A-Skillz is known by many as the favourite party starter. At only 24 years of age, he has developed a superior talent for fusing funk, hip-hop and breaks with his unique style of scratching and mixing.

His reputation as a true party rocker has won him prime-time slots across the UK at FabricLive, Spectrum, Chew The Fat, Supercharged, The Boutique and Sugarbeat as well as gigs around the world at major events, festivals and music industry parties such as The Hit Factory (New York), WMC (Miami) and has toured Australia many times and played massive events such as Field Day.

A Skillz has released “Export 02” on Fingerlickin Records to critical acclaim. A funky moster of breaks and hip hop the mix is one of the best releases so far this year. Ollie Brooke caught up with Adam “A” Skillz to see what fuelled this funky demon…

As a DJ it’s a big landmark to go from handing out free mixes to anyone who’ll take them to having a commercially released mix, what are the main differences for you?

I think the biggest difference is the licensing issues I had to deal with. When you make a freestyle unlicenced mix you can put whatever you want in there and there’s no problems. So you need to be more picky with a commercial mix and so it limits you to a certain extent. Despite all that I’m really please with all the tracks I ended up with, despite not getting one or two that I really wanted…

And they were?

Well the main one is a tune by Might Riders. It’s got the sample from De La Soul’s “Saturday” and all these tight drums. I really wanted that track but the issues with licensing were huge and we ended up having to let it go. The problem then is that in a mix tunes often link sections and other tracks together and so when you have to remove a track it can have a knock-on effect for the rest of the mix. But like I said, I’m happy with all the tracks on there, it’s just one of the pitfalls of making a commercially released CD really…

So do you find it odd about licensing, would you cause a fuss if someone wanted to licence one of your tracks?

Normally people go through the label so I am rarely aware if my tracks have been used on other mixes. Apparently Kid Kenobi used “Gimme The Breaks” on a mix he did, I didn’t know till about a year later…
It is odd though, I guess it comes down to the label more than the artists. The track I really wanted ended up costing too much money since it had such a huge sample. I can kind of see why there are issues, especially with tracks which sample older tracks, but I suppose that’s just the way it goes really… But then I really rushed through the “Beats On a String” one cos I thought there’d be loads of people wanting to use it, but as yet I haven’t found any other mixes that feature it.

“Beats On A String” is a pretty good start for a mix and sets a definite vibe, why did you choose this tune?

I absolutely love it! Simple! It’s a perfect intro tunes, really funky with some great Mcing. There’s the 2 versions of it, a dub and the vocal mix. I used the dub at the start while I had a bit of an intro thing going with various shouts and some scratching then I cut into the main mix. To be honest I think I actually prefer the dub at times but then the Jbs are so good with their vocal work and take the track to another level, it’s hard to say which I prefer, hence using them both I guess!

We’ve seen a few remixes come out of Trickatechnology, are we likely to see anymore?

A few have been done but it’s not likely that there’ll be anymore. We’re kind of happy to let it sit now, we don’t want to flog it too much. Both Krafty & I are doing our own production albums at the moment but mine is likely to be most similar to a Trickatechnology style thing. Krafty’s doing the nu-skool breaks thing at the moment so he’s not really in the whole funk/hip hop sound right now.

So how come Trickatechnology ended up more like your sound than his despite the fact that he’s got a bigger profile than yourself?

He’s more into the nu-skool breaks sound and I’ve never been into that sound really. I’m a bit more into the funky/hip hop side of breaks. With Trickatechnology he wanted to produce a project like that. I think he would have gone down that route regardless of my involvement, so it was a direction he intentionally decided to produce. We both had a couple of tracks done before starting work on the album, I had “Peaches” and “Trickatechnology” and Krafty had “Ill Type Sound” and another couple. We combined these and basically built the rest of the album around that vibe

Export 02 is all about the west coast sound and the funkier side of breaks, what is it about this style that you love?

It’s just what I’ve always been into, funk did it for me mostly when I was growing up and it seems that everything I know and like has some element of funk in it. The real funky hip hop and more funky breaks always appeal to me cos they’re both rooted in funk.

Fort Knox Five, Skeewiff, All Good Funk Alliance, all are producing a similar old skool funk sound with nu-skool production values, where do you see this sound heading over the next few years?

Yeah, all of those artists are doing great things but I have to say that Fdel is wicked too! I just see more and more artists doing this sound now, Flow Dynamics is another absolutely wicked artist. I can just see this trend continuing to expand even further. A lot of these artists have really taken off and so there’s loads more in the wings just waiting to explode. Fidel and Flow Dynamics are two that are definitely headed in the right direction and I’m just waiting for them to kick off – I can’t believe it hasn’t happened already to be honest… just waiting for him to blow up, I can’t believe he hasn’t already…

The sound isn’t necessarily club music but is something that is still quite danceable, do you see it penetrating the club scene at all?

To be honest, I love it but I wouldn’t start and finish with it, I think it’s good to warm up, I like it to be a section of what I do, but I wouldn’t play 2 hours of it. I’ll usually start with the deeper funk and then go onto the full party bangers, the really funky ones then go to the more full on breaks, even drum ‘n’ bass and take it up a fair way. It is really cool bar music and works in smaller clubs but I think when people really want to have it they need real build ups and stomping beats, so I like to mix it up a bit…

You continue your relationship with Finger Lickin’ Records who are on top of their game now and have been for years, what’s their secret, what keeps them so good?

I don’t know really, you’d have to ask them themselves to be fair but I think it’s the music and the fact that they’re doing club nights and they have a relationship with the fans as well. The label puts on loads of nights, has a huge mailing list and I think they’re more of a intermediary between fans and artists than a label as such, always looking and re-evaluating themselves. But the biggest key is the fact that they keep putting out good music!!

At the advantageously young age of 24 you’ve got a lot of prospects ahead of you, what are you goals over the coming years?

Well my next step is to put out my artist album and beyond that I’m not really looking to far ahead. Basically I’m going to wait and see what avenues the album opens up for me and take things from there. At the moment I’m really enjoying the DJ thing but maybe when I stop doing that I’ll be producing tracks for other artists and stuff. Realistically though I’m just taking it a step at a time.

What about the new album, any details you care to share?

I’d love to, I’m really excited about it but a lot of the deals and artists are still TBC so I can’t really go into much detail. As I said, it’s going to be in a pretty similar vein to Trickatechnology and so you can expect plenty of collaborations, but yeah, can’t say too much at this stage!

The Australian scene continues to grow and develop, who are the ones you are most interested in?

I’m really into Flow Dynamics, and Fdel as I said. Fdel’s last album was amazing and I can’t wait for the next one. The DJs who I think are doing the best things there at the moment are Kid Kenobi , Nick Thayer, these are the people I keep my eye on tunes wise. As I said, there’s quite a few Aussie acts who are just about to blow up on the major scene and I’m really looking forward to it!

A-Skillz – Finger Lickin Export Mix 02 is out now on Finger Lickin through Inertia.