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YM: What was your experience of music-making when you were at school?
RM: It was great, we had good facilities at my secondary school (Pimlico School), which was a flagship school for creative arts, and it had quite a well-stocked music department. At that time, Hip Hop had just got into the mainstream; the school encouraged everyone to be creative. I didn’t take music GCSE because I wanted to help keep my options open and my music-making totally separate.

YM: At what point did you decide to make music your career?
RM: When I was 19 and at the Angel Town Community Studios in Brixton.

YM: How old were you when you did your first public performance and was it scary?
RM: 15, it was a community-based festival put together by the Angel Town Action Group. The platform was provided for young people and people with backgrounds of less advantage. The mentors I had were so good that I didn’t really see it as a big deal.

YM: How should young musicians take the first step on the ladder to a career in music?
RM: The best thing to do is try and get a response about your music from people you don’t know. Get a DJ to play it on a radio show; pirate radio, internet stations… even try some mainstream ones like the BBC – just get your music out there!

YM: Did it annoy you that the media dubbed you the ‘Saviour of UK Hip Hop’?
RM: UK Hip Hop doesn’t need saving, it will always be here, its influence surfaces in all music from Dizzee Rascal to Natasha Bedingfield and Dido – they all take elements of Hip Hop. It’s a deeper culture than big budget videos and MTV.

YM: Do you think the explosion of the US urban music scene has helped increase support for urban music in the UK?
RM: No, it’s helped to ghettoise it - it’s a double-edged dagger that always seems to create a false sense of sustainability. Look at what happened to UK garage – one minute it was all over the shop and then nothing. It’s like the explosion happens, the major companies rush to sign up loads of things, throwing loads of money after white labels, and it gets too accessible before its time then just seems to die out.

YM: On your new album ’Awfully Deep’, the track ‘Colossal Insight’ talks about not being pigeonholed musically - is this the kind of thing that can be harmful?
RM: Yes, it’s just the tokenism of the business. Certain radio stations say they want to back local music and help build a strong foundation for British music, but then they do things that ghettoise British music. Choice FM used to have a thing called UK Pressure where every day they would play a UK track, but they didn’t play it with the same enthusiasm that they would play a new Alicia Keys record. It made it seem that UK music was inferior and they were trying to help it out…

YM: When you were trying to get signed did you get rejected a lot?
RM: Yeah, I was sending demos out to labels when I was 15 and 16 years old. I got rejected but that just gives you the fuel to carry on. I think with the facilities and technology available to people today, you don’t really need to go knocking on labels’ doors because a deal isn’t the end of your problems – it’s the start of the whole learning process. The best thing for artists to do is to get a full understanding of the mechanics of how the music business works and what is actually involved in selling records. From understanding what press, pluggers and A&Rs do to understanding specialist retailers, how radio works and the different types of markets that are out there.

YM: Is it worth doing work experience?
RM: Yeah definitely. Today, makers of music can’t just be artists; they’ve got to have some kind of understanding of how the business works.

YM: Have you encountered any major pitfalls so far?
RM: Yeah, understanding more about the publishing side of music – the royalties generated from airplay and video play – that kind of thing. I would advise all artists to hang on to the ownership of their creative work as long as they can. Grit your teeth and bear through it!

YM: Even if they are being offered a flashy sports car as an advance?
RM: Advances are not real money, they’re just loans!

YM: Your first LPs ‘Brand New Second Hand’ scooped a MOBO award and your last album ‘Run Come Save Me’ was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2002 – is it important to get that kind of reward?
RM: It’s a nice bonus, but it’s unimportant. What’s important to me is that they’ve all been independent releases; I’m attached to a company (Big Dada Records) that is owned by artists Coldcut - who I used to listen to as a kid. They were pioneers of the whole sampling aspect of music at the forefront of the electronic music explosion.

YM: Did you feel under pressure to top the success of ‘Run Come Save Me’ when you were putting this album together?
RM: The pressure was just finding a space and feeling confident about trying to create a body of music that just was its own contained musical universe. I wasn’t trying to fit into what’s going on now. That was the challenge.

YM: How would you describe your latest sound?
RM: It’s a journey; I draw an analogy with fast food. It’s not the sort of audio nutrition that you can just go and buy quickly like a McDonalds – you’ve got to look at the menu and make a choice. It’s like an eight course meal.

YM: Will you be touring?
RM: Yes, the tour starts Feb 23 in Gateshead. There will be nine dates all over the UK and we’ll end up at Brixton Academy on March 4.

YM: What’s the most important piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
RM: Trust your instincts - have self-belief. You’ve got to have more of a reason to get into music than wanting to make money. You’ve got to be in it because you can’t help it.

‘Awfully Deep’ , the LP is out January 31, ‘Colossal Insight’, the first single from it, is in the shops now.

ROOTS MANUVA LIVE DATES

Feb 23 - The Sage, Gateshead
Feb 24 - Met University, Leeds
Feb 25 - Academy 2, Manchester
Feb 26 - Academy, Birmingham
Feb 27 - The Arches, Glasgow
Mar 1 - Junction, Cambridge
Mar 2 - Academy, Bristol
Mar 3 - Concorde 2, Brighton
Mar 4 - Brixton Academy, London


www.rootsmanuva.co.uk

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