Shack, the beat making Bakery Boy

Meshach (aka Shack Baker) was once upon a time a bedroom producer and is now part of a hip hop collective called "Bakery Boys." I had no idea who they were until my Twitter DM pinged at me. For a Twitter user getting a DM with a SoundCloud link isn't new. But he asked about my journalism so I thought… let me bag an interview with this guy!

Thanks to TFL I was late. My train decided to break 8 stops before my destination, so I did what any other impatient person would do... I ran. Lord knows where my feet were taking me but once I caught sight of a black cab I jumped in and didn't give a bollocks about the fare. 

I had arrived. I stood before this tall building on the corner, the door was twice my height and 10 times my weight.  The receptionist had flawless make-up, I avoided every shiny object that would remind me how shit my sweaty face looked.

It turned out that Shack was late too, he arrived in a navy on navy outfit with fresh white,blue,green Air Max's holding a brown leather holdall in his right hand. My immediate thoughts were, okay, he means business.

The interior was SO sexy I struggled not to drool. We went into a lift and he vented about how shit the parking was. As the doors opened I was welcomed to this huge dining space surrounded by comfy study booth type seating areas.  Brown leather sofas, oriental rugs, mahogany coffee tables; this was Antique Roadshow meets Grand Designs. A few people were jotted around, either their heads were buried in books or they were chilling on their smartphones. 

Shack was sat on this chair. Tell me that ain't a sexy chair?

So, we sat and put our bags down. Shack insisted on buying food, I politely settled with a coffee; typical me.  His eyes searched the menu and he spent ages trying to decide on what he wanted. I suggested Caesar Salad and fries and he went along with it. (Literally just became friends.) A waiter with coiffed hair took our order, it was time. As I sat to compose myself, my eyes were fixed on his silver decoupage ring and his metal snap button earring.

"Check one, check two. One two inside."

Let’s do this, how did you get into music?

"I used to work for a recording studio when I was 18…19, so that built my passion for music. I was actually a bedroom producer, I made beats in my room."

waiter arrives with our drinks

What’s it like working with your brother?

“My brother Ace had always been into music, we were quite lyrical and naturally it took off like that. I’m the eldest, Ace is number three.”

So, what is Bakery Boys?

“Bakery boys consists of me Shack Baker, my brother Ace Boogie and our good long term friend, Dirty Dre. Me and Dre have always worked together and we developed fashion brands together, it’s been over 10 years now. So, we always did fashion, music was something we did on the side.”

Our office space was called The Bakery.”

Shack smiles in nostalgia

“Some of the designs we had, one of them in particular was a character called the Dough Boy.”

Ohhhhh

“We’d throw parties and people used to go “lets go to the bakery,” I thought it was a bit cheesy but what I do like is the duality. Making dough. Stacking cheddar.”

What were you like at school?

“I’ve always been a straight creative, always, always, always.”

His Whatsapp pings and the waiter arrives with his food

“And…I’ve always been a great drawer that was my thing. My mum wanted me to go into architecture. I was like…”fuck I can’t do that?! That’s boring.” I’m naturally quite melodic, so for me they’re very linked, the musical side and the creative.”

Mary Mother of Jesus- The last thing Meshach drew! SO sick.

What were your musical influences?

“Er… we were quite musical as a family. My dad was around a lot of musicians and studios so we got a chance to see what that environment looks like. When I was young I saw the recording studios and I was like…”yeah I wanna do something like that!”

What was on your playlist?

“As a kid, I think one of my biggest influences was listening to Wu-Tang.”

His eyes began to roll into his archive of memories

“Early Jay-Z, like Reasonable Doubt, we’re talking from ’96…”

Rah in that year I was 2!

“I was a proper hip-hop head. Name any hip-hop artist, any tune…I knew it.”

You performed at Wireless right?

“We did it twice.” 

He smiles in pride

“It was the maddest jump. One man from Live Nation saw and listened to Hustlin’ behaviour and was in love with it. He said “if an opportunity came up to perform at wireless would you kill it?”

I said, I’d kill anything you put in front of me cuz.”

So how comes you’re not signed?

“My team, we’re all on the same wave. Too many artists work so hard right? to do their own thing, with a big following and what not. Big labels sign you when you’re about to win the race. So, as soon as you’ve done all that hard work, it’s like “yeah we’re buddies” and then you won’t hear from them no more. Then they’re gonna’ blame you cos you ain’t got that buzz no more. Nah that’s dead.”

He grinds pepper on his salad

“And I think in this date and age I don’t think you need to, sometimes your best team is yourself, cos you got the vision and you know what you want.”

What do you listen to?

“I’m so eclectic, it’s mad. Like, when I’m in my car I listen to Smooth FM and Magic FM, everyone says I’m an old man. I bang it like… I literally bang it.”

He loves the word “bang.”

“I built a playlist the other day and it was like Frank Ocean, Jennifer Hudson, there’s a guy called Mayer Hawthorne and Jessie Ware, and that’s like modern stuff but then I’ll still throw in an old school like …Dianna Ross, or the Isley brother’s. They were classic.”

What song takes you back to your childhood?

“Probably Michael Jackson, say like “Bad” or “Thriller”. If I listen to that, straight away I’ll get nostalgic. Me, Ace maybe Locks dancing around in our pyjamas trying to moonwalk and shit. If you didn’t dance to that, then something was wrong with you.”

What inspires you?

“Everything. Inspiration comes from living. When I say living I mean experience stuff, I dunno go out, travel, have relationships those things bring real experiences and they inspire me to write about stuff.”

What the biggest challenge that you've faced?

“I think one of the hardest things is, being you and contacting people, might wanna get in contact with blogs, like they don’t give a fuck about your existence until they’re either a trend, or until other people are talking about them so they jump on the bandwagon. Sometimes it’s like throwing your shit at a wall.”

Adele- "Rolling in the Deep" plays in the background

Did you go uni?

“Nope.”

Why?

“Just didn't.”

Why?

“You know what, I tried going to uni. Cos I used to work for a recording studio and they wanted to keep me there. I was like, I’m a young guy I should really go to uni to develop myself. I decided I wanted to do sound recording in uni and I went to…there’s a college called SAE. They were like cool. Then, my local authority wouldn’t pay for my tuition fees. They was chatting shit so... what the f….like…what the f?!. They was just talking shit, just chatting crap.. So it kinda threw me in the opposite way, I’m trying to do the right thing, but at the time they just pissed me off.”

There was anger in his voice

What’s your advice to aspiring artists?

“It’s keeping that intense focus. You owe it to yourself. What a lot of musicians do is focus purely on music and in this date and age that’s a myth, you can’t do that. Like getting out there is just as important.”

His Whatsapp pings but he ignores it

“The flip side is obviously I fucked around for a couple years and you think to yourself “shit” in that space of time I could have got a degree. But, I haven’t got no regrets I had fun. It was experiences that were worth doing. So this is now the embodiment of everything.”

And I won’t stop until I get what I want.”

How do you reward yourself?

He couldn't stop smiling.

“That’s a good question. Back in the day, I would have bought a pair of trainers, gone on a date, whatever. I think for me the reward is just the work. I’m quite ambitious so the reward is knowing that something’s fallen into place that’s gonna set me up for the next goal.”

What makes you proud?

“Fulfilment.”

...through what?

“Through work.”

...just your work?

“No. See what makes me proud is, I’ve got children. I come from a large family. Me doing what I’m doing and achieving stuff?!... The ripple effect it has within my family is powerful. If you say to my son “Where’d your dad get that from?” he’d say “from working hard.” That’s what makes me proud.

What do you think you’ll be doing in 5 years’ time?

“I’d definitely still do music. Like we’d be developing the label with an agency as such, creative, that’d cover like everything from acts, film, music, design so I see we’d be putting a lot of energy into that.”

What do you fear?

"Only thing I fear is like… not do well, that’s the only thing I can think, that if it happened I'd actually be crushed like “fuck.”"

I told him how I struggle to stay focused and committed to one thing and he started laughing.

“See, when I was in the office I’d be on the phone to girls like “ah yeah yeah” cos I thought, this is my company I can do what I want. Dre was like “shack you can’t do that, fuck them girls man, its dumb.” Successful people don’t do that. They’re fucking focused.”

What’s your earliest musical memory?

“One time when I was about 17 I holler’d at Princes Trust and they gave me £500 to record at a commercial recording studio for one day. And I did it. I got there, I didn’t know what to record, then the girl I was seeing at the time, she could sing. We made a really soulful, housey kinda garage song called “I love the way.” That was dope actually."

Who would you like to work with?

“The sound that I like at the moment is quite eclectic, groovy kind of, kind of soulful bounce. So the sound is quiet grown, but it’s got that old school but modern. Definitely, I’d work with someone like Jamiroquai, he’s mad groovy. I think that’d be dope still.”

What are you doing for Valentines day?

“Working.”

What did you do for New Years?

“I worked. It depends where you are. Valentines?..tssst, I don’t really care about it. A lot of it is just materialistic, nah fuck all that. I always get my mum a card and chocolates, she doesn't give a fuck about the card but she loves the chocolates still…also my birthday is a couple days after it.”

How will you celebrate?

“Last year we worked on my birthday. You can go out and have fun but you have the whole of the year to do that. If someone rang me up for a DJ set, I'm gonna say “yeah” I never say no.”

You know what? Running after a black cab was worth it. The magnitude of insight made me respect his work even more. He proved that you don’t have to have Jay-Z’s lips to be a Jay-Z.

Note to Shack: If we ever bump into each other I won’t air you.

P.S CHECK THEM OUT

@Shack_Baker

soundcloud.com/bakeryboys