Locked Off

Photo by James Pearson-Howes

People still try to make out that grime is based in three highrise blocks in Bow, when in reality other parts of London, particularly north, are home to a lot of the more productive MCs such as Chipmunk, Skepta, JME, Scorcher etc. The same goes for bassline. Journalists would have you believe that all the producers come from council estates in small mining villages in Sheffield. Twenty-four-year-old producer Dexplicit—born in Hackney, now living in Enfield—would disagree with that. The guy behind grime’s biggest hit, “Pow”, is kind of accidentally a big influence on the way the bassline scene has gone. His tune “Bullacake” was picked up by bassline DJs long before he had any idea there was any kind of scene north of New Barnet. Dudes were doing that voguing thing they do to it in raves and ripping it off, but Dexplicit was none the wiser until he headed up north in late 2005. To this day, people are even making 4/4 bassline remixes of tracks from his first ever release—on Jason Kaye & Sticky’s Social Circles label. All this attention has lead to his song “Might Be” with Gemma Fox being signed. It’s also led to him becoming the biggest thing in East London since Uffie and now club nights that used to book hair straightener-wielding DJ duos like Tapedeck are asking him to DJ every month, but we won’t dwell on that. Anyway, yeah, we love Dexplicit.

Vice: Why did you decide to become a producer?

Dexplicit:

You know what? My dad was a reggae producer, so he used to have a set-up in the garage and he’d just show me how to use it and kind of messing about turned into making songs. When I was in primary school back in Hackney he used to bring out a drum machine and just let me knock up some jungle tunes. He got pretty big. He was away a lot touring. Like, he’d go to Japan or wherever.

That’s interesting. A lot of grime guys, like Jammer, say that their dad was a “big soundman” or whatever, but half the time I’m not sure if they’re just making it all up.

Haha. Nah, my dad was in a group called Scatta Rocks. David Rodigan used to support them and that—he’d play their tunes on the radio and stuff.

What are the bassline nights like up north that you’ve played at?

It’s crazy. You know what, it’s not good to talk about in a magazine, but I notice it’s getting a bit more violent up there. My friend in Leeds phones me every time something mad kicks off. One time I was up there and I played eight tunes—and this was the biggest club in Leeds as well—and the set got locked off because people rushed the door and took the money.

Sounds a bit grim. What do you love?

Video games. Oh my gosh. I love one-players. Right now I’m playing

Devil May Cry 4

. It’s big. I just like action-adventure games and RPGs, and games with good music. Music is very, very, very important to me. If it’s got bad music I can’t take it. I even remember a lot of the game soundtracks I used to play when I was in primary school—that’s how deep it is.

Street Fighter

had the best music—Ken stage, Ryu stage and Guile stage. They had the best melodies.

PRANCEHALL

“Might Be” will be out soon on Gut. Also, look out for Dexplicit’s production work on Black The Ripper’s forthcoming mixtape,

Black Magic

, out at the end of March.