13. Dj Oddz
It’s a 4/4 one but it’s got that pounding vibe still. Oddz is from Cardiff. He don’t make tunes no more which is a shame really. He’s got very into religion and gone down a different route. But he was the man at the time, 2002 up to about 2004. I even had some of his tunes on my label, Slimzos Recordings, and they are all good. I think this one came out on white label. Only me and EZ was playing it at the time, all the dubs and that, it was so, so good. This is one I dropped at Sidewinder and you could hear gunshots to the ceiling! It was going mad. I mean that literally, you could hear three gunshots going off into the air. Which is funny now, probably less so at the time. All the MCs were like ‘We don’t wanna hear that!" But they were showing their appreciation. When something’s so good, what happened is that with the crowd going nuts and everything I just dropped it in for like a quick two or three seconds, everyone going mad still and they just let off at the ceiling. Wicked reaction.
I mean people underestimated Oddz. It was hard to get his tunes and he doesn’t have a lot of tunes online so lots of people don’t realise his skill. But if you had his tunes, man, you were on it. Back then there was no internet. You had to meet the person in real life. There wasn’t even email at first. You had to come to London if you didn’t live here already, sit down with them, go out for lunch with them. Go to trainer shops with them, then get the tunes and go cut them onto vinyl. It was whole day of spending time with people. It was more about networking than it is now. Right when he had a tune on my label, Slimzos 003, called ‘Bump Dis’ he was coming from Cardiff, right? I give him a thousand pounds; I mean it sold two thousand units anyway so he got good money for it. And then he went and bought loads of Nike TNs. I couldn’t believe it. He bought about six pairs and he wanted to go to Nando’s and stuff. That was good money off a vinyl release. You could make money back then. Back then I could get 600 or 700 vinyl for £300. And I’d get them in a couple of days. Now it would take forever to get them made, like six months. It’s not even worth doing it.
It was a different era though. I mean we were all going to raves in minibuses; it was just easier that way. I know the dubstep boys like Skream would use limos from Croydon as it was cheaper to travel like that, but there was more of us, I think. Pumping out tunes, drinking, they must have been smoking too, for sure, I mean they were wicked old days. When Dubstep started back in 2004 or whenever, that’s when the internet really took over. Because when grime first started it wasn’t there. There was someone called SL.net who would stream our set and do a few at the weekend, but only 100 people could listen to it at once. Imagine that now. But they were wicked, those dial-up days. I mean it’s all online now, it’s in your face: Soundcloud, streaming, every other platform. But I’m still about. The ‘Mile End’ tune for example, I’ve been working with Boylan for years. I go round to his every couple of nights and I’ll be there all night and we’re just constantly making tunes. That one’s quite a trappy 140 banger. I was never a big producer back in the day. I was more of a DJ. But as I’ve got older I’ve got more into producing. There are other people too, like AS.IF Kid, who I make tunes with under the name E3 Breaks. I’ve got loads of tunes; I just need to get them out there. I just do my thing. I get my buzz from music; I’ve always been like that. To see other people’s reactions makes me feel good. It just makes me really happy. Just like setting up radio aerials did back in the day.
