Benga’s Record Bag of Tricks

Dubstep has been busy making bassy waves in the musical sea recently. From its humble beginnings in Big Apple Records Croydon and club night FWD>> to the Croatian festival, Outlook, deep, dark beats are where it’s at now, with even the NME hailing it as the new favourite of the Indie kids.

Benga, a bass-hungry pioneer, has been producing tunes since the tender age of 14 and his legendary track “Night” has been instrumental in dubstep’s cross-over from South London record stores to worldwide recognition. We caught up with him on a snowy night in Durham, just before he tore up the Subotica stage, to shed some light on this dark genre that the kids are all raving about.

Since the success of Burial following his Mercury Prize nomination, there has been a lot of talk about how dubstep essentially manages to reflect the dynamics of London as a city. In contrast to the views of DJs such as Loefah, Benga suggests the relationship is not as strong as some might believe, claiming that he sees “no connection between [his] town and music”. Rather he thought the existence of the “record shop” (probably Big Apple, Croydon) was the key component in dubstep’s development and not the “skyscrapers around [him]”.

This observation is particularly interesting in light of the fact that dusbtep’s ancestral form of grime never managed to get out of London, let alone the U.K. Dubstep on the other hand has exploded not only across Europe, but the entire globe – with nights such as Dub War in New York playing host to some of the scene’s most renowned representatives such as Skream, Digital Mystikz and Kode 9. This may be due in part to dubstep’s expansion through the internet, which has massively increased its popularity. Benga is convinced that “without the internet, it would be nowhere near as far as it is now”.

The online dubstep community of dubstepforum, which incidentally was set up by a Croatian, has an unprecedented role to play in this, and provides a ready avenue where users can discuss releases, events and share mixes. As most of the forum’s users are involved in the scene in some way or another, Benga welcomes the file sharing dimension of it as it means the “more people get hold of the music, then the more it gets played out”.

Technological advancements have also changed dubstep in more ways than one. Slowly leaving behind its reggae culture associations, vinyl are no longer the only tool at the dubstep artist’s disposal.

Benga himself holds true to vinyl, as having played them since he “was twelve years old” he feels it would be “too hard” to lose the tactile experience of wax. However, this does not mean that he is disparaging of DJs such as Rusko who “play off [computer software] traktor”. In his opinion it simply boils down to how a DJ “delivers to the audience”; regardless of their means of doing so, “as long as it’s entertaining”.

Somewhat surprisingly the dubstep sound has infiltrated the non-electronic, more guitar-based community. If many old timers are dissatisfied with tales of “indie” clubs having a dedicated “dubstep hour”, rest assured that Benga is not one of them: “I never thought it would be appealing to the skinny jeans guys, but it’s good if they’re in to it. Different crowds create different vibes”. Migration into these new crowds might in turn “encourage [dubstep] producers to think about new sounds rather than just always going down the jump-up or techno routes”.

With such an open attitude to the scene, do expect to see more of Benga and his record bag spinning here, there and everywhere.