LargeUp Interview: Orange Hill Talk “Electro Bashy”

Words by Marvin Sparks, Photos by Amit & Naroop

Orange Hill Productions are a fresh production outfit from the UK poised to explode on the world with a funky fusion they dub “Electro Bashy.” The duo have already built an extensive musical history. Ras Kwame is known for hosting the HomeGrown Show on BBC Radio 1Xtra and producing UK Garage club classics as M-Dubs; his production partner Jnr Tubby (a/k/a Dialtone), great-nephew of dub pioneer King Tubby, has built beats for American MCs like Lil Wayne and Juelz Santana.

With their first official single “Wine De Best” (which matches versatile dancehall/reggae star Busy Signal with UK wordsmith Kano and hypeman/radio personality/reality TV guy Fatman Scoop) set to drop in the US and internationally next week, and our headphones still scorching from their introductory Electro Bashy: Welcome to Our Sound mixtape, we sent our UK correspondent Marvin Sparks to their North London studio to find out what exactly Electro Bashy is, why Kwame and Tubby feel dancehall needs a shock to the system, and their take on Jamaican music’s undeniable influence on UK black music.

LargeUp: Tell us how the concept of Electro Bashy came about?

Ras Kwame: “Electro Bashy” is the name of how we describe our sound. It’s a new sound, it basically describes what we do which is primarily reggae for the purposes of this act, mixed in with UK bass influences, with a little bit of dance, and you get the Electro Bashy formula.

LU: How did you come up with it?

Jnr Tubby: The reggae we thought wasn’t really matching up with what the new music was doing—like R&B and dance music. Reggae really seems to come out with a formation with whatever sound is around, and that wasn’t really happening, and Ras discovered a way to work with the reggae sound but still in a dance format. And we were like that’s the new sound, the new sound of 21st century reggae.

LU: How did you guys meet?

RK: We’ve known each other for years and years. We’ve always had roots in the UK garage scenes doing production. I used to put records out under the name M-Dubs, which were reggae influenced records anyway with people like Ritchie Dan, Lady Saw, and so on.

JT: I had many garage names. I worked with many garage producers, many garage artists…“Sweet Like Chocolate” was a big remix I did.

RK: The main thing he is known to the scene for is Antonio’s “Hyperfunk.” We both had connections in the UK garage scene, linked up, started talking, swapped ideas. He made a name for himself doing the production thing and stayed with that touring all around the globe. I got into the broadcasting thing, fast forward ten years and we got talking again, then we stumble across this Electro Bashy thing and this is something that we both share a passion for. He is the descendant to the great King Tubby, that’s his great nephew right there. I thought it would be really cool if I could work with a descendant of a music icon. That’s music royalty linking up, so I was like “Yeah, I’m in!” We went to Jamaica in 2010 and it’s been a journey from then.

LU: I’m guessing you made the riddims over here [London] and then took them to Jamaica to do the voicings…

RK: That’s kind of how it began. I linked with Jnr Tubby, we were talking about doing ideas, he was formulating the style, working it out in his head technically. The first warm-up single we put out, “Dan Man,” was actually a riddim we took to Jamaica and was really different than that one we had voiced. When we came back we had a more clear idea for a sound and the name of the project had actually been established. Orange Hill is a mountain in Jamaica. It also describes a strain of particular weed that comes from that side of the mountain.

JT: I had built the main beat that we finally decided on, on top of the actual mountain itself, and we were like “Oh yeah, that’s what the whole thing needs to sound like.”

LU: What are the origins of your interest in reggae and dancehall?

JT: I’m half Jamaican. I was in Jamaica seven years as a youngster, I came over here, then I went over to America working with people like Juelz Santana. They would want reggae influences on their mixtapes. I even did one with Lil Wayne—I Can’t Feel My Face by Juelz Santana. I worked mostly with Juelz Santana and I got to work with him on that project. It wasn’t really big in England and around the world as much as now. It actually leaked, I still have tracks with them that didn’t even get released.

RK: Growing up in Ghana, West Africa—I went to secondary school over there—it’s a reggae mad country. But more on the rootsy side of things, listening to people like Burning Spear, Black Uhuru, Steel Pulse. It was through the natural vibe of the place and listening to [David] Rodigan tapes that were circulating like hard currency. He used to do capital radio and a station called BFBS, and those tapes were what we used to listen to and learned DJing from then… and collecting reggae records. In my personal me time, that’s what I listen to really and truly from all the varieties like dub, to the more roots and culture through the dancehall, I love it all. When I started making music somewhere in the early 90’s, I was always drawn to that vibe.

LU: So who does what role within the duo?

RK: The way Orange Hill works is we have a broad spectrum of ideas, and a broad list of people we want to work with. Tubby deals with the more technical side in terms of sitting behind the keyboard, and does his thing. We just bounce ideas around, come up with little melodies and sample ideas, what kind of elements we want to chuck in, until we come up with riddims and from those riddims we pair them up with people from our wish list of artists we want to work with and try to create songs.

Orange Hill and Busy Signal. Photo: Ras Kwame

LU: How did you go about selecting artists?

RK: We did start with a list of guys that we always wanted to work with, a dream collection of artists in modern reggae: I-Octane, Vybz Kartel, RDX, guys that have made big records and play in clubs. We build riddims based around the Electro Bashy vibe, and think of what kind of voices go with it and who you want to work with.

Read on for Part Two, as Orange Hill’s Ras Kwame and Jnr. Tubby talk links in Jamaica, their “supersonic” and “nuts” video with Vybz Kartel and their goals with Electro Bashy.

LU: How does your broadcast background influence your production?

RK: The experience and the knowledge. You can try and do music without all of that, but I’d rather do it with it.

JT: When you finish a record, whether you keep it or scrap it. That’s where all that experience comes in.

RK: You know whether the tune can run, because you’ve had years of 1. being in a record shop, and 2. selling your own records. You listen to records over the years of people trying to make records and putting them out, so by now I’d really hope that I gained enough knowledge to know a good one from a bad one.

JT: Ras has a really good liking for underground music. More than your average dude. When you say king of homegrown, he wears that crown without even having someone telling him to say “I own that crown.” I think the UK has a lot to thank him for really.

LU: Did you spend much time with your great uncle, King Tubby?

JT: [Until] I was about eight. I think I spent more time with him than I remember about, because it wasn’t always in the studio.

LU: Were there things you picked up from him, as you are an engineer?

JT: I think just being around gave me the interest. I’ve picked up other things in music because of the new world we live in. Back in his time, video making wasn’t a main issue…

RK: Let me tell you this. Jnr. Tubby is a humble guy, so he won’t even tell you… I’ve been in the privileged position to see many people do the thing—I keep coming back to who can do this thing—and I see that the spirit of the king is in the man! If [King Tubby] was the great innovator that inspired and informed a whole portion of black music with the whole build-up-and-drop in music, he’s got the thing fully. I see many people attack this music thing technically and I think he’s the wickedest at the thing. He’s also done a lot of big tunes around the world which have been ghostwritten. We aren’t really meant to mention it, but we just had to mention it. Nuff big tunes out there that man are walking around with have been sold on. He spent a lot of time in America. He was over there when Kanye started G.O.O.D. Music and there weren’t that much involved. Him and Alex Da Kid.

JT: Alex Da Kid used to come and do work in my studio in Hackney. That’s four, five years before Alex Da Kid! I give him super props for what he did.

RK: We can’t really talk about the ting but the ting is big. You know what I mean? Super big! People would be surprised.

JT: Music is not the one thing that I’m gonnna bring. It’s visuals as well. The video that we’ve got is state of the art…the last video to have this kind of thing going on is “Californication” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. When it first came out, you look at it now and still people can’t do that in England for a cheap price. But we’ve gone higher than that. We’re at the level of 2012 CGI. It’s the same technology they’ve done in Avatar.

RK: He’s talking about the new forthcoming single with Vybz Kartel, called “Pon Time.” Obviously for that video, Vybz Kartel is not around, so we have to get around it, and the way is CGI capture motion technology. It’s the highest pedigree. Super sonic. When that one lands, it’s gonna be nuts. I tell you.

Orange Hill and Mavado. Photo: Ras Kwame

LU: That sounds mad. How did you go about getting the different artists and such?

RK: We did have good links with people who are solid in Jamaica. We have to big up Darius, a good friend of mine who, when we went to Jamaica the first time, hooked us up with people like Chino McGregor and the whole Big Ship family. Then we went again with Jazzwad— reggae music royalty right there. He took us to all the deep places. Mavado spent hours with him at his new building, talking about back in the days and all these things. So we formed our links and hustled man. It’s not easy to get big Jamaican artists to work with you.

JT: They are probably one of the hardest.

RK: They have to really like your ideas, really like you and really like your paper as well. There’s three ways they are looking to like before you can do a project and after that you’ve got Jamaican time as well. They like to take their time. You cannot rush the ting.

JT: It kind of deters people from working but if you can get it working…

RK: It’s definitely the best way, it’s the most exciting vibrant music that we are looking to portray with our influence.

LU: You have Busy Signal, Fatman Scoop and Kano on the single “Wine Di Best”. What would be the like dream collaboration of artists if you had to pick one if you had to pick one US, one Jamaican and one UK and they had to blend. It couldn’t just be the three biggest names. And what kind of song would you go for?

RK: That’s tricky because we do sit down and do these different types of permutations all day. Probably Junior Gong from Jamaica meets say Nas, with someone half in JA like Mavado. Maybe Kano meets Drake meets Vybz Kartel. Oh that’s a gyal tune. Sick gyal tune. That would be hot.

LU: Some people have said there’s a similarity between what you’re doing and Major Lazer…

RK: I’d say there is a similarity there. I can’t deny what Major Lazer have done has definitely been heard and has definitely influenced our take on things. But that’s great because the Major Lazer take isn’t our take on things. We’re doing our thing different. Loving Major Lazer’s work and how they’re increasing the audience. We’re not saying we’re trying to reinvent reggae—that isn’t what we’re about. We’re just loving our reggae influences and bringing it into what we do.

Photo: Ras Kwame

LU: As this is Jamaica’s 50th year of independence, which aspects of current UK music would you say have been influenced by Jamaican music?

RK: Bass. Clearly the love of bass has just traveled in a straight line right from Jamaica to London city and around the UK. I think it carries a heavy spiritual vibe, Orange Hill definitely carries that vibe. It has stuff for the ladies, because we are coming with the heavy electro-bashy vibe, but our album is really and truly about reggae music. You’re going to find artists like Demolition Man and Wayne Wisdom doing cover versions of songs by Eddy Grant and Frontline. There is knowledge and wisdom within it, but primarily it’s a party.

LU: What can British people do to advance the music and culture that Jamaicans can’t currently?

RK: I’d say what Orange Hill are doing. Use the influences of reggae and dancehall, and use your own influences to bring new sounds to the table. Not feel overly beholden to the thing. We love it at it’s core form, but it’s about expressing your own vibe on it. There’s no point in copying it—sprinkle your own flavour to it.

LU: Anything else you’d like to say about Orange Hill?

RK: Basically we’re a soundsystem but we are doing it the other way around. The soundsystem makes music and puts it out and that way the sound becomes popular as opposed to the sound system playing music and then starting to make music and then becoming popular. That’s what we want to do to drive the ship forward. Right now we are in the process of putting together the album. We hope that will be landing in October. It has features from the big guys in the reggae ting: I-Octane, Wayne Marshall, Mr. Lexx, Cecile, RDX, Vybz Kartel, UK-based talents who we like…

We’ve brought all our musical influences to the table. It is a unique sound. It is Electro Bashy. It’s where dancehall meets dance. It is very vibrant and colorful. It is a sound for the ladies but where the ladies go, the man dem follow—that’s the principles of the sound system. We put together the wickedest mixtape to showcase the sound—Electro-Bashy: Welcome to Our Sound—with exclusive dubplates, remixes. You find in a typical song myself or Jnr. Tubby is on the decks hosted by Maxwell D, Doctor, me, Mr.Lexx, Wayne Wisdom, one of these guys. We are trying to build it as a sound system. The idea is that the voices of the record—from a UK perspective, and that being live in the dance around the mic with the riddims playing—that’s like 360 back to the beginning of where the whole ting started.