Royal-T interview for BNTL Part 1/2

One of the biggest producers in grime music at the moment; Royal-T, kindly gave up some of his time to answer the following questions for BNTL.

I think his words will say everything else that needs saying.

Big up Royal-T each and every and make sure you check out the links at the bottom!

1)For those who aren’t familiar, could you please give us a brief introduction into who you are and what you do?

I'm Royal-T and I’m a Grime producer and DJ. I like football, retro games, drinking Grape Soda, I’m pretty fly for a white guy and I’m from Southampton. It's like London, but smaller with more grass but less McDonald’s branches.




2)You have 3 EP’s on their way over the next few months out on various labels, what can we expect from these in comparison to your past releases and how did the releases with the particular labels come about?

Orangeade EP (Butterz Records)

Orangeade was originally created for Elijah as a birthday present. The name was given in reply to some Grime DJs who, a few months ago, were rinsing some bait US Hip Hop tune by Gucci Mane called 'Lemonade' on radio. Their excuse for this was because apparently 'there isn't enough good Grime tunes out at the moment'. Elijah and I both talked about this and I then went in Fruityloops and Orangeade was born.
The idea for the short video I made for it (http://bit.ly/blF6Mz) came about from a 10 minute conversation on AIM with Elijah actually. I just wanted to do something spontaneous and different. Yeah it looks shit, but the video only cost me 69p because of that bottle.

The other songs on that EP I feel really good about too. The Whistle Song has been something I’ve wanted to show people for ages and Music Please is something easy and fun to listen to. What I’ve noticed from the 1UP era is that a track having a novelty to it makes it so much more exciting and adds so much personality and with this EP each track has it's 'thing' and I flippin’ love that. It makes it easily memorable and as I have said before, I do not make mixtape fillers.

BNTL Exclusive: The voice of the sample of Music Please is actually me.



Area 51 EP (Pitch Controller Records)

I tried to go back to the roots of Grime with this one. Area 51 is supposed to be set in the early 2000 period where Garage was turning to Grime. I feel so comfortable and at home when making Garagey Grime and my Oxide influence really comes out in this EP. I got the 'Turn It Up' sample from an old WWF theme CD I found and ripped to my computer. My inner nerd was loving it. Where all my previous releases have been more set driven and quite wild, this is more casual, something for the gym when you get rid of the love handles.


Damn It EP (Boogaloo City Records)

This EP is the first for Boogaloo City. Been speaking to Blazey for a while and we both has the same ideas and aspirations for where to push and take the Grime sound. It's a Bristolian label, I've been up and played there a couple of times now and I really love the place, it's where I had my first booking. The tracks are in my typical style. Damn It's got that hard-hitting breakbeat type of sound I make and Side Effect is me just experimenting and taking Grime that step further. The remixes are hard too. Asa and Kahn's have been getting so much love and support from a lot of DJs out of nowhere.

I've been itching to show most of these tracks to everyone over the past year and a bit. After 1UP blew up I had a lot of time to perfect my sound and really make sure that my next release was just as good, if not better...



3)Out of the ever-growing new wave of producers and mc’s making a huge impact within the grime scene at the moment, who is really standing out for you?

I'm really enjoying stuff from a friend of mine, Demos (http://soundcloud.com/demospro). He makes some really interesting tunes, right up my street. I think Mr Mitch (http://soundcloud.com/mrmitchmusic) will have a good 2011 and obviously all of the Butterz camp. I'm happy to hear guys like Numan, Faze Miyake and others start to rise. I'm really pleased that Terror Danjah has started to get the recognition he deserves on a different platform now.



'Damn It' EP OUT NOVEMBER 29th on BOOGALOO CITY RECORDS!!!

'ORANGEADE' TEST PRESSES & TEE'S available for purchase HERE

ROYAL-T ON TWITTER

ROYAL-T ON SOUNDCLOUD

ROYAL-T ON MYSPACE

PART TWO TO FOLLOW TOMORROW!