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Norman Jay - I don't kiss and tell

Author: Words: Joon, Kathia Pics: Keith, Jun Kit
Monday, March 8, 2004
Few can claim to have had a bigger hand in the shape of modern club culture than Norman Jay. A forerunner of the British dance music scene in the 80s, he remains vital and relevant today, with his mix series Good Times, flying off the shelves. While in Kuala Lumpur for a gig at Bliss, he weighs in on his former protege Judge Jules's music taste, Benjamin Zephaniah and his love of hats.

Your white hat is iconic. Do you own multiple copies of the same hat- What made you start wearing it-

Yeah, I have versions. Hats wear out, and hats need to be replaced, just like records. My pith helmet is just one of several hats in my collection. No other reason. I wear them because no one else wears them. They're functional, sometimes it's just a statement.

The so-called British 'ghetto poet' Benjamin Zephaniah rejected an MBE recently because he said it was a symbol of slavery and empire. Does he have a point-

Yes and no. We've been up at that a million times. He should leave that baggage of history behind him. Because you know, he's spent time with the greatest black man of the 20th century. That's Nelson Mandela. And if Mr. Mandela can find it in himself to leave it behind. Then so should he.

You DJ at a lot of celebrity parties and fashion events. What sort of drunken debauchery do these famous people get up to-

Ehh... there's no comment on that. Because if I told you I wouldn't be invited to do another one. Part of the reason why I'm invited is because I don't kiss and tell.

Judge Jules was your protege once upon a time when you were at KISS FM, but his musical tastes seem to have veered off in a different direction since then... What do you think of the stuff he plays now-

I tease him about the music he plays. It works for him. I suppose he plays what they call trance or progressive. But then, you know, that's his choice. If everybody liked the same music it'd be a very boring world. Good luck to him and fair play to him. We still speak regularly, he's still one of my close friends. He's knocked quite often for what he does...Yeah of course. But people always knock people when they're successful, its a cheap shot. And at the end of the day, the people who knock him would still like to be him and would still like to have his success.

As a young man checking out the 1980s New York scene, what did you find there that inspired you to push DJing further-

I was exposed to lots. It was a great time to be there. The scene was emerging, it was new, it was fresh. Hip-hop was just... the whole hip-hop culture lifestyle was just beginning to happen. It was a great, exciting creative, time to be there. I was fortunate I was old enough and aware of it to understand what was going on around me. So yeah, I just wanted to bring a little of that back to the UK.

When you compile a CD, what's the criteria for a track to make it in the final cut-

Well the basic criteria is that its always consistent. Tracks that I play at Notting Hill Carnival, whether they be sorta contemporary or relatively new for that year or the previous year. But it's very difficult when you're trying to licence certain types of music and old tracks. I start off with about 100 to 120 selections and end up with about a final 20 or 25. And that's largely because some record companies want to licence them to you, some don't.

[They don't licence some music] for their own reasons. Too much hassle and paperwork to go thru their back catalog. some of them the masters are lost. Some of them the artist may be in dispute with their publishers. So its just a can of worms.

And what makes you choose the tracks that you have played at the Notthing Hill Carnival- Does it work better-

Partly so, but mostly because it's true to me.

You released Good Times 3 last October. What's the response been like-

Last August actually. It's done really well, close to 30,000 units now. It looks set
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