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  Foreign Beggars Interview
interview 0389 added 18.04.06 words: Fierce Freas
technical:
QED
On Friday 24th March Foreign Beggars stopped by Derby to do a
show at the city’s only live Hip Hop night, Ill Behaviour, and
were supported by local talent Alex blood.
The lads were short of a producer, but were accompanied by
affiliate artist Skrein, who did a solo set leading up to the
full show. After a gruelling and somewhat disparate soundcheck,
I managed to grab the guys backstage just as Pav was waking up,
and we had an entertaining chat about amateur porn, drug
smuggling and smoking faeces – none of which appears here, but
we did also chat about this…
Aside from
the last Ill Behaviour show you did, has anybody been to Derby
before?
 Shlomo: Yeah, we’ve been
here loads of times…
What are
you saying about Derby?
Vulgatron: Derby’s heavy
man.
All: FIVE LAMPS…
Vulgatron: And don’t test McTurk and Nads, man.
Shlomo: Yeah Five Lamps, and all the On The On crew, they’re
great man…
Vulgatron: Every time we come up north, Derby’s like a safe
haven, we come and chill out in Derby for the day; we come and
hang out at the Five Lamps.
You did a
show in Southampton last night; you’ve got this tonight –
anything tomorrow?
Vulgatron: After this
show we’re gonna chill for a couple of hours, then we’ve got to
drive to Luton – we’re playing in Geneva tomorrow.
What’s the
average week like for a Beggar?
Vulgatron: Fucking random.
Nonames: There’s no average week at all.
Vulgatron: There’ll be a certain week where we don’t go home at
all because we’re on the road. We end up doing about 2/3 shows a
week, so we get back into town pretty tired, but there’s a lot
of studio work to do, since we run our own label (Dented
Records), there’s a lot of projects on the go. It’s pretty much
non-stop, and plus we need to party, so it’s generally pretty
crazy.
How much
do you guys party?
Vulgatron: Every day.
Metropolis: We’re always the last people to leave, get the most
drunk, cause the most racket, steal the most phones…
You guys
come from all over the place – not just in terms of music but
also in terms of geography and culture – do you ever feel that
there isn’t just one place that is home?
Vulgatron: Yeah, I would
say Dubai is home in a certain sense because that’s where my
parents are at…
Metropolis: London is pretty much home at the moment…
Vulgatron: We’ve found that we have to be based in London
because it’s such a central place, there’s so much going on
there, you never know who you’re going to bump into. There’s a
lot of action, there’s a lot of competition – it’s good to be in
a real competitive environment. It’s good that it’s
over-saturated because it gives you a real idea of what your
competition is. There’s so much going on – I left Dubai because
there wasn’t really that much going on there.
"...I
don’t eat nothing without bacon and eggs in it. Nothing..."
Do you
ever feel that you can’t settle down into a comfortable sound,
that you’re always seeking to vary your sound?
Metropolis: In different
ways; I think you get influenced by whatever you listen to, and
it’s really good to have a broad understanding of music. I
definitely love doing Hip Hop, but I’m also interested in
investigating some other forms of music, like Soul music and
Jazz music.
How much
of a personal sacrifice do you have to make for your business?
 Vulgatron: Shlo’s the
best – he makes the most sacrifices out of all of us, I’d say
generally in terms of not going to the party, not taking that
thing, not staying in bed but getting up and doing shit. But I’m
on it full-time, it’s kind of cool cause I love it so it’s a
natural priority. I’m a pretty social person, but now with
travelling around so much that social life definitely comes
second. It’s a 24hr operation.
Nonames: A lot of things get sacrificed though – normality, for
one. Normal hours don’t apply.
Skrein: When you’re talking to friends, they’re all on some
nine-to-five routine. There’s no routine in my life.
Vulgatron: I’m pretty impulsive in the way I do things; I’m a
natural procrastinator so as soon as I get the intuition I have
to deal with it there and then.
You’re
growing into a very internationally successful group, especially
in terms of Europe –
Vulgatron: I think that’s
because we’re a really sexy bunch, we’ve got a lot of sex
appeal…
Shlomo: Except James…
What do
you think about breaking into the American market?
Shlomo: We went to
Canada, I think they’re all a bit frustrated with the Hip Hop
that they’re hearing out of the states, and their homegrown Hip
Hop I don’t think is that developed. When we got there, there
was already an interest in what we’re doing because they’d heard
about Grime, so it was going to sound different, and all we had
to do was convert that into smashing up the show, and I think it
went down really well.
Vulgatron: I think you can literally decide how much you want to
break: you have formulas to make the right kind of tracks, and
have the right promotion strategy, look at the right market,
it’s almost regimented, like “if I put this much money in and
this much effort, this is what’s going to come out”, you can
just gauge that for your project.
People are starting to get interested, especially with this
Myspace crazy business – since we got onto Myspace I’ve
connected with so many people over the world – there’s gonna be
a lot of cross-fertilisation.
If you
could liken yourselves to a classic rock band, which one would
it be?
Vulgatron: Skid Row. The
way they made a name: they went to a new town, found a venue,
stayed there for 2 days, made flyers, promoted the whole thing,
spoke to everyone in town, rammed out a gig, sold all their
merchandise – next town, did the same thing.
"...What
about trifle?..."
At
present, it’s very difficult to make a living in UK Hip Hop,
because of lack of investment, which means lack of coverage and
lack of interest. Some people say it’s a good thing because
artists aren’t under commercial pressure in their music, but
some say it’s bad because people aren’t getting rewarded what
they’re worth. Where do you think the balance lies?
Vulgatron: Nowadays it’s
up to the artist to determine their own destiny, you can’t just
sit back and be an artist. People can’t be bothered to promote
themselves properly. You need to take the time to write the
press release, you need to do the research…
Shlomo: I don’t think it’s harder to make a living out of Hip
Hop over here. It’s hard to make a living out of music in
America too. People feel like they’re hard done to in this
country all the time but it’s time people stopped whinging and
got on with it.
Nonames: It’s an attitude thing. It’s going a more independent
route because of the internet: the majors don’t really sign
people anymore. Getting off your arse has never been more
rewarding.
What’s the
Beggars news?
 Vulgatron: We’ve started
working with Casual Records, a label from London – they
initially stepped in as distribution agents, but it seems we’re
gonna be working on a lot of projects together, so they’re
backing us, and things are gonna get bigger.
Nonames: Check out my mixtape Beggar’s Brew, it’s gonna be on
Suspect Packages…
Vulg: Look out for Bukkake Skitrip – all unreleased material.
Skrein: Make sure you look out for Skreintax – a Dr Syntax and
Skrein collaboration project.
Vulgatron: Also Dr Syntax’s Subcultures 12”; also the Dubbledge
mixtape… the new Foreign Beggars album is called Straight Point
Agenda, it’s out in June/July. The new single from that is
called Slow Broiled Ilk; we’ve got a video for that so keep your
eyes peeled. European tour in the summer, and we’re touring in
September time.
Nonames: The Focused Few, the band I’m involved in, have got a
single with Kyza coming out, Skrein’s gonna be on that.
Metropolis solo stuff is coming out soon.
Skrein: We’ve also got a tribute band of midgets – the Beggars
Midgets, they’re gonna be running the tribute band circuit.
What shops
is Let Go in?
Vulgatron: Through Casual
we’ve just got a distribution deal with V2, which is Virgin, so
you can get our stuff in Virgin, HMV, Fop…we’ve got distribution
pretty much everywhere. So no excuses – get out and buy it.
"...NOTHING
MATE..."
Anybody
you want to big up?
Vulgatron: Dark Circle,
Arnik out in Iceland. Big up Seleka, big up Perra.
Shlomo: I wanna big up all the DJs that have been playing our
single – Zane Lowe, Steve Lamacq…
Nonames: Big up Five Lamps, man.
Vulgatron: Yeah big up Amit and the crew…
Shlomo: And Baby J, Yogi, Rukus, Alex Blood, Trinity Crew smash
it.
Nonames: Everyone else in the hip Hop game that’s working
towards building it up…
Vulgatron: Big up Jalporte.
Shlomo: Big up DJ Angelo, BFG, and all of the crew.
Lastly,
anybody you think deserves a ‘fuck you’?
 Skrein: The only fuck you
I’d like to say is to all the negative hip hoppers out there who
think that hip hop’s about going to the jam and screw-facing and
stepping on people’s shoes and not apologising and having no
manners and shit, because hip hop’s about getting rowdy and
having mosh pits but there’s a stale disease spreading through
hip hop where people think they should talk about guns and
negative stuff…
Shlomo: George Bush…
Skrein: Bug promoters…
Vulgatron: Berringer fuck you for making wack sound desks…
Many thanks to the Beggars for agreeing to this discussion
and for the great show they pulled off on the night – they
really are a must-see live act. Check
www.foreignbeggars.com and the boys’ own Myspace pages for
more info. Cheers to Danielle Byrne for the pictures, and
respect to everybody supporting the scene.
-
Fierce Freas
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