Various Artists - Jungle Hits, Volume 1
This album is the one that got me feeling like this is when London culture started doing our ting. We were listening to America, listening to bashment… but when you hear jungle and you hear the skits on this album, there’s songs with skits on it and you hear the voices, ‘What what where is he mate? He’s a pussio blud. Come over here’’ and then the tune would just start - just to hear the UK voices and to know mans from the ends. Every little house party I would go to someone would play a jungle tune. Jungle came into my life by being what everyone would listen to. So if you just stayed in your house you’d be in your own bubble. And then you can come out of your house, meet some people and they’d say, ‘Yeah man, there’s a guy called Abra Cadabra’ and then you’d be like ‘What? Who’s this?’ and then you’d listen and then it’s like to come out of your house made you aware. Remember there’s no internet, it’s people telling you what’s the lick. So when I came across jungle it was just everywhere. Then General Levy appeared on my screen and Jungle Hits Volume 1, that really reminds me of when I was younger. It takes me back and makes me think about the ends a bit more, the block, the bikes, the basketball, the football, the youth centres, the house parties. And it’s more my environment. When I was listening to the hip-hop, I used to think that’s how they got it, that’s so cool. When I was listening to jungle and hearing there’s a jungle rave I used to feel a part of something, so this album was one of the albums that drew me in to be an MC. I knew the DJs because they were right here, from the ends. He’s got the decks in his yard and he lives in East London. So yeah, Jungle Hits reminds me really of coming together with my boys and mucking around on the mic. This is like the beginning of D Double.