DJ Rap: I have a lot of friends there so it's always great to play in, there's always a great hotel and it's just fun. This is what I do, I like to go to different places all the time and I've pretty much toured America relentlessly now in the last two years and it's been great. I was in Mexico the other day and Africa two weeks before that, so it's nice to go different places. I've just come off a thirty-five day tour with Ferry Corsten and the Playstation Tour, so it's always varied. I think that's the beauty of this job, is that it's never the same day twice.
DJ B: I have been playing your CD on my radio show, which is devoted to underground electronic music in general, and I also happened to be a big jungle/drum and bass fan, so it was kind of neat for me to be able to get the opportunity to spin-up some tracks from someone who's coming to town. Two weeks ago I played the last five cuts from the breaks disc and then, this past weekend, ended up playing about thirty-five to forty minutes from the drum and bass disc.
DJ Rap: Oh, cool.
DJ B: Which worked out really nicely because I had just got an eMail from Shelly Harland.
DJ Rap: Oh yes, I know Shelly.
DJ B: She's got a new CD out, Saw Box Lane, and wanted me to take a listen to that, since she did the vocals on the Joshua Ryan disc.
DJ Rap: That's right, the vocals on "Music Is In Me", which is on one of my tracks on the CD, so yes.
DJ B: Right. So did she come to you through Converter, or do you know her through the people in New York?
DJ Rap: No, Converter's an engineer that I worked with on projects. We're actually not working anymore together because we live in different states now. Shelly used to be managed by the same manager as I, so we would work together and collaborate now and then. She had done some tracks with Ferry Corsten which were cool. So we're friends, we've known each other, and she lives in New York.
DJ B: Beautiful voice.
DJ Rap: Oh, she's amazing.
DJ B: A little gal from Australia living in the big city, and doing quite well. The reason that I had a dialog going with her was that we had a remix contest on the Mixdown for Josh's "In Between single" and she contributed a remix to the contest, sort of under the pseudonym of H, thinking that would disguise who she was. Unfortunately she forgot to mask-off her email address, so I was able to suss-out who it was.
DJ Rap: That's funny, typical Shelly.
DJ B: And so, in The World Is Even Smaller Than Six Degrees Of Separation, your track "Bad Girl" is on the Remixes and Additional Production CD from the Hybrid guys. You did Bad Girl on there?
DJ Rap: "Bad Girl" is from my album Learning Curve that Hybrid remixed, as did a lot of people. We had pretty much a swoop of the whole scene, and everybody from Morillo, BT, Deep Dish, Hani and the drum and bass elite did really amazing remixes for that record Even though I was making an electronic record with vocals and it was kind of new territory, I still wanted the remixes to have everybody from the scene and to keep everybody involved somehow, because I think that's very important. So, it was great that I could have a chance to get involved with so many people. There were great mixers like Rae and Christian and people like that that a lot of people don't even really know about over here, so it was a good thing to do and I can't wait till I do that again on the new album.
DJ B: Did you actually get a chance to collaborate with those guys?
DJ Rap: No.
DJ B: They were here in the studio, I got a chance to meet them, they're a couple of heroes of mine so it was really nice, and I love their work.
DJ Rap: Yes, they're great musicians as well. It's fun to have your music interpreted in a different way. I think it's fun and it's good and it always educates you when you hear other people do a different tilt on what you've done.
DJ B: Is it pretty much the same answer then for the "Giving Up The Ghost" track on Movement in Stillife.
DJ Rap: Pretty much, yes.
DJ B: He's another hero of mine in terms of the body of work that he's produced, I think BT is amazing. You've had your stuff remixed by some of the heavy hitters and I guess that speaks volumes for what they think of your talent.
DJ Rap: I think the biggest problem with drum and bass is that people don't like to collaborate, and so from very early on I have made a point of stepping outside the box and working with as many people as I can. It's been great to be able to say over a career that you can work with people like BT, Morillo, and Oakenfold. I was signed to him first before I ever put anything out.
DJ B: Yes, I saw that. How about Ashton Harvey?
DJ Rap: Ashton of course and you know the Freestylers. I've worked with so many people now and I'll continue to do that. I'm most probably be going to work on music with Ferry Corsten. There's a lot of people on my hit list that I'm targeting, so watch out, I'm coming.
