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Music

RIP Ugo Ehiogu, Who Brought Genuine Passion to a Cynical Music Business

The Dirty Hit Records co-founder and football legend passed away this morning at 44 years old.

Early this morning, Tottenham Hotspur football club announced the death of their under-23s coach, former Aston Villa defender and England international Ugo Ehiogu. He was 44 years old. The news of his death has sent shockwaves through the football community, but the pain has been felt keenly elsewhere: in the music world.

After quitting football in 2009, Ehiogu had been considering where to invest his time and money. After speaking with his friend and financial advisor Brian Smith, the idea emerged that the pair – along with Smith's friend Jamie Oborne – should start their own record label. After a few meetings exchanging ideas, Dirty Hit Records was born.

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While his role in the label was largely as a silent partner, Ehiogu was far more than a money-man in the operation, instead bringing an unbridled enthusiasm to an often cynical business. Dirty Hit's first major signing were Tyne and Wear three-piece Little Comets. Ehiogu spoke passionately about them in interviews, how impressed he was with their work ethic and how hard it was for bands trying to make it through the "orthodox route." He spoke of the importance of sustaining live music, and protecting left-field acts from the then ubiquitous homogeneity of the X-Factor. "There is loads of room for all kinds of acts and bands who make it through hard work and gigging to 200 or 300 people," he told Sky Sports back in 2009.

What's most striking is just what a success Dirty Hit proved to be. Since their inception eight years ago, the label have fostered plenty of indie music's most recent big names. Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Ben Khan, General Fiasco, The Japanese House, Superfood and Wolf Alice have all graced the roster. Notably, they were also the first label to release any music from the 1975, including their platinum-selling debut album and the Mercury-nominated I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It.

It would be mischaracterisation to suggest these successes were all singularly Ehiogu's making. He himself said that the talent scouting was largely left to his other business partners. But his role remained active, engaged, and passionate. Music was, it seems, a significant part of his life. In the same Sky Sports interview he talked about his disappointment during the Sven Goran-Eriksson tenure at England that no music was allowed in the dressing rooms, meaning players resorted to listening to their own iPods pre-game – "I didn't find that conducive to team bonding at all." He remembered his first love of the Fugees, and growing into a music taste that spanned both Jay Z and the Arctic Monkeys. Even down to selecting the music in the Aston Villa dressing room, it's clear the joy popular music brought to his life was substantial.

Stories about footballers following their playing careers by making inroads into music don't normally deserve much attention. There are some successes like Pat Nevin's secret second career as an indie DJ and obviously the eternal magic of "World in Motion" but by and large they are limited to gimmicks; a Djibril Cisse DJ set here, a rogue Ian Wright deep house single there. You'd struggle to find an example of an ex-footballer who entered the world of music with such professionalism and long-term vision. He didn't view running a label as either a way to make money or a pathway to fame. It was something he wanted to learn from, something he cared about.

Of course, following his tragic passing, it will be his football career and family life that will be rightly memorialised. Yet a moment's thought should be spared for his brief but bountiful foray into the music world. Far from a novelty single released on the eve of a World Cup, or a short-lived season of ill-advised DJ sets in Ibiza, Ugo Ehiogu's story was one of personal investment and genuine passion.

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(Lead image by Ben Sutherland via Wikimedia)