Chase & Status are back with a new single, the ferocious Let You Go which features new talent Mali and is released on August 15.

In the first of a two-part series, MistaJam.com writer Sam Moir caught up with the duo, who talked about everything from their early beginnings, the success of their debut album and the pressure of working on its follow up.

For the past few months, Chase & Status have been balancing their time between DJ sets, two live tours, and crucially, extensive studio sessions, as they continue to craft the much anticipated follow up to their debut album, More Than A Lot.

But let’s go back to the beginning. Will and Saul met through a mutual friend when they were both 18 years old. “My friend said Will had a nice set of decks at his house, a good mixer and you can smoke in his room. At 18 years old, that’s all you need to hear, so I dropped round his house after college with a bag full of records… I didn’t even have a record bag.”

“We started going out to The End, which was a seminal night club in London, which has now unfortunately closed. We would see each other at all the raves and then I went up to Manchester. Will did about a year later and we were just DJ-ing everywhere we could, thinking we were the best DJs in the world.”

It was at university that they became serious about their music, ultimately deciding to quit their studies in order to focus solely on their careers as producers. Having dropped out, “We just spent five years underground in Manchester, writing beats obsessively and not doing anything else.”

A watershed moment for the boys came in 2003 when their first piece of production, Like This was released on Vehicle. “That first release was obviously a big high for us.  It was a time when we were trying to get our foot through the door. It’s very hard when you’re coming through and getting people to hear your records, let alone get them signed.”

Following this breakthrough, they began working with Tempa and Bingo. “Shortly after that, we met DJ Zinc who wanted beats and at the time, we were young and unbelievably buzzing. That was massive and we just jumped on the opportunity.”

It has been a whirlwind seven years for the duo ever since. In reference to their early releases on DC Presents, Vehicle, Bingo and Hardware, Saul tells me, “Every year, we’ve had a key moment, a batch of songs that have really opened us up, culminating in the album in 2008, which has opened more doors than we could have expected.”

An album that, according to Beatportal, is ‘packed with differing musical flavours that represents the changing face of breaks-led electronic music.’ Eastern Jam still gets that precious rewind in the clubs.

“That album wasn’t just a couple of weeks in the making; it was two years of our lives, there was another 13 tracks that got scrapped and these ones are the ones that stuck.”

“Your interests change, what you’re into changes, the dynamic of the scene changes. You might have written a song at the beginning of the campaign but by the end of it think, ‘That’s not what I’m in to and it’s outdated, so scrap that.”

The album is a combination of d&b, dubstep and hip, but one aspect that they also focused on was the use of vocals. The reason being: “You can go to a record shop and say, ‘Have you got that song that goes ‘Take me away?’ It’s much easier to invest yourself into a song that’s got something you can remember.”

They decided on using strictly up-and-coming UK vocalists very early on. “We wanted to include UK artists that we were really excited about but weren’t from the d&b scene.”

“We had lots of d&b vocalists approaching us, and as much as we like them, they’d already done a lot of work with other artists.”

To use artists who were not synonymous with that genre was perhaps a bit of a gamble, but Will steps in, “It was exciting to try and do different stuff.”

“With Plan B, he’d never done a d&b track so taking his soulful edge and angle and taking his song writing skills and doing something completely different with him was really exciting for him and for us.”

Their collaboration with Kano, Against All Odds, reached number 45 in the UK charts in early 2009. “We came across the sample and at first, thought about giving it to American people but we thought, let’s see if Kano could do something with it and he loved it.”

With Kano’s new album, Method To The Maadness, featuring a track, Spaceship, produced by Will and Saul, it appears their loyal relationship with the UK scene remains true to this day. It’s a relationship that describe as “that whole UK thing; everyone helping everyone to push it forward.”

“Kano’s been coming to our shows now and he’s been saying he didn’t realise he could be into d&b like he is. Now he’s coming to our shows, dancing around and knows all the songs.”

In May 2009, Chase & Status announced they had signed to the major label, Mercury Records, a move some people interpreted as the duo turning their back on their independent, underground roots.

“It was really important for when we signed a deal with a major, to keep that relationship with the underground and RAM. We had a great thing with RAM Records and we didn’t want to say bye to that. We don’t want to lose our roots and where we come from.”

“It’s a dream deal for us really, we’ve got the funding, press, promotion, photo shoots, and everything’s just done to a new level.”

I ask them, considering their meteoric rise, how do they describe their sound now?

“It’s really UK. We don’t want to be pigeonholed, we make music all across the board and we don’t want to be typecast in d&b or music in general. Everyone always says they find it hard to describe what category we’re in, and we quite like that too. Hopefully we can just write cool music that everyone’s in to.”

By November 2009; they have sold over 60,000 copies of their album, hooked up with Snoop Dogg, remixed for Jay-Z and produced three tracks for Rihanna’s Rated R album.

“We got a MySpace message from Snoop Dogg which said, ‘Yo, this is Snoop, I need a good copy of Eastern Jam, I want to spit some lyrics on it,’ and we thought someone had pranked us.”

After a couple of checks to verify whether it was the real Snoop, the track was completed and revealed to the world within a week. The duo had mixed feelings about the tune dubbed Snoop Doog Millionaire. “It was frustrating because we didn’t get a chance to work with the making of that track, but it was so exciting because off the back of that, it helped our profile in America.”

While working on the dubstep LA mixtape last summer, dubstep producer Plastician predicted the US would embrace the scene once they heard that Snoop had jumped on a dubstep track. He was right, Rihanna deciding she wanted to Chase & Status involved on her album after hearing Saxon.

“Her project is an absolute rollercoaster; she’s got the pick of the best producers in the world.”

Considering the amount of big name producers involved in her project, it is a massive compliment to the boys that Rihanna described their work as being the backbone of her album. Three tracks, Madhouse, Wait Your Turn and G4L made it onto the LP, which has gone on to sell nearly three million copies since its release last November.

“That little quote came about a couple of times. We went out for dinner one night with her, Jay-Z and the whole of the Roc Nation crew. She got a glass and said she wanted to make a toast to us and the fact we were in on the album. We were flattered and speechless.”

A case of bad timing meant they just missed out on any production credits on Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3, but they have now supplied him with two beats for his new project, a move that landed them in a bit of trouble. “One track we gave to Rihanna; we didn’t realise that if you show something to someone at the time, it’s theirs. So we’d already given the track to Jay, not releasing he wanted it, and then showed it to Rihanna, who went crazy about it.”

“It ended up with us getting a little talking to from someone, and Rihanna and Jay-Z having a conversation, with Jay saying, ‘It’s cool, you can have that tune and I’ll get something else off them.”

Not bad to have two of the biggest artists in the world wanting your beat, is it?

In Part Two on Monday, I discuss their future ambitions and what they make of accusations they have ‘sold out’.

By Tom Bowles

If you’re one of Professor Green’s thirty-odd thousand followers on Twitter, you’ll know that the man is currently in full album cycle mode and is clocking up some serious miles as he promotes his debut album, Alive Till I’m Dead. With each day bringing a different city, more public appearances and increasingly less sleep, the Hackney MC could be forgiven for not wanting to increase his workload.

But to his credit, having tracked him down as he was wandered the streets of Sheffield, literally minutes before he was scheduled to perform at the city’s free Tramlines music festival, Pro was more than happy to stop and have a chat about his new album, his future plans and those comparisons with Eminem.

The new album’s dropped, it’s getting really good reviews and doing well on the charts. How do you feel about that?

Really good. It’s gone it at number two so I’m feeling really good about things. You know I’m coming second to the biggest pop artist  of the last ten years [Eminem] so I can’t call it man, it’s a good time.

A lot of the mainstream media are calling you the ‘British Eminem’, but from what I know you’re more of a fan of Biggie. What do you make of that?

It’s just lazy journalism. I have to keep saying this to people but I’d much rather someone listen to my music and draw a conclusion, rather than just see me and draw a comparison, because that’s what happens. Like, if you A to B me, I have a high pitched voice, but plenty of other people do too but they don’t get compared to Eminem. It’s just because I’m white. I don’t rap like Eminem.

You’re playing in Sheffield today, what are you expecting from the crowd and what do you think about the event?

The crowd looks good, someone said my name and they went mental so I’m expecting a good one. As it’s a radio promo gig it’s only three songs, it’s not a proper gig so I don’t have my band with me but yeah, it should be cool man. It’s just a chance to bring the tracks to life.

It feels wicked. I’ve been here [Sheffield] loads of times. I’ve been here with Lily [Allen] once, and with Mike [Skinner] three times, I think. The crowds are always lively man, and the people are always friendly.

Future plans? I know you’ve got a tour coming up and a new single dropping.

‘Monster’ is the next single, we’re doing a video for ‘Jungle’ as well; we’re going to push that towards all the specialists. I’m also working with Doritos, it’s got nothing to do with nachos [laughs] but they’ve asked me to do an exclusive track that they can stream from their website, so we’ll be shooting the video for that. That’s going to be available for free, probably around the same time as ‘Monster’.

I’ve already started on the next album which should be out next year, probably a little later in the year though. I want to do next winter rather than summer again, so probably September time next year. The album’s looking like it’s going to travel. It’s starting to pop off in New Zealand, Australia and parts of Europe, so hopefully I’ll get to travel with the album.

You’ve been around for a while, have paid your dues and are now getting mainstream exposure. How does it feel?

Good, man. I’m a lot more appreciative of it. It’s taken me so long to get here that now it’s happened, I can appreciate it. It never happened overnight; it’s been a long, hard grind. I know how easy it can slip away so I’m just working hard to keep it.

Check out Diggy’s blog here

Plus…we played the impressions game!. Bashy, CJ Beatz and Loick Essien all got involved. We got them to do famous lines from big films such as Scarface, Forest Gump, Terminator and Friday! Check out the hilarious video of Bashy and Loick Essien’s performance of ‘Sexual Chocolate’ from ‘Coming to America’ – too funny.

Rinse.FM Sunday 11am-1pm is where you’ll find me now. Every week. Jealous? Thought so. We’re on our third show at the moment, when I say “we” I obviously mean my partner in all things non sexual, Julie Adenuga. We contacted Rinse about a year ago about getting a show but we didn’t really get anywhere. I mean we’d never really done radio before. A couple guest shows on LBC with Tre Azam and Nick Connrad and various other radio stations but we’d never actually hosted one. And DJing? Phahahaaa. As if we could DJ. So naturally we didn’t get a great response about having a show.

During the “Sian’s a rude blogger who says hilariously mean things about music on her blog” stage of my life, I was invited on BANG radio by the lovely and amazing Tahirah Edwards where myself and Loukia “HIYA”d up the place and talked all things rude boys, sex and the music industry”. Anyway blah blah blah was contacted by Scratcha DVA who hosts a hilarious morning show on Rinse FM. Smacked that up in my normal grime-rude-girl stylee and BLAM. Me and Julie get a show.

On our first show we had the experienced and mixing genius DJ JJ to support us as we hosted, Twitted, shouted out the phone number and played some exclusive grime tuneages. It was amazing fun! Our last show was on valentines day. And in true give-a-f*ck-about-valentines-day form we entered the Rinse building ready to basically take the p*ss out of the people in love.

Sidebar: How funny is this?

We’ve got a monthly playlist of amazing music, (also known as tunes that me and Julie have on our iPhones on repeat), have a look at our playlist it’s fantastic. Then we made an agony aunt section where we respond to peoples problems using tunes. It’s probably the funniest part of the show. Imagine being told your girlfriends having a baby by your twin brother and we tell you to get some nuts via “Blacks ft Jammer – Timid”. Julie made an agony aunt terms and conditions; I very nearly wet myself with laughter when I heard it.

The bottom line is; radio is fantastic. We’ve even learnt to DJ as well. Julies on vinyl and I’m on CDJ’s. Proof that if you lock myself and Julie in a room with anything we’ll have the basics on lock in under 24 hours.

P.s Grime Forum tw*ts who reckon (iQuote) “What have they done to deserve a Rinse show? there’s more deserving DJ’s”. – Get a show on Rinse and THEN holla. Thanks.

Toodles

Sian x

[Getting a show on radio and keeping it and learning the art of DJing is a lot harder than Sian makes out in this post which is essentially full of lies & more gas than Calor. Rinse don't even broadcast live between 11 & 1 on Sunday, they just tell the girls they're on air to stop them from going Tempa T in the Rinse offices. Trust me, I know - Jam]

Let’s be honest. When we heard there was going to be an Official Mixtape Awards we were all wetting ourselves with laugher. Why do we need mixtape awards? Like why? I instantly thought it was just a scam for the organisers to make some money off the tickets sold and I wasn’t really going to get involved… That was until two of my artists were nominated for awards. (By “my artists” I mean two of the artists I do PR for) P Money and Little Dee (both Grime acts). So then I thought A. This will show whether I actually done a good PR job on them and B. Be good for them to… you know, say they won an award and know that people acknowledge them as artists… if they win.

So, as a PR I was involved in various ways, we went to Portsmouth for the pre party and radio session. Big up DJ Grind. And we got all of the e-flyers in the nessisary places for people to vote. P Money was up for “Mixtape of the Year” and “Best Grime Mixtape”. And Little Dee was up for “Best Grime Mixtape” too. Bit of competition but its cool cause they’re in the same crew (O.G’z). Anyway, we went up to Portsmouth for the awards not really knowing what to expect. It was pretty empty at first. We bumped into some familiar faces. Wretch 32, Bashy, C Jay Beatz, Griminal, Ghetts etc. Then sat down and waited.

Artist Kele Le Roc stepped on stage. Looking fabbbbuuulousssss! In a dress and hells. 1Xtra’s Ras Kwame too, looking… well, looking like Ras Kwame. They introduced the awards and blah blah blah and then the performances/awards began;

Best mixtape DJ; Dj Limelight. I was going to “Kanye” this; everyone in the audience was screaming “Spyro” and let’s be honest. The guy tours with Tinchy Stryder as his DJ, has a show on Rinse FM where he plays the best off UK artists’ mixtapes and does loads of his own bookings playing again, music off mixtapes then puts out a mixtape. No par to you Limelight but Spyro should have won that (in my humble opinion).

Mixtape Of The Decade; Sway.

I didn’t rate this category from the beginning. As far as I’m concerned J2K and JME are the mixtape legends! They weren’t even nominated! Anyway, Uk rapper Sway won. And in the words of Jamie Howard…’Akon must be so proud’.

Best Hip Hop Mixtape; Wretch 32.

I can’t honestly say where the barrier for UK Grime and UK Rap goes up and Wretch 32 is an amazing artist so I don’t dispute this. He deserves recognition for all the work he’s put into his music.

Best producer: Scorcher.

And before you ask; Yes Davinche was nominated. I rate Scorcher highly, as an artist. His greezy bars are the best! But when it comes to producing, well I dunno what he’s produced so I can’t pass comment. Davinche on the other hand, has done soooo much in 09 for the scene that he should have gotten a separate “Davinche award”.

Best Grime Mixtape: P Money.

And I’m not just saying this cause he’s my artist but he truly deserved that! Money Over Everyone is the best Grime mixtape I’ve heard. Frisco’s mixtape was wicked too, but P Moneys was… gosh, I can’t go on.

Best newcomer: Marvell.

I won’t dispute this. I love Marvell. They’ve done a lot and their lyrical content is wickkkked! Farda.

Mixtape of 09; P Money.

Again, he deserved this. Bashy was also nominated for Bashy.com but to me Catch Me If You Can should have gotten some type of award for all of the hard work, promo and love that Bashy put into it!

Performances from Natalie May, Bashy, Wiley (Yes he did turn up), Lady Leeshur, The Movement, Sway, Marvell, Devlin and Ny (not forgetting a cameo from Griminal) took place during the awards. The performances were performances, so I won’t go on about those; the one I will mention is The Movement. Scorcher, Wretch and Ghetts really know how to perform! They had the crowd going wild, were confident in their show and were loving to the audience. That’s what we like!

Overall, I’d say to all of those involved, a big well done. It wasn’t the most organised thing in the world, but for the first OMA’s I’d say you done a good job of making it a success. Minor things like people not being backstage in time to collect their awards, security not keeping fans from blocking up the front of the stage and a really bad windows media player showing the nominees were annoying but I’m sure they are things you’ll take on board and make better at next years awards!

A big pat on the back to those who won and an even bigger pat on the back for those who were nominated cause even having your mixtapes acknowledged by the fans is something to be proud of!

Can we just have a moment of silence for me too please? I feel as though I won the “Best PR of 09″ award last night… Just saying =)

Toodles

Sian x

Download here – thank me later & check the jump for the password

(password jamblog)

I could write something about how I feel about Michael Jackson but Sway has nailed it:

Jackson, Jackson,
The legend Michael Jackson,
Forever remember where you was when it happened,
Everybody staring at phones reading their flashes
In hope it was just a rumour and sooner we’ll get the facts in.
I’ll always remember the spot where I was standing
Exact same spot where I felt like collapsing.
Our relationship with music he has always been the captain
Even after confirmation it sunk, it never sank in.
The same year I was born Michael brought you “Thriller”.
Funny the 1st ever album that I was brought was Thriller.
Out of this world his moonwalk done brought us all together.
An important figure can’t figure a human force that’s bigger.
It wasn’t right how the media handled Mike
Disgusting how they’re always discussing if he was black or white.
His mum was black, his dad was black so it aint rocket science to say he’s black alright.
But that didn’t matter to him, cause he was not racist.
Self proclaimed “Bad” thus he caught cases
There ain’t a smooth criminal without court cases.
Said he was touching, I said he was touching all nations,
Even before “Dangerous” he’s like a thousand times bigger than rest
Rewind his tape like a thousand times Elvis was a great and Lennon was a Legend and Michael J was like both over a thousand times.
They said that his sales declined but after about 750 million what’s left to yell about?
There ain’t a music act that doesn’t owe Jacko, jack
So he’s always gonna sell as long as they’re about
Watching his life was an honour and I don’t mean no kinda disrespect to Madonna
But Michael was on a different level, and he adopted all of us in his songs
While he was trying to heal the world like a doctor.
I hope the money goes to the kids, as I hold these two O2 tickets. For his 50 date tour less than 50 days away so from his death at 50 wish he had 50 days more but never got half, pasted on the 25th of June and we should remember this day as his.
I believe he never left and he would never leave, never been a legend that lived that can ever breathe, never been a martyr that fought that can forever bleed, never been a leader that walked, that can forever lead, God will give him to us same God will to take him from us. Now he’s in his rightful place cause he was so heavenly. All for one and one for all he made a song for all, so I put a copy of his “Off The Wall” on the wall.
My town misses him, your town misses him, everybody since motown misses him. Now when you think of him picture him standing on a stage with his hand up one glove glistening, whole world at a standstill listening anticipating his next move the King is him.
From age 5 and the days of J5 he’s never took a break, no rest to take 5, there’ll never be a next the rest just ain’t Mike.
Time to pay our respects and watch the angels take flight
Out into the sky and never ever land, cos his house was in the sky and never, never never land.
Under all the pressure he never ever ran, he’s the best forever damn, who dressed forever glam.
The biggest man on the planet, not just a brother to Janet, our thoughts go out to his family,
He gave his hearts to the fans and he paved the way for the future, still his flame is in you, ‘cos he inspired song writers, record labels, producers,
They saying Michael Jackson was the King of Pop.
But I’m saying he was the King full stop.
People saying Michael Jackson was the King of Pop,
but I’m saying he was the King full stop

Join me tonight from 7pm on Radio 1 & 1Xtra celebrating the music of the first icon we have lost in our generation. No allegations. No ‘is he black or is he white’ hyperbole. Just good music.