Benga and Skream - Interview

To borrow a phrase from the Matrix's Oracle, dubstep is a bit like being in love. No one needs to tell you this is dubstep. You just know it through and through. The love metaphor is particularly apt, because hearing dubstep for the first time on a proper sound system, is a lot like falling in love. Metaphors seem to be the only adequate way of conveying the rush of exhilaration felt when the first wave of dubstep crashes on to you. The most accurate comparison is that of coming up for the first time on ecstasy, even though you're completely sober. As the bass rattles your ribs you find your knees bending, with that low centre of gravity you begin to bounce. The beat rolls through your entire body and with a rush of realisation you're simultaneously incredibly excited by this new sound and pining for all those lost years of your life that you weren't listening to dubstep.

It can't be described, it needs to be felt, but nonetheless there are elements of dubstep that are at the least recurring themes. Vocals are rare, tracks usually have a 140bpm, big wobbly bass lines and a syncopated (often 2-step) drum pattern. Yet this is still a relatively young genre which is always pushing the boundaries of its own definition. Producers bring in samples from a plethora of places and other musical genres. The variety is particularly impressive, given the relatively microscopic roots of the genre.
The sound grew out of a mish-mash of Grime, Garage and Dub. Yet the scene itself grew out of one small area of South London, one record store, one club night and a small number of talented individuals. There are a number of names who can be credited for creating and growing the genre in its early days, Kode9, Mala, Coki, Loefah and Hatcha among a few others. No list though, would be complete without two of the most prodigiously talented producers out there, Benga and Skream (Beni Uthman and Oliver Jones respectively). Both are just 21 and both have been involved in the scene since its inception. Even if you've never heard of dubstep, it's practically guaranteed you will have heard their two biggest tracks. Skream's Midnight Request Line came out in 2005 and is considered one of the most recognisable dubstep hits, as well as a pivotal moment in dubstep history. It opened up new ideas for producers, and the tempo change in the middle is seen as particularly important. Benga's collaboration with Coki in early 2008 produced the electronic anthem Night. If you've been to a club in the past eight months then you've probably heard it. I talked to both of them about the genre, its future and their place in it.
Dubstep is relatively unusual, in that it is now undeniably international, with people all over the world producing music, yet there is still that small group of pioneers who people look to and who are so much more visible than other producers. I wondered if they saw themselves as still part of the movement or just as producers making some tunes. Benga does want to "move it forward," and he added caveats only I suspect through modesty, "I'm not saying I'm some dubstep captain, I'm just saying that I do see things and think, right we've got to try and push it in this direction or that direction. We should get into this or get out of that. I'll sometimes occasionally say we need to do this or we need to do that, but it's not like I'm some leader of it." He thinks he couldn't keep dubstep afloat single handedly, "there is more of this movement thing where everyone's doing their own thing and we all play each other's music and it all helps." Skream situates himself in the middle "There is movement and then there's just people making tunes. I've been involved in the scene since I was 13 so I would say I'm someone who's tried to push it forward, I don't just make tracks. I can only speak for myself though, I'm just writing." This is no longer an embryonic genre, perhaps it doesn't need to be pushed. "The scene's developed, a lot of the hard work's done, for me I'm just looking at building myself as a producer." Skream has been labelled, to his chagrin, the ambassador of dubstep. It is a fairly accurate description of how important he is to the scene, but he eschews the title, " I don't really like that term though, it's a bit wankerish, but it wasn't like I really carried it all on my own, there's a number of people like obviously Benga, Digital Mystikz and Kode9. "
Benga and Skream, along with another producer called Artwork, have for a while now, been performing intermittently as Magnetic Man, in what is a live dubstep act. There are no MCs just the three of them with their laptops. Each attempted to explain what exactly this live dubstep act is about. Benga tried first, "We have three laptops, and um we basically do live remixing." What is your role as an individual? "Well it's kind of hard to explain." Do you all have different roles? "No, basically it's like, thee laptops all midi-linked and it's live editing and live mixing." I resolved to go see the act before I understood it, deciding the failure in comprehension was entirely my own ignorance. I asked Benga how it was different from the crowd. "You hear the same song when a DJ plays it, but when it's live you hear it differently, things are mute, basslines are on their own, drums are on their own at certain times." It all sounds very exciting, perhaps more involving for the crowd than a DJ set, but it's a different experience for the producers, as Skream said, "You're just standing there, you're not moving as much as when you do a DJ set, you're still like moving your head or whatever. It's fucking wicked, but sometimes I miss that energy of when you're jumping around and you're grabbing and looking for tunes."
I'd read that Skream has 1500 tunes he's currently working on, this out of date figure pales in comparison to the current number, roughly 8000 (I waited an extra ten minutes as his PC counted them all). "I'm not saying they're all finished, but they're all ideas and you just do it. You start something then you get another idea so you start something else then you get another idea, then you go back and finish two off then you get another three ideas out of one track." How long could it take to produce one track? "I can do two in a day. It depends, if you've got all the elements there. It just works. Things start coming easily, you automatically just hear something and go, fuck me that goes there! You're mind just starts working automatically. You almost know what's coming out." Skream has been known for really pushing the boundaries of dubstep, I was interested to see whether he’d thought about producing anything of a completely different genre. “I’ve been doing some work with Jamie T. It’s completely different to dubstep, 150bpm, 808 drums with him playing the bass.”
Skream’s work with Jamie T sounds exciting, but there is always that danger we’ll see the genre diluted as it gets a taste of commerical success. “I wouldn’t sell myself out, if I was just gonna do it for the money and not think that I could get something out of it then I probably wouldn’t do it.” Yet once the sound gets out in to the wild it is a far harder beast to tame. The international scene is growing exponentially, North America in particular. "The scene over there at the moment is like London was in like 2005/2006, where it's still new to a lot of people." Canada as well, Skream played Shambhala (the best festival in the world, see below) for the second year running this summer. "Shambhala was fucking wicked man, and the actual DJ set was one of my favourite sets I've ever played as well."
There are dangers of such growth though. At the moment a small number of people are, as Benga puts it, “pushing the cause. If you Google dubstep you see a few faces a lot more than others.” Inevitably there will be people who take the sound and corrupt it. There is a new Britney track, “Freakshow,” that has an omnipresent bass wobble. Perhaps a signifier of worse things to come. Dubstep is the anti-thesis of modern pop music; never about image, style or sales and only ever about the music. As long as these pioneers keep pushing the boundaries, this tremendous new sound will continue to evolve and excite.

Magnetic Man are playing at Scala on the 9th October.