LU: How does your broadcast background influence your production?
RK: The experience and the knowledge. You can try and do music without all of that, but Iād rather do it with it.
JT: When you finish a record, whether you keep it or scrap it. Thatās where all that experience comes in.
RK: You know whether the tune can run, because youāve had years of 1. being in a record shop, and 2. selling your own records. You listen to records over the years of people trying to make records and putting them out, so by now Iād really hope that I gained enough knowledge to know a good one from a bad one.
JT: Ras has a really good liking for underground music. More than your average dude. When you say king of homegrown, he wears that crown without even having someone telling him to say āI own that crown.ā I think the UK has a lot to thank him for really.
LU: Did you spend much time with your great uncle, King Tubby?
JT: [Until] I was about eight. I think I spent more time with him than I remember about, because it wasnāt always in the studio.
LU: Were there things you picked up from him, as you are an engineer?
JT: I think just being around gave me the interest. Iāve picked up other things in music because of the new world we live in. Back in his time, video making wasnāt a main issue…
RK: Let me tell you this. Jnr. Tubby is a humble guy, so he wonāt even tell you… Iāve been in the privileged position to see many people do the thingāI keep coming back to who can do this thingāand I see that the spirit of the king is in the man! If [King Tubby] was the great innovator that inspired and informed a whole portion of black music with the whole build-up-and-drop in music, heās got the thing fully. I see many people attack this music thing technically and I think heās the wickedest at the thing. Heās also done a lot of big tunes around the world which have been ghostwritten. We arenāt really meant to mention it, but we just had to mention it. Nuff big tunes out there that man are walking around with have been sold on. He spent a lot of time in America. He was over there when Kanye started G.O.O.D. Music and there werenāt that much involved. Him and Alex Da Kid.
JT: Alex Da Kid used to come and do work in my studio in Hackney. Thatās four, five years before Alex Da Kid! I give him super props for what he did.
RK: We canāt really talk about the ting but the ting is big. You know what I mean? Super big! People would be surprised.
JT: Music is not the one thing that Iām gonnna bring. Itās visuals as well. The video that weāve got is state of the artā¦the last video to have this kind of thing going on is “Californication” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. When it first came out, you look at it now and still people canāt do that in England for a cheap price. But weāve gone higher than that. Weāre at the level of 2012 CGI. Itās the same technology theyāve done in Avatar.
RK: Heās talking about the new forthcoming single with Vybz Kartel, called “Pon Time.” Obviously for that video, Vybz Kartel is not around, so we have to get around it, and the way is CGI capture motion technology. Itās the highest pedigree. Super sonic. When that one lands, itās gonna be nuts. I tell you.
Orange Hill and Mavado. Photo: Ras Kwame
LU: That sounds mad. How did you go about getting the different artists and such?
RK: We did have good links with people who are solid in Jamaica. We have to big up Darius, a good friend of mine who, when we went to Jamaica the first time, hooked us up with people like Chino McGregor and the whole Big Ship family. Then we went again with Jazzwadā reggae music royalty right there. He took us to all the deep places. Mavado spent hours with him at his new building, talking about back in the days and all these things. So we formed our links and hustled man. Itās not easy to get big Jamaican artists to work with you.
JT: They are probably one of the hardest.
RK: They have to really like your ideas, really like you and really like your paper as well. Thereās three ways they are looking to like before you can do a project and after that youāve got Jamaican time as well. They like to take their time. You cannot rush the ting.
JT: It kind of deters people from working but if you can get it working…
RK: Itās definitely the best way, itās the most exciting vibrant music that we are looking to portray with our influence.
LU: You have Busy Signal, Fatman Scoop and Kano on the single “Wine Di Best”. What would be the like dream collaboration of artists if you had to pick one if you had to pick one US, one Jamaican and one UK and they had to blend. It couldnāt just be the three biggest names. And what kind of song would you go for?
RK: Thatās tricky because we do sit down and do these different types of permutations all day. Probably Junior Gong from Jamaica meets say Nas, with someone half in JA like Mavado. Maybe Kano meets Drake meets Vybz Kartel. Oh thatās a gyal tune. Sick gyal tune. That would be hot.
LU: Some people have said thereās a similarity between what youāre doing and Major Lazer…
RK: Iād say there is a similarity there. I canāt deny what Major Lazer have done has definitely been heard and has definitely influenced our take on things. But thatās great because the Major Lazer take isnāt our take on things. Weāre doing our thing different. Loving Major Lazerās work and how theyāre increasing the audience. Weāre not saying weāre trying to reinvent reggaeāthat isnāt what weāre about. Weāre just loving our reggae influences and bringing it into what we do.
Photo: Ras Kwame
LU: As this is Jamaica’s 50th year of independence, which aspects of current UK music would you say have been influenced by Jamaican music?
RK: Bass. Clearly the love of bass has just traveled in a straight line right from Jamaica to London city and around the UK. I think it carries a heavy spiritual vibe, Orange Hill definitely carries that vibe. It has stuff for the ladies, because we are coming with the heavy electro-bashy vibe, but our album is really and truly about reggae music. Youāre going to find artists like Demolition Man and Wayne Wisdom doing cover versions of songs by Eddy Grant and Frontline. There is knowledge and wisdom within it, but primarily itās a party.
LU: What can British people do to advance the music and culture that Jamaicans canāt currently?
RK: Iād say what Orange Hill are doing. Use the influences of reggae and dancehall, and use your own influences to bring new sounds to the table. Not feel overly beholden to the thing. We love it at itās core form, but itās about expressing your own vibe on it. Thereās no point in copying itāsprinkle your own flavour to it.
LU: Anything else you’d like to say about Orange Hill?
RK: Basically weāre a soundsystem but we are doing it the other way around. The soundsystem makes music and puts it out and that way the sound becomes popular as opposed to the sound system playing music and then starting to make music and then becoming popular. Thatās what we want to do to drive the ship forward. Right now we are in the process of putting together the album. We hope that will be landing in October. It has features from the big guys in the reggae ting: I-Octane, Wayne Marshall, Mr. Lexx, Cecile, RDX, Vybz Kartel, UK-based talents who we like…
Weāve brought all our musical influences to the table. It is a unique sound. It is Electro Bashy. Itās where dancehall meets dance. It is very vibrant and colorful. It is a sound for the ladies but where the ladies go, the man dem followāthatās the principles of the sound system. We put together the wickedest mixtape to showcase the soundāElectro-Bashy: Welcome to Our Soundāwith exclusive dubplates, remixes. You find in a typical song myself or Jnr. Tubby is on the decks hosted by Maxwell D, Doctor, me, Mr.Lexx, Wayne Wisdom, one of these guys. We are trying to build it as a sound system. The idea is that the voices of the recordāfrom a UK perspective, and that being live in the dance around the mic with the riddims playingāthatās like 360 back to the beginning of where the whole ting started.