Goldie

Labelhead, DJ, producer who helped popularize the hardcore beats and jungle/drum’n’bass as an expression other than the dancefloor. Goldie was the first to be recognized as a pioneer in jungle/drum’n’bass in the 1990s. He remained the most prominent figure of the genre for the next 20 years. Many electronic music producers in the 1990s were content to just produce tracks for DJs and club plays, but Goldie was an individual with roots in hip-hop, graffiti culture, jazz, and a sense of ambition that rivaled most classical composers. Although he often collaborated with Rob Playford, Optical and Technical Itch to produce and engineer tracks, he is responsible for imagining ideas that are beyond the reach of most drummer’n’bass musicians. The timestretching technique was pioneered by early singles like 1992’s “Terminator”, which was released as Metalheads. This album also ushered in darkside music. Timeless, Goldie’s 1995 full-length debut album, is his crowning achievement and one of few jungle records that has reached a wider audience than the underground scene. The misunderstood SaturnzReturn was a more personal and ambitious follow-up. His celebrity status has increased in the U.K. since then. He’s been in many movies, including the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, and on television shows (especially reality shows). In 2016, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. He continued to release music under the name Rufige Kru, while also running the critical Metalheadz label. However, his third solo album, The Journey Man didn’t come out until 2017. Goldie, a native of Walsall in England, was born to a Scottish and Jamaican couple. He was then put up for adoption. During his childhood, he lived in child-care homes, as well as several foster families, and was fascinated by the rise of hip hop, breakdancing and graffiti art. He was already involved in breakdancing groups around Wolverhampton by 1986. After several trips to London to attend all-day events and to see Afrika Bambaataa, Goldie made an appearance on the English documentary Bombing about graffiti art. In New York, he worked at a market stall selling custom-made gold teeth. He returned to England in 1988. Goldie was employed at the Try 1 store in Walsall, where he also sold gold teeth. He then moved to London. Nellee Hooper (later of Massive Attack) and Goldie were two of his fellow British hip-hop heads. By 1991, he was introduced to the culture of breakbeats. DJs Grooverider, Fabio, and Fabio played old breakbeats at 45 rpm. They blended their music with popular rave music. Goldie fell in love with the sounds of raw techno breakbeats and switched to jungle as his preferred genre from the British hip hop scene, which later became trip-hop. Through DJ Kemistry, his girlfriend (later to be known as Kemistry),

Leave a Comment