Five Minutes with Youngsta

It’s the launch night of the new dark and dirty Contaband Dub and we're sitting in the grotty green room of much loved venue The Soul Cellar.As we begin to pick at the sides of a curling promo sticker, a fidgety Youngsta walks through the door frame buzzing from the vibes of his freshly finished set. He speaks genuinely and highly of the night's debut promoters; “These boy’s have their hearts in the right place, no egos or anything. It’s really good to see them achieve this on their first night. At the first FWD there was only men in there... and about five of ‘em”, he says with a cheeky chuckle.

We begin talking about comedy classic South Park, and a mutual love for David Attenborough’s newest legacy Frozen Planet: “I love that so much, that’s for when I’m being serious”, comments a slightly tipsy Youngsta, “but I can always switch back to South Park”. While chatting away to one of Rinse FM’s finest, we discover that he is amongst the funniest, most thoughtful and down to earth people we have ever met, and it truly is a pleasure to meet him so we take the opportunity to have a catch up and see what's on his cards.

What you been up to recently?

”Recently I’ve been in the studio with Ben Verse and LX One, which is really exciting for me. With me being a DJ and getting more into producing it’s great to be able to work with such good producers. Today I’ve been down the bank, which was very exciting!"

Do you prefer producing or DJing?

"I love both equally, well not equally but, no, I do. It’s strange, they’ve both got benefit, they both deal with music, which is my passion, what I love, but with producing you’ve got the comforts of being in your own studio, working when you wanna work, how you wanna work, how late you wanna work. When you’re DJing if you’re booked to play at three till four in the morning that’s what you’re doing, I love both, I really do love both, there’s no favouritism here."

There are loads of sounds of dubstep, what’s yours?

"Tricky question because everyone perceives sound in their own way. The obvious characteristics of it are that it’s deep and it’s dark, and very minimal, so it’s the more underground stuff without a shadow of a doubt. It’s as black and white as that, it’s definitely not commercial, let’s be honest."

Were you into DJing before dubstep came about?

"Way before, my sister introduced me to jungle and garage and I stared listening to pirates about the age of twelve. My sister knew someone that ran a radio so I managed to get a link and get on the radio at the age of thirteen, so I was playing garage before dubstep, 101.8 Freak FM I’ll never forget that, I said it a thousand times. It was based around North London. It was a very successful station really, people like Heartless Crew, EZ and myself to come from it."

How did you get involved with Rinse?

"Basically, I left Freak as it shut down and garage was sort of sadly dying and grime and dubstep were evolving. From that it was a natural progression for me and it was my sister again, she knew the person that was running that station as well, so you know, it was one of them ones really."

When are you planning to drop some tunes?

"Well at the moment they’re just being finished, but some of my tracks I just keep to myself to play out as exclusive unrealised material. There’s a track coming out by Icicle and myself called ‘Momentum’ that’s due to come out next year and also next year there's gonna be a lot of solo and colab work coming out. I’d love to produce an album but at the moment it’s not something I’m thinking about, but a hundred percent something I’m looking to in the future."

You can catch Youngsta at on Boxing Day Fabric at the FWD Vs Rinse Christmas Party and on New Year's Eve at Cable, London, a midnight set at Stealth, Nottingham. and Rock City, Sheffield.

Words: Whisky Kicks