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Published: 10 November, 2011
by ROISIN GADELRAB

WE call at a bad time. When Goldie comes to the phone his head is clearly still in the studio.

“The 100th release of my label’s coming up so I’m finishing off an A-side for that,” he explains, referring to his pioneering drum‘n‘bass label Metalheadz, founded in 1994. Not too long later, he’s asking: “Can I go now?” There’s a lesson to be learned here, something about never interrupting an artist mid-creation.

Goldie, the modern-day polymath – he’s DJ, conductor, artist and hardcore snowboarder – headlines Bass Wars! on Saturday night at Koko, another grand production of drum‘n‘bass and dubstep by promoters The Playground, with Emalkay, 16 Bit, Mt Eden, Trolley Snatcha, Bare Noize, Skism, Sukh Knight and many more sharing the bill.

It sounds like the headliner’s in an educational mindset. “There are a lot of memories in that place,” says Goldie.

“It’s served from a British urban culture point of view, a lot of different genres over the years.

“I never plan what I play, I just play what I like.

Obviously I don’t want to confuse them all, but I don’t really compromise, so I’ll play a few anthems, bit of a history lesson, with some of the old music, just give them a good round perspective of the music.”

He recalled his younger days riding up and down Chalk Farm Road, and stalking Jazzie B: “Camden was a buzz, I can’t quantify it in a tablet. I used to wait outside Soul II Soul waiting to see if I could get a glimpse of Jazzie B. I ended up recording in Arlington Road where I did Terminator.”

Being a dad again agrees with him, daughter Coco is three months old: “I’m enjoying that. I’ve always been pretty spiritual, I’ve just been a bit more mature and together these days. I’ve just become this old G character of this music scene over the years and I’m very humbly enjoying my position. I get to get up and do what I want to do, make music when I want, paint when I want.”

But it’s not all about himself, Goldie regularly puts his energies towards working with young people and is outspoken when it comes to today’s society.

Pointing to Channel 4 drama Top Boy, set on a Hackney estate, he said: “I liked it. They’ve been getting a lot of flack in the Press. People are saying stop stereotyping black people in the ghetto, but to be honest that’s what it’s like.

“They need to wake up and stop being in denial – it’s hard work out there. That’s just one insight to things that happen in a thread of a bit of a story.

“We understand there’s lots of different people doing lots of different things but on a street level grind perspective it’s kind of what it’s like and the sooner people stop denying that the sooner people will understand how to make change and make people aware of that.”

He called for greater funding for inner city areas and for a stop to school closures: “Fund those inner city areas and stop raping the money out of them like they’ve been doing for years.

“Stop closing down a school, cutting out the heart of a community and instill some of that community spirit by funding it properly, it’s easy, it’s all about money and greed – about greedy backbenchers taking the money out of those places and sapping all the resources like they’ve done in Africa over the centuries, like they’ve done in most urban places.

“Most places that are full of people of ethnic origin have been raped by governments for many years. Pull the education system down, let’s not give them a mind of their own and blame them when they become dysfunctional and when they become uneducated and let’s throw that against them.”

“It’s an important thing that they are given the same opportunities. It’s a shame that it’s just down to money, this conversation wouldn’t be happening if people were being funded properly.

“If El Sistema can work in South America by giving violins to three-year-old kids that have come from a really disenfranchised fucked-up background to play in national youth orchestras and you can see how well it works in south America, which is far poorer than here, why can’t those kind of programmes work in this country? Simple, money, all it is.”

“Today, things socially are worse, the way we educate is completely upside its head.

You might think there’s more money to do things but the money’s misdirected, there’s better medical help, better equipment isn’t there?

To anyone who’s reading this, answer the question yes or no, there is better medical equipment around than has been in the last 50 years?

Yes.

More advancement in technology?

Yes.

Is it reaching the people it’s supposed to?

No.

“We’ve advanced as a money-making franchise but in the way we look after each other in terms of humankind as a race, we haven’t advanced at all, we’ve regressed.”