Interview: Words with Chuckie

You’ve probably heard him more than you’ve seen him and that’s no dig at his height.

If Chip can’t run out of bars, it’s safe to say Chuckie can’t run out of bookings. Sounds like absolute macaroni cheese but understand that this man of smaller stature has a lot to say about the evolution of Djing.

These days anyone can DJ, right? We can all shuffle tracks on our computer tabs, blending one YouTube video to another. On a more complex level, software and technology has advanced and this convenience has left many people wanting to pursue a serious career in music let alone DJing. But everyone has to start somewhere and Chuckie did so at the age of just 12.

All my friends used to MC so one day I thought: “I could MC.” So I just started chatting shit on the microphone. I went to the under 18’s, started chatting shit, went on stage chat shit again and at that moment I knew I wanted to be involved in music.

Yes, we can all sip a KA and talk endlessly about Grime culture vultures however Chuckie witnessed the sonic transition, the shift from Grime to Garage left the aspiring MC to reconsider his path yet his passion for music collecting remained. Then you question, we can all do that so what’s new? Well, Chuckie began to play on radio, but not like today, nah. This guy dragged his records back and forth from set to set and this authenticity, fortunately is something which a DJ today will never have to experience. Chuckie was in his element as he sat talking endlessly, answering every question with thorough explanations but what really made his eyes light up was when began to unravel the scrolls of his childhood to share who actually influenced him to DJ.

Who is Jason Speed?

Okay, so I grew up in Northolt but I had cousins that were close to my age that lived on White Flats estate in Hanwell and I used to go on that estate all of the time. I ultimately grew up there to be fair. On that estate was a guy called Jason Speed and he had a pair of decks, so I used to play with his younger brother and I just saw them and was like “what are those?! I want to learn!” He used to teach me how to play Reggae music and then I remember looking at him thinking, “this is what my dad does” because my dad was a DJ. While everyone was downstairs playing football and doing other bits and pieces or skating…I used to stay in Jason’s room all the time. He was a lot older than me and he taught me how to mix. Only then I started making tapes with my friends while mixing music and whatever. I just loved it.

When did you get your hands on some turn tables?

I bought mine late! I couldn’t afford them. At that time, my parents weren’t really making money like that so I literally depended on going to White Flats estate every weekend, couple of times during the week and just learning how to mix on them. We used to make so many tapes, these times it was Jungle and Garage so I literally used to mix like a DJ for them…and then occasionally grab the mic and chat shit.

With a father as a DJ and being around music enthusiasts, Chuckie began to learn the technicalities of Djing by the man Jason Speed himself. In this world of short cuts, people are desperate to reach a following, fans, an audience to share their passion. Let’s take you to the streets of Camden. We’re all guilty of avoiding that eager, slightly damp smelling guy who’s holding a bunch of CD’s ready to pounce when you give them a second of eye contact. However laughable this practise may be, Chuckie solely believed in getting himself heard and so off he went to the street parties of carnival one day and made a life changing move.

I remember around that time I thought ‘okay, cool, I’m gonna’ buy 3,000 blank CD’s and I’m going to burn them all myself. So I done a mix CD, I bought a CD duplicator as well; I only had one at the time. It burnt 7 in 2 minutes. Taking them to carnival was obviously hard, I had loads of bags and had some help from my friends. Then once we got there, I’d pick a spot then just gave them out and because not a lot of people was doing it at the time, literally that day or the next day my phone line would be blowing up. That was one of the first ways people started to know who I was, just by doing loads of mixed CD’s.

It’s hard to imagine that DJ Khaled’s face on a CD would look weird but upon a time this was the moistest thing you could do. But thanks to the power of those 30,000 CD’s Chuckie’s phone line was Hotline-Blingin’ and the networks could only keep growing.

Now it’s normal, people would have a mix cd with their face on it and it wouldn’t be a ‘thing’ but when I was doing it…firstly I was giving them away for free. Secondly, they were like “who do you think you are?” these were just the people that didn’t understand and thirdly I had my number on it so I tried to make a connection between me and people that didn’t know me.

Do you think DJ’s do that now?

Not really. It’s different now, because it’s so over saturated. You can go outside of the club and there might be 15 people handing you a CD and half the time the CD’s are bollocks because people are not putting the time and effort into it. Me, when I do mixed CD’s it takes me ages to do it because I’m thinking of the order of the tracks, the songs I want, how I want it to sound, the effects, it takes me ages to do it! People used to approach me like, “can you do a mix CD for me?” I don’t mind it cos you’re going to burn it and sell it to loads of people but at the same time it’s going to take me a long time to do it. Not a case of, I’m just going to bang them out within 45 minutes.  I don’t work like that.

Do you think DJ’s truly understand the concept of beat juggling and the technique behind DJ’ing or is it just the case of blending songs now?

Do you know what? I don’t think they do know the concepts, well some of them. I think it’s funny, I think some of the new generation DJ’s don’t really know what they’re doing. They are beat matching but they don’t really understand exactly what’s going on. I don’t know where the fault is, I don’t know who necessarily is to blame for that but it works for some people. If it works for somebody and someone else sees it they’re going to follow that format.

Is it easier to become a DJ now compared to when you started out?

It’s harder, in a sense that you probably will find that a lot of people want to become a DJ but I think a lot of the people are doing it for the wrong reasons. So, it’s harder for you as a person who loves music, loves the idea of just playing music and you’re a music collector; it is harder for you to prosper. As opposed to a model, part of a modelling agency who wants extra bookings and the agent will then sort them out. That ultimately takes them away from the person who collects music.

How did it feel to meet Nas?

I couldn’t even believe it! So, I get there before him and when Nas came through he sat next to me and we were chatting about what we were going to do. I couldn’t believe I was sat next to Nas, I wish I had Snapchat back in those times! The biggest thing for me, was telling Nas “nah let's do this and let's do that and these are the reasons why” and he was saying “okay, let's do that.” I will never forget that. He doesn't know how amazing that was for me, of course he's not he's just Nas and he's cool.  I'm sure if I saw him he would remember me from that moment. Afterwards he invited me to the club and I didn't go, I was too in the moment. That will always be the biggest highlights of my life. I would listen to Nas before I can even remember and then to DJ for him was crazy. I told my mum but my mum didn't know the magnitude of it. It made me think I'm really out here, for them to call ‘me’ shows they respect me in a certain way, they could have rung anyone!

As a DJ how do you feel the audience’s vibe?

 This is a good question you know because I do it without thinking about it. Now that you’ve asked me that question I’m starting to think about my thought process... I kinda’ go in and I look at the crowd: the age, the types of people that are there and the time that I am playing. Let’s say, I come to a gig and it’s a student event, I’ll think “cool, it’s one o’ clock, the DJ hasn’t played the new Hip Hop so I’m going to test the crowd with that. I will play the main stuff that everybody knows and occasionally I’ll throw in the new song that’s going to be big, to see if people know it. If they do, that would be my opportunity to play extra new stuff.

Has technology changed DJ’ing for the better or the worst?

For me it’s changed for the better because I like change. I like when things evolve and I love the thought of going into a record store and buying vinyl; love that. That’s the one thing I miss about DJ’ing and music collecting, you can still do it now but it’s just more expensive. Now, people will send you an mp3 file, which is a positive because I went through the stage of going to a club with boxes of music and I was really young. I had to get a cab and get the cab man to help me take some of the boxes but now I just take my laptop. There’s a flip side to the coin because now you can just download music or someone will give you a hard drive of music and that gives a short cut to people. People think “sick, I’ve got this music, I can take it to a club and be a DJ!” Nah that’s shit. That’s proper shit. You’ve got House DJs for example, who will play a two hour set of House music and will not know the artist, the name of the song, or anything! That is bananas! That is crazy! I love having music conversations. Music can take you back to a certain time when certain things were going on. You’ll ask a DJ now what’s their favourite album and they won’t even know. That’s mental. So, for me it’s changed for the better but ultimately it has changed for the worse because if it was about going to the record store and buying vinyl, half the DJs that are around today would not be around.

So who are your DJ role models?

All of them are Jamaican. I was looking up to David Rodigan, Stone Love, Mighty Crown, these were all the selecta's really. With EZ its funny, what he was doing was so mad to me, I just knew this is something that I could do. I looked at him and thought he was sick. When I loved EZ I was MC'ing, aside from that when I was collecting music I was looking at DJ's from Mighty Crown thinking, “that is what I want to do!” He was a role model for a lot of Grime and Garage DJ's at the time and it's sick to see what he's doing now because he's been at the top of the game for years. 

What's the future of DJ'ing looking like from your perspective?

 It's looking grim. I just feel from my experiences, a lot of the people that are getting into DJ'ing are doing it for completely different reasons and it worries me about where this will end up going. if you have somebody who doesn't have that genuine interest to be a DJ and just wants to be a star and somebody looks at that and thinks “I can do that” they just have the wrong mind set. It doesn't mean that you can't be a footballer and become a DJ but I just think people think it's so glamorous. People are looking at the crowd who are throwing their hands in the air, they aren't falling in love with a song or a type of music to play at parties because it makes them feel a certain way. I want to make people feel a certain way when I play my music. If that's how people were looking at it then it would be wicked. However you're always going to get a crop of good DJ's who are out there doing their thing.

What makes you different from other UK DJ's?

The things that make me different are the things that should be normal. I feel the game is bullshit. Being able to structure my set, that is something which everybody should know how to do it because it's become such a rarity now that's what makes me different. On a more technical aspect, what makes me different from DJs now is that I am very comfortable on the microphone, I can address a room of 100 people or a stadium of 10,000 people I can make them put their hands up and while out and make them jump up and down whatever it may be. I don't think a lot of DJs have that level of confidence.  

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