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Feature: Movin' On Up - Ty
Interviewer: Sarah Rix
Ty has been a successful MC for over a decade but his most recent album, Upwards, has seen him truly spreading his
wings to create an unmistakably individual and mature sound. We talked to him before his recent show in Bristol, part
of his mammoth international tour. The eminently down to earth and genuine London-based MC talked to us about the meaning
of hip hop, how his earlier album
Awkward allowed him to test the waters for the music he now creates with confidence, and what’s
in store for the future.
So, how are you doing?
Very good, very good, energetic, complete jumping bean, Jumping Jack Flash...I’m tired!
Yeah, you’ve been on a long tour at the moment, how’s that going?
It’s a long tour; Ninja Tune are saying it’s probably the longest tour for a Big Dada artist, the amount of dates I’ve
been doing are the most an artist has done. I’ve been all over France, did about ten dates in Germany, a couple each in
Switzerland and Poland, and Copenhagen also.
Have you had good responses?
From the feedback it seems that people have been very into what we are doing - they get the live band thing and the vibe.
They tend to forget about me and are more interested in the band as a whole.
No, I don’t think that’s true! It is good to see it though, to see how it all works.
Yeah, and it is a band, so they are used to playing with each other. They are kind of musicians who all check for each
other and check each other’s bands out, so it has become a band rather than a bunch of musicians.
And you enjoy performing with them?
I do enjoy performing and travelling with them, you know? I’m a band member, a roadie! It’s fun.
So have you been happy with the success of Upwards?
Yeah, pretty much. The way people have reacted to the album has kind of amazed me, but it’s all about promoting a record
and I really want people to get it. That’s what’s really important, so the fact that people are buying it, for me, is
really uplifting because, obviously, I’ve got to go and do other music and other albums and I’m going to feel really
confident about making new music. It’s good to take a little bit of a break from making music to just performing it
and checking whether people like it.
Do you think part of its success is that fact that it’s kind of more soulful than some hip hop and perhaps more
accessible?
I don’t know, because I didn’t really mean it to be more soulful, I just wanted it to be more honest or more representative
of how I feel rather than just being part of a UK hip hop community experience. To me the kind of hip hop experience that
people have up and down the country that I see is different from the experience that I’m feeling as a person. I wanted to
put that on the record. I’ve learnt, via hip hop, when I listen to music to be able to judge by instinct whether I like
something or not. And when I was doing this album I felt like I wanted to work with people that brought that instinct out
in me. People who instantly when I’ve heard them, whether they play instruments, or whether they sing, or whether they do
spoken word or rap, give me something like, “Yeah, I need to put that in my music”. I’m always going to step aside from
the whole rapping with MC’s just for the sake of rapping with MCs; I’m really not interested in that. I’m not saying
it’s a bad thing, but I personally think that we really need to stamp our individual identity as artists before going off
to collaborate - do solo cuts first. People aren’t going to appreciate the fact that you are all coming together because
people don’t know you individually, if you haven’t done your work. So, I’m really focussing on that. Doing this album I
really wanted to collaborate with people who made me feel challenged as far as hip hop was concerned.
Hip hop artists make me feel challenged, but lately I’ve been more moved by people who just make music, who listen to hip
hop but are not necessarily in the hip hop scene. So I just wanted to make a hip hop record that would be for hip hop
heads and also for other people - like a window into UK music reality.
I think it has, especially on some songs, a more kind of light-hearted view, whereas other artists at the moment are more
depressing. Do you find that?
You know what it is? I’m going to say it and it’s going to sound really funny, but it’s just adolescence. That’s all it
is - it’s young people who think either they are the top of the food chain, or they want to be at the top of the food chain,
or that everyone else is shit and they are the best. They’re just saying the world is fucked up and they’re upset but
they’re not going to do anything about it, and they are making that music, and it’s cool. I come from a different
perspective - I’ve had that experience and now I’m coming from a perspective of, yeah, things are fucked up but
there are good things, there are nice things and there are horrible things and there are even more interesting ways to
talk about them. So I don’t want to say that other MC’s or artists are not grown up or anything but I think if you really
take a step back and see what a lot of artists are doing it’s just boys being boys amongst boys. I wanted to make an
album, as a man, that would be interesting for people.
Taking a positive outlook on life?
Yeah, I mean its positive and negative but it’s a grown up perspective and the difference is that I’m sitting in a studio,
cross-legged, thinking, “hmmm...string orchestra...hmmm...hip hop...hmmm...scratching...hmmm...how can I put this
altogether? How can I make this classic? Or how can I do this the best that I can do? Hmmm...frequencies...mmm...what
sampler shall I use today?” That’s what I’m thinking, rather than sitting in a room with a beat that’s cooking and
looking at an MC thinking, “check one two”. I’m not disrespecting anyone but the perspective I’m coming from is, ok,
what do you do when you know all that? It’s time to step up. What do you do when you know how to make music? Make better
music, and that’s what I’m trying to do now.
I think that comes across! So what do you think of the UK hip hop scene at the moment?
I think the hip hop scene is interesting if you consider that the hip hop scene is bigger than probably what you are
talking about.
How do you mean? I don’t know everything?!
No! I mean that when people ask me that question they are normally talking about the confines of particular artists.
So the question would usually be around the gamut of, so what do you think of Roots, Manuva, Terra Firma, Jehst and so on.
I think bigger than that: think Big Brovaz, The Streets, Dizee Rascal, So Solid Crew, Goldie, 4hero, IG culture, and all
those people who have come from hip hop and have gone to do something else; that’s the whole scene.
So you think in that respect it’s doing well, because they are commercially successful?
It’s doing really well. I mean, Miss Dynamite, what’s she doing? She’s rapping. That’s UK hip hop but we don’t seem to
look at it like that and because we get snobby we stay in the dark and personally I think that UK music, as a whole -
which is what I’m trying to be part of - is actually in a very good position right now. Its time for the next Soul II
Soul record, really, you know every couple of years we pull something out that everybody is like, "woahhh! Ohhh,
Loose Ends! Ohhh, Soul II Soul!" I think the next record is the New Sector Movements album, Turn It Up.
Do you think you’re getting into that broken beat sound?
Not really, to be honest when we did the album it was like we were trying to paint a canvass that would be representative
of the movement of music that is happening around me. So, broken beat came in there because it does come from hip hop
heads who have gone on to make different styles of music and it’s now a kind of electronic, afrobeat, digital jazz,
new fusion music that still kind of floats around and makes people dance. I think it’s interesting, just as is world
music. Take the European hip hop scene for example, I think there are going to be a lot of good producers coming out of
Europe, particularly Germany and France.
You have been said to be Britain’s best chance to break America, is anything happening for you there?
Its funny, I printed out emails today from people who have been contacting me and it does seem to be quite steep, like
people are going, “Do you do this? How do you get this? Would you come to America?” I’m like, “Yeah, I just need to get
off this elephant tour that we’re on right now!” You know what I mean? In my whole life I have never seen a year
completely plotted out for me, till now. I might as well not even think about it, I don’t have a year this year.
When do you finish the tour?
The tour finishes next month but then the festivals start; Glastonbury, Dedbeat, Homelands, North Sea, Montreux and so on.
When you add all those up, that’s another tour.
Ok, so your lyrics, I find that - not that I get offended easily - there is nothing offensive in them, especially
towards women. Is that something that you consciously try to avoid or is that just in your person?
It’s not really a conscious decision, it’s like I said, I’m not a boy anymore. It’s a boy thing, when you’re little,
to say ‘willy’, to say ‘fuck’, words like - excuse my language - ‘pussy’. Saying stuff like that when you are older,
when you got kids around you...it’s not that your focus changes or you feel like you can’t swear, but you have to question
why you say certain things - is it really relevant? For me personally in life I usually only swear when I’m really angry
or I’m making a point. When I’m doing music I’m trying to reflect me, the person. I really don’t like to conform to the
black stereotype of a black person, that is to say, because I’m black I’m going to smoke weed and take drugs; I might be
a little bit violent and edgy; and I only listen to rare groove, reggae, soul, and hip hop.
Do you get people assuming stuff a lot?
All the time. Do I get asked whether I got drugs in a club? Yes. But that’s the point: because of that sort of thing
I’m really trying not to bang home any of those particular stereotypes.
Do you try and put a message across in some of your songs?
No, that’s the honest truth, I don’t; it just happens. I think there are forces aside from ourselves, working with
regard to the music we are making. I got a phone call from Fallacy, before he had his album out. He was in one of the
workshops I used to do when he was younger, when he wasn’t known, and he called, and we spoke on a kind of ‘older brother,
younger brother’ kind of vibe. He was frustrated, he phoned me and said, "you know, there is all of this stuff about
black on black violence in the newspaper man and no-one is asking our opinion, everyone is just making opinions".
I was like, "yeah, you’re right", and I phoned some people. The next thing I knew there was an article in the New Nation
or something, where they basically got a whole bunch of young people - I think they got one of So Solid Crew - and got
them all to sit together and talk about gun crime and what it meant to them - and that was beautiful. I remember
thinking ok, one person, Fallacy, triggered something, I communicated and then look at that. Yeah, more of that.
So with the song Rain, I thought, I want to say something from my perspective and experiences and put it in music. Not
to be telling kids to put the gun down or stop violence or whatever but to come from a different perspective that might
make certain people blink a little bit and think about it; I really believe that it’s better to make them think about
something than tell them what not to do. When we were writing the song we were like ok, we got this Joni Mitchell groove,
we are going to roll this groove but we are going to have water and sea sort of vibes in the background so there is a
sort of turbulence underneath the music that is changing. I wanted to have a bit of tension and at the same time all of
the other elements - a bit of a melody so that we could have the part in there saying ‘rain’ and all that. It was like
me and Drew had painted a big picture where the vocalist never saw the rapper, the rapper never saw the guitarist, and the
guitarist never saw the vocalist. No-one saw anybody; the only people who witnessed the whole thing were Drew and I.
This was our time to make some serious music that was going to drive people to feel good or bad about themselves, so we
did it to the best of our ability. That’s all that I think my message is: if you are going to do hip hop do it to the
best of your abilities; don’t come in here trying to make money and be making some weak rubbish. If you are going to
make gangsta, please make a good gangsta record.
So, what would be your advice to an up-and-coming UK MC?
My honest, honest advice? Think about hip hop as music. A lot of young people treat hip hop like a stepchild when really
it’s like a culture, almost like a religion - they don’t stand proud with it. They’re not like, “yeah, I’m going to do a
degree and then I’m going to do hip hop”. It’s like a little side thing, turn your caps to the side - it’s a failure’s
success story. Others are like, “yeah, I’m going to be rebellious and put my cap on and my parents are not going to like
it but I like hip hop”. No. You should look at it as a beautiful thing, think of it as music. If you watch musicians on
TV or anything, anyone that is playing music, they take it seriously. I have never seen a lazy guitarist; there is no
such thing.
So who influenced you when you were getting into hip hop?
I have been thinking about this. I think just good hip hop. I listened to everything, all of it, I was like, “Wow!”
I also watched any video I could get my hands on; if there was a song and I heard there was a video, I had to see it.
Still, to this day, because I don’t have MTV in my house, if I’m babysitting my godson, or something, and he goes to
sleep, and his mum’s out raving: hard! I’ll watch MTV till she comes back because it’s my moment to catch up on stuff.
I’m like, “Oh there’s a video for that 50 Cent song? I didn’t know, ok”.
Have you made videos yourself?
Yeah, there are a couple of videos, you haven’t seen them? You can see them on the website. MTV played one of the videos
for Wait a Minute: it’s me with my whole body in the sand and two pretty girls in bikinis beside me sunbathing, but I
can’t get to them!
Frustration?
Yeah. So, that’s the whole thing with Wait.... Yeah, that was cool.
Were you into hip hop when you were very young?
I was into music. I was always listening to the radio, and people like Mike Allen and Tony Blackburn - I just found it
interesting. It was just music and I was like “Wow, how do I hear that?” I always knew the songs, I always knew the
melodies but it was always a personal thing, not something I shared with people.
I heard that your mum didn’t like you listening to hip hop?
Nah, I used to write raps in my bathroom. She thought it was a waste of time. She just didn’t understand it - to her it
was just like ‘bleeps’ of electronic noise. She was just looking at me like, “This is what excites you, huh? Young’un,
alright, whatever, just tidy up your room and make sure you do your school work because that’s what I brought you here
for.” That’s what her vibe was. So she wasn’t against me doing music, more just against anything that would distract me
from school work or reading books. My mum was definitely one of my influences because she had me really pressed up
against books and reading and writing, so I found myself doing writing, homework or whatever. I wasn’t a boffin but I
was quite smart. But I was rebelling - I was living in Brixton and rebelling. The reason I mention Brixton is because
it’s a really big hot-bed for peer pressure. It’s beautiful, it’s really cultural but at that time there was just so
much going on, you know, the riots had just died down. I remember watching the riots on TV which was weird as I lived
round the corner from the road named after Cherry Groce - the woman who the police troubled and then it all went off.
I was only about eight at the time.
So, your African heritage: you’ve done stuff with Tony Allen, how important is it now for you to use more African
beats or using other African artists?
Yeah, it is important. I tell you what is funny is that for me, as an artist, as a person who makes music, it all kind of
just happens. I kind of know what I want, I can almost call up certain things and be like, “Ok, I’m not doing the
swearing thing and its cool, I don’t do it.” One of the things I’m not is like, “Oh, because I’m African I must wear
African clothing” because for me there is a different kind of mentality to being an African child that is brought up in
England: you are semi-English and semi-African, but you are distant African and you are distant English at the same time,
if that makes sense? So, what happens is you get a kind of conflict of feelings but I was lucky enough to be quite
grounded; my parents were like, “ You’re African but you live here” and they kind of had that in me, so it was kind of
cool. I grew up listening to the music and stuff and as I got older I got more confident in my life choices, as far as
making music and expressing myself and using expression as the thing that pays me.
I found that you have to tap into your story, I think everybody has a novel, a story of their life which if they sat down
and wrote could be a best seller because obviously it’s unique to you and everybody wants to read about unique situations.
So, what I’m trying to do is just basically tie in the route that my parents have taken and the experiences that I have
been through and use those as clues when I’m stuck for ideas. Ok, so I’ve grown up in Brixton, and I would say that is my
base as far as feelings go and my understanding of a society culturally and being able to walk around and find the
greengrocer and stuff like that, you know! Brixton is my template for how to find things. So I use that, and that’s kind of
how it is with the African side of things. There are things that I do, that I don’t realise I’m doing, that are African.
When I was travelling abroad I met one musician, we did a couple of jam sessions together, and he sat me down and said,
“You know, the way you talk when you are on stage? We have this kind of griot at home and the way you talk to people on
stage, it’s the same way - that’s what you are doing”. He said, “Look when you come to France, come meet my kids and I
will play you some videos and you can see what you are doing, because I have not seen that in the younger generation of
hip hop artists”. That’s what he told me! I was like “Ok, this is serious, and when someone tells you something like that
it makes you understand that you are here as part of a jigsaw puzzle, and if you didn’t know that, you know it now, so get
on with it!” That’s all I’m doing.
So where do you see yourself in the next few years? More albums?
The truth is the way that things are happening for me now, I can’t really predict that. I’m on a journey, which I realise
now. I had so much faith in the music before but I was making no money; I didn’t even understand why I was doing it.
Everyone had moved ahead people were buying houses, buying cars, getting married, having babies and nothing was happening
for me. And I stuck with it, and all of a sudden, certain things are starting to pop up now and that’s just given me
strength to know that what I’m doing is correct. I didn’t know why I held on for so long but obviously my inner body or
something knew - yeah, take a left here, take a right here, you’ll be aright. So to really say what is going to happen in
five years - I’d be cheating myself.
So do you still want that settled down, family and kids thing?
I want it now. I don’t have children but I got ten godchildren.
A lot of good friends then?
Yeah, a lot of friends that are like, “Yeah put him with the rich guy, I want a rich godfather! For my child, it’s going
to be you!” Some of my godchildren are in a bit of a quandary right now; they are confused because they are seeing me on
television. One of my godsons, Micah, was like, “What is Ben doing? Oh, my god, Ben is on TV!” He was properly
perplexed and I haven’t seen him yet. That’s freaking him out a little bit; they don’t understand how it works. It’s
funny though - I think it’s funny.
So you’re hoping for that for yourself?
What, kids? Oh yeah, I love kids, I just need to love everything else that comes with it.
What do you mean, like a wife?
Ah! That’s the hard bit.
Quite a lot of your songs are about relationships.
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s real. It’s a big portion of my life. My thing is not to be ‘keep it real’, it’s to be ‘keep
it relevant’. You got to be relevant to what you are doing: you can’t be a stockbroker and talk about being broke, unless
you are a broke stockbroker which means you are fucking up! But definitely, I got a lot of girlfriends. I know a lot of
women, so I suppose with regards to talking about songs about girls, one thing I try and do that probably makes me a bit
different is I try and talk from the perspective that women and men will be listening. I’m not rapping for guys, I’m not
rapping like, “Yeah, I’m rapping, cos I’m the harshest, so yeah, get me, respect me!” You know, I’m bored of that!
You’re more like, telling a tale?
Telling a tale is good. But one of the things for me is that I’m not trying to soften what I’m doing or nothing but what
I’m trying to do is say, "look, my
perspective is everybody listens to my music, so let me rap from that perspective and let me hope that it’s interesting,
if it’s not, it’s not!" I have still done shows where girls are like, “Mmm...what am I doing here?” It’s like, well, you
know, what can I do?
I guess you got to accept not all are into the music, maybe it’s nothing personal?
Yeah, some people like being in clubs though and like their drinking, oh boy! But I think for me though, musically, I’m
just trying to be relevant and I’m just coming from a people perspective rather than a boys club perspective.
You recently did Oh U Want More? with Roots Manuva. Are there any other UK artists you’d like to work with?
To be honest, I’m thinking from the perspective of I’d like to work with more artists, not necessarily UK artists.
Ok, or American, German, Portuguese, Tanzanian?
Yeah, anyone. I haven’t worked with a Tanzanian yet, I’m working on that. Yeah, just cool people.
No one in particular?
No, there are no higher echelons. To be honest, there are certain people I really check for musically but there is a
different line between you actually admiring someone’s work and them actually doing a song with you that makes sense.
I have to sit down and put on the producer hat now, and rapping with Andre from Outkast would be great, or Big Boi, or
both of them, I don’t mind! But I don’t know exactly where I’d fit in there in the video. What do you expect me to wear,
a green wig? Outkast are great, for me Outkast are people to watch.
I would compare you to Outkast in some ways, in terms of the funkier soul sound.
You know what, that’s great. That’s probably just because everyone here is so, ‘huh, huh, huh’ if everyone was a bit
more like, ‘woo, woo, woo’.
You may get the problem of people asking "Is it really hip hop? Is it soul? Is it funk?" Outkast have definitely had
that problem too.
Yeah, people don’t always get it. The thing with Outkast that makes them special to me, as a hip hop artist who listens
to hip hop and other music, is that they keep reminding me of what hip hop is supposed to be. The artist is supposed to
make the changes. So a lot of people might be like, “Outkast? I’m not sure if I like that, I'm not sure its hip hop.”
Don’t worry, if you are not sure that it’s hip hop, its cool. You are not supposed to know, but the artist is supposed to
know and the artist is supposed to make the music. No-one told Bambaataa to start playing certain records - his b-boys
were probably like, “I don’t know about him scratching that Shadows record, I don’t know bruv, I don’t know if I like
that.” Your boys beside you aren’t going to know, it’s what you do. You know Marvin Gaye was probably doing his songs and
people were like, "I don’t know if I like you singing up there bruv, and your name is Gaye too, so you’re kind of
suffering bruv, I don’t know!”
So what I'm saying is that Outkast is the clearest example of what hip hop is supposed to be: the artists set the
parameters. If you don’t get it then you might not really understand what hip hop is about. You are supposed to set the
parameters. Public Enemy didn’t wait for anyone to say, “Oh, you can be radical now, it’s ok”. They came with Bring The
Noise and we had to get to like it. A Tribe Called Quest came with their music, out of nowhere, and we had to get to like it
because they set the parameters, and right now when you look at people who are able to sell records to everybody and
everyone is like, “Oh this is amazing, I can’t deny this record is great.” Outkast have done that and that is what hip hop
is capable of doing at all times - it’s capable of crossing over and making a record that everyone is like, “I don’t like
rap music, but I like this, ahhh, I don’t know why!” That’s hip hop, it does that. Don’t Scandalise Mine for
example, no one saw a video for that record but you know it. That’s a tune you can play anywhere as a DJ, you know you
got to have that in your box if you’re trying to rock the party. That’s music, goddamn it!
How is Upwards different from Awkward?
When I was recording Awkward, the album, I was kind of just coming out of this cocoon of not being sure of what I
had been doing for the past four or five years. Obviously you know you are rapping, you’re getting up on the mic and
doing shows, travelling, recording, doing bits and bobs, but its not all necessarily picking up at the speed that you’d
like. You are kind of sluggishly dying slowly whilst doing what you love, but it is not as good as it should be.
When I did Awkward, I was kind of coming from that mentality, you know. I felt awkward because I saw this kind of
group thing going on when most rappers, most artists were acting in a particular way like, “this is what’s cool, this is
what’s not cool” and I just felt different from that. I remember a period when everyone was like, “freestyle, freestyle!”
I just felt like, I’ve seen really good freestyle and I’ve seen normal freestyle and I cant judge an MC by what they are
able to make up on the spot. I was seeing that everyone was kind of following; there was a lot of kind of sheep and
bandwagon-type business going on. Like, when radio DJs in America were doing things like getting artists to come on and do
a freestyle, that’s when the UK DJs were doing it; same with freestyles on stage. Whatever people were doing in America
or wherever, that’s when we would do it. There was an onslaught then of rappers with American accents, it was amazing,
I was one of them! What I’m trying to say is, basically I felt really cocooned, and I just couldn’t get with it anymore.
It was like we just weren’t growing up, and hip hop-wise people weren’t ready to graduate and say, “You know what, I tell
you what happens in hip hop from now on: I’m going to do something that you’re going to watch and wonder how I did it.”
People aren’t confident enough?
That’s basically what I’m saying, and when I did Awkward I was kind of in-between two worlds of trying to please that
audience but also trying to step away because I wasn’t feeling it. You know, I’d have arguments with my friends who were
radio DJ’s all the time and I’d be like, “You know what, I’m not feeling your show. It’s just boring to me, you’re just
doing what American people do: waiting for an American artist to come over, to basically lick their faces, like a dog!
Let’s do something different.” So when I did Awkward I was coming from that perspective of me being awkward and saying,
“No, I’m not doing all that shit, I’m not going to do it like that. I’m not going to do the whole posse cut thing all the
time, I’m not going to do, ok, name check in your area, I’m not going to do the whole rap about how bad I am, how wicked
I am.” That’s why I did songs like Front Free, and all that. I thought, you know, that don’t make me a man, it
doesn’t make me any more a man, or any less a man and I think some people actually feel that they have asserted their
manhood by being like yeah, “You can’t fuck with me!”
A lot of people feel like that and I just felt like I didn’t need to do that anymore. I’ve done it before; I’ve done my
battle rapping MC days and moved on, as you are supposed to. When I did Awkward that’s where I was coming
from, and when I did that I was a bit nervous as well, I wasn’t sure if people would check for the change. As it happens,
it was kind of a breakthrough album for me. So when I did the new album I was like, “Oh! Oh, you like this? Oh, ok then,
let’s really study what we are doing. Ok, let’s get it right, Woah! I’m going to do it like this now, how d’ya like that?
I’m going to do it like that, have a bit of that.” That’s what it was - Upwards is a man standing up. Awkward
is kind of me standing next to a car hoping that I’d get a ride, Upwards is me driving past someone trying to get
a lift.
In the photo on the cover of Upwards, you do look very proud.
Yeah, I’m like "yeah, goddamn it, Sunday best clothing"! There is a whole bunch of things going on with the cover. The
reason why we did it like that is because I didn’t want to do this whole ‘in the hood, sitting down trying to be dirty,
grimy’. I come from a culture where people dress up on Sundays and go to church. Isn’t this your best work? I want to
take this home to my mum and say, “Look, it was worth having me, look at that, look at your son, he’s looking good isn’t
he? Looking good for your money, Mummy!!” That’s how I feel about what I’m doing, whereas when I was younger it was like
this little thing on the side. That’s how we feel about hip hop: the real world is our parents when we go home but then
we kind of slip into this side situation in our bedrooms, and then we go out and we’re like, “Yeah, I’m hip hop now!”
It’s like, that’s not how I have to feel anymore. So when I was doing the album I’m thinking, right, I got nieces and
nephews that are sitting on my lap playing with the CD saying, “That’s you uncle, that’s you!” When they grow up they’re
going to remember that, remember thinking, “Oh, that’s Uncle Ben”. That’s what I do and I can’t be ashamed of it anymore.
So what are your top five records then, ones that never leave your box?
Let me think...records that would never leave my DJ box...classic album: Don Blackman, that’s a classic album, there is only
one album. Roy Ayers, Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear, Kate Bush's Army Dreamers. Oh, and Soul II Soul,
special 12" - Keep on Moving on one side and Fairplay on the other.
Good selection, I’d hire you for my party if you weren’t too expensive!
Thank you! Yeah, I don’t come cheap.
Thank you very much. I hope you enjoy tonight.
Yeah, I’m going to enjoy the show! Thanks.
 Note 1: This interview originally took place on 16 April
2004 as part of the Stylus Science radio show on
Bristol University student radio (www.burstradio.org.uk). Ty was due to perform in concert later that evening.
Thanks to Sarah and the crew for giving permission to use it!
Note 2: Ty is curently on tour. Check his website for details of where you can catch him.
RELATED LINKS:
Ty - official website
Big Dada - Ty's record label
Buy Upwards at Amazon
UK
(CD /
Vinyl)
| US (CD /
Vinyl)
Buy Awkward at Amazon
UK
(CD)
| US (CD)
PUBLISHED: Monday 17 May 2004
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::: RELATED LINKS
Ty - official website
Big Dada - Ty's record label
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