If you ever need to know the secret of
how to become a successful DJ without having necessarily played
a multitude of pre-house genres of dance, then talk to Kenny
Ken. His honesty earns respect when he tells of how the technological
innovations of early house back in 1988 and 1989 switched
him on to spinning vinyl for a career.
A career that in a relatively short
period of time has put him up amongst the DJs he cites as
being inspirational. And all this for a man who is only 26.
But even though his ambition was driven by the kind of names
he now comfortably appears next to on flyers from World Dance
to Pandemonium, there were forces closer to home helping to
sow the seeds for his success.
“I began DJing in 1989 after I bought a pair of decks
in April of that year, but initially I wasn’t very confident,
even though I really wanted to learn how to mix. Fortunately,
two of my friends had been DJing as a duo called ‘Dem
2’, and it really fascinated me the way they played
their music, so I asked them if they would come round and
teach me what to do.
I didn’t expect them to agree, but they did, and so
they came to my house after an Ibiza rave and mixed all day,
saying that I should have a go. I wouldn’t, though,
because I thought if I mess up my mixes, everyone who was
there would laugh. Once they went, though, I had a go after
studying what they had been doing and within 3 months I felt
I was good enough to play out. Well, at least I thought I
was good enough, because when it actually came to playing
out for the first time, I couldn’t handle the monitors
because they were so loud. After 6 months or so, I was fully
used to them”.
Once Kenny had put himself through the paces of learning
the tricks of the trade, it wasn’t long before he started
taking bookings for established clubs. His first experience
of playing a venue was in a basement of a pub in Kings Cross
where for 2 months he played alongside ‘Dem 2’
every Thursday night, but soon greater things were to follow
as he hitched up with The Goldmine Club for a regular Friday
night session enjoyed by as many as 5,000 people, whose weekly
pilgrimage brought them together on Essex’s Canvey Island.
From there, East London’s Labyrinth picked up on his
talent, enlarging upon his Essex-based fame and spread his
name around his original stomping ground of Hackney and Stamford
Hill. More importantly this introduced him to the Capital’s
club scene. It was at this point that Kenny got his biggest
break with Dave Pearson’s legendary Crazy Club –
“that’s what really put me on the map, because
playing in front of those crowds, you had to play good!”
From that time on, the reputation of Kenny Ken has grown
from strength to strength by playing a host of renowned parties
from Energy, Genesis and Pandemonium to Fusion and Quest,
as well as taking raves in Australia, Spain and Canada. There
were also times when he played on pirates Centreforce and
Dance FM, but now Kenny is on a roll with some of the more
underground organisations, and intent on spreading the word
for a new breed of hardcore – jungle.
Every weekend you can bet your bottom dollar he’ll
be laying down the best in drum and bass grooves at A.W.O.L.,
Thunder and Joy or Jungle Fever alongside a core of no-compromise
jocks that are the new elite; be it the established names
of Grooverider, Mickey Finn, JJ Frost, Fabio, Randall and
Ron, or the newer forces to be reckoned with of Brockie, Darren
Jay, Swift, SL and Ash. But it hasn’t been an easy ride
getting there, as Kenny talks of that evolutionary period
of Darkness that encouraged the transition from hardcore to
Jungle.
“At one point I was losing my direction a bit because
I didn’t know where the music was going, and there was
a lot of dark music with no melody going about which I couldn’t
get into when I was playing. I was playing it more to keep
myself on the map, and I didn’t want to play other music
because I wanted to keep in the direction the music was going.
At one point I thought that if this is how the music is going,
I ain’t gonna last too long.
People weren’t having it to some of the tunes I was
playing, so I adjusted my style because I wanted people to
have it to what I was playing. In the end I just rode it out
like everyone else did because there was a lot of other DJs
that felt this way too. Now it’s got more musical with
improved production and better quality pressings. Producers
are programming and engineering breaks so that some of the
tunes don'’ even sound like they are using a breakbeat
as such, it just sounds more like a beat and I think overall
the scene has got a better atmosphere because of this”.
Now that Kenny has found his direction again, he seems to
buzz with enthusiasm when confronted with the future for both
jungle and himself. “Jungle is here to stay for a while,
and I think the ragga influence is going to get more prominent
sooner or later as the proper ragga men start to get involved.
Because many music makers are using that ragga/reggae influence
a lot of people relate to this because it is street music.
When you hear all the toasters like General Levi and Supercat
chatting over drum and bass, it’s just like reggae was,
and so young people who don’t necessarily like going
to ragga gigs but like that sound will come and listen to
our music because it’s similar but on a faster tempo.
But even though I like this style, personally speaking I
wanna progress, and I feel ragga’s always been there
and the only difference is that it’s getting mixed with
jungle now, so the end product is not totally brand new. Quite
a lot of the material I am playing now has a futuristic element
to it and that’s the sort of jungle I want to move into
now, but unfortunately I don’t always get to play this
side of the music because when you play places like Roast
for instance, they don’t really want to hear so much
of it. It’s more places like the Paradise that are more
on that kind of tip”.
Over the last two or three months jungle has received an
unprecedented degree of attention from the media, as if it
were a completely new phenomenon. The reality is that these
bandwagonists are new to the sound and will probably drop
it and denigrate it as quick as they’ve championed it
as part of their ongoing pursuit of the next thing. Take for
example Mixmag, who are preparing an article on “Jungle
Fashion”, even though they never cover the music properly.
Many on the underground welcome this deserved attention, but
remain cautious and sceptical since it was only a year or
two ago that this same scene was being bad-mouthed by the
media.
Kenny is certainly aware of this; “Jungle is getting
a bigger audience now, and it’s getting an older audience,
too, because the music has matured since the early days of
rave. But now stations like Kiss FM and certain magazines
are onto it, it’s getting all the attention which is
good, but why are they coming onto it now
They are only coming on to it now because jungle is getting
big. All the people that have worked hard to put jungle where
it is today might not get their due, because now the big majors
are getting involved, all the DJs and producers who have been
playing it and making it happen might not all get contacted
by the major music industry that wants to know. As far as
I’m concerned, they are just cashing in, they can see
there is money to be made and so they are now interested in
it. For example, I think it is a good thing that Kiss have
finally decided to have a jungle show, but really it’s
only because pirates like Kool, Weekend Rush and Don FM have
been pushing it, and I think now they will suffer for it”.
One aspect of jungle that the major recording industry has
little hope of tapping into, at least for the time being,
is dubplates. Although no a totally new concept, this is one
unique factor that differentiates jungle from any other contemporary
form of dance music, in that DJs have virtually become their
own A&R men. Officially, a 10 inch plate will set you
back something like £35, but in reality an established
DJ will look at paying a score to get two tracks cut onto
dub, be it an unsigned artist, or tracks from an independent
jungle label. And considering most DJs pay for the cutting
of their own plates it would be foolish to pay this kind of
money for a track you wouldn’t play.
Says Kenny: “On average I’m getting about 3 or
4 plates cut a week. I pay for most of mine and I don’t
mind, because if you want a tune you will play, then it’s
worth paying for it. I’m happy if I get 7 or 8 tracks
a week, but I know some DJs who cut much more a week and it’s
usually those DJs whose sets are all on metal. I don’t
cut that much, because I don’t feel I need to. I like
to play for the crowd, and more often than not, the dubplates
are not what the crowd want to hear. 50% of them are just
testers so the producers can see how the tune sounds on the
crowd, and if it don’t sound good, it goes back to the
studio and everything starts again – that’s the
other side of what dubplates are about.
There are not as many good tracks on dubplate as some would
think. However, saying that, when the crowd hears a fresh
tune that drops, they do love it, especially at the Paradise,
but sometimes it can annoy the customer who walks into a record
shop only to find the tune he wants to buy aint coming out
for 6-9 months. Overall, though, for the DJ and the scene
it’s a good thing, because it will keep other DJs on
their toes. It’s just like the old reggae days when
you had a dubplate and no one else had it, but nowadays it’s
a bit different. For instance when that ‘Johnny’
track came out, everyone had it on plate, so really it was
more like a test press! Now the record producers limit the
amount of dubplates they give out so everyone doesn’t
have the same tune – usually not more than 5 DJs will
get a plate of the same tune.
“Unless you want to get left behind in the jungle scene
you have to have dubplates, but more importantly you have
to have some exclusives. It has to be a proper exclusive and
you really need 2 or 3 of these in your box that no-one else
has got. Obviously I’ve got my own little contacts that
give me their exclusives before anyone else, but then there
are a lot of producers who will service about 5 DJs at once,
and usually my clubs are a mixture of this.
At one time the whole exclusive thing got a bit out of hand.
If you weren’t playing a particular tune on plate because
you didn’t have it you were a nobody, but fortunately
it’s not really like that anymore. As long as you are
making the crowd dance, you will always be a good DJ, and
that’s what counts to me. We go out there to do a job
of making people dance and nothing else. The scene is too
big to worry about competition, even though it is there which
is good, but there is no need for the sort of competition
that is openly disdainful of people for what they do or what
they play”.
An open minded attitude explains why he still keeps up with
the house scene as well, “I still play house now, you
can’t neglect it. I obviously don’t buy as much
house as your average house DJ, but I do buy myself enough
to keep me informed with what’s happening on the house
scene. Usually, once or twice a month, I’ll spend about
£40 or £50 on house.
I’ll buy the house stuff for my personal collection,
because I like to listen to, and play, more than one style
of music. What I like about house sets such as the ones I
hear downstairs at the Paradise is that you can drop old tunes
as well as new, something you can’t do too much with
Jungle, because the very early jungle tunes are just too slow
now”.
“I love it when I see the crowd dance, having it when
you’re doing a mix and the crowd can hear what tune
is coming in, and they start roaring because they know what’s
going to come. That’s the kind of thing that influences
me to play good, as well as seeing the DJ playing a good set
before me because I like to be able to keep up with what he
has just done. I don’t practice as much as I used to,
because I’m more confident in my mixing, but I will
still practice 2 or 3 times a week and the least I will spend
on the decks will be an hour. It’s like football, if
you don’t train then you will lose your skills and to
me playing out ain’t practice unless the club is empty.
“Playing out is live, it’s a performance. If
you’ve played out all weekend and everywhere you play
has been rammed, there comes a time where there is a tune
in your box and you ain’t sure what it is and you won’t
play it. Then when you get home and play it, you cuss yourself.
The way I mix I haven’t got time to put it on and test
it and take it off again. Sometimes you have, but a lot of
the time you ain’t, so you’ve got to practice!”
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