THE NEXTMEN (London, UK)
Iza ovog britanskog dvojca kojeg čine glazbenici / producenti / DJ-i umjetničkih imena Brad Baloo i Dom Search stoji već pozamašan broj crtica kojima se u glazbenome CV-u mogu pohvaliti. Popularnost su stekli svojim sad već poznatim nastupima na 4 gramofona istovremeno tijekom kojih izvode majstorske remikse, mashupove i bootlege na licu mjesta, najčešće uz verbalnu pratnju MC-a, spajajući raznolike žanrove glazbe (dancehall, drum'n'bass, apstraktni hip-hop, soul, funk, dubstep, indie, leftfield, ambient, pop...) te izvodeći razne turntablism vještine. Započevši svoje stvaralaštvo u hip-hop vodama The Nextmen su 2000. godine izdali svoj prvi album „Amongst the Madness“, a samo par tjedana prije ovog festivala Universal Music Group objavio je njihov četvrti studijski album po redu pod nazivom „Join the dots“, a uvršteni su i u reggae kompilaciju „Blunted in the Backroom“ u izdanju Antidote Recordsa. Na svoja 4 albuma te tijekom brojnih nastupa surađivali su s pozamašnim brojem britanskih, američkih i jamajčanskih glazbenika i grupa, poput Cuttyja Ranksa, Fort Knox Five, Demolition Mana, DJ Yode, MC Wreca, MS Dynamite i Rodney P-a, a osim vlastitih uradaka The Nextmen su sudjelovali u produkciji albuma grupa kao što su Public Enemy, Blackalicious, Groove Armada, Morcheeba, The Pharcyde i Plan B. Zagrebačka publika ovom će ih prigodom imati priliku vidjeti i čuti zajedno s MC-em Yungunom (aka Essa), jednim od vodećih britanskih hip-hop MC-a koji je nedavno objavio pjesmu s Guruom Jazzmatazzom iz Gangstarra , a uskoro i očekuje objavljivanje vlastitog albuma.
WWW.THENEXTMEN.COM
WWW.MYSPACE.COM/THENEXTMEN
VIDEO
DOWNLOAD
The Nextmen - Anxiety mix (2009)
The Nextmen - All The Way live from The Newsroom (2004)
INTERVJU
JSF: First things first – is it true that Brad met Dom when he tried to sell his future production partner a bag of magic mushrooms at college in Cambridge?
Dom: Yes it’s true. Don't be dealing with Brad when it comes to serving up!
Brad: It’s a load of rubbish. Made up by a journalist. I only sold Crack Cocaine and stolen cars..
JSF: When did you start producing and why?
The Nextmen: We were always messing around with beats and samples right from an early age. At the age of 16 we got into sampling with some really basic equipment, simple samplers and eight-track mixers, stuff like that, putting simple tracks together and sussing out how it all worked. We learnt to DJ on old decks that were pretty much antiques and then listened to the djs at the time, people like Jazzy Jeff and Cash money, and listened to them as influences. We also come from really musical families, our fathers were involved in the UK Folk and Jazz scenes and had amazing record collections so we had a very fortunate musical upbringing. We’ve been producing for a very long time now, it’s amazing to think it began that long ago.
JSF: In early days, who inspired you to make beats?
The Nextmen: Quincy Jones, DJ Premier, Toots And The Maytals, Grandmaster Flash, Talking Heads, ATCQ, De La Soul, just to name a few! Inspiration can come from any source, it doesn’t have to be music.
JSF: What about now, who gets you move your body the most?
The Nextmen: We love Commix, Method Man and Redman, The Style Of The Eye, Ms Dynamite, High Contrast, Fat Freddys Drop, it changes every day!
JSF: On the first album you were accused of working with too many American MC's which was kind of compensated on your 2nd album. How do you feel about it now?
The Nextmen: It wasn’t an easy time. We still don’t really know what people were holding against us. The truth is if you’re good enough, we put you on. We’ve never cared about where you’re from. The biggest track on our first album was with TY, a British MC. We took our beats to many a UK artist and got turned away, so there negativity coming our way from MCs that we really wanted to get on. Some just weren’t interested. That’s probably because we’ve always operated outside of the norm when it comes to ‘scenes’, and some vocalists didn’t think that we fitted in with what they wanted to do. The compensation on the second record was not intentional… again if the voice is right we work with it.
JSF: UK hip hop – past, present & future? What do you think of breakthrough of grime artists (such as Dizzee Rascal, Wiley) and grime genre itself? Also, about recent dubstep breakthrough…?
The Nextmen: It’s had a rough ride if you look at it from the viewpoint of mainstream success but has always held its own on a creative level. It’s great now that a lot of UK rap artists are breaking through but the music being made has completely changed. Mostly for the better. It took the UK Hip Hop genre a long time to face up to the realities of radio. The chorus has to be right, the energy in the track has to catch the ear. It’s great now. Some of the artists around have really nailed a sound that will see them having careers for a very long time we hope. Some of the best UK Urban music isn’t commercial at all, and it’s a shame in some respects that more people weren’t aware of it at the time. We respect those guys, Rodney P, London Posse, Hijack, Cash Crew etc. They built the first bricks without even knowing it. The garage genre has spawned some of the most exciting music we’ve heard for years. The UK is the most prolific melting pot in the world. All these cultures living together make for a great starting point, a great space from within which new sounds can emerge. The dubstep phenomenon is just incredible. It reminds us of the path that drum and bass took. The production is just so advanced and the culture that comes with it is like a religion. Rusko, Benga, Caspa, those guys are killing it. It’s very powerful. Heavy dance music directly influenced by house, garage and reggae? Yes please. Grime is another great product of British society, in a lot of ways it became UK Hip Hop in the true sense of the term, meaning that it is the closest thing we have, culturally, to US Hip Hop. Inevitably DubStep with emerge from the underground and there will be a backlash. But we don’t care, we’ve always been about the music, not the genre.
JSF: You are known as performers who play a lot of different types of music. What kind of beats do you find go down best?
Dom: It depends on the context. Being as eclectic as we are is not easy. You have to put people in a place on the dancefloor where they can be receptive to all these different sounds and tempos. It can be confusing for people because they don’t know how to pigeonhole us, they don’t know which box to put us in. That is nice in a way because we don’t go in and out of fashion, but it’s difficult for people to create an image of what we are when there isn’t a descriptive label. To answer the question as simply as possible though, drum and bass probably makes people go more nuts than anything else if you play it at the right time.
Brad: It really depends where you are playing. Crowds in the UK always react well to really heavy bass lines. This is also true of Australian/New Zealand crowds. If you are playing in front of a young crowd they tent to like harder music and sometimes more commercial stuff. we've always loved playing at festivals as people seem to really let go and you can take chances with your tune selection.
JSF: What are your top 5 tunes ever?
The Nextmen:- Source Feat. Candi Staton - You Got The Love
- Bob Marley - Them Belly full
- Pete Rock and CL Smooth - They Reminisce Over You (TROY)
- The Specials - A Message To You
- Jimi Hendrix - If 6 Was 9
JSF: Before producers you were musicians. What kind of musical background you guys have and in which way it enriched your production work as well as live performance?
The Nextmen: We both grew up in musical households. Both of our fathers are musicians and we started playing and performing at a young age. I play the piano and Dom plays the guitar. It has certainly helped our production and writing even though when we started we mainly used loads of samples. We rarely play as a band, although this is something we’d like to develop.
JSF: You've just released 'Lion's Den', a lead single from your new album 'Join the Dots' which was released on 10th of August. There you have teamed-up with Ms Dynamite and Groove Armada's Andy Cato. Does this single reflects an album style in general, and tell me something about your collaboration with artists such as MC Wreck MC Yungun…
The Nextmen: Join the Dots is an extremely eclectic album. The Lion’s Den reflects a growing interest in Dance music but is just one part of what we do. We have covered Hip Hop, Reggae, Soul, House, Electronica and Folk on this record. When we DJ we work mainly with Wrec and Yungun and they act as the ‘hypemen’ for our sets. When we Dj we also get through tons of genres. Join the Dots is probably a good reflection of our DJ sets!
JSF: On the 1st day of Jabba STREET FESTIVAL 09 we are putting up Croatian DMC Championship. What do you think of DJ Championships and how much is turntablism involved into your performance?
The Nextmen: We both started as Hip Hop DJs and used to judge the DMCs in the UK but to be honest, although we have the utmost respect for turntablists, we have moved away from this in our DJing. We still approach everything with a Turntablist attitude but only play a very small amount of Hip Hop and don’t do routines when we play.
We wanna rock the party with a great eclectic mix of music – we like it when girls dance!!
JSF: This is your first gig in Croatia. Can you tell me few things you know about Croatia and do you have any expectations?
The Nextmen: To be honest our knowledge of Croatia is limited. Obviously we know about Goran Ivanisavic from his success @ Wimbledon. We also know you guys have a great national Football team. Apart from that we hear great things about the people, the country and its culture from our friends who have holidayed there.. we’d like to find out more and hope our hosts can help us out!! Cheers!
