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The first ever live Once A DJ — recorded at Canopy Menswear, Derby

Dan Lish is an illustrator and lifelong hip hop head whose work sits right at the intersection of culture, art and memory. In this special live episode — the first Once A DJ has taken out of the studio and in front of an audience — recorded earlier this year at Canopy Menswear in Derby, he tells the story of how B-boying and hip hop found him at exactly the right moment — and never really let go.

He opens up about a difficult childhood, moving between families and a stint in boarding school, and how the battle culture of B-boying gave him a platform to express things he couldn't yet put into words. From erecting coat hangers around his bedroom window to pull in the Capital Rap Show on pirate radio, to catching second-hand American records in tiny Suffolk shops thanks to nearby US Air Force bases — Dan's path into the culture was shaped by scarcity, which made it all the more precious.

He eventually made it to New York, where he spent around seven years immersed in the grassroots scene: practicing in the Bronx, attending block parties in Queens, linking with Spike from Zulu Nation, hanging with original writers like Stay High 149, and entering battles despite — by his own admission — being stiff as a plank when the nerves hit.

Back in England, his illustration career took off through a series of portraits of hip hop icons drawn during his train commute — work that went around the world, got bootlegged onto mixtapes, and caught the attention of Rakim, Pete Rock, Paradise Gray from X Clan, the RZA and De La Soul among others.

He rounds out the episode talking about his upcoming illustrated book Wonder Love, a love letter to Stevie Wonder's classic 70s albums, published by W.W. Norton.

Show notes:

1. Dan Lish's work: danlish.com (verify current link)
2. Velocity Press: velocitypress.uk
3. Canopy Menswear Derby: canopyonline.co.uk
4. Book mentioned: Brakesploitation series
5. Upcoming: Wonder Love — illustrated Stevie Wonder book, W.W. Norton

Welcome to the first Live Once a DJ podcast here at Canopy in Derby.

Thanks for having us, James.

What's your website?

Canopyonline.co.uk Remember that?

Check it out.

And thank you to DJ Hudson for the music.

Save some claps for later, guys.

Don't.

Don't run them out.

And we're here today with illustrator and B boy Dan Lish to look at his journey with DJing.

Illustration, how they've intertwined and a bit more stuff about your personal journey, I think, as well.

Yeah, so we're going to try and keep this to an hour because I know live it's like a long time for people to be sitting around and I mean, I could talk about these things all night sort of thing, but.

But yeah, so let's kick off and I know you've listened to quite a lot of the episodes, so you know the format, so always just really start with.

Yeah, that's the right answer.

Yeah, I'm a big fan.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, no, no, you're welcome.

And thanks to Colin as well, Velocity Press for coming and bringing the books and putting the books out as well, putting out books around DJ culture, music and things like that.

So, yeah, let's get kicked off really then, and just talk about your.

Your early years, really, and where the love for music came from.

Well, I guess when I was bouncing around on my space opera, this is in the 70s in Suffolk, so it, it was really my mother that inspired me with her soul records, I suppose, and you know, that I caught the bug.

But I was very, very young then.

I was sort of 7, 8 years old.

But I mean, when hip hop came into the, into the picture, you'd get little snippets.

I said in my book, it was a bit like a.

A glimpse of a tropical fish that you just.

You were mesmerized by it, but you just couldn't keep hold of it, you know, it was very fleeting.

So was it.

Was it sonically or was it visually that it captured you first?

It's visual first it was the B boy and it was the breaking.

Which of.

What the hell is that?

And then it's when you're sort of like 13, 14 years old, you can't sort of compartmentalize things as well.

And it's just in one big dynamic sort of splat in your face that you can share with your mates if they get into it as well.

And so that, that really, it was just.

It was again, very fleeting, but it really hit hard and the music made.

Started making Sense as I got a bit, bit older.

So it's the electro funk era, you know.

So I had peppers of rhymes.

I remember when I was.

I was probably in my bedroom around my stepmom's doing a little Airfix model and.

And I heard sort of Melly Mel, you know, the message.

And I was like, what the hell is that?

Because I've never heard anything like it.

And sort of Buffalo Girls as well with the video.

And a lot of people claim that's a very influential.

Yeah.

Piece, you know.

And I was like, I say I was very young, was sort of 13, 14.

And then I'd.

Because it was like a London overspill.

It's a housing estate.

It was London overspill.

So there's a lot of young families from London.

This was.

Yeah, I'm from Suffolk so I'm bouncing around a bit.

My dad's from Brooklyn so he went to, he used to take me to the.

The air bases a lot in Suffolk, like Mildenhorn, Lake and Heath.

So I'd get little glimpses there that I couldn't really work out.

But it was, it was friends with that London connection as well that would come down and you know, so it was a mixture of everything really.

So it's kind of like, I guess with those two things that's quite a unique situation that you'd have the American access with the air bases.

Yeah, yeah.

Because we.

A lot of the.

The DJs there and I don't know why they did this, but they'd come over to this country and so the second hand record shops, they'd be packed.

I mean, I remember one of the big finds was my mate found the original of Bamba's Death mix which was in a.

Just a little tiny shop in the middle of Suffolk somewhere, you know.

Right.

And that was quite a big deal.

I mean this.

I can't remember the, the date or anything for that particular find.

But these things stick in your mind because they're so fleeting, you know, they're very.

They're very rare.

So you, you hold them that much more.

It's very precious.

You know, I found people that were in the bigger cities, they were just a bit more blase about it because it was surrounding them all the time.

Yeah, yeah.

So I mean that, that's my take on it.

That's my perception of things.

And you know, from the air bases that my friends that had that London connection as well, you get older, you get a bit more money, you start, you know, I mean, I was buying Tapes before vinyl.

So you just, just got the bug and, and everything else came with it.

You know, his Star wars came out.

I was a little bit late on, on Wild Style, the film, but these documentaries came out and just, just, you know, as a young boy with my friends, you know, it's amazing.

Yeah, you talk in your book a bit about.

You mentioned bits about your ego and, and things like that in terms of how that helped you within or how that kind of made sense for you in terms of throwing yourself into the hip hop culture and b boying and stuff.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah.

I mean, the family situation was difficult.

You know, I was stuck in bloody boarding school for a year and then after that into a new town stepmother.

And my dad's relationship is always a little bit challenging, so, you know, wasn't in a really good place.

But for the, the openness for things to come in, you know, it was, it was.

I can't really explain it very well, but these things, it just happened at the right time.

You know, I probably held quite a lot of anger from things in the past, so hip hop without me knowing was a good.

Was a good platform to express that.

I could only figure that out decades later.

Yeah, of course.

So there was that.

That sort of.

That, that people is sort of, you know, battle mentality thing, you know, or again, it was very egoic and it just made sense then.

It was kind of a bit of a release.

It was.

Yeah.

And.

And back then, you know, you're all like young lads really, with a lot of testosterone, you know, and it was a step up to the plate and show and prove, you know, it's something to get involved and it's not so much later on in years.

You get people that absolutely love hip hop, but they had the money to buy it, you know, products, you know.

Yeah.

I'm just being hypocritical here, but, you

know,

so you probably get a lot of stories like this.

I mean, it wasn't better, it was just different.

You know, you just have to.

You really had to step up to the plate.

You had to pay your dues a lot.

And that's from the sort of.

The era that I was from.

Yeah.

You know, even when it came to bombing and, you know, getting a spray can and, you know, I could, I was very much into all the elements, but I just, I just couldn't rhyme.

I sounded like an idiot, so I just, I gave it a go.

But it was so bad.

I've been there myself.

Yeah.

I think we all haven't.

We really.

It's like, you know, it's.

It's terrible.

So jokingly, it was between, you know, me and one of my mates, and I just thought nice is just really bad or.

Plus, I felt really uncomfortable.

Yeah.

So in terms of the other elements, then what.

What was the primary one for you?

Was the breaking or.

Or was it graph?

Yeah, it was.

It was.

It was the.

It was the B boy thing first and then with the music.

And then because it came, you know, in.

In England, it came as a nice little package, thanks to the Zulu sort of, you know, Bambaata tours and stuff like that.

So it, you know, we didn't have that lineage that I was aware of, like they had in.

In America, especially New York, you know.

I mean, people that picked up spray can weren't necessarily into, obviously rap music or whatever.

They were just.

Whatever.

It was just, you know, this is the late 60s, early 70s, obviously it wasn't really around and apart from the very inklings of, you know, the foundational stuff.

So, yeah, it was in that order.

I really got into.

I did a.

You know, later on.

This is probably in the early 90s.

Stuck in Portsmouth for my art college years.

Academically, I didn't do very well, so.

But I got in there with the standard of the work, which is great, but there was hardly any scene there again.

And you really depended on overseas students, you know, the Afro Caribbean parties or whatever, to make something happen.

There were some locals that would die hard as well.

And obviously you got the second to none.

B boys who I met in the early to mid-90s, especially Adam, who, you know, when I found him, we just practiced all the time.

So there was that true school resurgence as well in the early 90s, because we could.

People that were really into it and very passionate.

You could see the corporate tentacles getting into it a bit more.

And even back then, you need to change your lyrics to sell more units and.

And I was just not into that.

So there was a big resurgence, you know, the underground or the.

The roots, the ethos of.

Of all this stuff, you know, and it was.

It was.

I guess I was quite nerdy and die hard about it.

Very ADHD about it, you know.

You know, and it was just the resurgence of the B boy thing as well, which was.

Which was great.

Do you remember a lot from the sort of mid-80s, like, because you had things like Morris Minor in the Mages, like capitalizing on it and then like, I feel like Weetabix had some, like, graffiti.

Yeah, yeah, he had all the gimmicks.

Yeah, all that stuff.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, I love that Weetabix because that.

That artful dodger that did that.

Right, yeah.

Which I eventually met up with him, like pioneering sort of graphite.

And that was around the same times Goldie was doing his thing as well, before he was doing his drum and bass and that.

Sorry, what was your question again?

I was talking about like the.

The way that mainstream kind of tried to capitalize on hip hop culture.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

The Guinness advert.

I think there was someone doing a windmill or like that in there.

There's a breaking in a Guinness effort which he still sort of.

It still grabbed.

Grabbed me as a young boy.

But there was lots of little mini documentaries that were very.

And I can't really.

Can't think of them at the moment, but they.

They really helped.

That was DJ Cheese, Word of Mouth crew.

I remember there was.

There was some little documentary live gig and that.

That was great.

But it was so, so thin.

We had people like.

We couldn't really get the pirate radio stations and I'd have to sort of erect sort of all my clothes, metal clothes, hangers around the window just to get a reception of the London Pirates like Mike Allen.

Yeah.

Capital Rap show, which was.

You would just hold on to that tape very.

You know, and it sounded.

It was really bad quality, but because it was new and it just sent you out into the cosmos with my imagination anyway.

Yeah.

And it did help, I guess, with my dad being, you know, a New Yorker as well, because, you know, he was in the house of me and although his accent sort of went a bit Norfolky.

Brooklyn.

Norfolk accent, a good combo.

Do you think your dad being from there gave you a bit more of sense of purpose around connecting with the culture?

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

Even though I didn't know it then, it makes sense now.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I did go out there in 77, but I was only 6, so.

And I remember, you know, the subways being hot as hell and I saw Star wars, which.

Which was amazing.

I just remembered little bits of that.

We went to Brooklyn to see that, but I was like, I said I was only six and these are the only little memories that I had.

And I threw up in the back of the taxi cab and he told me, shh.

So we snuck out, paid the cab driver and left it there.

It's awful.

Straight out of the planes.

So when you were at school then, was.

Was art something that you kind of found you Had a natural talent for.

Yeah, yeah.

Because my mum, on my mum's side of things, she used to talk about this chap called Sir Joshua Reynolds that I never really heard about.

So he's.

He's like the seventh great uncle or something on my mum's side.

And so he was, he was painting huge portraits and oils back in the day, you know.

And this is.

It was like.

So it comes from my mum's side.

My, my.

My dad had big mechanic hands, you know, Tommy dick fingers, you know, pulling apart engines and putting them back together again.

So the artistic side was on my mum's side and so yeah, they were great.

They would, you know, get me my pens and me equipment when I was really young or my dad had come back with a big roll of wallpaper and I would draw on the.

The other side, you know, you know, so it was cheap and cheerful.

He gave me a rotoring pen that is a mapping pen but you've got to hold it upright so that made me become quite tight.

So I had to sort of back engineer what I was doing and get looser, you know, because they had a very incredibly thin nib that you had to hold up.

Right.

And it just made me really slow and, and tight.

So I had a lot of unlearning to do later on.

But it was all.

It is what it is, you know, it's all good experience.

Yeah.

Does that relate to them with, with graph?

Because it's all like.

Because you've got all your different caps

and things like that, don't you Again, when we started.

Well, when I started I had car plan, that's all we could get hold of.

And the was like vinegar on walls, you know.

And you'd have this, this satin black, I can't remember the name of, but that was really thick.

So you'd always outline in that.

Do you feel with.

You know, this is what I was getting hold of.

So we didn't have the caps then.

You know, we are even trying to make them.

It was just no Cokes.

My stepmom wouldn't let me in the kitchen.

So like you used what you could get nowadays, you know, is a lot easier and what you can do is just, just amazing what you can do with the spray can, you know.

But it was more the, the content.

Not exactly.

I mean, you know, you had your drips and stuff and, and even using stencils was a no, go.

Because other writers would brick your work if they saw you using a stencil.

So it was, it was very.

It was a bit, I guess it was closed minded, but still very, you know, competitive.

So was it like.

I don't know a lot about it, but was it the thing of just.

Was it kind of tagging where it's like get your tag as many places or is it do the best thing you can in the time that you've got?

Yeah, all of it.

Really?

Yeah.

I mean, it depends geographically where you are and.

And I was never really into heavy illegal stuff.

I would find like an old.

There was a place in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk where there was a couple of Derek houses.

So I would just practice there all the time.

You just get left alone.

I mean, you had to crawl under the fence or whatever to in there, but you just get left alone.

And about six, seven years later he got knocked down.

I think they were left there because there was a.

Like a labyrinthian chalk mine underneath that ended up at the cathedral.

And the houses are subsiding, so they, they all left them.

And we just left these shells that all the lads could paint on, you know.

So we just did that to hone your craft, you know.

So what, what were the risks involved?

Like?

Were they like the police, like really heavy on it if you were doing it in the wrong place?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I got nicked a couple of times, to be honest, you know.

But again, where the buildings were going to be knocked down, they confiscated my paint and let me go.

I mean, I had a fine once where they let me go.

Another time, you know, I had.

I had a good friend, Nikway Dreff, used to write.

Dreff, you know, he was.

He was hardcore, you know.

So, yeah, big shout to Nikway and, you know, he, you know, trains, you know, all that stuff.

But I was never on that level really.

I was more into the sort of.

Yeah, it was always a node to the New York style, but I was always trying to hone the craft more than get up, you know.

Yeah.

Something else I saw in your notes is you talked about an Australian magazine called Hype.

I've never heard of that before.

Can you sort of talk about what that was like?

Yeah, I mean, I used to pick those up at.

There was a place just off of Carnaby street and I used to go there around 87 where the heck they'd sell the goose downs and all the import.

George, who run Four Star General, he used to go to New York because I think the dollar was, you know, it was, it was like six bucks to a pound or something like that in, in like the early to mid-80s.

So you, a lot of the lads would go there and come back with all these goose downs.

Was four star general, like the sort of hip hop spot.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean further south for London.

Yeah, yeah.

So I found Hype, the magazine there.

So.

And the Australians that I found out through that magazine, they were still, you know, breaking and the murals were saying the pieces and stuff.

So it's again, it was, it was that connection you all had the common interest.

But it was, you know, across the world.

You know, I can't remember the price of it or if you probably, you know, his stuff wasn't cheap because he knew he, he had all the gems there, so he had to pay for him sometimes.

It was only when I, my American grandparents, and maybe it's a Jewish thing or something as well, they save up from when the kid is born to when they're 18.

So I had a couple of grand.

So I spent, I went down to four star and spent it all in on bloody goose downs and, and you know, what have you.

My dad wasn't impressed.

Yeah, well, then I got mugged.

So, you know, if you're walking around with a fancy big jacket on, you know you're gonna get started on.

And yeah, that happened quite a few times.

So I, I, I, I learned to hop fences well and run, you know, it's not.

This happened in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk twice, because the people would come down to the soul events in packs and I was just strutting around with me tough crew T shirt on and my headphones and a silly hat and this big pimp.

It looked, probably looked like a pimp coat, you know.

Obviously I'm a massive target for these lads that have come down for the soul weekenders.

So of course I'm going to get started on, you know, so that, that was annoying, you know, kind of a

right of passage, I guess, isn't it?

Oh, it's not very nice, man.

Yeah.

You know, at knife point, you know, there's five lads around, I'm out of there, you know, gone.

Jesus.

So when you went to uni in Portsmouth, had you wanted to go to London or anywhere else but you could just get into Portsmouth or did something else take you there?

Yeah, that's a good question.

I won't dwell on it too far.

My mate, he sadly died and I was in the house when this happened.

The next day I was I was going to have an interview at London Art College and I was in just bits, so I. I just didn't.

Didn't happen.

So that didn't happen.

Ended up in Portsmouth, you know, so.

But London was always, you know, the spot to go, but you were getting goaded to sort of try, you know, these places.

But Portsmouth was, was cool.

Yeah.

Was it fine art that you did?

No, no, it was illustration.

Okay.

I went to Great Yarmouth.

For some reason I ended up on a graphic design course.

But, you know, I was really an illustrator artist, you know, so I always.

Whatever subject they gave me, I'll try and twist it to more of an illustrative thing.

But this was pre digital as well, so you'd have to learn the old school way of doing letters and all this.

So it wasn't really my thing.

Yeah.

And like sci fi illustration was a big thing for you early on, right?

Yeah.

The comics that I really got into, I put in the book as well.

There was one time I sent in a.

One of my little dodgy drawings.

I was about 13, something like that, and Strontium Dog and I got a winner of.

What is it?

Earthlet.

Daniel Lish From Norfolk wins 10 quid and a video.

I was, I was chuffed, you know, but the comics were.

Yeah, they were great.

He was quite rebellious, you know, it.

Against the grain and it had that sci fi sort of thing going on.

Yeah, the otherworldly thing.

So it was, it was right up my street and it was, you know, cost 30p, you know, back then.

Service.

All right.

Yeah.

So was that kind of style of illustration what you were kind of going more down the line of with uni, because I mean it influences your so

much and, and the, the art and I don't know if this is like this with every art college, but they didn't like it at all.

You know, they really didn't go for it.

So I had to do it as a sideline really.

Back engineer.

My favorite artists, you know, just copy what they were doing and figure out, you know, and there's only two.

I left.

Well, I actually went to.

That was the first time that I found a comic shop in Portsmouth that was.

That blew my mind because I'd always be going to the news agents on the corner, hope that they would have that weekly comic or whatever.

So going to Mondo Comics in, in Portsmouth, that opened up my whole world, you know, European styles, the American styles, which I wasn't too into it.

Was more Mobius and, and the, the, the French sort of labored, layered style, I guess, really, which, which is I guess quite similar.

That's what I just like doing, you know.

Robert Crumb as well was quite a big influence.

Again, sort of crafted line work to sort of explain the shape.

You know, the lines would follow the shape.

And if I'm, if it's a freestyle thing, it's easy to sort of remember where the shadows go because I always, as a default, the light is coming from the top down, so you know where the shadows drop.

So if it's freestyle, I know where things are going as I use that as a default, you know, light up the top.

Yeah.

So what was next after uni?

I was homeless for a little while more, More family trouble and just being skin.

So I was in.

Is it as in you didn't have a home to go to after uni because of.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

So I just stayed in Portsmouth.

I had my records, you know, I set up.

Even though the front door was hanging off, my records were stashed well.

So, you know, a couple of years were quite difficult after, you know, the college, the college years.

That was a college before it was a uni, you know, so back in my time, it was just a college.

And then I, I used to go to the, the comic conventions up in London just to try and get work.

You know, they would send you test scripts to do and you try them out.

So that was, that was really good.

And ended up working for a pet book company doing bunny rabbits and kittens and stuff like that.

So.

Yeah.

How long.

So if you had one of those scripts and you had to like mock stuff up, like, how long would it take to do that for a tentative sort of thing?

Because I think we like to kind of, particularly now with AI and stuff, it's like, oh, yeah, just do my cv, you know, shape it for this job or, you know, people like to not spend too much time on that.

Was it quite time consuming?

Yeah, it was, yeah.

But, but you just.

Well, I, I, I've got a very sort of quite a heavy work ethic.

So once I get stuck into something that tunnel vision overtakes and, you know, so I wasn't really aware of how much time it's taken.

I suppose like a test script, they want you to do sort of six to eight pages.

That would be a week or so or maybe a bit, bit longer.

It's intense for like an application for a job basically, isn't it?

I always, it's because of Dan Willett, my mate who owns.

Who did own Mondo Comics.

He.

He put this thing in my head that the American artists do a page a day.

So I work my ass off to try and keep to that.

Doing one page a day, it's just bonkers.

You don't need to do that, you know?

Yeah, I mean, they're.

They've got very tight deadlines.

And that was in the heyday, the golden age of comics when they, you know, it was just.

They were just coming off the shelves and you could be a superstar, you know, doing your comic book stuff.

It's.

It's not really like that now.

It's just completely different landscape, you know.

But yeah, to answer your question, it was a week or so.

Crazy.

Yeah.

So when did you get into the video game?

So if you're a concept artist for video games.

Yeah, yeah, that.

I just fell into that because.

Shout out to David Nottingham, who's a good friend.

He's still in the.

He's been in the industry for like, you know, over three decades or something, but he.

It was because of him I was working at Barnes and Noble on fifth Avenue as a book designer when I first got to the States, and he worked downtown for this.

This game company called Rockstar Games.

I didn't know who that was.

And he said, do you want to do some concepts for me as a freelance gig?

And I went, yeah, okay.

What is that?

So I really fell into it, you know, and I enjoyed the ride for 25 years, you know.

Was it Rockstar for all that time?

No, no, that was.

I was undertake to the whole umbrella, you know, they're under the take two umbrella.

We.

I was with Gotham Games.

They merge with Rockstar Games.

And then about a year later I got the boot anyway because it was.

Honestly, it was like working in a Thai sweatshop.

It was pretty full on.

My mate's brother works for him and I think it's still like that.

Is he Rockstar north or in America?

He's up north, yeah.

This.

Yeah, this is house than Broadway or something where the mate and it was just.

But you get people like, you know, Eminem.

I couldn't say it then.

And Dre just wander through the studio because they want to chat to the bosses.

They've got an idea for the next GTA 3.

They want to.

They've got a bit of music.

So this was like a continual.

This is like happened all the time.

It was crazy.

Yeah, let's just wind back a bit then because like a big A big thing that I want to get into is your, I guess you'd call it, pilgrimage of moving to New York to embrace yourself in the culture.

So can you talk about how you ended up doing that?

Well, I mean, it wasn't really a specific pilgrimage because like I said, my dad was from there and he's always said, you know, when you're 18, you can go out there.

You know, we.

I had to go to the American embassy and put me hand on me heart and, you know, do all that stuff to get the passport.

So again, I said, I went out there in 77, very young.

And it was a long time before I went out there again.

I was in my late 20s and by then, you know, I, I really knew what I wanted to do.

You're sort of old enough, mature enough to.

Right.

I got anyway just to slip into the system, be a bloody pot washer or something.

But I ended up being the designer thing.

And after about six months going to New York, it wasn't a specific pilgrimage, it was just part of what was going to happen.

But I just, I felt I stayed in Portsmouth for a bit too long.

I should have pulled my thumb out, as my dad says, and got my ass out to there a bit earlier.

Or as a country boy, you know, people should have said how about London first, then go to New York.

But I didn't.

I mean, for the first six months I wore earplugs because it was so loud.

I couldn't adjust.

So it was quite, quite lonely.

The first year my wife to be came out a year later we got married on Staten island, which was, which was really sweet.

She's from Portsmouth, Portsmouth girl.

But it was.

I just took it day by day, you know, because it was, it was a big move.

I eventually got settled down, you know, I was on Staten island for a little while.

There's a Wu Tang shop down the hill, which is.

There's always empty though, next to a curry goat place.

And yeah, you go down in it for your Wu Tang mugs or whatever.

But yeah, this is 99, you know, so it's still earlyish days.

Wife came out, tied the knot.

No, you know, towers came down.

Yeah, a couple of months after we tied the knot.

So that, that million dollar view that we had from St. George's where you get the, the Staten island ferry to Manhattan, we right on top of the hill.

So we Statue of Liberty there, twin Towers there, you know, all the bridges, Farrazano and Brooklyn Bridge and the, you know, it just got turned to, man, it Was just so depressing.

So we, we.

I was in a crew I saw.

Sorry, I'm just jumping all over the place before my wife, before my wife came out and she had to go through all the green card process because I didn't have to do it.

I'm already citizen.

Before that I was just going to hunt Hunts Point, they had jams there, block parties, you know, South Bronx, Brooklyn.

Just hooking up with people and sorry, bouncing around again.

I used to go to the Miami B Boy pro ams with Break DJ Lacy and we were really good mates and he was the number one DJs from Bishop's Thoughtfoot.

But they used to fly him out to Miami.

His brother Aiden shout to Aidan, he does the Back Atcher Records, you know, that does brilliant re releases of super rare 45s and all that.

That's his brother.

So I used to go out there, just make the contacts and I'm with Spike from Zulu Nation at the time and he was some of my first contacts.

So I had my cousins out there so I could live okay, you know, get into the, the system and just meet people and got into crews.

B Boy Cruise and Graph Crews and all that.

Yeah.

So with hip hop culture, B boying, there's a lot of like posturing, puffed out chests and things like that.

How do you turn up there and go, all right, I'm Daniel, can I break?

How do you like get into with them and get their buy in?

If you like, that's, that's where you have to show and prove, you know, if there's a little cipher and you do have to be quite brave, you just gotta get in there and do your business, you know, as best you can.

But I think it was.

And with the DJing, because I'd been doing the pirate radio for about nine, ten years before America.

So I mean I knew what I was doing and I eventually got all my wax out there doing block parties and you know, used to do this dollar jam with King Up Rock as well in Queens.

It's on the border of Queens and Brooklyn.

So all the crews, yeah, he had Special K from the Treacherous Free just hang out, you know, all these people, they would real, you know, part of the architects of, you know, of hip hop, you know, it was even, even the, the gangs that started some of the dances like, you know, there's, you know, rocking Brooklyn rock or whatever you want to call it, gets a bit political.

But a lot of these gangs, like the Devil's Rebels, they would turn up all with their colors on form an apache line Just start rocking, you know, back and forth and you just.

Yeah, man, you just.

You can't help it.

You just got to get involved, you know, like the record says, you know, And I always had that ethos.

You just step up.

And I entered battles.

I was so nervous.

I just.

Stiff as a flipping plank.

I didn't do very well, but the relief of just having done it and like, oh, my God, I'm so glad that's over.

Yeah, I wasn't very good at battling, to be honest.

I'd get too nervous, you know?

Yeah.

I remember doing my first couple of DJ battles and just being so scared.

What, your hand like that on the needle.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's like, what's the worst thing that happens?

Yeah, I mean, it's all up here, isn't it?

You play a couple of records and things clash a bit.

It's not the end of the world.

But for you in that time, it's just the most important thing in the world.

Yeah, well, I thought, you know, lad from England out there, just.

Just get stuck in, you know, and.

And I think it did bring out not a particularly nice side of me, if I'm quite honest.

You know, it was that.

That angry.

Did you overstep the mark with people?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, I remember years ago when I was kind of doing battling, because there was the Trinity warriors, wasn't there?

And I think.

I'm sure they got, like, kicked out of a competition or disqualified or something for, like, fighting.

Yeah, it's a weird thing.

It escalates quite a lot, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

And you.

And being in Cruise as well, you.

You'd get caught up in their drama.

Yo, that, you know, and you.

And before you know it, you're just like, what am I doing in here?

Why is.

What is this situation?

I mean, all of a sudden.

And it was really being an outsider.

It's all.

Yeah, you know, you can be a bit pompous.

Well, a bit immature, isn't it?

You know, but it's.

It's in the blood, you know.

You had my mate who's brilliant dancer, his mum teaching in windmills in the kitchen, but he had so much flavor.

I used to practice in Westchester Square in the Bronx.

Make my.

That was a pilgrimage from Staten island all the way uptown after work, working on Fifth Avenue, and then all the way back down to the ferry port.

If you missed your ferry, you had to wait two hours for the next ferry, you know, that was the pilgrimage there.

Just practicing in.

In the Bronx.

But yeah, Shouts is ready to rock.

There was a crew that were practicing there all the time.

And so all these little, these little.

You just had to get stuck in, you know, you had to do it, man.

You just couldn't stand on the sidelines, you know.

Yeah.

And what was, what was your journey in terms of like graph writing when you were over there?

I wanted to sort of go in because I got friendly with Lady Pink and, and I can't remember a boyfriend at the time, but we were going to go through the tunnels, you know, as you saw on, on Star wars and all these, these documentaries, just, just for the history.

But he never got around to it.

But I used to hang out with a lot of the, the early old school writers, Stay High and Roger and, and all these guys that.

And Oui as well.

He was supposedly white boy hippie writer from Jamaica, Queens.

That made, you know, he was very good at bombing.

So he sang out of all these old guys and just listened to their stories.

And so I wasn't really.

I was active.

But it was mainly beat digging, dancing, you know, where I learned to like Brooklyn rock properly and battle winning some battles and stuff like that.

That, that was mainly, I think it was from childhood where hip hop moves so quick.

Before you know it, no one's really spinning on the red anymore.

New dance styles happened.

So I think going to New York, I got a lot of that off my chest, which is a bit because I absolutely love the art form of it.

It's an art form.

I really wanted to become part of that and not really make a name for myself, not as an ego thing, but just to battle and have that experience even if I didn't do very well.

So it was mainly, yes, it was still the dance and the music.

So the, the graffiti, I was still bubbling with it, but not hardcore.

You know, it wasn't big burners and huge production pieces.

It was just helping out the old guys that, right.

They were at such an early start of graffiti.

They didn't really evolve from the tag or the bubble letter.

They just.

So I used to get in and fill in for them.

We'll do a little character.

And so, because it was an honor, you know, that when before they shut down Five Points in Astoria, Queens, this huge warehouse, bakery inside or something, it was covered in graff, you know, and they had old time conventions there.

Danny Dan the Beat man would be playing.

His vinyl would get so hot in the sun, it'd be like a banana.

But he'd still play his record somehow.

And all these old guys would turn up and it was just like, wow, this is brilliant.

I'll just be very quiet and humble and just listen to the stories and help them out.

Yeah, it was lovely.

So.

And then all of a sudden you came back to England.

What was it like leaving all that culture that you were so immersed in?

It was, it was time, I think, you know, there was a couple of tragedies.

You know, my mate Jim Break, DJ Lacy got hit by a car out running.

So that was.

That happens.

My wife's sister tragically got murdered in Manchester.

Yeah, big.

It was just serious and we were so out of the loop and the family was struggling with stuff there.

We thought in a couple of years time we'll have to go back.

And I was quite happy with that.

Yeah.

You know, originally I thought I'd.

I'd be out there for 15, 20 years or more and it, it was only really sort of seven odd years, you know, but we felt comfortable to come back around that time, you know, so there's no regrets or anything.

It was, it was.

And it was a sort of release, getting away from some of the drama that I'd gotten myself into, you know, through that battle mentality.

Very egoic and on the front line all the time.

And it was bloody draining, you know, it's just.

You've only got so much light units for the day, haven't you?

And mine were very, very low.

So, yeah, I'd got myself into it myself.

You know, no one's to blame apart from my.

But it's a learning experience.

I think from what I remember in the book, you'd sown some seeds over there with making some of the connections that then kind of led on to more of the work that you've had in hip hop and illustration and stuff.

Not, not really.

I was on the grassroots level.

I was hanging out with rockers and old B boys.

You know, I never had the chance to go to D and D studios or something or it wasn't on a priority list really, because I was still at the foundational, you know, digging.

If there was a spot wherever in someone's basement and there was some wax there, would go there and then, you know, if, if there was the right, right music and it worked, would play that at the Dollar Jams or whatever battles there were.

So it was still very grassroots and I think I intentionally kept it like that because by the time I got out there, everyone and their grandmother was rhyming and I would start get sick to death of it, really.

He's completely surrounded by it and I just wanted to keep it, you know, just hear these beautiful stories from guys that were 10, 15 years older than me.

So I just kept it to the dancing music and you know, the ego strip stuff.

It was.

It was still in the same ballpark but completely different really because it was dealing with musical influences that I maybe had left behind in England.

First getting into to hip hop and rap, you know.

Yeah, do you want to talk about that project and how it came around and I guess like the sort of what event led to the next.

Led to the next.

It.

It happens.

I mean trying to re.

Establish yourself as an artist and just to get work was quite tough coming back and thankfully I had the video game stuff to do as a concept artist to bring home the bread.

My wife is pregnant, you know, for our first child.

So, you know, financially things are tough and I wasn't.

It wasn't time to delve into the hip hop thing, you know, as an art piece or ode to.

And it happened quite organically.

And it was from Break, my mate Jim's album cover.

I did Brakesploitation one and it was around the same time as Charlie Ahern.

Was it Charlie Ahern, the.

Yes, yes y'.

All.

But came out that was quite influential because I'd never seen that amount of old school pictures in.

In one sort of book before.

And we thought it's collaboratively we.

We thought of the.

The block party piece, you know, like a fly on the wall DJ cutting up a couple of records, you know, back in the day, sort of like 77, 78, getting the fashions right, really nerding out putting.

I put about seven or eight classic sort of breaks in the crates, you know, just redoing the covers and all this stuff.

And yeah, that went around the world really.

It was.

Got bootlegged all over the bloody place.

Use for mixtapes and what have you.

And so from that Rakim and Pete Rock and people like that were just saying, you know, check this out, it's all about the streets and keeping it this and that and just remember the roots of it.

Basically the foundation.

So.

And Paradise Gray from X Clan reached out as well because he was involved with a hip hop museum, I think it was in Harlem or something.

He wanted prints of it.

So I did little drawings of them as a thank you.

And it just.

What's going on here?

Something's happening.

You know, it was going really well and the reception.

As a struggling artist, if you get a bit of a positive feedback from people, you're like, okay, I'm on to, I'm onto a good thing here.

So I just went with it.

So I would be drawing these things on the train from Brighton to London when I was saying earlier I worked in Shoreditch for another video game company.

And within that hour, you know, I would, I would just be drawing away.

It was freestyle, the, the original pieces that I did and they're only a 5, which I can't remember the inches, but it's, it's probably like six and a half inches by four and a half or so.

It's quite small.

Yeah.

You know, and, and you can.

Is very easily portable.

So I just, I would start off well, okay.

If I did ruck him and I wanted to again shed that egoic thing and, and treat the human creative journey, you know, that was more of a priority, I think, than, than doing what I used to do in New York or before that, always an ode to New York.

You know, B boys dance, hardcore letters, this and that.

And it was just, again, it was tiring so having that fresh perspective and, and, and really treating the subject matter as, as a vessel, like a conduit for consciousness to come out either through the pen or microphone or DJ or beat making or whatever.

So from Racking Pete Rock and Paradise, then it went to Cool Keefe, you know, Bamba before, you know, we found out the, you know.

Well, yeah, the stories and all this lot, but.

And it went on and on and on and, and I was really enjoying my commutes and who enjoys, you know, instead of staring at your phone, you just start getting busy and it's lovely, it's really nice.

Was it a time where you kind of all your different like influences and things just kind of clicked into place in one way because you've got like the, the sort of sci fi influence in some of the little characters and stuff like that that you, that you include and stuff and some of the other interests.

That's a good question.

I mean it was more subconscious really.

And because I was going around lots of down, lots of conspiratorial, as you would say, rabbit holes about the nature of our reality that fed into it as well.

And, and you have a ink pen and you're trying to suggest frequencies or a certain frequency that is, which you love about that track in line.

So all these challenges, this, this was the, the, the process, the joy of the process and the exploration within that one or two hours commute.

And if I really, you know, if it wasn't complete, I would finish it off, you know, next to my wife in this bed or something.

You know, that definitely happened when I increased the page size because when I started doing crews, like, I think the first one was ultra magnetic MCs and I thought, well, I've got to get bigger than a 5.

So I think it went to a 3 or a 4.

Eventually went to a 3 size.

And the games company that I work for, they very.

It was so kind of them, maybe because they're Brazilian or whatever.

I don't know, they're very open minded.

So get to work at 11 o' clock so you don't have to pay that outrageous 52 quid every morning to get to bloody London, you know, on the rat race.

And so, you know, all these things really helped.

I did.

I wasn't.

Is that the ones that were.

That were letting you kind of do a load of upscaling and stuff with your sort of passion pieces?

What would you mean upstairs?

So you mentioned, you mentioned that they were letting you like training, doing certain stuff, I think maybe in Photoshop, which it wasn't necessarily the day job, but because you were like kind of training yourself.

No, that was the pet.

That was the pet book company.

Yeah, that was.

Yeah, they're very early 90s, so I learned Photoshop and Quark Express where you'd learn, you know, no one uses Quark Express anymore.

And the drum scanner was the size of this couch.

You know, the scanner, it was bonkers.

But that was, that's how early it was.

That's when I learned Photoshop.

So talking of Photoshop, there's probably, I only know probably about 10 to 15% of the whole program.

You said 25 in the book.

Did I?

Yeah, it's probably less than that.

Did I?

All right, that was one of my notes because I think it's interesting with stuff like that because you think about tech and what it can do versus what your output is.

And I found that interesting because you'll get people that still produce music with like Octamed on the Amiga or whatever.

And it's kind of.

It's the gear versus the idea, isn't it?

You know.

Yeah.

Because I was quite surprised that with what you do that you don't use Illustrator.

I mean, I'm not, I'm not deep into these things, so I don't know, I just kind of assumed you'd be using that.

But are you using the same techniques that you've always used within Photoshop?

I mean, working with other companies you get little shortcut tidbits and Stuff like that.

So of.

And I work on a big sort of like whack on screen, you know, which the process isn't as good as tech, you know, the tactile nature of.

Of pen and paper because you create more neural pathways that way.

I would say a lot more than.

Than just straight digital.

You mentioned certain things about types of paper in the book as well.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And eventually my.

My hands, because of the paper and the tooth, and I just overworked my hand.

You know, I've got this horrible ganglion cyst, this big lump that happened on my hand and I had to stick man in boiling water and freezing cold.

Yeah.

It was really just because I'd be holding my pen too tight and overworked myself.

So transitioning over to the Wacom tablet is a bit easier because it's.

It's like.

It's like drawing on glass, you know, so you haven't got that tooth.

I'm not going to overwork my hand, but again, I miss the process of.

Of the traditional methods, which I do go back and forth on.

But with a lot of commercial work, it's more on the Wacom because it's just smooth and, you know, and it's.

There's a lot of good shortcuts and stuff like that.

Yeah.

With drawer, one of my mates has just decided he wants to train up to tattoo artist.

So he's.

He's learning a lot about drawing.

Like he's from an art background, but he was.

And he's just got a book about drawing from the right brain.

Because I think left and right brain stuff's quite interesting how the left is more the sort of analytical and the right smaller sort of felt sort of stuff.

Do you think you lead one way versus the other with your stuff?

Like, are you.

Are you consciously doing things to pull out?

Right.

I need to do this because this reflects this person's personality.

Yeah, you're right.

It's a good question.

It's a mixture.

You have a foundation of or a basic plan in your head and I'll thumbnail it out, you know.

That started to happen the first sort of, I don't know, 15 or 20 or whatever I said in my book.

Was she going to 25?

Yeah.

That was very much freestyle, just seeing what happened.

And I'd have to redo the drawing several times, sometimes because one slip if the eyeball's down, you know.

Yeah, I know.

Rakimi says hands too big.

His hands too big.

I did Q tip so many times because he's Got very nars because they've got very sort of good looking but small features, sort of quite boyish.

And so they're very difficult to do.

Something like Jay Z or Grandmaster Flash is easier.

Or KRS because they've got larger features, more pronounced features, bone structure.

But Q tip and nars especially, they've got very subtle features and it's very hard to.

To do, man.

It's especially.

Why am I just beating.

Trying to do this freestyle?

And it's so I had to do it several times.

A lot of time or if something went wrong, I do it on the other page and literally cut it out, stick it on.

And some of these pieces, you know, when Sotheby's picked, you know, they stay.

They picked about 12 pieces to sell in the auction thing for that hip hop Sotheby's gig.

And a lot of them were just like, are you sure you want this piece?

Because, you know, Chuck D said I didn't do very well on it.

So I redid it, glued it over the top and they were.

Yeah, that's fine.

It's the whole journey of the.

Of the piece at my.

My daughter's bit pastel had fallen on the top corner and it was really manky.

The.

Well, I'm stuffing the pieces in my bag as well.

They're dog.

Ended at corners but they love it because that's the whole journey.

Yeah.

So how did that happen?

So basically.

So you.

Yeah.

You had pieces auctioned through Sotheby.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And not only that, this was put together by Monica lynch, who's probably one of the most important women in hip hop.

Yeah, it's brilliant.

Talking to her is so cool because she.

I heard her on the grown man rap show, you know, with Paul Nice and his mate.

I can't remember DJ Toast.

So I was a fan of that.

I'd listen to it while I'd be doing the drawings and Monica was on there and she just got in contact with me just, you know, I think it was through Instagram and.

But we started back and forth and she's so down to earth and she's great, you know, and she is.

She's like the Don.

Yeah.

Was it Def Jam?

She was at Tommy Boy.

Tommy Boy, sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

And she was on Questloves.

I can't remember his.

The show he did, but that was great as well.

I used to interview him, so he used to love any Latin Quarter stories to me.

So.

Yeah.

But yeah, it was brilliant.

So from that I had to send out J, period, as well helped me out, you know, with that as well.

Just like the logistics of getting artwork or if I couldn't, you know, I can't.

I just couldn't afford it.

So you know, thankfully Jay helped me out going there and at the time him being on Staten island so he'd ship them back for me, you know.

Yeah.

70 quid.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what would you say?

Because you've.

You've gone on to work with a lot of different rappers and it's a load of work that are in the two books that we've got here for sale particularly with the free poster.

If you buy book as well.

What are the sort of two or three collaborations that you've done that really kind of mean the most to you or stand out and if so, could you talk about how they've come around?

Well, I mean quite surprisingly one of my favorite ones is the.

Is the Diller at the Dealer Soul a mixtape that Jay Jay did, you know he put in Parson, you know the Daily Souls lyrics over Dillard beats and.

But that was really just a beautiful.

The way it all came about and it's very smooth and organic process.

Again these projects I favor over the middleman manager getting, you know, so this is like.

I can't really name specifics but some experiences were quite tricky because the manager really was an.

And difficult to work with the middleman.

But it didn't.

Yeah, yeah but I, I did the job, you know and it was fine.

But that the ones that don't include the managers usually for me seemed to be the, the smoothest you know, dealing with the artist.

Not exactly one on one but you know, just a nice free flow phone calls back and forth, ideas and you know, so Raekwon was really cool for many years.

So did you deal directly with him then?

Yeah.

Oh wow.

Yeah.

Which is cool.

And.

And it made me that much conscious of my accent because you talking with him directly and he sounds obviously exactly like he does on wax and I'm just.

I started getting really self conscious all the time but eventually after six months, you know, I was a bit more relaxed but because he, you know, he's.

He's just such a.

A character, you know, it's very cool.

Yeah.

But he's.

There's no surprises because you feel you know him quite well and maybe plays that role when he's in front of his fans as well or whoever's with dealing with.

But he's quite laid back and we used to just bounce ideas and if I didn't understand where he was coming from or vice versa would work it out.

Yeah.

You know who else comes to mind?

Working with Mixmaster Mike was really cool and we were trying to do these NFT things that didn't really work out but we got.

There's a lot of back and forth meetings and all this stuff.

At Mixmaster Mike and Bootsy Collins we did one as well, but I didn't, I think his wife's his manager so I had to deal with his misses but that was fine.

It was really, really smooth.

I mean there's, there's quite a few.

But right now flatlining it's made mainly Dala and, and Ray Kwan are the ones great projects went smoothly, you know.

Yeah.

And, and can we talk about the new project that's coming up?

Yeah, yeah.

It's been announced.

Yeah a couple of days ago.

So I'll be.

Yeah.

The illustrating Stevie Wonder book which is brilliant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great.

They've got Derek Barnes, he's award winning author from Brooklyn.

So he's done the manuscript and I've just got to pull my finger out and start doing it now because I've got, I've got quite a long time to do it.

Deadline is, is July.

But yeah, it's great.

And you know I've always depended and, and sorted my girls out through the video game stuff, all the work that I've been doing there.

But like I say, the whole industry is having a bit of a wobble.

Thankfully this has turned up.

It might open new doors for more editorial.

Yeah.

You know, things.

More books which I've always loved.

I've always just loved a good book.

Yeah, it's gotta be, gotta be a buzz to get the call from Stevie Wonder.

I haven't had a call from Steve.

Well, you know, his people.

Yeah, it was.

There's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people involved.

You know, the bigger the is for W.W. norton.

So the bigger the publisher, the more chefs you have to deal with.

It's like working for Lucas Games.

You know, I work for Lucas a little bit in the fringes and man you got to go through so many layers of people.

Is it hard with something like that to know when you can actually kind of celebrate because you're like there's this.

Any type.

Like is there a point where you're like this is definitely happening now.

Amazing.

Like this took about a year.

This took a really long time.

Yeah, it took About a year to sort out and I just had to be patient.

I couldn't bug them.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, but if you, you know, every couple of weeks.

Yeah, what's going on?

You know, I wouldn't hear anything.

So I, I don't know if that's really an American thing to do that.

But I was just kept on Tender Hooks for really a good year.

But I. I'll be starting that in the next couple of weeks.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Right, I think that's us covered.

Has anyone got any questions?

Yeah, do you want to take the microphone?

What's your name, sir?

Hello, everyone.

I'm known as Hudson or Alex.

Yeah, just about the Stevie Wonder book.

I can only think of two books about Steve Wonder, which I think is incredible considering he's basically a legend.

Do you know what the book's actually going to be about?

Is it like a biography or.

No, it is Derek Barnes.

It's like a love letter in a sort of poem, an eloquent poem of his three or four classic albums that he did in the, in the 70s, you know, songs in a Kia Life and, And innovisions and so forth.

And it's, it's his meandering style of, you know, I don't want to give too much away or I don't want to, you know, but it's, it's really well written and I have to take visual clues from certain things that he's accented in the, in the sort of.

It's not really a poem.

What's that style of poem where it rhymes on every, you know, I mean, it's not like that.

I can't think of, you know, because I'm not a writer, but I just have to take cues from that.

And I know there'll be a lot of backwards and forwards with, you know, the publishers, the art director and Derek as well.

So I don't want to pre think any problems or whatever, but you know, the like I say, the more chefs there are, the more I'd rather have one conduit of, of direction.

So hopefully that will have achieved.

But yeah, to answer your question as well, it's.

It's maybe a 32 page, so it'll be like 15, 16 double page spreads possibly.

And he's known as like a children's author, but it's not really a children's book, it's more of a fan book.

And I can leave the visual little Easter eggs for maybe the children, you know, because it's Multi generational, isn't it?

You could have, you know, children, parents, grandparents.

Great grandparents away, you know, still being.

So hopefully, yeah, it'll all make sense.

I've only done a test spread and they loved it, but the direction changed very slightly.

But it's still within those three or four classic albums.

Incredible.

Yeah.

Called Wonder Love.

Amazing.

After his band.

Yeah.

Incredible.

Look forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, young lady.

Microphone.

Hi.

Oh, God.

Right.

I can't even remember your name, but your story has been incredible and it's really like sparked something in myself.

It was.

I'll chat to you after.

After.

About the conspiratorial, like context maybe.

Yeah.

Going down rabbit holes.

Yes.

I absolutely love that stuff.

Yeah.

Did that university myself.

But it was incredible hearing your story and good luck with everything and.

Yeah.

Do you feel like you're through from childhood up until now is like with the Steve.

Stevie Wonder.

Was it still.

Yeah.

Not like this is the end goal, but to follow on from Hudson is like.

Do you feel like you, you.

What's.

What's the expression?

Like you're getting what, the maximum achievement?

Yes.

Yeah.

And there's still obviously more and more.

Yeah.

No, I don't, to be honest.

I think it's.

I'm very grateful for it and I really want to do my best in

a non egotistical way for yourself.

But you're like, you're getting the credit you deserve now.

It's still a struggle.

It's a real struggle.

Well, you know, because I'm the only.

I'm the main.

I'm not the only.

Because Karen works hard as my wife as well, but she's in university at the moment, so it's still on me to bring home the bacon.

And the last year has been really tough for a lot of artists and a lot of industries.

Everyone's feeling the pinch, you know, so it seems like, wow, this is it, you know, Mic drop.

It's not.

It's like, okay, okay, after this, after July, the deadline, I've still got to look for more work.

Yeah, it comes in ebbs and flows.

Yeah, it does.

It really does.

Still is still difficult.

Yeah, it's still difficult.

It's not just like, oh, I sit back and it all comes to me.

You really got to work your ass off.

Yeah.

Really enjoyed listening to you and thank you.

Yeah, thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Growing up in London, been inspired at the age of 12 by likes of Apple Dodger.

I've not thought that name for years.

And fume and people like that.

Hanging out West.

West Way and Covent Garden and stuff like that?

Yeah.

How do you feel that the London graffiti scene kind of compared to the New York scene when you went over there?

See, I'm not a Londoner, so I couldn't really.

I was very.

She must have known.

Yeah, I was very inspired by.

Obviously the Chrome Angels were the.

With the dons at the time, Artful Dodger and these people.

And there was a lot of the names.

I forget the names now.

Was it Westbourne park when it.

When he was touring with the Clash.

It was all a massive influence, like I say, with the hype magazines for Australia, that was huge as well.

You had Lockes.

And when Mode split up from the crime age was moved to France, a lot of the French writers.

But New York obviously was the foundation.

But it seemed like the Europeans at that time were taking it somewhere different, which is really interesting as well.

Not just based on the letter form.

You know, being more of a illustrator type, I was always into the characters.

So I could see the Europeans were playing, pushing it at that time to different places.

It must be quite hard being in Suffolk, Norfolk and being connected to that metropolis kind of.

No, not really.

No, no, no, it was.

It was.

It was a platform at the time, unbeknownst to me that I could express myself and feel cool and have self love and a bit of worth, because I won't get into details, but I didn't really feel that that much before, you know, parents splitting up, being pushed here and there to different families or what have you.

So my friends, I got very close to my friends.

It was like a lot brotherhood when you had your cruise and you're all dancing together for, you know, eight to 12 hours a day, you know, skinny as a rake, not eating properly, you know, scrumping for apples or nicking a pint of milk or, you know, just being little bastards.

But yeah, it was.

So there was a camaraderie and a brotherhood there.

You know, if the family was fractured, I mean, this is.

I can only really comfortably talk about it, you know, decades and after because I couldn't formulate it into a cohesive way.

It was just too jumbled up.

So that.

That hip hop thing that gave me the platform.

And it's probably, probably quite a common story, you know, especially for a lot of families, you know, over the world that are fatherless.

You know, you will have that connection with, you know, deeper sort of connection.

Brotherhood, music, dance, you know, it runs quite deep.

Yeah.

Hope I answered your question.

Well, yeah, I think that gets us to the end, so.

Yeah.

Any final words, Dan?

No, not really.

I mean, well, we've been through any creatives, you know, just try.

Just keep on expressing yourself and.

And.

And enjoy the process.

And that's about all I can say.

I'm sort of flatlining a little bit.

Shout outs, you know, really.

J period and Oxygen Pass out of De La Soul.

Aiden, from back at your records.

My wife, Karen and my.

My daughters, Abigail and Elsa.

You know, I can't really think of anything else, but thanks for ever so much for having me.

Brilliant.

Well, yeah, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for coming to Dan Darby, Colin.

Thanks for.

Yeah, and thanks for Colin as well.

Yeah.

For.

For putting my books out.

Yeah, great stuff.

Yeah, cheers.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, you're welcome, mate.

And Lish, thank you.

Thank you.

Come on.

Oh, that was nice.