Ali B is an omnipresent force in the breakbeat scene. Known to his parents as Alistair Bennett, he runs Air, one of the longest running breaks night in London, and the label of the same name. He’s a long-time resident at FabricLive and up until recently hosted the dance show for Capital FM, one of Europe’s biggest radio stations, with an audience in excess of half a mil. The breakbeat connoisseur has just polished off the next instalment of the definitive Y4K series and is heading to Oz to tout its wares. Before boarding the plane, skip_intro chatted to the hyper-kinetic talker about the series, the scene and whether he still gets confused with Ali G, aight.
How’d you find doing the new Y4K compilation?
It’s always tough to put your 74 minutes down on a CD. You get 50-60 tracks short-listed and go from there really. I was really pleased with getting the ‘Hope Time’ track from the Stanton Warriors [on there]. They came over to my house and raped and pillaged my mp3 collection, taking about 120GB worth of stuff. In exchange I got about 10-15 Stanton cuts so I don’t know who got done on that one, but they let me have the exclusive on the album. I was also really chuffed to get the Bassbin Twins on there as well. I rang up Pete from the Twins to see what they’re done recently and he sent through a track – ‘Ruffest’ – that he’d finished the night before. I was happy to get my mix of ‘I See Girls’ on there too, so it finally gets a proper release on vinyl.
What was it like following in a long line of esteemed names to do the Y4K series? Was there any pressure?
The Y4K series is a great, great series. Even the last one by Phil K was incredible. I actually DJed with Phil at a Krafty Kuts night in Brighton as part of a Y4K tour a few months ago, and I have never seen anyone manipulate the CDJ1000s quite the way Phil K does. With making the mix, there’s the temptation of thinking ‘do I call everyone I know and go and get some hot exclusives or do I need to mix that in with a few more established tunes?’ It’s just getting that balance where you have a few big dancefloor bruisers and a few unreleased plus a few quirky numbers…
With the breaks scene booming and more mixes being released, is it harder to make one that stands out?
I don’t know, it’s never something that enters people’s head when they’re compiling. The breaks thing has obviously got a lot bigger – that’s why I wanted to throw some bigger tracks in to cement that. You can make it super underground and super uber-cool, but I was like ‘you know what, man, I want people who have never heard breaks to get into this album.’ My style has always been the funkier, party stuff rather than the really darker, ganrly end of it. For two reasons: one – I just don’t take those sort of drugs, and two – I have to play something with some funk or soul in there somewhere.
Having been in the breakbeat scene for so long now, have you been happy with how it’s evolved?
Definitely man, I think the scene is healthy – without a doubt. (Especially) now that we’ve got over our breaks bootlegs patch in the UK which was started to get a bit tiresome. There seemed to be a 6-7 month patch that as the breaks scene was really picking up tempo, everyone just seemed to be doing breaks bootlegs of house tunes or hip hop tunes. It’s good in one way, but creatively it’s not very exciting, is it? And there’s a limit to how many of those records you can play in your set…
Does its popularity necessarily equate to the scene being healthy?
I think so yeah. You can’t be too precious about these things, man. If you’re into breaks, ultimately you want it to reach as many people as possible. I don’t think you can get elitist about it. I think it’s a generation thing as well. When I was growing up, my peers DJ-wise were the Oakenfold-Pete Tong era, and it was all very much dominated by house music. Now my generation have come up – the Plumps, the Stantons, Tayo, Krafty Kuts – and we’re all into breaks. It’s exciting, man.
Production-wise, your Plan B remix of ‘I See Girls’ is on the Y4K album, do you have anything else in the pipeline?
Yeah, it’s a priority for me. I’ve done about 9-10 records in my life under my Plan B moniker, most of them remixes, but it takes me a while. I’m not the most prolific producer on the computer. I’ll spend 3-4 months tweaking on the computer and smoking far too much weed. This year and the beginning of next, I’m intending to work on an Ali B album. I’ve got a track, ‘Beat on a String’, coming out on my label that I’ve just finished with the Jungle Brothers probably in September.
You’re jumping on a plane to Australia pretty soon?
Dude, I can’t wait, man, I can’t wait… I was there last year and it’ll be my third time over there. The exciting thing this time is I’m hitting a few cities this time that I’ve never been to, so I’m keen to see as much of the country as possible.
Do you still get confused with Ali G?
Not so much anymore (laughs). I remember going to Brisbane and getting picked up by a car and the driver was holding a sign for Ali G. Of course, I walked straight past him. On the way to the gig, he said ‘Are you a comedian? You look very funny.’ I was like ‘No, I’m a DJ’ and I was thinking ‘Jesus, am I going to get there and find a fucken microphone set up in the middle of the room rather than decks’. The same dude said ‘you should’ve seen the looks I was getting when I was waiting to pick up Fergie!’
Ali B’s ‘Y4K’ is out now through Distinctive Breaks/Stomp. You can catch him on tour in Australia throughout June:
Fri 10 Jun – Sydney, Home
Sun 12 Jun – Sydney, We Love… Sounds (SOLD OUT)
Wed 15 Jun – Melbourne, Honkytonks
Sat 25 Jun – Perth, Ambar
