I'm doing now and I haven't always done this. I've progressed from doing reggae. When I first started, I was making reggae and then I went on to making r n' b. Did that for a few years and then I went on to what I'm doing now. You never know what I'm doing tomorrow. Whatever the project is, I can do it. It's just having the time to do it but I really want to get into producing other stuff because I've got Lain's stuff to do. Lain isn't directly a two step artist. He's an artist who featured on my sound so when it comes to his stuff it's going to be completely different to mine but it's going to have my quirky me in there. I think the whole production thing is going to be a major part of my life in the next five years definitely Even if I'm not writing the tunes myself, I'll be producing them.

So what about DJ's, MC'S or producers? What do you think of them and who do you like?

I really respect people like Artful Dodger and what he's doing with the music you know. The music - he's making it commercially acceptable you know? Even like Craig David - he's not garage, he's an r n' b artist but he's made his name in garage you know? Other producers like the Wide Boys - I like a bit of their stuff. I don't know a lot of their stuff because I'm not out there and I'm not a DJ so I don't know who's record that was. If I hear it, I like it but I don't know what a record is called. TJ Cases I really do rate him. I rate his music because it's like what I want to do, well not what I want to do but like what I do which is like full songs, a lot of melody, grooves.... those are proper songs and I sing along with them records all the time

So you think it's a good thing that there's more songs on the underground because before it was just records?

Yeah definitely because all it was, was remixes of other records and you can't base.... You can't call that a type of music if the whole music is based on remixes. You know you have to have people putting original material down

What are your future plans?

The next thing is that I'm going on the road in November but that's another chapter..... but I'm gonna be going on the road in November. I used to just do this in the studio and now I've got to do it on stage

What exactly are you going to be doing?

I'm basically going to take my studio on stage. Everything you see here, I'm gonna take on stage with me. Well not all this stuff, but my keyboards and samplers and my bits...checking that, playing this, playing live keys on this track and playing base line on that track

Is that going to be all round the country?

Yeah.... hopefully. As well as Europe. I've got some PA dates in Sweden, Norway and Amsterdam. At the end of this month... November. Germany too. I'm gonna have a compilation album out about March of next year which is going to comprise of all my remixes that I've done. Put them all together and add some new tracks cos I don't think... You know if I didn't do all those remixes I could have had two albums by now and if those remixes I did were my songs I might have had two good albums. So I'm just gonna put them together as a compilation - that's the most I can get out of it. I can't let them tunes go

So where do you hope to see the garage scene in the next few years?

In the next few years, I would like to see more artists coming out of the scene.... You know developing themselves as artist and having albums. At least by the end of 2001 there should be at least five or six. No more than that because how many is there now - there's mine this year, MJ Cole... they'll be about 3 this year including MJ Cole so by the end of next year there should be about 7 or 8 albums. Whether they're good or not I don't know but at least they've got an album

So do you think garage is going to have a long life span, hopefully longer than jungle?

But you know what? Jungle came and went in the commercial media's eye but it's just gone back to comfortable. All the people that were making it before, most of them are still doing it. They're still eating. They're still flying all over the world playing where they're playing. My mates are still selling 20-30,000 vinyl and that's a lot of records to sell on the streets. You don't need a major to do any of that stuff so all power to them.

Do you see that happening with garage?

No I see garage going further because the problem with drum n' bass was it never had melody. It never had songs. You couldn't hum your favorite drum n' bass tune - all you could do is try and beat box the bass line or try and remember one line out of it. Now these tunes here, you can sing along with it. It's something for you to sing along to and it's something for you to remember. And when there's a back to '98 rave in the garage scene, it's gonna bring back all those memories . You'll say 'arh I remember this'. I think it's going to be brilliant. I see it being brilliant

Is there anything you can see that could be it's downfall or hinder it from progressing to what it could be?

Well no I can't foresee the future because I'm not a prophet. I just take each day as it comes and just concentrate on what I'm doing. I know I'm part of the scene but the scene didn't make me start doing what I did. I found myself inside the scene. I'll just carry on rolling, doing what I'm doing.