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 20th
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.
