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Baker's Dozen

Fanatic Energy: Flowdan's Favourite Records
Ollie Zhang , August 3rd, 2016 06:34

Following the release of the grime MC's new album, Disaster Piece, he talks Mollie Zhang through 13 records, from N.W.A to Lexxus, stopping by Shy FX, DJ Krust and Vanilla Ice, that he blames for getting him into music

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Shy FX – 'This Style'
'This Style' was one of my favourite songs before I even got to play it myself. I just heard it and thought, "Oh my god, what is this? It's like a whole other music." Songs like that actually got me into drum & bass and jungle, because they just had infectious basslines which I associated with reggae, but they just sounded more fun. And because there weren't always vocals – samples but not necessarily vocals – it just had more space for my imagination to run wild.

So is this where you jumped in and started to MC a bit more?

Definitely. I'd definitely say I did. But at this stage in my life, nothing I was doing was original. I remember it was all copied from my favourites. The original stuff didn't start happening until after drum & bass. What I was doing still wasn't really me; I thought it was original, but it wasn't.