Words and Photos by Tom Medwell
Johan Hugo is one-half of the dance DJ duo Radioclit. He was asked by Red Stripe to produce an album celebrating the influence of Jamaican music across the world, working with a host of collaborators including reggae artist Terry Lynn. ‘SUP managed to get an exclusive in-studio interview and photo shoot with Johan and Terry as they worked their magic on 5 tracks in a tiny two-day window.
When was the first time West Indian music became significant for you?
Johan Hugo: To be honest we did one track called Jamaican Girl which sampled a Swedish artist from ‘91 called Doctor Alban. I took one of his tracks and we did Jamaican Girl from that, and that was my first contact with Jamaican music in my life, and then I worked with hip hop, and then I moved here eight years ago and the people I was living with were big hippies and stuff, and they sort of convinced me and I started buying a lot of 7 inches and stuff, and I thought I really like this but it never caught my interest properly and that’s why this project interested me, it was a chance to go deep with things that I hadn’t really worked with before and so one was a dub track, and I really wanted to explore how I could do that.
Terry, coming from Jamaica how aware are you of the international appeal of Jamaican music?
Terry Lynn: Bob Marley was the forebearer who put Jamaica on the map musically, so there is always an idea of how Jamaican culture goes into different cultures. Music is limitless. People in Jamaica are never just doing domestic music, it’s always expanding constantly and finding different boundaries. It was like a challenge in Jamaica to get it to an international level. My first connection with different music outside of dancehall and Jamaican music was through Frank from Free Music.
What do you think it is about Jamaican music that makes it worldwide?
TL: My understanding is that it is a root music, that came up out of African folk and the people who came from Africa to Jamaica. They brought over the culture and the tribal music and it’s grown ever since then – its evolved into what it is.
JH: For me, Jamaican music – we tend to call it ghetto music but this is a bad way of calling it – but for poor people making music is always going to have that energy whether it comes from Africa or Brazil or Jamaica. And like you say Jamaican music comes from Africa and slavery and it kind of has that pure heart and survival instinct in it. When you get that survival instinct in it you get interesting music no matter where it comes from. You always get that sense of urgency, empowerment. We called our label Ghetto Pop just for that reason. There’s a lot of good pop music but ghetto music, that’s where that real energy is, wherever it is in the world.
TL: To emphasise – grassroots people are people who have been through a bit of suffering, and that’s what makes the expression so deep, because they’re expressing a need, and you find a spiritual truth in that.
JH: In what I call the ghetto music, when people are suffering, it brings out a quality in the music that’s really like nothing else.
TL: It’s about a battle to survive, and when you sing about that battle and the struggle it comes out sweet, and so ghetto and grassroots people can be victorious through their expression.
How hard is it to move out of the dancehall and reggae scene in Jamaica?
TL: Music for me has no boundary, and self-expression shouldn’t have a boundary or a limit. Exploring different music and different expression, transcending it, is what I always wanted to do.
What brought you together?
TL: What brought us together was doing a project for Red Stripe.
JH: Russell who manages and does a lot of things for us. Terry said something the other day – if you do a track and it speaks to you, it’s good, if not you can work on it. For me production is something quite deep, something quite spiritual
TL: It has to connect with your soul for you to do it and function properly with the music
JH: I made all the tracks in February over a few days, and now we’ve had two days to record everything. It could have been a disaster but actually it’s worked really well, we’ve been working amazingly. I didn’t even think about it before we did it that we wouldn’t get along or have the energy we need to make music.
TL: The major reason for that is that he understands reggae, the music he makes has a bit of my culture in it so it wasn’t so difficult to correspond, for it to work.
Where do you see the music you make progressing to, do you have an aim beyond what you’re doing now?
TL: I don’t want to be seen as an artist who’s a waggonist.
JH: A what?
TL: A waggonist! You know who rides a bandwagon, who jumps on different cultures. It doesn’t matter what sort of music it is, as long as I hear the beat and my spirit connects with it. No boundaries.
JH: For me, my main part of work is with Radioclit, this is one of the few things I’ve done on my own completely separate, something I do under my own name, but Radioclit is really the core of what we do, and that ranges from the project we’re doing with Esse Me Moia, with a pop album in September this year, and producing Marina from Under The Roller, producing this band called Bermuda -an American band, like Vampire Weekend but more tribal, more psychedelic, all these things are Radioclit, we do so much production work it goes in a million directions. And that’s why I was attracted to this project, we cover so many bases with Radioclit, but we’re really having fun with Jamaican music.
When you’re in Jamaica do you stay in touch with the scene much?
TL: A child never gets entirely cut from the umbilical cord. It’s like that for me, with reggae music and dancehall, because that’s where I’m from.
Is there something about London that makes working internationally easier?
JH: Definitely. I was a photographer in Sweden, when I came here I was squatting the first three years, living day by day, and when I started seriously getting into music a few years ago, it really dawned on me that London is really the hub of music in Europe. Looking at the things that shaped our career, the people we met here, people who would stay with us, you look back at those things and realise London is a really important place, and to have been part of that importance in London a bit is really exciting. You never know what’s around the corner or who you are going to run into. Esse Ma Moia, a singer from Malawi – he ran a second hand furniture shop on the street where I had my studio, and that’s how we met, and now we’ve signed big deals for Europe and the rest of the world. And that’s exactly how London is, you never know what is going to happen, and everything is just around the corner.
TL: I’ve been to London for the 2nd time, and the people are very vibrant, and I’m looking forward to being here a lot more. It’s something I’m grateful for.
