Straddling the divide between the worlds of hip hop and drum ‘n’ bass, Adam F is one of the few who has manage to make an impact in both spheres. Working from studios in London and Brooklyn, he produces slick beats for the likes of Redman while running and producing tracks for one of the most successful drum ‘n’ bass imprints around, Breakbeat Kaos. In the past he’s made deep anthems like Circles, F-Jam and Metropolis but more recently he’s been releasing more dancefloor smasher material, such as his huge Original Jungle Sound and Rock Demon with Fresh. He says this apparent transition is not necessarily a case of changing his style…
I never had a ‘style’, you just heard one very small part of me, and it’s really as simple as that. A lot of people are like that; they have a particular style. Wait until you hear the project I’ve got happening at the end of next year, it’s going to freak people the fuck out. I just got so many different sides to me, musically, and that was just one small part of me. I’ve got a side to me that loves jazz and funk and all of that but I also like really sort of grimy sort of music as well. Grimy funk and hip hop and stuff. I just have different flavours you know what I mean? I love film score music and I like combining it all together as well.
You obviously have a great passion for hip hop as well?
Yeah. I mean I really grew up on that stuff before anything else. When I was at school I went to see people like Redman, Public Enemy and all that stuff when they first went on tour and that was my first love but being in England where it was more stifled, where there was less of a scene than in America, along came drum ‘n’ bass and that was, for me, mad new club music that wasn’t like house or anything but that still had the funk and energy of what I liked about hip hop.
Making hip and drum ‘n’ bass, are these world’s completely separate?
To begin with I was putting elements of drum ‘n’ bass sounds within hip hop production, but artists and stuff that were listening to it weren’t necessarily leaning towards it, know what I’m saying? But now that the southern sort of hip hop has come in there is a lot more room for that drum ‘n’ bass sort of flavour and bass sound. But it’s more than just the sound, it’s more the whole take on it, the whole arrangement and gimmicks and ideas as much as anything else, that stuff has definitely had an influence from drum ‘n’ bass.
What’s your aim for the Breakbeat Kaos label?
To basically incorporate the whole spectrum of drum ‘n’ bass. I mean, a lot of labels have a sound – they sound hard, musical, liquid or whatever but we want to create a camp that is very artist based and very artist driven. That’s why I signed Pendulum. We see a deeper artist side to them that can make albums that people can listen to for years, that tear up the dancefloors and have amazing bits of music in them in some way. So we really want to have a label that isn’t just about just dancefloor stuff, but that has a real depth to it. And as I said, as you’ll hear over the next year we’re really covering the whole spectrum sound-wise. Which is what we like to do in our sets too. When me and Dan come over there we’re really gonna try and give you the whole of drum ‘n’ bass rather than it’s just gotta be all hard or whatever. A lot of DJs play one particular style to a degree.
Are you guys gonna go back to back?
I dunno. I’d like to go separately because I feel you’re able to hear a little bit more about you if you play your own set. If you go back to back, I think that all gets completely chucked out the window and it becomes a laugh. Because how someone else is feeling might not be how you’re feeling that night and that might put a spanner in the works for the journey that you want to go next. Although, I did do a tour with Craze where we went back to back on four decks, simultaneously, and that was fucken nuts. It was completely different to DJing like your normal back to back because we had a concept for the whole set. Like hip hop and scratching and the whole thing whereas if I do back to back with Fresh in a more typically drum ‘n’ bass thing it’d be more like just playing tunes.
What’re your plans for Breakbeat Kaos for the next year?
The last single just came out, When the Sun Goes Down and Andy C, Commix and Dillinja have all got remixes. We got a track from Baron, his first one on the label, with Fresh, it’s called Super Nature and it’s absolutely fucken tearing at the moment. Also the flip to that Fahrenheit and Showdown that’s Baron’s first twelve. We got something coming out from Artificial Intelligence in the new year, we’ve got a new EP from me, Pendulum, Baron and Fresh the Funk EP. We’ve also got another signing on the liquid funk tip but I can’t say it until we actually sign it, we’ve got Pendulum as well doing their album, which I would hope would be ready for the summer and at the end of the year we’ll have another label album like Jungle Sound Strikes Back Volume III or whatever it is with a whole lot of stuff that’s actually already being worked on at the moment for the label and of course our regular Breakbeat Kaos nights and touring around.
Adam F’s latest mix CD, ‘Jungle Sound’, is out now through Breakbeat Kaos/Inertia. He’ll be in Melbourne for his only Australian show Thursday November 25th at the Prince of Wales.
