The Heatwave Gave Us A Mixtape

Welcome to Touching Bass, where I'll be delving into the minds of DJs; marauders of the late night rave and soundtrackers for all the night time debauchery that we crave. While scantily clad females, buzzing off a conjoined bundle of oestrogen and overpriced Red Stripe wine their bodies, they work; piecing together low-end heaviness while your abstinence falls to pieces.

This time around me and Gabriel from dancehall masters, The Heatwave, perused over holiday destinations in the Caribbean, reminisced about Vybz Kartel and mulled over the excitement of their Hot Wuk parties.

Have you been over to the Caribbean yet?

No, were going to Jamaica in June though. I've booked tickets and we’re also sorting plans to go over to Trinidad soon. It’s something that we’ve been planning to do over the last few years, but we’ve just been so busy so it’s been difficult to find the time.

You should visit Grenada. My gran cooks up an enviable callaloo…

I was looking to go on holiday recently and was looking there. Eventually we need to go out to places at least once a year because it’s important to go and find out what’s going on. I’ve heard a lot of good stuff coming out of Grenada.

I’m normally a jerk chicken man (a little bit of ackee on the side sometimes). What do you usually go for?

It depends what kind of mood I'm in really. There’s this Trinidadian place in Finsbury Park called Hummingbird that we used to go to quite regularly. They do some mad fish stew, but normally chicken or goat. I find saltfish too salty though. Think that was just because I had made it though.

So The Heatwave has been around since 2003, but when would you say things really started to pick up?

I’d say it was at different points because we’ve done loads of different things. We ran a club night, then ran a label for a while and we did a compilation for Soul Jazz in 2008. I guess that was probably when things started picking up internationally. We went to the States for the first time and that compilation really got our name known around the world and especially highlighted the links between UK music and Jamaican music. In terms of saying how much UK MCs owed to dancehall culture, that hadn’t been pushed into the mainstream as much. It’s just been steadily building to be fair, there hasn’t been a point where it’s just suddenly blown. Then there’s other things like joining Rinse in 2009, which was important for building our profile. The success of our Hot Wuk parties also took us to the next level.

When’s the last time you felt like daggering a girl at Hot Wuk?

I’m going to throw a "no comment" at that one.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a Hot Wuk party?

There was a certain one before Christmas where someone was celebrating something and ended up on the floor under somebody else. That was quite scandalous. There’s pictures of it somewhere and normally we publish the photos meaning anything too naughty can be taken down. For some reason these ones ended up on the internet somewhere. It wasn’t me by the way. When the photos are on Facebook and you see the comments coming in like "rah, I didn’t expect you to be doing that", that’s always quite funny. It’s amazing how the music can turn you into a dancehall vampire.

I read a tweet from you about the Nottingham Hot Wuk. Was that particularly vampire-heavy?

In certain clubs, you can see what’s going on around the club, but in Nottingham the club is quite big and there are these nooks and crannies around the back by the bar. We took a little walk around whilst one of the other DJs were playing and we really saw what was going on. We were joking about when the first Hot Wuk baby is going to be born.

I personally miss the cornrowed Sean Paul of the early 2000s, but if you could bring back any dancehall artist in his prime, who would it be?

I would bring back Vybz Kartel and Buju Banton. Especially Kartel. He was at the peak of his popularity when he went into jail and he hasn’t even been on trial yet. He’s just been on remand for almost a year and a half. From a musical perspective though, Vybz is sorely missed because of the impact he was having. Buju because he’s been around for 20+ years and he has so much good music in him.

It’s quite cool to listen to dancehall over Mosca’s "Bax". How do you go about choosing your tracks before your refix them?

Things just end up presenting themselves. We don’t think too much about it but things just pop up. Whenever I think ‘this sounds like dancehall’, the next thing is always to make a remix.

Finally, what’s next to come from The Heatwave?

We’re doing a big carnival party at the end of March called the Hot Wuk party. We play on a truck at Notting Hill carnival every year, but we’re using it to take into a warehouse for a carnival because it’s not summer yet. That’s on March 29. It’s our 10th birthday in October so we may have a couple of parties to celebrate all the things we’ve done so far. Other than that, it’s all about gearing up for summer. We’re heading to Brazil in May and Scandinavia some time too. Then there are all the festival slots that need to be sorted too.

The Heatwave continue their Bass Culture Clash 2013 Tour tomorrow in London at Plan B. Buy tickets HERE.