“Are we finally ready for the return of UK funky?”

That was the (fairly reasonable) question posed in an opinion piece by TRENCH writer Jesse Bernard back in January, and one that was met with a frown by DJ Marcus Nasty, among others. The UK funky lynchpin felt that the article had only presented one side of the sound’s story, one which highlighted the scene’s past achievements and tried to decipher whether or not a UK funky revival was even necessary. “There is deffo two sides to this tale,” Nasty responded in a tweet, “and I think you only have one. So give me a shout and let me introduce you to the newer guys who have kept it afloat and deserve to be shown the respect they deserve for the work they have put in.”

So, of course, we obliged.

Marcus Nasty has been a champion of British underground music for almost two decades now, starting out as a grime DJ and founder of N.A.S.T.Y Crew, before taking his skills and passion to the funky and bass music arenas. But UK funky—the mid-2000s born genre dipped in tribal house, garage, grime and dubstep—is where his heart is, and will forever be. TRENCH went down to one of Nasty’s Rinse FM shows recently, where we were met with a new wave of UK funky producers and DJs who have been holding up the scene (be it more deeper underground) for the last few years. But before you meet them and delve into our chat with Marcus Nasty, press play on an exclusive mix from the man below, which features never-before-heard cuts from the genre’s new school.

TRENCH: There’s a lot of people out there who believe UK funky is now a past time. How do you feel about that, being someone who has consistently championed the sound?

Marcus Nasty: To be honest, I’ve never really given a shit about that—I’ve been around in music long enough! People say the genre died, but nothing just dies; it’s just not at the forefront anymore. It might quieten down a bit, but what actually happens is all the rubbish falls off: people who don’t really care about the music and people who are just following a trend. You might not be able to hear it anymore because it’s not as accessible, but that’s about it. Because, after that, came bass—which I had a major hand in. To be fair, I was always playing funky along with the bass, so it didn’t really affect me. A lot of people say funky fell off because they weren’t making money off it, because they weren’t getting bookings. But I’ve never had that problem, so I think that helped a lot. Now there’s a little bit of a resurgence, there seems to be a lot more interest in it. I knew funky would come back around so I’ve just got to do what I normally do: push and promote new producers and new sounds.

Obviously there was a time, around 2009/2010, where the scene went super quiet on us. Why did that happen—was it the MCs jumping on it? What are your honest thoughts on that whole period?

I don’t think it would be right to blame the MCs. I think blaming the MCs was a cop-out; even I used to say that, at one point. But we have to think about things properly. It’s not like garage or dubstep. We were the first genre in the Facebook, SoundCloud, Mixcloud age where music was far more accessible. So whereas a genre might last 10-15 years, in that 10-15 years, or 20 years, the first 10 years is a straight build-up. It might start in one area and then spread and last for however long. But we used to get a good 15-20 years out of a genre. Once the internet blew up, Jesus Christ! [Laughs] It just so happened that funky was there. So the music was just everywhere. Look at the genres that have come along since. You can’t say that deep house wasn’t as successful as garage; it was—it just didn’t last as long.

Why is that?

Because the music was far more accessible. And you can get stuff for free! Before, we had Limewire, but we’ve got round all that now. There’s just ways to get stuff. You can get stuff off YouTube, anyhow! So it’s so easy to get hold of. With any genre, there has to be evolution. Constantly. Everybody has to sound different and be bringing new sounds to the table. Let’s not let it get stagnant like that, because that’s what keeps happening to garage. Luckily, for us, garage keeps on coming back. But that’s only when people are getting bored of other genres. When another genre falls off or patterns out, garage always comes back. I’m not trying to put down garage—garage is great—but that is what always happens. Garage has had about four or five resurgences since it died down from its first, original time.

Do you feel pressure being the figurehead of an entire scene?

In a way, yeah. I didn’t feel the same pressure from grime, and I didn’t feel the same pressure for bass. Definitely not. Bass, I just had fun with that; it was totally, totally fun. I’m still having fun with it now! With funky, funky is my baby. I helped develop that baby and I was doing it for a very long time before anybody else got the idea to even call their music that or decided it was that. I put a lot into it. I went and done bookings for free, just because I was Marcus Nasty. I remember taking a booking in Leeds for £50 just because I wanted to get the music up there. I told the promoters, “I’m going to come up there and play this music and it’s going to empty the dancefloor, but please: I need to push this ting. It’s going to work and I’ll always look after you.” They trusted me and I give them all that. Big up the promoter, Marcus, in Leeds, because he allowed me to do that. A lot of people done that for me. That took a lot of love, though, because I suffered [laughs]. I suffered some hardships. I weren’t making no money—it was the opposite. I’m not a producer, nothing like that, but I just used my platform to push what I knew was sick music, that didn’t have a name. No one knew what to call this thing, but I knew what it was and I put it together. I put on a [radio] show and I just pushed it everywhere that I could. I weren’t sitting in London—I was flying up and down the country off the back of what I did with N.A.S.T.Y Crew. I said, “Yeah, you can put ‘N.A.S.T.Y Crew’ next to my name but I won’t be playing grime. I’m gonna play this new ting.” I emptied dancefloors up and down the country. But, guess what? See when the ting blew, all they knew was Marcus Nasty.

Do you think UK funky is in a place today where grime was in the late 2000s—you know, that ‘in limbo’ space?

I don’t think you can compare it to grime, in any sense. I think it’s now in a place where it’s more in-tune with garage. We’re all playing in really big places all across the world with this. We’re playing in the same places as garage, but also house at the same time; in between. For exmaple, I’ve played at [house music party] elrow... We’re crossing all kinds of barriers here and it’s all the sounds of the UK. It’s nothing but UK sounds. I think the only thing that is slightly not UK, is the tribal drums underneath it, but it’s an influence in the same way that grime and dubstep have influenced it. So it’s sounds of the UK with a slight touch of Africa.

What does the new school of UK funky need to do to ensure there’s never a moment of silence again?

I think, to keep the scene relevant and to keep it going in the right direction, what the DJs have to do and what the new producers have to do is stay away from imitating, from replicating, from sounding similar. Keep your shit original! What you’re playing has to sound original. When new producers come along and they’re blatantly imitating another producer’s sound—let it go. Don’t play it. Don’t go on radio. Don’t turn up nowhere and play that. Because all your doing is encouraging other producers and DJs to do the same shit. What that does is it gets stagnant and stale. Everything then starts to sound the same, and that’s where every genre loses.

“My first encounter with UK funky was listening to a mix CD and a tune called ‘Squire For Hire’ by Nathan Haines, the Capricorn mix. That tune just got me! I knew then that I wanted to be more involved with that kind of sound. With regards to the scene ‘dying’, I don't believe it died as such; it’s more due to it going back to the underground with some DJs and producers choosing to move on to the house scene. It became difficult to find a UK funky outlet; whether it be clubs, radio or releases, you had to know where to look. But I feel we’re in an exciting time for the scene. There’s a lot of fresh talent out there with fire and passion for the music, and trust me: they’ve got mad skills! This time around, there seems to be more of a cohesion between DJs and producers, which I believe is a huge plus for any scene. As for myself, I’ve recently been asked to do guest mixes for people in places like America, Italy, and Belarus. I’m also working on a few projects and have a few collaborations in the pipeline, as well as a few releases of my own coming up.”

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“It was probably the versatility of UK funky that drew me to it. Like, there’s so many different ways to interpret the sound, from grimey bass-led bangers to soulful house flavours to just straight-up drum tracks! It reminded me of drum & bass, in that it can be a real melting pot of influences and vibes. I think the last year or so is the first time it’s felt like there really is the beginnings of an actual scene. I feel like in previous talk about UK funky coming back—like around the time of Drake’s ‘One Dance’—it’s been attempted to be led from the top down, i.e big producers and DJs coming back and saying, ‘Let’s do this!’ Whereas for a scene to actually come about, it starts organically from the bottom up—young fans, DJs, promoters and producers getting involved. That’s definitely starting to happen, and when you pair that with support and encouragement from key scene figures like Marcus and Roska, it’s an exciting time with lots of potential. In terms of my stuff, I’m just about to relaunch my label, Kasenote—I feel like a lack of labels repping the sound is one issue, currently—and I’ll be playing in China and Australia this month, plus a few more international debuts in the pipeline and mainly just working on a follow-up to Flavoured Vol. 1 & 2.”

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“The bouncy flow and percussion on UK funky tracks was what initially gripped me. It’s a vibe that I connected with from the beginning; the energy it brings gives you no choice but to move every time. Some of the drum patterns I was hearing in the early days were unreal! I knew it was something that I could work with and was really looking forward to putting my own twist on this new sound. My style has always been based around bouncy beats and dark bass; it’s kind of a mix of funky house and jungle. Right now, it’s important to change people’s perception of UK funky and showcase the diversity of the scene. I will continue to do as I always have, and keep working hard producing and building tracks in my style and showcasing my new stuff in sets, which I love to do. I’ve got some new stuff coming out in March on RKS and a lot more tracks in the pipeline for this year. Also, radio guest appearances, club nights, and festivals have all been confirmed for this year so it’s all looking good. My dream is to go on tour one day and help spread the sound around the world. One of my goals a few years back was just to play a set at a festival and I accomplished that two years ago, so anything can be achieved if you put the work in and have the right attitude and people behind you.”

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“First of all, thank you to TRENCH for doing a proper piece on this, and Marcus Nasty for connecting the dots. It’s things like this that contribute to its growth. I was quite young when funky came around the first time, but it felt like a natural progression from UK garage, for multiple reasons: it had a similar versatility, good vibes, and lots of movement and shuffle in the drum patterns. In terms of actually making it, I dabbled in it from about two years ago, alongside breaks, as my 4x4 weapon of choice as I broke away from other things due to boredom and frustration. I had stopped playing out at the time in order to figure out my sound and, after a short while, I naturally drifted towards funky more and more as it’s typically quite an open style which allowed me to create music with a range of different influences. I think you’ll see a lot of producers from various backgrounds do some kind of funky track at some point, for those exact reasons. For example, I can make a funky track that sounds more housey, or I can make one that sounds grimey, tribal, latin or bassy. And I’ve done exactly that.”

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“I had been through most of the music genres already, so when UK funky came along, it was the next one in line for me to tackle. As an MC, my style of MCing was fast-paced so hearing the way the beats were put together by some of the producers was nice, especially the instrumentals, plus the music was homegrown and most likely made at home in their bedroom so it was just raw and uncut. I’m not sure if it was in 2010, but I remember when I looked at the scene and thought it got a bit boring when a lot of people started making tunes and jumping on instrumentals with childish lyrics—I just thought it became a gimmick. Moving forward now, the gimmick days are over and there are some new heavy-hitters about to do a madness this year. The future’s looking very bright right now, now that I’ve teamed up with Marcus Nasty and a few other people who are looking to push the scene forward to the masses, so we can’t really go wrong. This year is going to be a big one for UK funky. I don’t wanna say too much, but festival season is coming and just watch what we’re about to do.”

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“It’s funny: I never really considered myself a ‘funky’ producer. I started out making jungle in the early 2000s, but I spent a month in Trinidad, in 2010, and fell in love with soca music. I spent the next five years going back to the island and collaborating with my friend Keshav, as Jus Now, and lots of local artists making soca with hard, jungle-style production. At the same time, I was also very influenced by the harder end of the UK funky spectrum; stuff by Lil Silva, early Redlight, Champion, Zinc, Zed Bias, etc. The broken tribal rhythms and heavy bass was very similar to what I was trying to do with Jus Now, and it fit perfectly into my DJ sets. For me, the magic in this music—funky, or whatever you wanna call it—is about fusing rhythms from around the world with that bass-heavy, cutting-edge production that the UK is famous for. With the continued growth in popularity of similar related genres like Afrobeats, Afro-trap, baile funk, soca, reggaeton, kuduro, gqom, it feels like the opportunities are endless for this sound to grow and morph and expand. It’s all very exciting. I have a lot of music to release this year, both with Jus Now and my solo Snøw project. More Time, the label I run with Ahadadream, we have some really exciting stuff coming out. We did six releases in the last 12 months and we have the next six lined up already! I can’t wait to get it all mastered up and out into the world.”

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“I grew up listening to a mix of garage and house and eventually discovered, as so many teenagers did in the early 2000s, grime and dubstep. Whilst I loved so much about all those genres, there was something about UK funky that the other genres lacked and that’s the relenting groove and playful melodies. As a genre, it had everything I loved about dubstep, the heavy sub-bass, the swing and groove from garage, and strong vocal tracks to match grime. What set it apart for me was how fun the genre was to rave to, DJ, and then eventually produce. UK funky never died—it evolved, and, in my opinion, became even more interesting. The genre has taken huge influence from African and South American music over the last 8 years, which has added a new layer of depth to the tracks being produced. The producers who never stopped making it have also improved and become more creative, and there are now more funky tunes to enjoy than there were in the days where you heard it in every dance! Give it a second chance—I think it will surprise you. I, myself, have a few different releases dropping this year; tracks with Killjoy that explore the darker, more grimey side of the genre, as well as some seriously melodic vocal tracks that will hopefully get crowds up and down the country singing along and dancing there heads off.”

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“When I first started properly paying attention to UK funky was around the time dubstep was really popping, and I just loved how catchy the melodies and hooks were. I caught the occasional funky show on Rinse FM and followed releases from Night Slugs—which, at the time, were coming out with funky-influenced, hybrid tracks. This drew me into the sound, and where I’d just started to DJ around that time, it was refreshing to mix in the odd funky track in with a dubstep set—keeping sets varied. When dubstep started to go in a direction I didn’t like, it was funky that I paid a lot more attention to. Having always been into heavily percussive music, the fact that UK funky had more complex rhythms, less of a rigid structure and used a variety of percussion attracted me to the genre straight away. I think the funky scene is looking very healthy right now; there are lots of new producers emerging and plenty of well-known producers dabbling with the genre, which will only expose the sound more this year. I don’t think you can even label the genre straight-up ‘UK funky’ anymore, as influences have been taken from all over the world—not just the UK. Me, personally, I’m continuing to take influences from outside of the UK, as well as referring back to UK funky and its tribal roots, to build on the sound that I’ve developed. I’m currently working on my fifth release, and I’m in a great position to be working with one of the most prominent people within the funky scene—Roska—as well as many new, exciting producers and DJs who are continuously pushing the scene forward.”

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“I’m definitely not new to the funky scene, but because evolution plays a big part in music, I think I’ve evolved not just as an MC, but as a host as well. What’s good is I can use my experience to help the scene grow. I feel like the crowd response when the heavy-hitting bass drops, the crowd response from the singalong hooks, it’s almost like you feel like you have a duty to provide good quality vibes for the people, so that’s why I’m still here. To anyone that said funky died in 2010 would be talking nonsense! Funky wasn’t the trend due to producers losing interest in making the sound, as MCs were getting paid ridiculous amounts and producers not getting anything at all. But it didn’t die. In 2010, I took UK funky to Jamaica for the first time, to an amazing reception. One year later, my track ‘One Finger Dance’, released by E5 Records, hit the island and shut the place down. Things are opening up and we have more platforms available now that we didn’t have in ‘07 and the early years of funky. The scene is growing from strength to strength, with new, hungry producers putting in that work to build something we can call ours. It’s a movement and I see big things happening festivals-wise, as there is big demand for this sound right now. Me, though, I’m gonna keep doing what I know and keep trying to apply myself not just an MC, but as an ambassador for the scene.”

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Other names you need to know: TSVI, Lorenzo BITW, Ahadadream, MOTU, RVB.