Idris Elba's How Clubbing Changed the World Page #6

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Prism perfect

Honey bring it

close to your lips, yes...

The song is not a very radio-friendly

crossover type record.

It's got to be big, I said...

I have the bass track, which is just

a guy on the base for 3? minutes.

You know, live bass.

Do-do-do, do-do-do.

I just heard one little bar,

I was like, "oh!" And then I looped

that bar, and there's your bass.

I just found little vocal snippets,

chopped them up on the sampler,

like she would say something,

I would hit a line and hit a line,

and it's almost like

so you're kind of like making

another melody with the vocals.

Honey bring it close to my

Honey bring it close to my lips,

yeah

Honey bring it close to my

Honey bring it close to my...

Armand Van Helden turned

it into a worldwide smash.

These remixes were so good,

they were so much better

than the original version that it's

completely reinvented

the way that we look at producers,

the way that we look at musicians,

and the way that we kind

of look at music in popular culture.

Pop quiz.

Who invented the art of

club DJing as we know it?

David Mancuso? Grandmaster Flash?

No, think again.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen.

How are you today?

Jimmy Savile did invent

the DJ in the way we know it today.

There's no question.

Jim has fixed it for you...

In 1947, a young ex-miner

called Jimmy Savile

became the first person to play

records continuously,

and charge people

to come and hear him play.

First DJ I ever saw with two decks

was Jimmy Savile.

And, I have to tell you,

he was fantastic.

When this record was

playing on this side,

I'm getting the record ready

for this side.

And the fellow says, "My God,

are they in that much of a hurry?"

And I said, "Yes, my people are",

and that's where the

two decks came from.

And now that's a

worldwide phenomenon.

Top groups, top records,

top everything.

In the early '90s house music

began to get harder,

faster, and fragment

into different styles,

jungle, hardcore, hard house,

trance, happy hardcore,

speed garage, UK garage,

drum n' bass.

But, their essential DNA

remain the same,

electronic beats you could dance to.

One of the catalysts for this

musical fragmentation

was a club called Rage, put

on by DJs Fabio and Groove Rider.

We noticed that when we was

kind of like,

kind of embellishing

the music with break beat,

the energy changed a bit.

Let me hear you...

It got a little bit more darker,

a little bit more people were

kind of grooving in a slightly

different way.

It was our chance for us

to create this proto-jungle style.

When a young raver called Goldie

went to Rage,

he was inspired to start creating

tracks of his own.

Goldie had so much swagger that,

even though I

didn't know who he was,

I was like, "Who's this guy?" His

pivotal moment came with Terminator.

What was different about it was

Goldie used time stretching,

for the first time ever.

You're talking about

things I haven't done yet...

There was a lot of equipment

in the studio,

and I'd seen a HF harmoniser.

The daddy.

Terminator is out there...

By misusing an old piece of guitar

kit, Goldie invented

a revolutionary technique called

time stretching.

If you want to play a guitar at one

pitch you can play it,

but then if you want to sound

like it's ten guitars you can have

guitars playing pitch down

and guitars playing up.

But they're playing

at the same time. Hmm.

So, if I put break beat through

that, digital break beat?

"I don't know,

no-one's ever done it."

I'm like, "Let's wire it up."

In that moment the pitched up sounds

of jungle became

the serious sounds of drum n' bass.

We're running this break beat,

it was the funky drummer,

on constant loop,

and I remember holding it.

And I said, "Check this out,

it goes duf duf, duf duf.

"Let's try do do do, doo doo,

doo doo, doo doo."

And it was just like the most,

it was like every hair on every

follicle on my entire body

just stood up, and it was like,

"What the hell have we just done?"

Drum n' bass before was

kind of slighted for,

this music was speeded up vocals,

it sounded cartoonish,

and this was serious,

this was science.

Inner city life

Inner city pressure...

In 1995 Goldie released Timeless,

it was a genre defining album,

and cemented Goldie as the

popular face of drum n' bass.

I think with drum n' bass,

you can't hark back to anything

in the past that sounded like it.

It was the first thing since punk,

that we could call British,

ours, it was invented here.

I was a big drum n' bass

and jungle fan at the time,

and the UK kept that

thing like the royal crown.

I mean, they were not letting

anybody get a touch on it.

My solution basically was,

"Yeah, OK, but nobody's put it over

house beats, dancing."

In 1996 Armand Van Helden's remix

of Sneaker Pimps' Spin Spin Sugar

accidentally

created an entirely new sound.

Speed Garage.

In essence, it was a house record

but he took a real strong

jungle sort of bass line, and added

it to American garage beats.

From that speed garage was born,

and from speed garage,

the two-step sound came.

With a little bit of luck we can

make it through the night

With a little bit of luck we can

make it through the night...

The roots of UKG and even though it's

like the US... has come from US house,

we kind of took

it and kind of stamped our own way.

Hollering the rinsin' sound

Hollering the rinsin' sound

Hollering the rinsin' sound

With a little bit of luck...

I can one word it. Catchy.

Yeah, OK.

That's it. Little Bit Of Luck,

catchy. You don't forget it.

Artful Dodger, Rewind, catchy.

You don't forget it.

Re-rewind

Enter Selector...

In 1999, Artful Dodger featuring an

unknown Craig David went platinum.

UK garage was suddenly

a household sound.

The first time I heard that

was at like an under-18s thing

in Croydon,

and it was likethesong.

Like, everybody just went mad,

girls were screaming.

From the front to the back,

that's where I was at

You know, you know the Artful

Dodger do it like that...

It was different, it was kinda

weird, like, you know, a bit wacky,

and there was a lot of fun in it.

There's certain sounds in it

that if you heard in a record now

you'd go, "Oh, my God."

There's like a little oink.

But it made sense,

it was huge, that record.

When the crowd go wild...

That was the record that introduced

the world to Craig David.

And, for a lot of people,

that was the record that introduced

a lot of people to this two

step sound.

Do you really like it?

Do you really like it?

We're lovin' it, lovin' it,

lovin' it

We're lovin' it like this...

UK garage was the moment that

clubbing got seriously blingy.

We're lovin' it, lovin' it,

lovin' it

We're lovin' it like this...

You'd see huge crews of people

driving around in Audi TTs,

drinking champagne.

You know,

DJs being given wads of cash.

It did get very, very bling,

very champagne.

Everyone was like, had the champagne

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