Something weird is happening to Blak Twang's phone. The signal constantly drops out, turning his thick south London burr into buzzes, blips and, finally—silence. Yet he takes it all in good humour, picking up from where he left off each time. "Good ol' British networks, mate," he says, jokingly, before launching back into a story. You can't cut Tony Rotten off that easily. 2014 serves as a reminder of the UK hip-hop vet's tenacity as he recently saw his mid-90s-made debut album, Dettwork Southeast, get an official release through Sony. The award-winning rhymesmith left his first major deal on the table after "certain label shenanigans", causing him to walk at the eleventh hour. It stalled the release of the album to the effect of eighteen years, leaving it somewhere at the point of being an urban myth. In this interview with Blak Twang, he tells us what really caused the delay. He also spits the real on today's UK hip-hop scene and the strange industry that surrounds it.
Interview by Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy (@DanielMondon)
So, Dettwork Southeast is finally out. How does it feel?
The reception for it has been amazing! It didn't come out when it was meant to, but it did come out with the right type of reception and people are happy about it coming out now.
Did you have to relearn the songs?
Absolutely! I knew I was going to be doing the release show and needed to re-familiarise myself. People are seeing me at these events doing songs I've never performed live! It's funny listening to it now, because the rhyme schemes were so much different to how I rhyme now, but it was still amazing to my ears. I hadn't listened to the album in sixteen years, easily.
Stephen Lawrence's murder hangs over parts of Dettwork Southeast. Did it affect you growing up in south London?
It hit me really, really hard. Where Stephen Lawrence got murdered was where we grew up: the same neighbourhood, the same borough. I remember watching the re-enactment of his killing and being close to tears. It could've been any of us, you know? The album is autobiographical anyway. Every last bit of it is based on real life experiences. When you hear me talking about getting burgled or a guy getting stabbed and choking on his own vomit or a guy getting killed outside a shop, that's all real stories. That was my life, at the time. I was trying to be as honest as possible.
You've got a few features on the album. Tell us about how you connected with them.
Me and Roots Manuva literally grew up together. The studio we came from was called The Staple, which was put together by a lady called Doreen; she passed away a few years ago. There's an estate in Brixton called Angel Town and she set up a studio for the youts on that estate and teach them how to use the equipment. Me and Roots used to go and learn how to use the equipment, rap, vibe, whatever. This is way before we had the names Roots Manuva or Blak Twang, by the way. Fallacy, now, I met him at a venue called Borderline in 1994 and we would just regularly buck up with people like Skinnyman, Chester P and those guys. Seanie T, I met him in the studio. It was like a London equivalent to the D&D Studios in NYC—everyone passed through there.
There was a time when people were calling you "the Nas of London." Was the buzz that crazy?
It was amazing, bruv! People were saying, "Finally! An MC who really tells our stories." I never tried to be super intellectual. I just talked about real stuff, like giro cheques and loaves of bread.
Did you get a reputation in the industry from pulling out of your deal?
If there was a reputation, it wasn't to my knowledge. I wasn't trying to be difficult. Just because it feels like someone's got you round by the testicles, it doesn't mean you have to give in. Dettwork Southeast would've gone the way of other records that didn't get the marketing they deserved. I remember hearing for years that if certain artists had the right promotion and marketing, they would go far in the game. When we realised we weren't going to achieve the vision for the album, it wasn't worth doing anymore.
What're your thoughts on the current UK hip-hop scene and people like Young Spray and Blade Brown?
I know Young Spray and Blade Brown. Blade's like the Rick Ross of England, but not in a bad way; it's the way he puts stuff out there musically and the subject matter. I like him and he's got a nice work ethic, too. As far as UK hip-hop, there's a whole scene that doesn't know about another scene. Once, everyone knew about Out Da Ville, about Moorish Delta 7, about Mud Fam—we all knew each other. Nowadays, if you mention a whole crew of road rappers and so-called "backpacker rappers", they don't even know each other. The UK scene is very splintered. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not necessarily a good thing either because we're not really singing from the same hymn sheet. I'm currently listening to Black The Ripper's Outlaw Vol 2 mixtape and, prior to that, it was Phili N Dotz's album. I'm liking what K9's doing as well... I just wanna hear some real rap shit, you feel me?
I do, indeed. Speaking to UKHH back in 2008, you said: "One theory I've been going with lately is the 'cornershop mentality theory', where the shop owner doesn't allow more than two school kids in at a time... The same rule is applied to hip-hop/grime artists trying to get a foot in the door of the industry." Do you still stand by that?
Definitely! They've created a lane where they don't want the rest of the country to hear this shit anymore. They've created all these digital stations, then the mainstream ones don't play our stuff. It feels like they might allow one or two artists to get in the building but won’t let a whole slew of artists in at the same time. I remember conversations with my radio plugger and getting told that the stations had to decided between me and other artists for the playlist—it was a battle! But it wasn’t a big deal to have Oasis and Coldplay playing at the same time, was it? If the whole scene move together and champion each other rather than having fifty different artists with pockets of support here and there, things for our scene would be much better. I've worked with a lot of people who have gone on to do bigger things and I've always been about the whole strength in numbers thing.
So what's next for Blak Twang, then?
I was working on some stuff with a producer from China called Conrank; we're talking about doing an EP together. I'm also working with SK Invitational from Austria, where the plan is to re-record Dettwork Southeast live. Soon as we're finished with work on that, there'll be two albums worth of new material that will be getting released. That project's ready and waiting. All I can say is, just watch this space [laughs].
