RIP MC Conrad: An Unpublished 2021 Interview
I had the privilege of a 45-minute chat with the legend
What a sad week it’s been with MC Conrad’s death. Like many many others around the world, I’ve spent hundreds of hours with the recordings he features on, as well as catching him live several times. He nurtured a style of MCing that was rooted in a very human interface between his mind, voice and the music played by LTJ Bukem and others. I’ve heard people say over the years, “I’m not a fan of MCs, but Conrad, he’s a different class”. After hearing of his death, I sat down and watched this video from 2002, and I was totally enchanted by his ability to connect with the music so effortlessly. At 6mins 48mins he goes into a section that sound like a song, with repeated motifs and structure, it’s hypnotic - especially when you watch his movements - and I got goosebumps listening to it. There’s a sense of oneness in what he’s doing. It’s not shouting over the music, it’s cultivating a deep synergy with the beats, bass, melodies and harmonies. An exceptional MC, who really elevated the craft and took full ownership of his own artistic lane. Conrad is a unique individual who will be remembered for a long time to come.
In 2021 I interviewed Conrad as part of a piece I was working on for Mixmag. The aim was to celebrate MCs, who are too often neglected in favour of DJs and producers, and derided by many. They are an integral part of rave culture, for which the blueprint is, of course, Jamaican soundsystem culture. MCs have always been there. His input was essential to the piece, as he was one of the few who had some insight with regard to performance rights and royalties, having gone down that road himself. Conrad was a lovely person to interview, knowledgable, candid and full of giggles. He was particularly keen to shout out his son’s YouTube profile, which is here and his label, Resonance here.
I thought I’d do my bit to honour his memory, and the time he committed to our interview, by editing and publishing it in full here on my newsletter.
Rest In Eternal Peace, MC Conrad. What an incredible legacy. Sending all my love to his family and friends.
Why did you take up MCing, rather than DJing, or making music?
It was the cheapest way to get into the studio. I couldn't afford the drum machines or turntables or samplers that started to come around in that period, even though they were accessible on the high street. For that immediate expression, being an MC was going to be the common denominator. Coming up from doing other people's raps, and the human beatbox, that’s what we used to do as kids. Then you worked out, “This could be quite cool, but I want to be the one on the mic”. I loved to human beatbox but I always thought that people are gonna make a whole heap of noise if I'm spitting all over them and making all these weird gestures into the mic. Maybe it's not good for the mic! I don't know if the mic’s built for this kinda thing… it’s just quite mad [laughs]. So yeah, I was like, “I wouldn’t mind being the guy that spits those lyrics... Maybe”.
So electro and hip hop were your first introduction to that side of things?
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I had an interesting introduction to dance music because there was a record collection that my parents had, particularly my dad left behind before he and, my mum split, which was ska, blue beat, rocksteady bass - it didn't evolve into full blown 7-inch reggae because that was when he left, that’s when I was born. So my own identity with music came, like you say, in the form of electro, new wave and what we now know as hip hop.
So what about the rave stuff then? What were some of your earliest experiences of actually getting on stage and being up there with a DJ?
One of the earliest kind of crossovers of me doing something outside of our early sort of beginnings with hip hop was going to Marshgate Lane, Telepathy. I was tugging at the trousers of Evenson Allen (from Ratpack) saying, “Let me have a go on the mic” and he let me. He’d just done a Ratpack set and he’d crossed over to do Jumpin Jack Frost’s set. I did a kind of hip hoppy, high-tempo style, because Frost was playing a lot of Belgian techno, a lot of hardcore, a lot of early proto jungle - music that was in the 120s/130s. I did a few bars and that was interesting. It gave me the bug.
Was there anyone in particular from hip hop that you looked to as a source of inspiration?
I was always a big fan of the Juice Crew. Marley Marl’s collective that had Roxanne Shante, MC Shan, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Biz Markie, Masta Ace and Craig G, all those characters there. An extended member of that production house was Rakim. Rakim is an MC that's kind of the peak. Yeah, I always feel that ‘Follow The Leader’ sounds like drum’n’bass. If you take away the rap itself, the sample bass and the layering of it is very drum’n’bass orientated; futuristic, rolling breaks and you put Rakim’s rap on top of it.. whoa! That is a kind of nucleus inspiration spot, I could definitely go off into time and space with that. It brings me full circle to what we do in the modern time, it hasn't gone away for years. Great inspiration for me, that whole era of hip hop, as well as lots of other strands and crews - A Tribe Called Quest, Public Enemy, Native Tongues, KRS One… all of those characters definitely inspire. Those guys that I just mentioned, are definitely at the centre of it as the holy grail of what's to be done.
And how about on the rave side of things?
Rebel MC, Congo Natty. He is a timekeeper to this whole thing. As an MC, in the form of Rebel MC… to know that someone can get on the mic, produce and forge forward with a movement that crosses over with this new style of dancing and bring our vital ingredients. There's a whole fraternity from Rebel, there's Shut Up And Dance, Ragga Twins, A Guy Called Gerald - you know that ‘21 Gun Bad Boy’ tune… that’s the calling! When I heard that tune there man, I was like a meerkat popping its head up. The list is long, man, but those people there were doing things that just blew my mind as a raver. I was into lots of the deeper bleep stuff; Black Dog before I even knew who Black Dog was, LFO, lots of Detroit techno that still remains unknown to me - Underground Resistance, Juan Atkins, Cybertron…
How did how did the link up with Bukem come about, because the period you were with Danny was just beautiful. When I listen to the old Progression Sessions you’re so intertwined with the music - you couldn't have one without the other. I can't really listen to the instrumental versions of the sets. You have to be involved, otherwise, it doesn't make as much sense.
Thank you. During that time, there was an open discussion about “Should we offer it as an instrumental pack option, as well as vocal?”. Back then people remarked the same way you do, saying it's two peas in a pod. It's that thing between us that glues it together. At the time, there was a lot of, “Maybe people want to hear it the other way round” and that debate still carries on now. It's not to say people don't like what I do, but it's an open debate.
I guess some people naturally prefer to listen to the sets without an MC, which is fair enough and good of you guys to offer that option.
Yeah. So the union between the two of us happened in around the early 90s. From me going to Telepathy, to going to Club X in High Wycombe, to me then starting to go to Oxford travellers, Spiral Tribe, and bumping into Bukem at a free party. We were introduced by DJ Trace at a private free party in a barn… and yeah, it worked. It gelled. We used to send pigeons to each other! There were the early days of mobile phones and I didn't have one of those, and so it was carrier pigeons and BT phone boxes that we used to link up and maybe meet at this rave or whatever. We did that for a little while, just the free rave thing. The promoters of quite a few of the big paid raves would come to the free raves to get their own entertainment. Some of them cottoned on to what was there, and what was possible and invited us to do a few clubs. Then Murray Beetson, from Dreamscape, was backstage at a Fantazia event in Bournemouth. I'd bum rushed an Ellis Dee set, as us MCs have a habit of doing. Shout out to Ramjack, because he had the longest guestlist ever known to man and I was on it. So I've managed to slip in and jump on the stage, do a little bit over Ellis Dee’s set. Me and Roy used to see each other out and about in various different places. In fact, I met him at one of my earliest rave experiences, when I went to the infamous Clink Street - that's how far back me and Ellis Dee went. So I did a bit on his set, Murray was backstage and clocks it. He saw the whole response, everything, and I’d tried to get myself on Dreamscape 3. Murray wasn't having it. I saw him again there [at Fantazia in Bournemouth]. I was like, “Right, now you know what I do, can I get on? He said, “Okay, I'll let you get on”. The gig that carved the way forwards for me and Bukem was Dreamscape 4. We did the legendary 6am set.
That Ellis Dee set and Dreamscape 4 became the two tapes of that summer. I remember walking through the car park at Fantazia Castle Donnington walking through the car park and all I could hear was those two tapes. That was a bit of a moment. I remember thinking “Wow!”. That sealed it and the rest is Good Looking history, which unfolded into an interesting couple of decades.
That brings me to my next question. Over the years, since all of that kicked off, you've had an illustrious career, you've been elevated to a prominent position as a vocalist and you've been successful in translating what you do on the stage to recordings. You've also developed a very unique style, I'd say as well. My question is centred around the theme of this piece, which is, we're celebrating MCs, but for the most part, you don't generally see very much media coverage given to MCs on their own. You don't really see them on the covers of magazines, or getting big features. Media representation is generally centred around DJs and producers, and I wondered how you felt about that and what your experience has been of that.
Back in 1991, I was licking my wounds from falling out with what became Silver Bullet, and missed my chance with Caveman, which were two prominent UK hip hop groups. So I found myself raving, but also I was thinking about how far I would be able to take it with UK rap and what UK rap was gonna do globally… I had an epiphany and that pushed me towards rave. It's not to say that UK rap wasn't going to be successful. I just didn't feel it was going to be successful for me. And all those things that you talk about, they were included in that outlook. I saw a whole wave of DJ/producer type facades forthcoming and my job was to then work out how I was going to find a way within this, without just being a bit of a vocal sample or addition. Which, success taken on board, I'm still trying to find my way now. But that's me personally. Fast forward three decades, it's taken grime to do that. It's amazing to stand back, look at how things were three ago and say, “Wow, that was the challenge”. I was up for kind of being part of the change, but I didn't feel that we were going to get that spotlight. The scene wasn’t fitting [for us] in that way - in the same way hip hop in the US used to be about the DJ and the rapper was an addition. It’s taken some time and eventually the rapper becomes the thing. It's taken the evolution of grime to put MCs at the forefront.
Did it ever feel disheartening that there wasn't so much prevalence given to your craft?
The position that I maintained at Good Looking was a very privileged one in the sense of how much spotlight I was getting because there was a line that was carved out for us. It was a little bit left of field and ran on a slightly different track than the mass production of the rest of the fleet. I was fortunate to be mentioned as a duo, but at the same time there was a bit of imbalance, definitely. Without going into the business side of it, it was definitely bad and there has been a glass ceiling for quite some time. I don't know how many MCs in Drum and Bass realise this, but the going rate, should we say for MCs, is based on the minimum wage that you should be paying a musician. That means it's like if you were in a band and you were playing the cowbell. This is what you'll be able to get… Some cowbell players get a bit more than the MC! [Laughs] But it's it's forcing some people to do things that are disruptive. There's disruption, good disruption, and I think with that will come evolution and good things happen.
Why do you think there is a glass ceiling? One of the things I discussed with Mighty Moe from Heartless Crew the other day was that typically, MCing is something that you need to experience in the flesh. It doesn't always necessarily translate very well to recordings. Whereas if you're a DJ, you can make a mix and put that out there or you can start producing and put that out there, and you have those as your calling cards. Whereas, as an MC in our culture, your main offering is on stage.
Well, songwriting, and being an artist, is one thing. Back in my day, if you took the path as a musician, and learned an instrument and did your grades, you’d be pushed into a certain avenue of becoming an artist, with certain protocols and formalities. With the advent of underground independent dance music, here we are with the “mic man”. Now you're getting a bit of popularity and you might have a track or two doing the circuit, and it's working. But you still write a load of other lyrics, you're still engaged with this urban “micsmithery” and keeping your pen sharp, and maybe battling and having a cypher.
Then, as explained to me by the PRS, in the mid 2000s, when I challenged them and said, “Why can't I get royalties?” against lyrics that I've done on certain long recordings - mix series, and also live recordings and performances. I said, “Well, if a DJ/producer can register all of his tracks and get something for it, why can't I?” And they put it in these terms… They said that you're like a jazz or a blues musician. I got a history lesson off of them. This is why jazz and blues musicians don't escalate up to large format performances unless they're doing flat pieces. Because you're doing bits and pieces, different things. You're freestyling Like doing a sax solo or a guitar or a medley, a bit of this and a bit of that. There's no set way that you're going to be doing this performance. Secondly, the music that you're performing, have you registered that as an actual piece of music? So that you can do a setlist and say, “I did this, I did that, this is a live version”. So it was something I always dreamed of doing and I didn't actually get that done within the Bukem and Conrad partnership. It was almost done, because what we put out as the Progression Session mix series was done a certain way. I was the 13th track out of 12 instrumentals. So, a long acapella track, or I would get an even percentage of everybody's track. There’s a couple of ways you can do it but live… I’ve still got an archive of live recordings that would need registering, track by track by track by track, just to publish them and make them commercial. I can't go to PRS and say, “I've played at that festival, and there’s said track featuring myself volumes 1,2,3 and 4”. Unless you've got your own show, where you're then doing your own tracks and your own set pieces, the emcee stays at club, small venue, bars and pubs level. Which is why you've got a similar setting to the jazz musicians want to be true to the game and just do what comes, and play whatever registered that track. That's why you don't see the big hip hop acts out there, spitting bars left, right and centre on a kind of hip hop version of a rave scene. Their version of making it doesn't involve hanging around in that realm too long . Doesn’t mean they can’t, but it doesn’t yield.
Would you say then that, in order for rave MCs to move forwards, there could be an aspect where perhaps MCs go, “Okay, we're going to do a show that's based around me, and here are my tunes and I’m going to run through a specific set list of my recordings”?
That's already happening. Absolutely happening. Obviously, girls and guys are coming with the new content weekly, because that's the thing… but they’re also doing set pieces, it might shift over different tunes, but it's set pieces for MCs. It depends what you got on your hip to be able to fire like “Pew pew pew”. But speaking from experience, I know which ones work out of my set of bullets. Now, the beauty of having your own DJ is you can find which tunes correspond with those lyrics. If you're working week in week out with somebody, you move with the evolution of their record box, so to speak and the set style that you've got to play with. Content capture is important. Controlling that, and distributing that, after you've done the business structure of it. Because I think John Bass definitely understands the power of, of back scratching, and kind of supporting each other or not supporting something or what have you. So you can very quickly say, “Look, there's an opportunity to do something with this content. Can you sign this off, please? I've got MC whoever on top of DJ so and so and such and such rave, this catalogue of music is already in there, let’s licence that and let's get that poppin”. Call it “MC whoever live version” and it's flying. Then it’s down to the artist’s discretion, what you allow to be freeform, so you’re giving the MC space to be themselves. It’s a mad conundrum if you're gonna be business smart about it to really maximise it.. It's not just spitting a million bars and having a non captivated legacy.
I hadn't really thought about how the imbalance could be shifted, how MCs could progress, how the whole thing could evolve, and how there could be more of a business structure. As I said before, it's one of my favourite aspects of the entire culture yet when you take a step back - and you can look at any genre: dubstep, garage, drum’n’bass - there aren't very many that have really stepped out of the club domain to become an artist…
If you look at any promising MCs that come up through the major marketing machine. they very quickly get pulled off the rave circuit. That’s something to observe, not necessarily something to be desired.
I guess the majors want to cultivate more of a concert-based model. And then the MC might pop up once in a while and do a little surprise thing somewhere, for the people.
Yeah, they won’t be active on the scene. They’ll be recording albums and sitting at fashion shows, doing fluffy interviews and, before you know it, they’ll be on TV and doing Hollywood movies. You're like, “Wow, what happened there?!” Which is great if you want to tick those boxes as success. But yeah, the scene’s got something about it… It pulls you in, sucks you in, keeps you there. I laugh about that, but then in years to come you’ll look back and go, “Yo, that did something to some artists, and not all good”. There was some artists that should have flown and flourished and become other things, that were just captivated by this scene and the format that it presents.
So, to finish up, what’s your view in terms of your legacy and what it means for the work that you and your peers did years ago in order to establish the foundations that the grime guys are utilising? And how that then feeds back into what I'm doing here with this piece, celebrating MCs, and how that might encourage other media outlets to go, “Oh yeah, MCs, we need to give those guys a bit more respect and space in our publications”?
It’s a beautiful thing to be part of it. I love looking at that, not puffing myself up saying, “I did this, I did that”, as I can't do half the things that kids do now. But it's a beautiful thing to know I'm extended within that. I got to shake a leg! I got to make some noise. The idea works. I'm a little bit autistic. Unbeknown to people. I've also got a son who's quite creative, and is autistic as well. Who's been bugging me for a mention.
I used to paint some mad pictures, when I was kid, of music stages and I had this fascination with how things were laid out. Now I think about those pictures and I think I was, as much as I am fascinated with being on stage, and how it all works and where the lights come from and where the performance is, the perspective I was painting those pictures from was in the crowd, watching it. I love seeing the product of an idea and being with people, nudging them and being like, “Look, it worked!”. But what's going on? So, yeah, if I get to see that, not to say that I was solely responsible for any any part of it, there was many before me, and many around me, with me, we're all together. And hopefully, looking forward to days like now… Jeez man, there's guys doing mainstage Glastonbury that I can relate to and I know where their heads are at. But they’re also doing things with video and film and they’ve got mad careers. To the point that you've got comedians doing MC parodies. It's all there and people are doing travel journals because they're an MC and they visit mad places in the world. They’re on panels, in politics, in social studies, economics, science, fashion and this is just the UK. They're in there because of their wordsmithing. So, it ain't that bad. It's a beautiful thing to observe. And to say, “Yeah, we did things with our words”, more than just a battlezone cypher in amongst ourselves, it can actually take people down the right path and do amazing things across the world.
I'm glad to have been on the other side of it, in the crowd and listening at home, trying to copy and learn lyrics!