Now
early in 2002 here at Free Radical Sounds we start the year with the release
of ‘Nu Shoots Inna Roots’ our first contemporary roots compilation. ‘Nu
Shoots Inna Roots’ features the killer ‘One Bright Day’ from Prince Allah
and The Disciples and also two other tunes bearing the moniker ‘Recorded
and mixed at the Disciples Studio by Russ D’. I recently met with Russ
D to chat about the new album and his latest works.
B:
New album just come out
R: New dub album yeah ‘Backyard Movements Dubwise 2001’. A self release
which is doing all right . There’s also a new vocal album out with Delroy
Dyer called Cry Freedom. A showcase album out on his African Crusader
label. Some of the tracks on that we’ve been playing a lot over the last
few years and certain ones have been going down well with the likes of
Aba Shanti and Iration Steppers. Also with our singer Danny vibes we’ve
approached a company with an album of his stuff which looks promising
we’ve got to wait back and hear from them yet. We’re talking hopefully
a long term - three album deal kinda thing. That should be good for Danny
if that comes across.
B:
Danny Vibes sings a track for Dubwise Productions on our ‘New Shoots Inna
Roots’ album. What’s great about Danny and also another singer Bobo Blackstar
is the quality and rich timbre of their voices. As well as the maturity
of the lyrics from such youthful singers.
R: That was the thing when Danny first came to us. I think he was still
seventeen when we first linked up with him and when people heard his voice
they were saying he sounded like an old man. Also his lyrical content
is very well reasoned and deep for someone that young. He’s matured with
it as well, he’s twenty now. He was really a singer that wanted to sing
lovers and stuff like that and the likes of us and Conscious Sounds who
I think he did his first bits of recording with. We kinda pulled him away
and made him do roots cause that’s what we know more about. I think he
was unsure at first but he went with it. Also we’ve matured together with
the making of the music. Where as before we were putting him on top of
our sound system type of roots now were doing all sorts. There’s a breadth
of reggae music out there and we’re always going to be doing it from a
conscious roots background. But like when you see people like Luciano
and Beres Hammond. You can have tunes that people like myself , Shaka,
Aba Shanti and all the sound systems can play out. Then they do other
tunes that are not for us to play out, but they’re still good tunes. You
have tunes by Luciano like ‘Sweep Over My Soul’ & ‘Ulterior Motive’ and
there wicked tunes. They’re not tunes that we play out but there wicked
wicked tunes. They’re more orthodox reggae tunes, contemporary, what’s
coming from Jamaica. We’re trying to do the same thing and it works better
with singers like Danny who hasn’t had a background in the dub music that
we used to make in the eighties and nineties. With myself I’ve matured
as well in doing that. Making music that fits along side the contemporary
Jamaican music. It’s working well with Danny Vibes and Tony Roots as well.
It suits both of their voices. You also see it with this group The Ras
-ites. You’ve got guys there from sixteen to twenty years old being heavily
promoted by Jetstar. You can see what Jetstar are trying to do with them.
They’re trying to make them approachable for the young people with this
kind of Hip Hop look. They’re trying to make them Britain’s answer to
Morgan Heritage. Jetstar are giving them the push for that which is very
good for a relatively major label to be doing that for a young reggae
band. They can see the potential with doing it with youths rather than
with seasoned veterans. It means there’s more potential for the younger
crowd out there and makes it so that younger people can see that it’s
not an uncool thing to do making this music. It’s not yer old mans music.
There’s guys that are young making and singing it.
B:
So we’ve talked about your recent focus of working with singers in a more
Roots based setting. I remember from myself as a selectors point of view
that it seemed to be quite a leap from the ‘For Those That Understand’
type material to ‘Mankind’ and the first ‘Backyard Movements’ sevens.
R: Yeah there was a definite move of focus. When I did the album ‘Resonation’s
( Cloak & Dagger ). That was where I had taken the hardcore UK Dub Style
and fused it with house elements without it sounding like house. While
at the same time making sure it was still able to played by the likes
of Shaka and Aba - Shanti. After that I just felt I’d taken it personally
as far as I could. I’d done as many flute melodies, bells and strings
parts and all them kind of things, as I wanted to. After I did that there
were a few more good tunes, some of which will come out. Things that I
did with Jah Tubby, certain riddims that he’s liking from five or six
years ago. But you feel for yourself when you’ve done something for ten
years and you feel that you’ve taken it as far as it can get. After that
you’re just going through the motions and as a musician and a producer
making music you’ve gotta forward on. I’d always loved Jamaican music,
always have done. Even when it turned digital and tunes like ‘Tempo’ were
coming out. I was buying tunes then and it didn’t seem like there was
good tunes coming out. Tunes that you could hear down Shaka and stuff
but there was. You just used to have to dig deep for them. They weren’t
in the main frame. You had good singers on them things, but you didn’t
have the most current upcoming singers on them type of things. Maybe one
or two here and there. There were one or two Dance Hall things that were
ruff enough to fit in to being played by the likes of Shaka and that.
But if you went into Dub Vendor you wasn’t hearing what you considered
to be roots. You were hearing Dance Hall & Bashment. There was always
tunes there, you just had to get them to dig away under the counter for
them. Then with labels like Exterminator, who focused on more roots kinda
stuff, by the mid nineties it just lifted for them totally with singers
like Luciano and Sizzla and that vibe. But they mix it up, they don’t
just focus just on the one thing. It seems over here with a lot of the
dub people they just focus on one thing alone and there’s more to reggae
than that.
B:
So pulling it back to the new album, cause what’s interesting is that
when you’re asked about your stuff you immediately start bigging up and
promoting other people. So pulling you back to the Dubwise 2001 album
then. In the past you did the dub thing which progressed to the steppers
and the resonation’s type material. Then onward to launch the Backyard
Movements label which is much more of a vocal roots thing. Now with the
new album would you say that it’s a return back to the dubs ?
R: Well not strictly. It’s dubs but they’re dubs of tunes that mostly
have vocal versions as well. There’s a couple of tunes on there that didn’t
have vocals on them but most of them have. I ain’t got nothing against
dub, I love my dub. When I play out, I’m playing dubs along side the vocal
cuts. If I’m playing a J.A seven inch I wanna make sure I’ve got a version
side as well. We love our dub. Also I know that there’s a crowd of people
out there that like their Steppers so I give them that. But if you check
the album there’s what ? Two Steppers tunes on it ! 
B:
So are the vocal cuts to those dubs. Coming out or been out ?
R: Well the first track is another cut of the Prince Allah : ‘One Bright
Day’ tune. There’s dubs of ‘Feel The Vibes’, ‘Jah Will Deliver’. Also
‘Back Outta War’ which was a tune I put out with Candy Man on seven inch.
So there’s dubs of things that have already been out there. There’s some
other tunes on there which have got dubs in the can at the moment. Whether
they’ll come out in another form I don’t know. I’ve got loads of vocals
and loads of dubs sitting down, it’s hard to put them all out.
B:
So ‘Backyard Movements Dubwise 2001’ has got a new dub of ‘One Bright
Day’ on it. Which as you know is a tune that we licensed from you for
our ‘Nu Shoots Inna Roots Compilation album. Voiced by Prince Allah
R: Yeah, we’ve also got an album by Prince Allah due anytime and that
albums titled after ‘One Bright Day’.
B:
So could you shed some light on Prince Allah’s history ?
R: Allah was one of the original Bobo artists. In his younger days he
joined up with Prince Emanuel in the Bobo camps. We’re talking like back
end of the sixties early seventies. So he did that as a youth and had
sung some tunes under his original name Keith Blake. Very early tunes
which I haven’t even got. He was in the Bobo thing for something like
eight years. Then Bertram Brown the Freedom Sounds producer and old school
friend of his, kept urging him to come out and sing, which he eventually
did. These tunes with Bertram Brown, Freedom Sounds, Tappa Zukie were
extremely Roots -Rasta orientated They were such good tunes as well. Done
down at Freedom Sounds with King Tubbys dubs. Tunes like ‘Great Stone’,
‘Bucket Bottom’ and ‘Daniel’. These were classic roots tunes. ‘Bucket
Bottom’ is probably one of his biggest hits but he’s not one that’s ever
really had a big hit. The rest of them were just quality hard-core underground
roots tunes. After that period during the eighties and most of the nineties
he lived the humble life, did the odd tune. You could probably count the
amount of tunes that he did during that period on your hands. But now
he seems to have started to make a come back again. He’s been touring
around Europe and Africa with a guy called Rootsman - Asher selector from
Switzerland and that’s been going well for him. He played down on the
Ivory Coast and tore it up on certain tunes. It’s good you know, the guys
still got a voice and he’s one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met. Humble,
humble, always ready to smile and keep himself up, you know.
B:
And ‘One Bright Day’ written with Jonah Dan
R : Jonah Dan actually wrote the tune about twenty years ago in his youth.
He brought it out one day and wanted Allah to sing it. Also another tune
that’s coming on the album as well a tune called ‘Leave The City’. Another
wicked wicked tune.
B:
So you and Jonah Dan have been collaborating for quite a long time now.
R: Yeah for a long time, well I’ve known him from the back end of the
eighties and he was also the person that originally linked us up with
‘Sister Rasheda’. She came down to help him with his harmony’s cause he
was really the first guy that I linked up with who wanted to sing. Then
during the sound system days which was really just myself and my brother
he wasn’t really with us then. Then after I gave up the sound system I
was working more strongly with Delroy Dyer doing shows with him and on
the odd occasion with Jonah as well. Then Delroy wanted to pull out of
it through other commitments, work and stuff, so then I brought Jonah
in strong. And we’ve just remained friends ever since.
B:
So since you started back in the days of supplying your dubs exclusively
to Shaka. The scene has grown massively.
R: Well yeah it’s become more over ground. Where as when we initially
approached Shaka. The white influence and the white crowds that eventually
came along to the shows just wasn’t there. The first Shaka dances that
we went to there was me, my brother and maybe three other white people
in them shows. It was mainly black people that went to them things and
they were in deepest darkest area’s in London’s southern territory’s.
When we first went we had no background in sound systems at all. We had
linked up with Shaka and given him a dubplate and all that. He’d invited
us down to a session and we were there with our backs against the walls
kinda thinking "What the fucks gonna happen here". But once the lights
go down the people there were for a reason. To take in the spiritual vibe.
They weren’t there to hassle you, they didn’t take a blind bit of notice
of you. They wanted to skank, they wanted to smoke their spliff. So that
worry wasn’t there. Then you had Manasseh in their corner doing their
thing and obviously because they were white guys and had more of a connection
to the media because of their background. That made it more approachable
and it did become more out in the open. People saw that there’s white
guys actually doing it as well, running sound systems, playing the music.
So then white people then felt safer to go into the fold.
B:
We used to do the chill out room of a big trance night at the Brixton
Fridge. We were playing real deep roots and future dub styles like the
Cloak and Dagger stuff. At first it was weird ‘cause we felt we were playing
to the uninitiated but we ended up really liking it because these were
first time reggae listeners. They were just in there chilling out on their
pills or whatever. They were coming up and saying "What is this music,
we thought Reggae music was just Bob Marley"
R: Well yeah that’s the myth of it all. Most non reggae peoples association
with reggae is Bob Marley or UB40 and maybe that doesn’t say anything
to them at all. Bob Marley made some wicked tunes but they wasn’t really
sound system tunes.
B:
I’d say that in my experience that bringing in those type of people in
those sorts of venues. Using this mad out there hybrid dub style, opened
it up and has made the reggae scene here in the U.K as big as it is now.
Because it wouldn’t be that big, you wouldn’t be getting venue’s like
the one tonight stacked full for Mad Professor gigs if wasn’t for likes
of Russ Disciple, Dougie Wardrop & Nick Manasseh.
R: People have said to us especially with our connection to Shaka that
we helped revitalise it. And yeah maybe we played our part in that, we
wasn’t alone but yeah we played our part. People like us were making fresh
music for the likes of Shaka to play in the dance and maybe that music
had a slightly different edge. Where as them guys themselves were maybe
making the same music that they’d been making for the last ten - fifteen
years.
B:
It probably shook ‘em up
R: It might well have done and we wasn’t alone in that. There were other
people making the music as well and it all kind of gelled together at
the right time.
Soon
after we closed the interview accompanied by Jonah Dan providing live
Nyabingi style percussion. Russ D was back behind mixing console, on stage
this time ripping through some scorching dubplates, pounding riddims and
Disciple exclusives much to the delight of the gathered masses. Later
he was then joined by Earl 16 and courteously acted as riddim selector
for Earls P.A style set. No doubt since this interview was written and
conducted Russ will have laid down even more sweet melodies and heavy
dropping riddims. Lets hope that one day he finds the time, money and
inclination to get the majority of these works out. Shine On
