|
TOM:
Portishead has won so many fans among artsy, college, and film
circles, yet you've also turned on a lot of people in the
hip-hop underground. Can you talk about how influenced you've
been by the approach that American hip-hop takes to production
and music?
|
GEOFF:
We've been massively
influenced. I was in rock and could have stayed with the drums
and stuff, but when hip-hop first hit suburban England, it kind
of took over and was massively exciting. It was a real thing you
could get into. It's difficult to describe, but to a younger
generation of sixteen-year-old kids it was that you wouldn't go
out and have a fight; you'd go out and dance against each other.
We were like, "Well, what the hell?"-- you know what I
mean? People might laugh at that-- like you're laughing now. But
that's the way it happened.
|
|
TOM:
I see.
|
GEOFF:
The other point was that
America was the absolute home of it. It was developed straight
out of block parties or whatever, and when it got to the UK it
wasn't a commercial thing. It wasn't until a lot later that I
started seeing it on the TV. It was just massively exciting
getting these tunes-- whether it be "So Why Is It Fresh?'
and the original breaking' tunes. In the UK we had these
"electro" records, which were basically American
imports on a series of compilation albums called
"Electro". It went from "Electro One" to
"Electro Fifty," or god knows how many. If you
couldn't afford to buy the imports you'd go out and buy the
compilation.
. |
|
TOM:
The series and the music were both called "electro"? |
GEOFF:
Yeah, and it had all of
the original Roxanne Shante stuff on it...
. |
|
TOM:
And it was hip-hop?
|
GEOFF:
Pure hip-hop, yeah-- from
all of the Grandmaster Flash stuff to even stuff like the
Knights of the Turntables [laughs]-- you know what I mean? It
was totally exciting, and you could tell the different crews
from Los Angeles to New York, to whatever. And you had people
coming out of the UK, as well. People started developing
themselves.
|
|
TOM:
Massive Attack.
|
GEOFF:
Well, yeah. But I mean the
Wild Bunch thing was pretty big and just all over the shop. It
started to get played on radio and it was still called
"underground." It wasn't a mainstream thing. And then
there was a guy I used to buy tapes off, who still DJs with us.
|
|
DAVE
AND ADRIAN: Andy Smith.
|
|
GEOFF:
Basically, Andy's been
DJing since the late '70s-- disco tunes, disco mixing, and the
whole thing. He had these turntables and I went down to his
house, heard this stuff, and was like, "Ahhh, that's
it." And it's been that way all the way through 'til now--
listening to hip-hop and through that being introduced to jazz
and soul tunes. |
|
ADRIAN:
Soundtracks. |
|
GEOFF:
And soundtracks. So it's
massively creative, hip-hop, and it still will be even if it's
commercial. I mean, the thing about people slaying the
commercial hip-hop that is happening in America-- Yeah, it's
commercial, but it's just the development of hip-hop. Hip-hop
has developed all the way through, but instead of having that
guy Vanilla Ice on the top of the charts, you've got someone who
owns a black record company. Which is better for hip-hop,
because he can get his millions of dollars and reinvest it into
something that is underground. It's just more investment into
black music. I mean, at one point hip-hop was so controlled by
the big labels that only a certain amount could get through. But
now, especially when you have people like Wu Tang selling the
kind of records they do... |
|
ADRIAN:
And everything else
they're doing... [Check out Wu Tang hardgoods in Platform's
Rocketshop] ay pure is to
write your own beats.
|
|
GEOFF:
... It just means more
generated money, and what that does is creative. What used to
happen is that if a commercial rap act were owned by a major
record company, the record company would take that money and
invest it in more pop. Whereas these guys [in black-owned
companies] are investing in their friends and their culture. |
