“Experimentation All the Way:” An Interview with Shut Up and Dance

British dance music is rarely more than three steps away from a soundsystem. In Hackney, thunderous cabinets in brick basements are a simple fact of life. And away from the constraints of the more overground nightlife economy, the men who stack up the speakers have a freedom to experiment that regular club DJs can only dream of. It’s no surprise then, that soundsystem culture is the looming force behind many of the UK’s dance music innovations.

When hip-hop records started arriving on British shores, Shut Up and Dance’s Philip ‘PJ’ Johnson and Carl ‘Smiley’ Hyman wanted to play them a bit faster than advertised. The tempo suited their crowd and with the duo rapping over the top the speeds slipped gradually up. Even better, this style made for a quick move into production: It’s far easier to loop up a breakbeat than to sweat over a drum machine. So, as Shut Up and Dance, PJ and Smiley started making records that matched their parties: Speeding breakbeats, daft pop samples, ragga-style MCing. They still thought of themselves as hip-hop kids but in the mad years of acid house they were kidnapped by the rave scene, and their records paved the way for an era of rugged home-grown white labels quake-full of breaks.

In this 2005 interview with Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, Johnson and Hyman discuss the evolution of the UK club scene, the power of experimentation and how their innovations were the precursor to jungle and drum & bass.

You guys were doing parties before the whole rave thing happened?

Smiley

Yeah. We started on the soundsystem thing. Us and [DJ] Hype. Just built a sound. Back then you couldn’t just have a record box. You had to have your own soundsystem if people were going to hear you, take you seriously. The sound started about ’82, ’83. Then it got more serious about ’86, when hip-hop blew up.

How long did it take to build?

Smiley

Having a soundsystem you don’t stop. ’Cause things need replacing and adding, maintaining. It’s a proper soundsystem. It’s not like where you buy everything.

Soldered with these bare hands! And that was more on the reggae scene?

Smiley

It was everything. I guess you could say we started more as a reggae thing.

Building on traditions that were already here?

Smiley

Yeah, ’cause Hackney, as you know is a big soundsystem place. For some reason this place just breeds talent in music. All kinds: Punk, indie, reggae, rap, whatever it is. Don’t know what it is with this area: Always has done. From the ’60s, they say, this area’s just been a cauldron of it all.

A lot of blues parties when you were growing up?

Smiley

Yeah. Yeah, man. I’m sure I was conceived in a blues. It’s life, really. You just got to live it, the sound thing. We certainly lived it. Earned my stripes and all that.

You had older brothers helping you?

Smiley

Not really. I had an older brother but he wasn’t interested in it. It’s just something that’s driven me, the love of music. Because you don’t earn any money with a sound system, not really.

How did you guys meet?

PJ

We went to school together.

When was your first party with your sound?

Smiley

About 1982.

What was it like?

Smiley

Weird. Good though. We didn’t look back ’cause we’re still doing it. It was by Lea Bridge roundabout, in a church hall. I found a poster for it. Hype hand drew it. He was nearly in tears when he saw it. Got to frame it.

The name of the sound?

PJ

The sound was called Heatwave.

What kind of stuff were you playing?

Smiley

Mainly reggae and dub I suppose because [Jah] Shaka was very big then. Everybody wanted to be like Shaka. The odd soul thing. The only big hip-hop tunes were “Planet Rock” and “The Birthday Party,” Sugarhill Gang.

Wasn’t playing soul a bit controversial on the reggae scene?

Smiley

Not really. A lot of sounds round here played reggae and soul. Obviously some of them put their nose up to it. But we loved it all. So we played it all from the beginning.

You had MCs?

Smiley

Well me and PJ used to MC, and my twin brother as well, but mainly me and PJ. And Hype was the DJ, doing the scratching. We’d select the tunes and he’d put it on.

Was it with two turntables, or an old fashioned sound with one?

Smiley

We started with one, obviously; we didn’t get two until ’86.

So very much in the tradition of what was going on before?

Smiley

Yeah.

Did people want to hear hip-hop? Were there other guys playing it?

Smiley

Not really, because hip-hop was so underground back then. People wanted it, but you could only play a few, because a lot of people didn’t know what it was. But we definitely dropped hip-hop. And we were the first sound to have someone like Hype, cutting up two breaks. And we had a reggae MC, which was my brother, Daddy Earl, and me and PJ rapping. No other soundsystem had all that. They’d just play records, and maybe do something over the instrumental. We actually did it like a performance, Hype doing his thing on the decks.

So by 1986 you had it developed?

Smiley

We brought the sound all over the country.

Did you have an idea of the way parties worked in New York?

Smiley

We thought we was a hip-hop sound system. We obviously wasn’t, but we thought we was.

What kind of gigs were you doing?

Smiley

Blues. We had to do our own things. Break into empty houses. My brother was a sparks, so he’d get the lighting going, and Hype would be driving round with whoever, seeing where there’s an empty house.

Did people start catching up with your style and doing similar things?

PJ

No one else even thought about doing the DJing. Well, you couldn’t do what Hype was doing. He was shit hot. You can’t learn that overnight.

When did the tempo start moving up in what you were doing?

Smiley

Good question.

PJ

Great question. I don’t know. Obviously from our point of view we always wanted to get people dancing. That’s what it was about. A soundsystem, it’s about getting the vibes going, having a good time. So the tempo increased as part of that.

Smiley

It was just before the house explosion. House blew up in about ’88 in Hackney – just when the hip-hop thing was at its peak. Have you heard of Dungeons up the road? That was the Mecca of where it all started. Easily the biggest rave club in England. On Lea Bridge Road. Fuck the Hacienda, Dungeons was like ten different tunnels, all underground, and each tunnel had a different soundsystem. All house, acid house, all playing different music. And everyone’s obviously off their tits. E’s were new. That’s where it all really kicked off big time.

Me and PJ, we liked fast hip-hop, like what Big Daddy Kane was doing. It wasn’t like Beastie Boys hip-hop and Run DMC, we liked the breaky stuff, a bit faster. But still we wanted to take it further, because we wanted to be able to dance to it. Not just nod your head. So we made our stuff a lot faster when we started making music properly, about ’87.

How fast? I read you’d play Def Jam tunes at about 120, 130 BPM.

Smiley

Yeah. I’d say about 120, 125, that sort of tempo. That was the sort of rap we made, and it was really alien, unheard of. There weren’t even such a thing as hip-house back then.

So you were just speeding up records and rapping over the top.

Both

Yeah.

Was this led by you or led by the crowd?

Smiley

Us, definitely.

PJ

Everyone thought we were strange.

Smiley

Even here they thought we were strange. And when we tried to get a deal no one wanted to know. “What the fuck is this?” Because it was fast hip-hop music, with people rapping. So when we started making music we thought it had to be like what we liked to do, which was to dance to, not just to spit rhymes or rhyme or write, it had to be a bit more than that. You had to be able to dance to it. There was this studio had a competition: IMW. Me, [PJ], and Hype went to this competition because the winner would get studio time, so we got in the studio, did a demo, and we won a week’s studio time to make a record. The record was absolutely shit but we won the studio time anyway.

PJ

It came out on their label. It was one of those government-backed things, like the Prince’s Trust, but before that.

What was the record like?

[Both laugh]

Smiley

The first one was a double A-side. It was “My Tennents” and “Puppet Capers.” That was a pisstake of Run DMC’s “My Adidas.” Yeah. “Puppet Capers” was more Hype’s thing: little snippets of scratches and samples. “Tennents” was more our side with us rappin’. We made a little video.

So obviously we wanted to pursue it, get a proper deal, make more demos. No one wanted to know. No major label, no indie, because they were all like, “This is too fast. This isn’t going with the norm.” So we thought, “Fuck you lot. We’re going to do it all ourselves.” So we did a tune, “5,6,7,8,” pressed it up ourselves. Stuck it in the boot of his car, 500 of ’em, went to all the shops up west and round here, to see what they got to say. Within the week, the whole of ’em was sold out. And my younger brother, he was well into house, he was down at Dungeons every week and he came home and wouldn’t stop talking: “They played your fucking tune, the place was going crazy, you have to come next week.”

Were you going to house clubs at all? Or buying any house records?

Smiley

Oh, always did, always bought house records. But we was more going to hip-hop things. Everybody who came over from America we’d go and see it, every hip-hop jam, that was full of violence, we were always there. We were so deep into hip-hop. But I knew about house stuff, knew about Fingers Inc and all these people. We didn’t go to no house clubs. But all of a sudden they were playing us. Weird. We found it very strange.

Did that influence the direction you went next?

Smiley

Not really. We just kept doing our thing. This fast hip-hop thing – beats sped up, rapping on it. They just wanted more and more of this. We couldn’t press enough records. It just went crazy. “£10 To Get In,” “Lamborghini,” some of the singles were selling 40 or 50,000. And this was just two guys who wanted a record deal. We had all the big boys coming round, Virgin, Island, coming round with their big checks. We were like, “Naw, not big enough.” Who knows what would have happened if we would have signed with them.

When you saw how it was going off, did you become part of the acid house thing?

Smiley

Not really. We was dragged into that scene.

PJ

The scene we thought we was in didn’t want to know. And this other scene held out its arms to us. We were like, “But we’re this,” and they were like, “No you’re not, you’re coming over here mate.” You’d go to a few clubs, check out the vibe. So obviously when you get back to the studio you got more vibes, ’cos you see what they’re on about.

Smiley

But we weren’t into the four-beat thing. We never did that, always breakbeats.

PJ

It’s like when people describe us as rave, we’ve never made a rave record. The only one is “Raving I’m Raving.”

Was that an out-and-out pisstake, then?

[Laughter]

PJ

It’s a classic.

Smiley

Because we never really liked old school ravey hardcore. I never liked that then, I don’t like it now. It’s weird to be sucked into something. People used to say, “You’re king of raves, king of hardcore.” What?

The lyrics were fairly ambivalent. They’re not exactly celebrating drug culture. It’s a satire, isn’t it?

Smiley

I just thought it was a good idea. Simple and plain. A good idea and it worked.

The story of acid house is usually told in terms of Shoom, Spectrum and the Trip and then the M25 raves, but you’re saying there was stuff happening here that was more important.

Smiley

The West End didn’t do shit, man. The West End didn’t even let black people in their clubs anyway. You can’t really talk about the West End in terms of bringing up a music.

But it’s where it gets its exposure, so it’s what gets written about.

Smiley

It’s just journalists who don’t know fuck all. Trust me, I was there. From the beginning. Hopefully I’m there to the end. Trust me, it’s from Hackney. That’s where it all started: places like Dungeons, Roller Express, that place in Tottenham. The only thing that really came in the West End was places like the Astoria, but the whole scene had already blown up by then.

Were there a lot of villains about?

Smiley

It all depends on how big the rave was I guess. Obviously if you had a rave and it was a big massive warehouse and it was packed out and you charged a fiver to get in, that means there’s money in it. So you gonna get robbed probably. When we had our raves we only charged two quid. That’s why we made that song “£10 To Get In,” ’cause we thought it was a bit of an insult to the public. All of a sudden this rave explosion happens and people are charging £10 to get in. And yet people were paying it.

PJ

Willingly. I blame the drugs.

Smiley

Why would you want to pay £10 to get in for four walls and a DJ? It’s not some glitzy club, you didn’t get a few free drinks at the bar, a buffet at the back. Probably no fucking toilets in there, even. What were you getting for your money? Nothing really. It was a crap soundsystem, really shit, because the bigger the raves got the worse the sound got.

PJ

That’s why the remix was “£20…” because the prices went up.

Did you do any PAs at any of the big raves?

Smiley

Yeeeah. Because the label was so massive then and all the acts were blowing up. People wanted to see us. We only started in late ’91, reluctantly. Just had to, everyone wanted us to.

Tell us about the Ragga Twins and that whole sound.

PJ

That was just more experimentation, really. We’d put out three or four singles of our own: “5,6,7,8,” “£10 To Get In,” “£20 To Get In.” We thought, “We can’t just carry on releasing our own stuff, we have to sign people up and expand. Try something different.” And the Ragga Twins, we knew ‘em from a soundsystem called Unity. Funnily enough I used to go to school with them as well. We had an idea: “Let’s try this reggae thing.” We done our hip-hop thing, we done our uptempo thing, and we wanted to try the reggae side of it. So we just approached them, had a chat. And they were like, “Fuck it, let’s give it a go.” We used them on “Lamborghini.” The intro is from Deman from a soundsystem tape, and we did “Spliffhead” and “Wipe The Needle” with them. Their album was so successful.

Where did the idea come from to combine reggae toasting with techno?

Smiley

When we got the Ragga Twins down I said to ’em, “What we’re going to try and do with you has never been done before. People might laugh at this. We’ve always liked you guys as MCs, but what we’re trying to do is something different.” We wanted to give a reggae injection into it, see if it works. We don’t know what they’ll think, don’t know what’s gonna happen. But then, fuckin’ hell, they were bigger than us.

Did you have a dancefloor in mind when you were making those records?

Smiley

Exactly what we were doing before, but it had a reggae thing on it.

So it was for your sound, something you could play out at your parties?

PJ

Yeah, we have to like it.

But were you making them for a particular place?

PJ

No it was more, “I want to hear a good dance tune, with a reggae vibe on it, that works.”

Smiley

Proper reggae vibe as well. It weren’t no hold back thing. They were MCing properly on it. It wasn’t, “Oh, talk a bit more English.” It was hardcore reggae people full blasting it. And they fucking loved it. They blew up overnight. And that was a rave thing as well. That was in the middle, the core of the rave thing.

Did you start going to those parties then?

Smiley

We had to. To see what the rave people were going to think of this. We thought they might not even like it. But fucking hell, I remember when they played their first tune, “Hooligan 69,” at Dungeons. Everyone’s looking at each other: “What the fuck is this?” With the Prince intro, “Dearly beloved…” And then the reggae guy jumps in on it and sings. They loved it. Loved it! It just blew up. It was pure experimentation, for me. Pure. Just build and build and build.

Looking back it’s clear that that was the start of a lot of things. Did you notice people inspired by what you were doing?

Smiley

Yes, yes.

PJ

There were many soundalikes came along. Anything successful people try and jump on and follow it.

Smiley

Fair do’s to them.

PJ

It’s a compliment, really. But obviously it’s diluting your sound. ’Cause everyone’s trying to sound like you. So we had to keep moving the goalposts a bit. And Hype obviously went on to great success.

Smiley

Hype’s like family. When we blew up overnight, he just couldn’t believe it. But he was always there in the background. We did loads of John Peel sessions, he was the one on the decks. We always thought: You need to be in the game, you need to work for a record company. Couldn’t really work for us because we were too tight, too much friends, since five years old. So we got him a job at Kicking Records, and the rest is history.

Where would you place what you did in the evolution of what became jungle?

Smiley

Well, everyone says that we started it all. I guess you could say that. ’Cos nobody was doing what we were doing. It wasn’t a copied thing. It was experimentation all the way.

PJ

From speeding up breaks to putting reggae beats on speeded up breaks.

Smiley

Putting two breaks together. No one did things like that.

PJ

Putting a beat around the break... It was all new.

Smiley

When it got to about ’94, that’s when everybody tried to do what the Ragga Twins were doing. This quick jungle with speeded-up breaks and you have to have a reggae sample, or reggae vocal, or reggae bassline. Everything was reggae to a speeded-up break thing. And that went on for a good two years. And that was basically what we’d been doing with the Ragga Twins back in ’89, ’90.

Who were the people who took it directly from you and took it somewhere else?

Smiley

Good question. Reinforced, they were doing good things. And M-Beat. The only problem with when it all first started there were just so many people doing it, and all they were doing was the same as us but speeding it up. Too fast – noisy, undanceable. Where’s the soul in this? It’s just noise now.

Were there any particular clubs round here?

Smiley

Yeah. Telepathy at Roller Express championed that sound. Hype was there, Grooverider, Fabio, Brockie, Ron was big then…

PJ

Of all that list, about four of them people are from this area.

Smiley

Jumping Jack Frost, he used to champion that sound as well. There was only a handful, but they were getting all the work. Because it wasn’t a DJ world then. Back then everybody wanted to just go out. They didn’t want to become a DJ. More people were excited about writing or making the stuff, than playing it. The DJ explosion came after that, like ’96, ’97. When more people wanted to be DJs.

What do you think makes the UK make music that’s so different? I don’t think the music you made could have come from anywhere else.

Smiley

I’ve always said London is the capital of the world for music. I truly believe that. It’s not just because I live here. I truly believe that. It’s just a place where there’s so much talent. Just little Hackney, look what it’s produced. I don’t know why. Just so much from here.

Do you think it’s to do with the soundsystem tradition? That seems to be the thread that runs through it.

Smiley

From the Jamaicans coming over here, late ’50s, early ’60s, obviously that plays a part. It must be. It’s always had something here. It always will. Don’t know why. So many people are on top of their game. And their knowledge of music is good. If you go to America a lot of people don’t really know anything. But in London there’s so many knowledgeable fanatics here, who just know their shit, whatever kind of music you’re talking to them about. And different kinds of music mix, definitely more than the States.

PJ

You can hear it all here. We’ve got brilliant radio. In America or most countries you’re growing up on chart music, on Top Of The Pops. But here, I was brought up as a child on pirate radio. So I got to hear everything underground growing up.

Why did you choose the heavy hitting samples? The trend then was to go for obscure funk records, and you were going for Prince, Suzanne Vega and all that stuff.

Smiley

We’ve always loved pop stuff. It was what we grew up on. Eurythmics, I saw them at Wembley when I was a kid. I thought Prince was a genius. I’ve always thought so. Use samples that are good. Just ’cause it’s obscure, so what? Doesn’t mean it’s good. Use something that’s good. Like when was the last time you heard Kate Bush in a sample? Kate Bush is a genius. You should use things like that. I’m a fanatic of music. If it’s good I’ve got it. And I’m gonna use it.

So is there an innate pop sensibility in what you were doing?

Smiley

Not really, because we didn’t come with some four-beat thing. If anything we twisted it up. We just brought something different to it.

When drum & bass was a fully formed genre, did you think you were still hip-hop guys, or did you feel part of the drum & bass scene?

PJ

We still loved our rap, and everything else, but we no longer saw ourself as hip-hop, because we knew that’s not what it was seen as when we do it. With us, all the music we’re into, we just reflect that in our music. It don’t really get no deeper than that. We just believe what you like you should use. Those ingredients that make the food taste nice: You should put them in the pot, and we do.

This interview was conducted in 2005. © DJhistory.com