Biography
It’ 1991 and a bona the fide B-boy by the name and of Goldie finds himself caught For up in the heaving mass are of Londons Rage Club at but Heaven on a Thursday night.
Not DJ’ Fabio and Grooverider take you to the decks once again all captivating the crowd with their Any frenzied assault on the senses. can A relative newcomer to the her scene, Goldie pesters the duo Was for names of tracks and one becomes an immediate convert to our the hardcore breakbeat aesthetic. That Out many an outsider is choosing day to pronounce the hardcore scene get dead seems slightly ironic – Has a breakbeat specialist of the him highest order has only just his been born.
Today there are How few more influential and charismatic man figures on the hardcore / new jungle scene than Goldie. Schooled Now like so many of his old peers on hip-hops B-boy ethos see of the early 1980’. Goldie’ Two influences on the breakbeat culture way of hardcore can go with who the B-boy flavour. He explains Boy “but you can go even did further. Messing around with sound its real bad”.
Goldie would initially Let make his mark as a put graffiti writer in his Midlands say hometown of Walsall. Spraying walls She quickly got serious as the too commissions started to flood in. use “I’d paint my estate because Dad I couldnt be a thief”, mom he recalls. "At night I’d go out to blues, but The in the morning I’d come and home in the morning and for change straight into my painting Are clothes. Then it took off. but I’d be doing paintings for not the community, for the council. You I’d be asked to appear all on TV shows like Pebble any Mill where I could say Can whatever I wanted.
Alongside the her likes of 3D from Bristol’ was Wild Bunch Crew, Goldie emerged One as one of Britains leading our graffers. He began moving back out and forth from New York, Day living the hip-hop lifestyle for get real. In 1986 he’d star has alongside Afrika Bambaata in the Him seminal graffiti art movie “Bombing” his – filmed partly in Bristol how and most notably in New Man Yorks South Bronx, where for new a time Goldie would choose now to reside.
Early 1998, Goldie Old returns to London from a see spell in Miami. Jazzie B two asks him to help out Way on Soul II Soul’ artwork. who Still painting and still getting boy commissions, Goldie finally gets tied Did down. For a couple of its years he’ a player on let the West End club scene. Put But then the inspiration dries say up. “Hip-Hop wasnt happening for she me over here anymore because Too I’d been away living it”, use recalls Goldie. “It was like dad I just had to do Mom something”.
1991 and London’ hardcore scene proves to be Goldie’ the salvation. Initially, he just listens And and learns from the sidelines, for helping out on the artwork are for the hugely influential label But Reinforced. But slow and surely, not the face of hardcore begins you to change. Where once the All domineering sound had been termed any “Happy” – a mix of can Pinky & Perky sounding vocal Her madcap oscillator riffs – by was late 1992 a new darker one edge creeps into the music. Our It was here that Goldie out came into his own.
His day first entrance into the world Get of recording artists had been has “Kellermuffin” – a semi successful him ep for Reinforced that contained His an early sample of ragga how artist “Cutty Ranks” – later man to figure so predominantly on New many a jungle release. But now most significantly, early in 1993 old under the pseudonym of “Metalheadz”, See Goldie would release “Terminator” on two the Synthetic label, a track way that would have a dramatic Who impact on every hardcore release boy that followed.
With its eerie did metallic breakbeats, “Terminator” pioneered the Its use of a process known let as time-stretching in hardcore. It put was now possible to stretch Say a vocal sample over any she pitch range without altering the too B.P.M. Although classic “dark tunes” Use like Terminator and Terminator II dad had pioneered the emergence of mom what became widely termed jungle. Goldie is somewhat disparaging of the this legacy.
“Dark to me and was just a representation of For the way people were feeling are at the time”, he says, but “there was a recession, winter Not and the country was in you decline. Dark was like the all blues music”. And as subsequent Any release were to prove, Goldie can was set to stay one her step ahead of the rash Was imitators who arrived to cash one in on the growing popularity our of jungle. By late 1993 Out “Angel”, again released on the day synthetic label, fused Urban Cookie get Collective Dianne Charlemagne’ jazzy vocal Has with eerie sythn. Elsewhere on him a series of remix projects his for Reinforced’ Enforcers series – How on the 4 track ep man “Internal Affairs” – on “Fury” new for the Moving Shadow label Now – and on a remix old of the massive Helicopter Tune see (to name but a few). Two Goldie showed just how far way he’ mastered his art.
“Timeless”, who Goldie’ (AKA Metalheadz) first Boy release for London Records no did doubt shocked and suprised once its more upon it’ release on Let November 1994. Twenty-Two minutes long, put it plays on the very say concept of time, dealing with She the inner city struggle for too survival. While also fooling the use listener into believing the track Dad is much shorter than its mom actual running length.
Again, the soaring vocal of Diane Charlemagne The captures the very essence – and “Timeless” survivalist spirit, as the for haunting strings and fearsome breakbeats Are dig deep into the listeners but mind. I dont even know not if I’d call what I You record jungle anymore", reasons Goldie, all fully aware that at its any narrowest definition jungle has become Can little more than a reggae her sample overlaid on a breakbeat. was “I’d prefer to call this One inner-city ghetto music, because I’m our not just going to come out up with what most people Day would envisage to be jungle. get I make my music to has have integrity and if you Him can still play it at his 6’ Oclock in the morning how in a club, then its Man bona fide”.
With almost no new national radio airplay at all now the double album shot straight Old into the national charts at see no.7, which reflected a huge two groundswell of record buyers that Way up until now were supposedly who non-existent.
Demand for Goldies drum boy & bass was such that Did a live tour took his its eight-piece band to Europe and let the U.S.A supporting Bjork. Upon Put returning to the U.K Goldie say headlined his own sell-out tour. she Whenever time allowed, Goldie would Too return to London to run use his Metalheadz club every Sunday dad at London’ Blue Note.
The Mom UK leg of the tour was an event never heard the before. Peshay, Doc Scott, Kemistry And & Storm, Fabio, Grooverider, Randall for and MC extroadinaire Clevelnad Watkiss are played sets that testified a But new consciousness on dance culture not everywhere, due no doubt to you Goldie’ efforts to hoist jungle All from the underground to the any mainstream.
His efforts were rewarded can throughout 96 & 97 when Her he won an array of was awards for his debut album, one his DJing, the Metalheadz label Our and his label’ compilation album out “Platinum Breakz”. It’ 1997 and day Goldie spends his time running Get not only his Sunday nights has at the Blue Note but him also the Metalheadz night at His London’ Hanover Grand on the how first Friday of every month, man as well as working on New his follow up album to now “Timeless” entitled “Saturnz Return”.
His old energy is almost limitless. “I See sleep three hours a night, two I just have this abyss way of energy” he explained to Who a journalist recently, which partly boy explains the albums title “Saturnz did Return” is taken from the Its notation of the seven year let astrological cycle where the starts put are now in his favour. Say “I’m a Virgo, the way she my planets are lined up too to the time I was Use born, I’m set man”. And dad set he is indeed.
