Delarge: Desktop wallpapers, stickers, posters & downloads

It’s been over 10 years since his first album and Aesop Rock is still better than your favourite rapper. He took time out from the start of his 2008 European tour to kick the ballistics with us…

On the set for the ‘Coffee’ video - photo by Chrissy Piper

Can you remember when you first discovered hip-hop? Was there a certain track or artist that hooked you in?
It was sorta simultaneously RUN DMC’s Raising Hell, and License to Ill by the Beastie Boys. My mother took them and threw them both out so I knew I was onto something. Plus I guess being a white guy from the burbs knowing all the lyrics to “proud to be black” may appear odd to a mother. I dunno what is was exactly, probably the fact that it was the first time I had heard the personality of the artist show thru. Hip hop lyricists really get to do that more than almost any other writers. Let themselves really be who they are. It’s a shame it isn’t like that as much these days. Everyone must appear impervious to pain, instead of just buggin’ out and having fun with it.

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We first spotted Kai Kuusisto (aka Kaintero) on Flickr a few months ago. His photos stood out from the crowd with those ultra tweaked airs, the great people portraits and the feeling of fun oozing out of every shot.

We hooked up with Kai to check out and talk about his ultra-dope photography…

Rider: Jorma Sonninen - Kinky wall ride

Hey yo Kai, where are you from?
I spent my first 25 years 15 km from Helsinki to the west in a small city (10,000 people) called Kauniainen and now I live in the heart of the capital of Finland, in Helsinki central.

Savela, Mikko Lehto

How long have you been riding?
I have been riding bmx for 10 1/2 years. Back in the days I used to buy/get new parts if they got broken, these days when they dont get broken as often it feels hard to upgrade my bike just for the weight or style… so my bike might be slightly out of the latest trends. I have always liked to paint my bikes by my self, last time I painted my bike using tree leafs and “miniature scale model paints”.

I recently learned to land tailwhips and many of my new tricks are tailwhip combinations like wallride to whip, whip to manual, whip to tailtap to footjam nosepick, downsidewhips…

I try to be an all around rider as much as possible but I admit I am spending more time going fast, doing airs and trying to link tricks than trying to learn the technical street tricks.

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On one of the many Delarge crew outings into the vastness of Brighton’s gig land, we were stopped in our tracks and found ourselves immersed in the sounds of an artist called Crillix. A live show incorporating guitar, samplers and loop stations to create electronic cinematic sounds peppered with heavy hand made beats was enough to send us off into the night hungry for more Crillix material.

The few tracks on his Myspace page and a compilation guest spot show plenty to get excited about and wet the appetite for future releases.

We caught up with Crillix to discuss music, and a little bit of home town inspiration, surfing habits and childhood heroes.
We are also lucky to have been blessed with an exclusive new Crillix track for download:

In a Nutshell (MP3 3.2mb)

The track “False Starts” is featured on Abandoned Building’s Assemblage Sessions Vol 2 compilation and there are a handful of tracks your Myspace page, are there any other places where we can hear Crillix material?

I am in the process of setting up a Virb account. It’s sort of like myspace, but more stable and a little less stalker-ish… I’ll have different songs on there than the ones on myspace.
I have recently completed a remix for ‘DOF’, which should be coming out soon on Abandon Building as part of an album of remixes. I’ll also be selling home-made cds at my live shows.

What are your thoughts on the packaging of cds/records? Do you think artists / labels have to step up their game to make people part with their money?

Absolutely. This is something I have thought for a long time.
Most people I know now don’t even own a CD player. Everyone plays music from their laptops or ipods and things like that. The only viable reason I can think of that this has happened is that people never really cared about the ‘ownership’ of a cd. I know friends that buy cds, rip them to their computer, and couldn’t care less where the case ends up. That’s why mp3 sales are so successful.
However, I do believe some labels are aware of this, and are definitely a reason to keep buying cds and records. Take Constellation for example; i would never download anything that comes out on constellation because I respect their ethics so much, and also because they do everything either in-house and by hand, or as locally as possible to assist small, local businesses.
Lex are another prime example of why to keep buying cds. I don’t think i’ve ever come across a label with such a lavish attention to detail. Ehquestionmark are just on another level completely with their design. If you buy a cd from Lex, it’s like someone’s just bought you a beautifully hand-crafted guitar, as opposed to a ‘pluck-master’ from the Argos catalogue.

Tell us about your live set.
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Take two different kinds of moonshine rum (one dark & spicy, one white), lemons, limes and fresh coconut milk, and mix them up nice and strong. Sip it in the heat of a Caribbean night then skank, rude-boy, skank.

The purple drank of 50s and 60s Jamaica was called Rude to Your Parents. You can draw a line from the bottom of a bottle into the dubstep/grime sound of contemporary Britain. Brits are still hooked on the sound of ska over 50 years after its original inception. Magpie-like, dubstep producers festoon their production with jewels of frosty, stellar samples that reflect our divided, paranoid society. The heartbeat, however, still pumps to the sound of a rum-fuelled night in Trenchtown.

Ska made its way to late 1960s cities like London, Birmingham and Coventry via the West Indian immigrants who had been hauled over for the two decades previous. There was a surplus of jobs and a great demand for all kinds of labour in post-war Britain. Flexing its atrophying muscles, the empire again exploited the old “trade-triangle” to import much-needed labour. Though jobs were there, and wages were good, racial discrimination distanced the new arrivals from rapid prosperity. Racism was also a factor at home. Many landlords refused to take in black families. This led to large concentrations of Caribbean immigrants moving into neo-slum districts - in places such London’s Brixton.

The general reaction - one of family unity and dignity - was a supremely human one. The new arrivals to the neighbourhoods, courtesy of the “Blues parties”, smashed it to bits. The sound of ska, and the emerging reggae beat, dropped every weekend. White kids made friends with the black kids. Ska’s 4/4 drums, and stress on the back beat, soaked into the rock of British popular culture, continually springing new rivers and tributaries.

That 2Tone Midlands sound is probably the most easily recognised assimilation of Caribbean culture, and rightly so. It sets a blue-print that you can hear in the dubstep sound now. Disaffected, dislocated, reactionary kids fused the aggression of punk with the funk of ska. Now you can hear atomised, paranoid kids combine London 2-step, jungle’s sub-bass and space-age synths with those unmistakeable ska sounds - the back-beat and the beautiful horns.

2Tone, British hip-hop, UK ragga, Jungle, Drum n Bass and now dubstep/grime are woven together by Britain’s history with the West Indies. The dubstep scene is yet another mutation of the sound of Jamaica’s youth that landed on these shores all those years ago. Prince Buster said that “true ska is music with a soul”.

Well, dubstep, I know you got soul.

Further listening & downloads

• Prince Buster - Madness
• The Skatalites - Guns of Navarone
• Toots & Maytails - Funky Kingston
• Dennis Alcapone - Cassius Clay
• Burial - U Hurt Me
• MATTY G - 50,000 Watts (Loefah Mix)
• JME - Deadout
• Boxcutter - Brood

Listen to music tagged ‘Dubstep’ on Last FM

Article by MF Hart, photo by Bok Bok

Trapped in the Asylum is the debut full length album from Brighton’s Witchdoctor Wise, the eco-friendly MC who made noise with the Lost Souls crew, kept up the pace with the Skill Mega splinter project and has maintained a high level of heat with his live shows.

A handful of tracks that appeared on CDR release at last years Brighton Hip Hop Festival are combined with new material to make up a refreshing record of considerable quality. Basics like track order, skit placement, beat variety and subject matter fit together so well it gives the album a personality made of struggle, hedonism, fear for personal survival and for that of the human race. The fate of many a rap album being just a collection of songs is swerved for an altogether greater end result.

Through a clear, pronounced delivery braggadocio rhymes and apocalyptic prophecies are mixed with similes soaked in marine and wildlife imagery. Self reflective chorus lead dance floor bangers clash with sped up drum machine scattergun drug adventures. The mix is not something seen much in hip-hop or elsewhere.

Support comes from a fine crop of Brighton/London/Further A Field MCs and producers including Iris, 184, Tom Caruana, Naim, Rup, Dr. Syntax and Devise. The latter 3 of that group joining up with Skill Mega’s Reps for the posse cut “Mission Kings” which you can download at the end of the interview. Book ended by top notch verses from Wise and Rup, the track bounces at a head nodding pace, and with its nonsensical and visually bizarre chorus, its status as the best track on the album is cemented.

The topics of environmental apocalypse and omnipotent political systems touched on in Wise’s raps weave through the album amongst rhymes of everyday struggles and fears without ramming messages down the listeners’ throat. Through the liner notes and soon to be published Tales from the Asylum blogs, these areas are more fully explored, producing a multifaceted product combining straight up rap with socio-political commentary: stereotype-free conscious hip-hop.

Delarge caught up with Wise to talk about the subjects that underpin some of the albums main focus. Read on for the interview and grab the Mission Kings mp3…

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