Unfortunately, I wasn’t old enough to go raving in the ‘90s, and that’s a feeling that has increased the more I stumble across archive footage and hear stories of British club culture. TRENCH’s archive certainly doesn’t help that feeling either, but it serves as a reminder that despite the bleakness of life in the UK—particularly if you’re working class—music is one of the country’s biggest exports, and it also happens to be one of the most intimate ways in order to understand British life.

Benji B has represented the UK’s biggest club scenes since the age of 16, which he puts down to “never straying from having a pure love of music.” Over the years, his reputation of being one of the UK’s leading broadcasters in specialist radio hasn’t been without its challenges, but his mainstay on BBC Radio 1 and Deviation Sessions has cemented his position. As part of Chivas’ The Blend pop-up bar, just a short walk from Brick Lane, Benji B was among a host of influential DJs, such as David Rodigan, who gave their insight into what has made their careers so unique. Sat behind us was Rodigan himself, whom Benji pointed to as one of the reasons why he first ventured into music, and to see them both in the same room highlighted the cross-generational interaction and understanding needed in order for music cultures to evolve and adapt to current climates.

I saw that you won an award recently for your work in radio.

Yeah, it was an ARIA award—they’re like the Grammys of radio. We were just talking about it earlier, how some awards have a certain weight to them and this was one of them. It was for Best Specialist Radio and it’s the kind of thing you win once in your career. It was a recognition moment and it felt really good.

What did it mean for you to win that award?

I think it was recognition for the 10,000 hours that I’ve put in because, if I was to analyse all of the things that I do, it’s radio that I put the most time and love into. I’ve been in the live radio environment every week since I was 16 years old so it’s a part of my DNA at this point. When you do specialist radio, a lot of it is late at night and it’s not often looked at in a commercial sense, so it’s really special for it to be looked at in that kind of way.

And how would you sum up all those years and hours you put into this?

Oh, wow, that’s quite a big one. I think I’ve just been really lucky in the sense that I’ve been able to continue doing what I love. I’ve never really changed the genre or style that I play; sometimes, it might not be en vogue, but I’ve always stayed true to that.

When you mention doing what you love, that must be important when it comes to radio especially?

Crucially, for me, if I didn’t have a blank canvas for me to play what I want, then I’d be out. There’s absolutely no way I could do a playlisted show—I am the playlist, and that’s the whole point. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with playlisted radio; it’s a format that’s worked for over sixty years but, when it comes to specialist radio, I think it’s really important that you have leaders in their field doing what they do. For example, I grew up listening to the guy over there [David Rodigan] and I’ve always looked to people like him to be my information source for all areas of music.

How do you see your contribution to specialist radio?

I’ve definitely taken the torch from David Rodigan and all the guys I grew up listening to, and one thing all media needs to remember is to not underestimate your audience. For me, that means not underestimating the tastes and knowledge of my audience. People know what they like and if I think back to when I was 18, I had a formidable knowledge of sounds. So I think the idea that there’s no need for specialist radio is actually quite silly.

In terms of audience, where do you think British club and dance culture is?

I think it’s doing amazing and it’s the best it’s been since I was 16. I was very fortunate to come up in a golden era and when you come up in one, you don’t realise and then it changes. I think it’s a good time to be 18 now, especially in terms of dance music. There’s a lot more diversity in music and acceptance of styles and genres—it’s definitely a lot less tribal now. The UK’s like the Premier League when it comes to clubbing, and that’s partly because every international DJ wants to play here.

How do you think the UK’s been able to maintain that status over the years?

We’re just complete music nutters so, in a way, we’ve always been leaders. We’ve always been good at taking so many different sounds and putting them in a blender. If you want to look at music in its pure form, you think Chicago with house, New York and hip-hop, Detroit and techno but with London and the UK, there’s so many different styles that are staple. In the UK, music isn’t a soundtrack to life—it’s something much deeper than that, and our dedication to it is something we should be proud of.

How do closures of venues impact the culture here in London?

Well, it affects me because I’ve always relied on small, intimate spaces to play the best nights. I love playing bigger clubs, but my roots are where I’m doing sessions and bringing in new talent. However, on a positive side, that’s just the cyclical nature of life and it’s okay for some clubs to no longer exist—especially if they’ve had a classic era that’s been impactful... just as long as there’s something just as decent replacing it. We’ve got Sadiq Khan now and people recognising the contributions nightlife has given the capital. It’s going to take new energy and young people to do it and I’ve got faith that it will happen. You just have to be patient because these things are in cycles.

Patience is an interesting thing, in this case. So much of it has to do with regeneration and gentrification.

Gentrification goes in hand with creativity going down and that’s always been the case. I’ve just come back from New York and there’s no better example of that, especially in the early ‘80s. But sometimes, in order to have a real explosion, different cultures and people are what gives rise to The Talking Heads and The Blondies and part of that was down to the difficult of life back in the ‘80s. Obviously, I like getting a nice coffee but there has to be a balance in order to find the creativity.

Is there a lot of that inspiration and creativity happening in London right now?

Yeah, definitely. I don’t think that it ever dies and because we’ve created so many different native music styles—whether it be jungle, dubstep, garage, grime or whatever—people get impatient. You can’t artificially incubate the next big thing—it’ll naturally emerge. The only thing you can do is create the best possible environment for it to emerge. The people I’m really excited about now are the post-Instagram kids because they never had the counter-culture thing that we had and the next lot to come through will be a direct reaction to the politics of now.

I guess, the issue will always be that intergenerational understanding of what sounds mean to different people.

That will always be there. Sometimes, it’s healthy too. I remember when funky house came along and I appreciated for what it is. It didn’t have to have the perfect snare or hi-hat—it was just kids making tunes on a Casio keyboard. What that teaches you is that there’s nothing more important than the idea.

How does grime respond to counter-culture these days as it’s proving to be one of the biggest genres in the UK?

I think that’s past tense: it’s already happened. My mum knows who the big names are and there’s a consciousness in mainstream culture. The roots of the culture are still so important. I still get excited hearing an old Wiley freestyle just as much as I do when I see an artist in the top ten. The key thing to take is that grime’s broken into that mainstream consciousness with little compromise. Sometimes it takes ten, fifteen years for people to get in-tune with something like grime.

That non compromise is something that’s staple to most British sounds, particularly working-class ones.

I’d like to think so. Grime is the most hip-hop thing ever in the way that it stays true to where it’s from, which is what made hip-hop so special. We’ve always been true to what’s in our backyard and we’ve taken music culture here seriously.