Photo show show.

This was a painting i did for my friend called tom. Its for his bedroom wall. Its not that great but it was done with bingo pens. Good times.






This photo is why i don't like university life. The sign kind of epitomises my feelings about halls. Burbage. That is like the bleakest word i ever heard.

Music flows nicely // toast burns nightly

This is the first part of a mix I did with DJ rubbish.
Photo from the album shoot. Fancy cunt.


Hear the man himself rapping his heart out on 'Armmagedon sessions II' coming soon.

The mix has me toasting like a lean posh white person with a mockney accent. Which I am!

Hope you like it.




It was a clean time, too much echo time, a good time.

Good light, verse tight.

These videos pretty much sum up why I listen to Grime.

Hold tight Blackdown for the eyes.

Wet knees, caves of treasure

It doesn’t matter which way it works. There is so much madness to listen to – its unlikely that you coincide unless its the magic times when we all sing in tune, when we all buy the album, when we discuss each track and the way it fades out or the saxophone.

I think most of us are in the grit with ours knees wet, sieving though a valley of gold – finding rubies and gems, in random orders, making our own caves of treasure.

I get annoyed when people try and discredit someone’s favourite songs – hearing peoples eyes drop and seeing the embarrassment, the cunt looking all smug and ‘who has the power now.’ fuCK THat. because I believe in the weird collections and the strange assortments, no sleeve notes but just the history in your head, the mother fucking drunk busker living in your speaker box.

"Whos that O to the Z ? // Another bad man inside the party"

Lethal Bizzle.

with Skinny man, Akala + guests.

Friday 23^rd November.

PLUG, Sheffield - £8

Smoking Ban - Skinny Man ( very low quality)

More fire - Flat Eric freestyle.

I always find PLUG sort of over organised, like maybe it used to be a death camp – how do they know which doors to lock, which doors to open? Its like a 3D computer game where all the baddies are bald northern bouncers.

We had standard militant door policy, checking ID for under 14s. Yes. It was an over 14 rave. So I got my I.D checked for an over 14 rave. Remind me, why did I grow this beard?

Inside it was local business. I had nearly flopped the whole team because I thought it would be awful., but then my friend NurkEye persuaded me and my wifey to attend. On the way there it was very cold.

We got through the nazi maze and it was pack-out, drew for the vodka+redbull, found the smoking area/ dodging young hooligans and the uni grime fans.

Skinny man was up first all toothy dropping bombs with a leather avirex camden town flavour. He really smacked the spoken word side of things /// he had the youth whooping and brapping for poems about child poverty. That’s an excellent look. The smoking ban tune is mad. Go buy it. Actually buy it. Its only a pound. Just buy it.

Also Skinny was really representing this website, he had the whole crowd chanting www.wateraid.org . It was kind of a deep moment. What made it even better is that he didn't even mention his new website www.skinnyman.co.uk which has just been re-launched sharpened up etc. Again, an excellent look.

Then AKALA came on. He annoyed me. Black shakespeare he is not. Some of the grime numbers were good, but where is he going with his new album? What the fuck is electro life? It was a low point.

Then, with much orchestra and loud introductions, I half expected Ricky Hatton to arrive on stage next, but it was the Bizzle, dark glasses and all. I can’t lie. He fucked it up.

First one was some old school grime thing, which I never even heard ( probably real famous…) and everyone including us went bananas. They had built up an amazing call and response thing which reminded me why anyone ever does call and response. It was like secondary school assembly. This side vs. That side etc. You could really see the effects – Bizzle and his hype man had the whole crown wrapped around their penises….- “ Where are you Sheffield? ” ERRUPTION../////

Then Ozzy-B came on for ‘Oi’ and fucked up the whole dance. I can honestly say that I went a bit mad. All the energy and vibes, and old memories bubbling around, the youthlings jumping with me.

It was deep.

I was so hype, that I could go along with the grindy stuff that he played for the next half hour. He was realy good I thought. We kept it more calm during Nirvana covers etc. But i respected the amount of hype he got from the crowd.

Had a debate on the bus home about whether arrogance makes a good performance. AKALA = very arrogant, but weird kind of stage presence, as Alice commented he was totally jerky and erratic, like a terriffying electro-grime-robot. We all know Lethal Bizzle is an arrogant motherfucker. I remember seeing videos about 6 mins long on youtube with him just rinsing Wiley in a carpark. No bars. Just a rant. So, he can hold attention. But also he filled the stage - story telling // charizma // charm leaking out into the sweaty mosh pit ...

Regardless, I still don't think even Bizzle was the black shakespeare.

Shakespeare was a pretty amazing man.

I think Lethal B is a lesser known victorian playwrite. Perhaps Ben Johnson. Someone like that.

Its a cosmic weekend.

We saw The Bizzle on friday. Which was excellent. See above. Then we got lean and drank coffee and played music loud ate love-skunk-cake , danced to african vibes , drove round sheffield in a drunken cloud went to my friends Chivs house danced some more to the ipod and then slept.

It was great.

These are a few great quality photos from my phone.





My lady and a tramp // Alice and Nurk eye. He's not a tramp really!


These are the cups from when we drank lots of coffee and baylies. Try it. Its saying quite a bit.


My friend from the super market. He is a really good dancer.


After that I was too drunk to take photos.

I love birthdays!!

Gold Links - big chain.

The Heatwave www.theheatwave.co.uk
The original big bad juggling machine. Mad out mixes, live shows ect. They run it. I don't really know what it is, but they definitely run it. Good vibes / energy / bass. This shit is like a blueprint for how not to be a trendy hoxton cunt night. Recent excellent posts – Riko Exclusives, Natasja Saad memorial post , all the charts.

DJ Frenzy www.myspace.com/Frenzydon
Its wierd the way on the internet people talk like D&B is finished and then I hear my friend FRENZY start double dropping and i just go nuts and sing "Burn the laptop, burn down the laptops"

DJ Rubbish http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=20431
This guy is sort of like a white eminem who grew up in Jamaica but then got brought to London when he was 11. No myspace etc. Hold tight the corperate techno-revolutionaries.

Prancehall www.prancehall.com
Big dog in grime. Also lots of other music. Sometimes I write drunk comments on his blog, but I love it really. Way ahead from ages ago.

Blackdown blog http://www.blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/
I think this blog is the dogs bollocks. So do most people who I show it too. Apparently he’s well know for writing about dubstep back in the day or something… but what I know and respect him for is current, detailed and engaging posts about a broad range of issues. Recently notable posts – the gun crime article excerpt, the light festival thing, the detailed Trim interview, photos of Doogz etc. He’s on it.

John Eden http://www.uncarved.org/blog/
Only just found out about this guy. I think I heard him play on commercial road at some house party thing. Then I found his blog on the internet. Apparently he edits a magazine called woofah, which sounds interesting. His blog is great. Wicked mixes, pure knowledge etc. Big Posts recently ../// Dirty canvas thing , Reggae reading and sites, Woofah info, Abyssinians thing, Pasta Rastamen thing...

Awesome tapes from Africa http://awesometapesfromafrica.blogspot.com/
This shit makes me think of my sister in Uganda. Hold tight the world saving crew!

Lower End Spasm http://dot-alt.blogspot.com/
I like this blog. One time I tried it and did a sort of drunken call out , because like almost everything in the world it annoys me every now and then. But over-all its very heavy with interesting and jumping posts pretty regular. Check Wiley and Logan interview, Alex bok bok Blogariddim post

Excellent Pitchfork articles

Month in Reggae and dancehall. (feat Heatwave and John Eden)

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/47232-the-month-in-reggae-dancehall

Month in dubstep and grime. (by Blackdown)

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/46889-the-month-in-grime-dubstep

Memories of the Bass Smoke.

My hung-over recollections of a London sound.

Its obviously SHAKA at the Tudor Rose//Ding walls, steamed veg and rice, lifting up the air in your lungs to some other place, eyes closed, swimming in hot mud, hands to the air - crackling seven inch, chants from the back… …..// RoomONE at fabric, still not getting over styling it with my fake I.D, negotiating tracksuits and hacket t-shirts, self conscious spaceman skank floating on the stage, ignoring the whispers in the ears, 3-for-tens , just hearing Mampi completely destroy the whole room - my personal underground armageddon…..//Heatwave at the Rhythm factory, eyes definitely open, the shaking of bums in tracksuits, fitted jeans , marvellous miniskirts.. fast pace baselines stab in the legs, music I know I love played fast and loud – Sean Paul and we don’t give a shit because we like dancing and energy….//Fwd at Plastic people – descending, into the dark rollage – the front right bass bin, lanky shoulders leaning over the ten inch whirlwind – the skunked out chats from down that little ally at the back, smoke in my eyes, whisky in a plastic bottle – standing with by back to the speaker, the ribs and the spine at it again, eardrums fading out…//OneNation in Brixton.. walking tall now, easy to negotiate the forest of screw faces, the secret codes, nods, winks, bear hugs.. crumbling skunk in a sweaty hand, DJs orchestrating electric storms – MCs riding it all, bars like spiders trapped in tin drum, tracksuits and chains, the lasers and the dancers – those fucking dancers….>// The mother freaking curving stairway atDMZ.?./// Abashanti-I at Brixton Recreational, those rattling windows , the smiling salesmen, setting up stalls at 3.30am, selling dvds, ganja horns, Selassie-I t-shirts, – the disintegration of that boring alarm clock, time is run by the sirens now, climbing towers of speakers…

You get the idea.

I’m homesick.

Hold TIGHT the weird smells, the big men, the beautiful scary women and mainly the darkness of it all.

Evaporated music and the pavement boogie.

I often get dismayed that I weren’t quite friends with the right people/ born under the right moon, in the right decade …. to be comfortably and righteously riding the wave of a sound … Banging jungle in my army fatigues - cargo trousers with a rabid dog skirting around my legs. hanging out in the velvet rooms or wherever they hung out. Battering ragga late nineties. Anything.

I look over my time served so far, obviously lean out of my brain, rinsing god knows what records in my bedroom, pissing off my dad with the floor board rattlers , greeting bouncers in a dazed but happy condition… I suppose I have to accept my status as a follower of the rolling bass, I go where I find the rattles in my rib, the pavement boogie, the smiles and the skanks…

Maybe I’m proud to have missed it.

My mum always said about the sixties that it was only fifteen/twenty odd people having wacky colourful fun in carnaby street … everyone else was like her, living in middleclass little suburbs near Slough playing their Rubber Soul LP feeling pissed off. And maybe that’s more real. I don’t know. If I felt heroic, I would say this ones going out to the ones always missing the bus, the millions who catch up late, clapping our hands to find the smoke evaporated weeks ago…

Music box // try catch the fox....

Yes.

Its more music time. Covering the spectrum, we got highly spiritual conscious vibes from Queen Ifrica, meditative skunk-hop from a london town and totally disgraceful dubstep horror music. Good times.


This ones a truely positive cracker. Talking about genocide in Darfur. I would add my own take but i am tired and not in a very serious mood. The political ranting soon cometh. I don't know much about Mrs. Ifrica, but check out the myspace page for more great songs and info.

Stop Genocide - Queen Ifrica


"Fuck the pharmaceuticals, when I've selected a sedative so musical"

My friends called the sound scientists made this. I don't really bang much contemplative hip-hop these days, but as it comes i find this number pretty excellent. Good work lads! Check the soundscience myspace for more.

Speech Therapy - Sound Scientists





This one i found out about from Blackdowns blog. Guy called Beezy apparently. This shit just makes me laugh and laugh. He talks about murdering everyone in the dubstep scene. Get his free mixtape from the website. His upcoming album looks big, check on his myspace .

Dubstep is so selfish - Mc Beezy

The place where BASS was born

Came back to the place where BASS was born, snare drum torn, fucked up vocal and a junglist horn......









flyers falling off wall, record on floor, shelves high, tall - needles all worn.....

FrennzyLOKIdubstar////november (I think)

sACHA blessed ME with this HEAVY WEIGHT d&B thing.

Its a nasty one.


FRENZY DON - The Big One

Mr. mASONS princess has gone far away.

Very old i think...

Like a year or so??

Great all the same. Reminds me of summertime - sticky hungover buses in the morning.

In a good way.

Jah Mason - My princess gone.

Fussing and fighting... ( So cold, so cold, so cold)

Mr. DJ Rubbish has only gone and made a bloody dubstep record.


It pretty great, if you like excellent production (timbaland) and decent vocals ( neyo) and sneaky sublow tweaks (RUBBish)..

Check the samples and then go buy the record.

DUBBOX -Dj Rubbish

What what// Music box

Yeah. Yeah. Yeeeah.

These are the tunes I am not ashamed to announce my intrest in.


Tarius Riley - Beware. ( lovely, sounds like time travel from a wooden spaceship. true lyrics as well. 'What we need is brain food')




Badness - Bout Bad This MP3 fucks up a bit at the most important drop, but if you ignore that i think it is huge/massive/BIG. grime bashment horror bass music.///bADNess is one hell of a talented homophobe.

i CAN see the SEA!

This one is all about the visuals.

Extracts from the old sKetch book.

Very indulgant but that is the nature of blogs isn't it?

If anyone in the world reads this let me know your thoughts or lack of.///.






















bY THE WAY, most of the written bits are not my own words. mainly stuff i heard people say. Just to clarify,. I don't hate 'Chavs' ETC.///

Soundtrack to a crackout.

This has got to be the most evocative song I ever heard.

Burial - Archangel
from his new album 'Untrue' on hyperdub



It really is the soundtrack to my life at the minute, and I listen to it a fucking lot of times every day.

Its like a whole life worth of angst and longing and aching all in one song.

I love it!

"Ultimately its all about substance."

This is a mix that my friend Jesse showed me on saturday.



I think its amazing. I love deep grimey bass and tight conscious lyrics.

The Emcee is called Nomad - www.myspace.com/nomadthehost

The DJ is called Bluestripe - www.myspace.com/bluestripe

I believe they have a show on Rinse, mondays 11-1

Also check nomads tune, 'writers block' - its disgusting.
The guy actually knows what hes talking about.

"If I tolerate this my kids will be next,
I've gotta speak up. Are you hearing me?"

Gun fingers for that one. Swiftly.

We were soldiers, like.

I was walking down the hill with tom- he wore leather belts/// jeans with holes and fades in them, screen printed t-shirts, we talked about the south in the queue for bacon and egg, he said they were all posh cunts and I agreed– we walked down the hill and talked about the weekend. I was in London//// he was in Leeds. I asked him how it was, he said it was ace like. And his friend was not eighteen yet and he asked for I.D but he didn’t have it and he wasn’t lending him his I.D Because it was my fucking passport and fuck letting some young cunt lose my passport that’s, what seventy pound like, fuck that#!!!!!!!!!- Then he told me today he watched ‘We were soldiers’. I asked what it was about and he said it was about Viet nam, it was deep mate, about this guy - he was the general, Mel Gibson, and he said that he would be the first man on the field the last man off it – and then at the end he survives and none else does –He said it were deep- he nearly cried – I said I though I’d seen it. Then I asked him what he was doing this evening and he said he was going to the York – Its pound for a pint night on Mondays-it is Monday MOTHERFUCKAAAAA – then he said are you coming and I said I dunno…. He said come on you gay, its Gary’s birthday you bastard – so I said I dunno again. Who’s coming I asked and he said it was all the boys from his flat and the one next door to mine. I said the guys in the flat next door to mine were all wastemen and he said no they’re not, that Jim from the hockey teams a sound lad. I said, what the tall one, he said yeah, he’s well sound like. I said that the York didn’t sound like my kind of thing and he said fuck off. I asked if there were girls coming out and he said of course not its Gary’s birthday, you don’t bring out a bunch of girls on a lads birthday otherwise everyone starts coupling off/// you gotta go out with the lads like///down your pints/ one for a pound/ first man on the field last man off the field. Just the boys like// just the fucking boys getting fucked up.// we were lads, sons, brothers ///////we were soldiers, he said, while my fringe blew in the wind, walking down that hill.

Yeah. Hundreds of times.

This is a blog so I can share music and that.

I got it so i didn't have to get a Myspace or Facebook but i can still do all the wanky network stuff. "Check my blog...etc"

Its mainly for friends and family, people who have sat in my bedroom late at night, and had me saying "just one more tune..."

Its not really meant to be a fancy 'i-know-everything-about-undergroud-music' check my exclusive connections pretend carbon prancehall-copy, but it will probebly end up looking like that.

Its more a place to post writing and music and art etc.

Bless all your mums.

Ben x