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  Blufoot & Wytfang Interview
interview 0575 added 25.08.08 words:
Delbwoy & Hayley
technical:
Spoon
Delbwoy recently caught up with the dynamic duo behind the new ukhh.com CD ‘Mic Ctrl’. Blufoot and Wytfang each took a moment to expose the brains behind the mix letting us know how they compiled it, their unique recording setup, and the scoop on future artists we should be checking in 2008…
The new ukhh.com mix cd has been a while in coming – what’s caused the delay?
 [Blufoot] We opened up for submissions and were sent loads of tracks, hundreds, and to be fair we had to listen to all of them and slowly start sifting out the tunes we were feeling. We just had a strong idea of what we wanted the CD to be about and it was hard to keep true to that and rush things.
Oh cool so the new CD has a strong theme to it?
[Blufoot] It’s for a website that celebrates the diversity of hip hop from the UK both through it’s interviews and reviews but also within the readers and members of the legendary ukhh.com forums and that’s what we wanted to reflect on the cd itself, shit from all over the UK.
There’s about 40 artists on the CD, was it a challenge to mix?
[Blufoot] Things just kind of flowed from one tune to the next, the faster tunes didn't mix together well tempo wise so there's a few more straight cuts than I would usually do in a mix, but again we didn’t wanna tie the mix down to one tempo range or subject matter or accent if possible.
Did you find any artistic differences because there were two of you mixing this? Were you both agreed on who should and shouldn’t be in the mix?
[Blufoot] Not really, most of the ummin and arrgh'in was done at the selection stage, By the time we got to actually lay the tracks down we were emotional wrecks but if there's any part of it you don’t like then Wytfang did that bit haha
[Wytfang] A lot of the material we were sent was banging anyway but the shit tunes were obviously shit so it was quite hard to pick out the best tunes to put on there. We had to leave out loads of great shit. But because the idea was to promote artists from the site it was quite easy to stick to the rules.
There are tons of artists on the mix but do either of you have any particular favourites?
[Blufoot] There's loads of established artists on there that I’ve been into for ages but as for people I've never heard of before Revillo really blew me away, Thought his shit was well impressive.
[Wytfang] I’m glad he blew you Blu! The people that stood out for me were Mystro, Invisible Inc, Stig & Syntax, Skrizzle, and Mole & Iris. A lot of banging people that are on the CD might not put out a lot of actual stuff which is a real shame.
So is there anyone on there we should be keeping an eye on in the next few months?
[Blufoot] Revillo!
[Wytfang] Invisible Inc. Watch out for the album. BOOM!
The mix cd sounded to me to have kind of a transitional vibe – bridging the older school with the more emergent grime flavour of today. Do you agree?
[Blufoot] I dunno if I'd go as far as to say grime but there's tracks on there that are kinda heading that way, we just wanted a mirror image of what people visiting the site are into or making so it does meander a bit from one style to another but that’s why its nice.
 [Wytfang] We just tried to cover all the bases in the mix so it sounds transitional. There is a lot of sub genres in hip hop and we tried to stick it to all of them proper – we got dark shit, clubby shit…. Its all on there.
Wytfang – how much organising did this take, compiling such a broad range of artists? Was it difficult to judge who made it on there?
[Wytfang] We got a lot of good response with tracks more good than shit. It was difficult to get rid of allot of the tracks. People only got a verse and a chorus and allot of the tunes are exclusives and it’s a shame we didn’t drop the whole tracks like like we should have done but we didn’t have space on the cd. We might slap them up online at some point. It was a long slogg but definitely worth it. We just got to get on the promotion right now, Any support would be appreciated.
Blu – What else have you got going on? And are you still obsessed with Courtney Devine?
[Blufoot] I've got a few more mix cd's bubblin away, I think the first one of them to come out will be a James Brown mix thing, I might even be slinging together an EP soon but you'll have to wait for that one, I'm not in a rush to get anything out. Courtney Devine? hell yeah... she's just so down to earth but apparently hood legend dictates that I could never turn her into a housewife, shame.
How is MIC:CTRL different to CTRL ALT THE BEAT?
[Blufoot] We recorded it in sections in different parts of the UK. We kicked off recording in Stranraer, Scotland then headed over to Dungannon in N.Ireland for the next slice, half way through we switched to a small recording studio in Llanberis in north Wales, and then recorded the grand finale in Chavey Down in Berkshire. We wanted to get a feel for the whole of the UK so we decided there was no better way than to hit the road. me, Wytfang and the equipment all squeezed into an MG frog eye, it was character building fo sho.
[Wytfang] A lot of crack was smoked in the making of this…we were on a strict crack, Lucky Strike (silver) and Slimfast shake diet.
Was there anyone you wanted to submit a track for the new CD didnt?
[Blufoot] Marko Magik, no question. He's like the holy grail of hip hop over here, if you're out there ‘Swordsman’, get in touch
[Wytfang] Theres loads… I should have put some more Undali affiliated material on there. Sorry guys.
The mix was recently leaked onto the internet over three weeks before its actual release date. Is all promo good promo?
 [Blufoot] When you’re talking about bigger acts with bigger units and bigger budgets I think they survive off of and depend upon illegal file sharing to promote their shit but for the small fish out there it can really mess with things. If you’ve only got 1000 units to shift regardless then your first initial sales & marketing is quite important… but it is inevitable these days so people just have to have confidence in their product that people will want to actually exchange money for it.
Ukhh.com has been running for almost ten years now – you’ve both been around hiphop for that whole period – what do you think has been the greatest change we’ve seen?
[Blufoot] Like you mentioned above, the whole technology thing has had a huge impact on every aspect of the music world. Now people can make a beat on their psp, Bluetooth it to their blackberry and from there post it on a forum for someone to download, rap on it and then send it back later that day. I started makin beats on 4 track cassettes so to me that’s a huge change. And it also affects djing and listening trends. Everyone has access to almost every tune almost as soon as it’s made. Dj’s now take 10,000 tunes with them to play out to people that have 10,000 tunes on their ipods. In ‘the olden days’ there was THE tune that was around for about a month and slowly the next big tune took over but I think todays society is so disposable, in every aspect, that a tune can be released and done within a couple of weeks in the clubs. People just want new shit, new shit, NEW SHIT and… the remix of the new shit, it’s havin a huge effect on the way music sounds now too
 Do you think British hip hop is in a stronger position now than it was back then?
[Blufoot] The whole industry is in a worse position than it was back then, somethings got to give and I think there’s big changes coming soon, I just don’t know what they are.
Thanks to Blufoot and Wytfang for sparing the time. Mic Ctrl is out now available from direct from here and specialist record stores.
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Delbwoy & Hayley
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