DJ Butch Kassidy Interview

KASSIDY TALKS  

DJ BUTCH KASSIDY TELLS VENESSA BYRON HOW HE HAS STAYED CONSISTANT AS A SPECIALIST DJ FOR TWO DECADES.

DJ Butch Kassidy leans his large stature forward in the leather chair in his north London residence and begins to tell me what’s wrong with the representation of UK underground music.

 “This country doesn’t have the structure to support unground music” he says, “it’s ignorant and doesn’t see it as a money making thing - it’s just entertainment. They will support indie band and rock bands like they are the greatest. UK rappers.. the BBC ain’t got time for them, they shove it over to 1Xtra, if you’re not on Radio 1 you’re not charting.”

Approaching his 20^th year as a DJ, he’s progressed from being a selector at high school parties to holding a 10month residency on the Greek island of Cavos and leading promotional street team campaigns for Usher, Kanye West and Teedra Moses.

“In Cavos and I opened for Lauren Pope, Calvin Harris and Magnetic Man,” he says,

Adding that his gigs on Greek islands have been some of the best night he’s ever played.

Kassidy speaks proudly about being the third generation of DJs in his family.

“My uncles were DJs, my grandfather was a DJ, my dad used to fix up sound,” he says. “Growing up entertaining was embedded in me.”

At the age of 16 Kassidy and three of his friends formed the sound system Diamond Rush and started releasing mix tapes, all while working part-time at a McDonalds drive-through. Management soon asked Diamond Rush to DJ at the London area McDonalds Christmas party for 3,000 people, soon catching the attention of Unique radio bosses who loved his signature style of mixing hip-hop, bashment and jungle. Unique gave Kassidy his own show between two and four am - the phone didn’t stop ringing once he announced his name on-air.

“I got so good at it people would phone me and tell me not to come off air, sometimes I was there at 6am until the breakfast DJ came in,” he laughs. Within a year he was hosting the drive time slot and taking BBC radio training.

After a UK hiatus taken to concentrate on European events he plans a return to radio as soon as possible, as well as moving into artist development, inspired by his work in street teams. D-Bo, an underground rapper he is developing, recently appeared on hugely popular urban music exposer website SBTV, encouraging him to release free mixtapes to gain a foothold in the scene. “Even established artists give out free mix tapes,” he exclaims passionately, “Look at Christ Brown - he re-built his career on a mixtape.”

Kassidy has recently started a weekly specialist music event for over 30s “Me and a friend have teamed up as the Happy Days Family, keeping it nice and mature. With our specialist knowledge of music we know it will attract a certain crowd of people on a Saturday night. People don’t have to be DJs to know music they could have just been raving for a very long time, know music and are collectors themselves. You have to surprise them with your knowledge.”

This mature audience reflexes how far underground music has come.  All we need now is for the powers that be at radio one to recognize that fact for the scenes transition to adulthood to be complete. 

Music Vs. Religion (Written 05/09/12)

Music and Religion have always had a fragmented relationship regarding the boundaries of human expression.

In European and American culture emotions are disturbed when it comes to claims of blasphemy and cult like structure in music’s messages.  Although these protest are almost never taken into an organised from like in Asia.

Malaysia and Indonesia have gained a reputation for putting tight restrictions on international artist who perform in their country. These pressures on both the government and international performer usually come from extremist religious groups.

Tour dates being a casualty of these pressures has gained the attention of international press. In 2009 Beyonce’ was forced to cancel her I Am….Tour performance in Malaysian when rules restricted her from wearing her staple black leotard and demanded she abide by the countries strict code of conduct which ruled out; jumping, shouting and hugging . A spokes woman from the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party commented “We are against sexy Western performances; we don’t think out people need that”.

Lady GaGa recently met similar opposition when her scheduled show in Indonesia on Tuesday was cancelled after she was refused a permit from the Indonesian government. This decision followed protests by both Christian and Islamic Groups who threatened to causes chaos at the venue accusing GaGa of spreading a “Satanic Faith”.  

If the concert had gone ahead GaGa would have been performing to a sold out venue. This begs the question of why these small extremist groups are still being allowed to influence these countries government’s decisions on disallowing concerts by international performers, when there is clearly an audience for these shows from the wider community.