Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

6.

Frett – ‘Runnin’

So I guess a good record to sum up that whole grime/dubstep overlap would be ‘Runnin’ by Frett. It’s really fast, but it’s got a half-time feel to it. Again, it’s not a canonical grime record at all, but for me it was a route into loads of other stuff. I think it’s an interesting track from the perspective that it’s just a four-bar sample or something that’s been mangled and chopped a number of different ways, a beat, a gunshot, and not much else. When I play stuff like this, I mix it fast, but that’s not particularly necessary – I can comfortably listen to the entire tune for four-and-a-half minutes, even though very little happens. It definitely doesn’t require an MC, even though they sound great on beats like this. I think these are the kind of records that will stay with me, just because I wasn’t interested in grime early enough to have followed it as it was developing.

Selected in other Baker’s Dozens: Lord Spikeheart, Tom Ravenscroft
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