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In a small top floor office in Brixton, big things are agwannin. This is the nerve centre for one of the most known unknown crews in the UK, the PDC, and at the desk in the centre of the room sits the Bossman himself, CEO and artist, JaJa.
I scan the walls as I wait for him to check his email. Every inch is covered in posters and fliers promoting the group. There are professional photographs; plastic sealed CDs and DVDs stacked up on the table. I realise already that Poverty Driven Children is one crew who mean business. But what business exactly? A final, decisive tap of the enter key signals my chance to find out…
PDC is a Street Movement. We are guys from local council estates around London and we are trying to create a new movement of Street music. We don’t like Urban. Most of us are just average guys. Prison, unemployment; normal stuff that guys go through, I would think. And that’s what PDC is about really, that’s where we’re coming from. And we’re trying to change the lifestyle that we’re living. Trying to go from bad to good.
Yeah we’re not just going on the music, we try to help people who don’t make music. We’ve got a hairdressers and a barbers, and a music shop opening……clothes shop. And they all go under the same name, the letters PDC, so our hairdressers is called Pristine Designer Cuts and so on.
We had a tune called Fallen Soldiers and a tune called Pray Days Change, they was ok. They were the first videos we had done, so at the time they were cool. Budget, budget stuff. But it made a big impact. What we did was new so it shocked a lot of people. The video was very controversial cos the Fallen Soldiers one was about our friend that died, so we was like mentioning real names and all that.
Yeah it was well received, yeah. It was well well received. The Police – they didn’t like it. They didn’t like it at all.
It’s just our past, innit? We’re very well known to the Police. They was phoning a lot of radio stations, saying they shouldn’t play our stuff. But regardless we just carried on doing our thing anyway. So it didn’t bother none of us really.
I’ve got my album coming out, probably end of this year, so I’ve got two singles coming out, one in July, one probably August. So they should be on, like, MTV, Channel U.
They perceive us as what they see. We’re a street crew – so some people might think we’re trying to glamorise guns and drugs and a bad lifestyle. But we’re not glamorising it, we just talk about our experiences. So what they think of us we don’t…..we don’t really care. If I keep watching what people are thinking of us then we won’t get nowhere. Right now we’re misunderstood. When something new comes out, no one likes it anyway. When money starts coming into it, that’s when everyone starts to like it.
Yeah, sometimes what we’re saying is a bit forward, a bit harsh. But that’s our image, that’s what we do. But they’re getting used to it so they’re starting to like us now. But we’ll wait and see what happens……..
It’s the same for everyone. The UK is a slow moving industry. It takes long for everyone to catch onto things. Whether you’re a singer, a rapper, it doesn’t matter, it’s still a slow process. There’s not a lot of money in the industry. You don’t go anywhere unless you do it by yourself.
It’s good, it’s good. It’s getting much better. A lot of people are taking it more seriously, and putting much more work into it. I like some of the artists now, they’re starting to do nice songs, and they’re getting a better audience, so, the UK industry is definitely on the up rise. Definitely.
We’re changing the whole music scene in the UK. We’re trying to bring a new vibe to the UK, a new understanding of the street life. There is a different vibe that people aren’t connecting with that’s out there. I’m talking about more Hip Hop shows on TV, there needs to be more people making films, documentaries, DVD’s. There’s a market out there for all those things, but no one is doing it. That’s what we’re trying to bring forward, and we’re gonna do it.
Yeah, we’re creating a whole new industry, that’s why we call it Street music.
Oh, I don’t like Urban. Cos these mainstream people they take music from the streets and change it into something it’s not; give it that kinda Poppy style. They rip the artists off. It’s not portraying the people it’s supposed to be portraying. The people they’re portraying, the way they dress, and everything, they’re not really those people. Those Urban people dress how the Street people dress. But they don’t live how we live – they don’t come from council estates, nothing like that. Someone from a posh area could come on TV talking about guns and it’d be allowed, but if I did it, they’d be like, no way, ban him, he can’t say that. So that’s why I don’t like Urban. The Urban industry is like a big fake industry.
Yeah, right now we’re trying to get the Street music industry onto a bigger level. Then from there we wanna go into, like, making films…..I would like to make a film…..portraying our lifestyle as well. So that’s something for the future. That’s what we need though, some millionaires from the streets, so we can start putting back into it. Start opening shops, franchises, all that, to make the industry even bigger. Right now everyone’s broke, and you can’t really do nothing when you’re broke. So in five years time, ten years time, I hope to have a nice little Street music empire…..
Yeah, that’s where we’re going to, that direction.
Support Street music! You need to support artists in the UK. Give the UK people a chance. Take time out to listen to what they’re saying, then [you’ll] start getting a better idea of the music that’s out here. A lot of people don’t give it a chance, they don’t support it, buy the DVD’s, nothing. You need to start supporting UK artists a bit more.
P.D.C. on myspace - contains links to individual artists myspace pages
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© ukhh.com 2006
P.D.C. Interview
The sound is just really Street. We make our music going off our everyday lifestyle, things that inspire us on the streets, things that we go through, we write about. Anything from breaking up with our girlfriends to being stressed out, maybe signing on….
Yeah. The mainstream audience don’t understand it as yet, but they will do soon. As we touch the tone down a little bit, they’ll probably start to understand it…..
Yeah. And it’s like they try to steal something, run away with it, and create a whole new thing with it. They can have it if they want. We’re creating something new.
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