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Def Tex
interview 0046 added 12.02.01 words Riqu
Norwich can best be described as being like an island of terraced housing and churches surrounded by a vast ocean of arable land, loosely connected to the outside world by a quantity of A roads and a crumbling rail-service. Norwich has always been considered a 'nice' city, the crime rate is well below the national average, house prices are relatively cheap and it's less than an hours car journey from some beautiful coastlines. Consequently, Norwich is definitely not the first city you'd think of as being the home to one of the UK's most respected and longest serving veterans of Hip Hop. However, we all know that Tim Westwood's pop-dukes used to hang around this hood, 'clockin' bibles and wetting babies' heads. The current poet laureate himself, Andrew Motion, has got a crib here and can be found 'chilling' with his boys in any number of local pubs. So then, it really doesn't come as much of a surprise that a Hip Hop crew from Norwich has managed to forge a reputation for releasing tightly produced tracks which have forced the rest of the Hip Hop nation to lift up their heads and look in the direction of the east. They were the ones that brought us the sublime 'Synchronized' E.P, the cryptic 'Poetic Speech Techniques' and the wonderfully weird Instrumental E.P called 'Tutorial Sessions' (which I picked up many moons ago in Bristol).
I agree to meet 'Def Tex' in a city centre club that I was once refused entry to because I was sporting trainers. It's the kind of club wherein shiny 'Burton' shirts and jeans from 'Next' are worn proudly and where on a Saturday night, the girls glass each other while applying their lip-gloss. I enter the building with trepidation and purchase a pint before I notice the blonde headed figure of Emcee 'Chrome' sitting in the corner. I recognize Chrome as the skinny chap that I always see on stage at rap jams in Norwich, either with a mic in his mouth or cross-fader in his hand. I introduce myself and he explains that DJ 'Sure D' and producer 'R-key' are otherwise engaged and apologizes on their behalf. Anthropologist soon joins us; he strides in smiling through a thick beard and shakes my hand (I can't help but notice the huge gap in his teeth).
I take sip of my pint, press record on my Dictaphone and get down to the nitty-gritty…
I've never had a problem with white rappers and b-boys but back in the day Hip Hop was always associated with Black American culture, UK Hip Hop with Black urban 'Tower-block' culture, so when you cats first started out in the late eighties and early nineties as an all white crew from Norwich how on earth did you think you would fit in? What were your first experiences?
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[Chrome] Before we met up with Anthropologist, Def-Tex was me, my Brother 'R-Key' and Sure D on the decks and our first experience of London Hip Hop was in 1988, I was 13. It was at this competition held at the 'Fridge' in Brixton and literally we were the only white people in there apart from Westwood who was one of the judges. We got through the first heat, went back a couple of weeks later for the final and won.
[Anthropologist] You didn't put in the part about being laughed at and spat at!
[Chrome] Yeah! We went out {onto the stage} and the crowd was like 'wooooooahhh' and spitting at us and soon as we went into it, they kinda roared their approval yunno.
[Anthropologist]At that age we were quite ignorant to the rest of the world. We're older now, we've been around and I think we were lucky that it was never an issue to us and because we built up that resilience against it before we even came up against it, knowing about the issue of being white, that we didn't really care yunno. Its got to the point where we love our music and it doesn't really matter to us if people don't like our music because of our colour that's not an indictment of our colour that more of an indictment of peoples opinions. These days it's never a question of colour more a 'Norwich' thing.
It makes me laugh half the time when there are still people bringing it up and half the time its white people, journalists, who keep bringing it up. For us it's not an issue, only an issue for the journalists.
In what positive ways do you think British Hip Hop has developed over the past decade?
[Chrome] It's got more confident. I think the accent was always a problem.
[Anthropologist] It's got its own personality now.
[Chrome] I know a lot of groups like Gunshot and Blue Eyes, they were all going over to Germany and were like " You gotta go over to Germany, you gotta go over to France, that's where its at, they love UK Hip Hop ". At that time nothing was really going on in the UK, everyone was still making the music but no one was actually getting any respect. Now UK Hip Hop is starting to come back, people are starting to appreciate it, groups are on tours and people are getting into UK Hip Hop a lot more now.
[Anthropologist] We were in Holland at the weekend, everyone was like really into the American thing. They didn't really know the UK Scene but they had this view that the UK Hip Hop scene was so healthy, almost on a par with the US scene or the French and when we were saying that we don't actually shift a lot of records, a lot of people couldn't quite believe it because they have got this view that the UK Scene is really kicking.
[Chrome] It's definitely got to the point where we've got our own sound now. A lot of groups over here don't try to sound like your typical US group.
[Anthropologist] Blade and Mark B are getting shit hot reviews in the Guardian, the mainstream press are picking up on it which has gotta be good thing and there is a lot of chatter from the press about the 'rejuvenation' of the UK Hip Hop scene.
A personal opinion of mine is that the growth of British Dance music - House, Drum and Bass, Garage – has had a detrimental effect on UK Hip Hop in that people who started out making Hip Hop are now creating music that is more profitable and radio-friendly.
[Anthropologist] Well, a lot of people have switched, people like Komanche-Sly from Hijack are now doing Garage stuff. The growth of dance music has been good because its set a standard. It's got its respect because of its individuality, like Jungle, which is purely British.
[Chrome] That's why a lot of people switched. UK Hip Hop has got to reach a certain standard before it can make a name for itself. Since the confidence has been there the hard work has started to pay off. British dance music has set a standard whether you like it or not. With so many UK groups perhaps wanting to sound like the US, at the end of the day the average Joe Public doesn't want to hear that as they want something British. So many of my friends got into Jungle rather than staying with UK Hip Hop and as soon as Jungle faded out they got into Garage. Well, you can't keep doing that. We're into music full stop.
Back in the day, I'd go to a rap jam and find that the DJ would only spin US tracks which I always felt had something to do with the poor quality of UK tracks and maybe that the UK stuff wasn't 'rap jam friendly' if you know what I mean, do you think that has changed?
[Anthropologist] There was never a problem with the ideas, it was the quality of the production and the engineering. UK tracks were not good enough to play out on a big sound system unlike the Americans who have the bass and the EQ. British stuff sounded dingy by comparison but it wasn't the quality of the music that let it down. We didn't have the recording experience like the Americans who have had the bright, 'finished' music.
[Chrome] They had the engineers basically, like Bob Power who did all the 'A Tribe called Quest' Stuff.
[Anthropologist] We've been working with this engineer guy Jamie Finch, who does a lot of Ninja Stuff. He just gets better and better because he has trained his ears to listen to Hip Hop.
[Chrome] Nowadays, I still like to pull out all my old UK Hip Hop records, I'll play them out, I love it.
[Anthropologist] We were in France, one of the Numbskulls was Djing, Joe the Surgeon, and he was like dropping Hardnoise and it fucking rocked. There were a few tunes back then, all the Hardnoise tunes were really well produced
[Chrome] They were hard-hitting club tunes. If they were released now they'd be classed as breakbeat.
Who are your UK and US influences?
[Anthropologist] America. Has to be the 'Freestyle Fellowship'.
[Chrome] Definitely!
[Anthropologist] Just their overall outlook on their music.
[Chrome] Going back to 91/92 when their album came out, not the first but the second album, Anthropologist and me were like " Lyrically, How are these guys doing that?" Yunno, they were amazing.
Who do you rate from Blighty then?
[Chrome] MC Mello without a doubt.
[Anthropologist] Rodney P and Bionic. I was always a fan of London Posse. Lyrically, 'TLP1' from Hardnoise. I don't know what ever happened to him but 'Mice in the presence of a Lion' is one of my favorite UK Hip Hop tracks and I wish TLP1 would come back.
I had a recent discussion with a UK emcee who stated that he wouldn't sign for either 'Mo-wax' or 'Ninja-tune' as he felt they didn't represent the UK Hip Hop scene. What are you comments concerning either of those labels?
[Anthropologist] Its funny you should say that as I was talking to Johnny from 'Dynamic Syncopation' (we're doing a tune for their album) who was saying that so many people give them a hard time about being on Ninja-tune but if you look at Ninja over the past couple of years they have put out more UK tunes that any other label. Its just because they do other stuff as well that people don't look at them seriously. Ninja love their Hip Hop and put more money into UK Hip Hop than anybody else. They've got 'Roots Manuva' and 'Ty' amongst others; they've been behind UK Hip Hop all the way which I think is really cool. Ninja have the backing and an independent image for music. Anyone who doesn't recognize that is a bit silly.
[Chrome] It concerns the whole confusion between 'Trip-Hop' and 'Hip Hop' when Pete Tong or whoever played a record and said it was Trip Hop; well, really what is 'Trip Hop'. Go back to say the Jungle Brother's 'Sounds of Safari' record. Is that 'Trip Hop' or 'Hip Hop'?
Its 'Hip-Hop'
[Chrome] Yet if that track were released today it would be categorized as 'Trip-Hop'.
[Anthropologist] People are too busy looking at the Blueprint. They have to realize that its down to the individual artist to categorize their own music. Hip Hop was always supposed to be a progressive form of music.
[Chrome] We've been categorized as Trip-Hop. Well no, we're just Hip Hop.
[Anthropologist] People seem to have forgotten what the word 'Fresh' means. When we say 'Fresh', we don't mean 'Good', we mean something new, something cutting edge. Hip Hop to me represents showing your feelings, your emotions through music.
How do the four of you get along in the studio?
[Anthropologist] Its difficult. A lot of tracks fall by the wayside. We all have an input from day one; we're all coming up with samples and beats.
[Chrome] Only the three of us collect records and have for a long time, Anthropologist has got so many records and he comes up with these little breaks and we take them to R-Key so he's always pretty much spoilt for choice with samples. Which is a bonus as no matter how many albums or how many records we produce there is always new material to work on.
[Anthropologist] We checked our library a while ago and we were like " where the fuck is that sample from ". R-Keys like " Well, you gave it to me " and we can never remember where from.
Are you able to criticize each other's lyrics or beats constructively? Like say, can you imagine Method Man saying to Raekwon "Yo! Rae that line about the Tommy Hill fly shit was crazy whack son!!"
[Anthropologist] We do sometimes.
[Chrome] We're quite honest.
[Anthropologist] Probably me more than Chrome.
[Chrome] We're both respectful of each other's lyrics at the same time. When Anthropologist began rapping it was a bonus for me as he was someone to feed off and it was inspirational to have a sparring partner. Whenever he came out with an amazing freestyle, I'd be thinking that I'd have to go one better.
[Anthropologist] It's all about feeding off each other and there is a lot of honesty. We've always tried to maintain a level of honesty, not to the point of being insulting but….
[Chrome] …make our point clear.
[Anthropologist] We need to push each other along.
What sort of equipment are you using?
[Chrome] We were originally using an Atari ST. All of our early E.Ps, we had seven releases on 'Soundclash' records, they were all produced on C-Lab on an Atari ST, and Akai S1000 and a Yamaha DX7. All of our new stuff is produced using Cubase and Fruity Loops. Our producer, R-Key, he's basically going mad with the Cubase, he's loving it, learning all these new little things and we're all like 'wow, that's amazing'.
I lived here in Norwich for three years now and it appears to me that no rap related jam or concert happens without some degree of 'Def-Tex' promotion or performance. Would you agree?
[Anthropologist] We're behind most of the Hip Hop events in Norwich.
[Chrome] Ever since the early 1990's, we've been promoting or putting on shows. It's quite sad really that there aren't loads of groups and promoters putting on shows. I'd prefer it if there were.
[Anthropologist] Its horrible that we're the only ones in Norwich putting out Hip Hop records.
What is the best night you've promoted in Norwich?
[Chrome] Kool Herc. As far as legends go, Kool Herc was the moment. He was amazing, the whole place was rammed and we had to turn away about fifty people. My favorite jam overall was 'Jurassic Five' before they were really big yunno. They were on a tiny stage but they rocked. Way back in the day we've had Epmd, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, ATCQ and Ice T. Big, big names have passed by.
Would you ever consider moving to a bigger city in an attempt to advance your Hip Hop Careers?
[Anthropologist] I lived in London for six years. I've only recently moved back to Norwich to do the album.
[Chrome] The idea was that when Anthropologist moved to London, we were all going to move with him.
[Anthropologist] To be honest, I must admit that I do get a bit pissed off with being in Norwich, it's too limiting.
What is going to be happening with Def-Tex over the next twelve months?
[Anthropologist] The album is due for a March release. We're hoping to have plenty of guest appearances by the likes of 'Ty', 'Cappo', 'Juice Aleem', DJ Plus One, The Numbskulls and The Aspects. There is going to be a lot of people on it and hopefully the album will be pretty diverse. I've also started my own label, 'Monkey Face Records'; we've got a release for January 2001. Hopefully a UK Tour and a European Tour. Basically the start of the year is going is pretty busy for us and hopefully onwards and upwards.
[Chrome] We've reached to stage where we've been going for so long and we've just got a lot of confidence, so many people are 'bigging' us up.
[Anthropologist] We're now a force to be reckoned with.
...A few weeks later I bump into DJ Sure-D in a basement second-hand record shop. I introduce myself and the soft-spoken DJ, who I've seen on innumerable occasions spinning Hip Hop, Funk, Latin and Drum n Bass, talks proudly of Def-Tex's achievements and future plans.
There is a sign just outside Norwich, which reads 'Norwich – A Fine City', and perhaps a 'Fine bunch of lads' is how I would describe Def-Tex. Amiable, intelligent, ambitious and resolutely true to UK Hip Hop, like Blade, Def-Tex represent.
- Riqu
The Def-Tex album will be released around May on Son Records. We'll be chatting to them again once the album is near release to find out exactly what they've recorded.
A preview snippet of a new track "Sing Sad Songs" will be available for download on sonrecords.com next week.
 
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