On a cold April evening, outside the Junction in Cambridge, we caught up with North Londoner Dbo, Bboy, DJ and member of the notorious breakin crew La Familia. Here’s what Dbo had to say to our readers:
Please tell us about your bboying experiences:
It’s been a wild rollercoaster, when I first started out I was just doing what I saw on TV and stuff until I started learning my foundations from Renegade in the Breakstation Studio. Breakin’s taken me to a lot of places, it’s taken me overseas, to a lot of different jams and helped me meet a lot of different people and here I am today because of that
As well as being a well known Bboy, you are also a well recognised DJ, when did you start DJ’ing and what first got you into it?
When I was about 13, my mum had this friend who worked at Kiss FM Studio and she took me there one day just for me to check it out because she knew I really liked music, I basically got my first taste there, she let me mess around on the turntables for a bit and I kinda didn’t take it seriously until I was about 18. One of my boys, Kosh, he lives across the road from where I used to live in London and he asked if I wanted to go round for a mix, so I basically started mixing round his and I pretty much picked it up really quickly so I started making little tapes with him, from then I really got into it and started taking it more seriously. A few years after that, Hooch must of seen me on TV on some BBC programme and he was like ‘Bro I didn’t know you spin’ and I told him that I don’t really take it that seriously or do it for a living and he asked me to give him a tape, he liked what he heard and then he put me onto my first night which was ‘The Joint’ and after the Joint I started doing Funkin’ Pussy with him and people started to hear me from there and that’s how it took off for me, bigup Hooch
Dbo on the 1′s and 2′s:
Who are your favourite rappers from UK and US?
In the US, pretty much every member of Wu Tang, from the late ODB to all of them, they remind me of my bboy crew basically, they’re all hard and they’ve got their own individual style of how they rap and it really shows and is amazing to listen to them. For the UK my boy Skinnyman’s been killing it from day dot, Pro Green as well another one of my peeps that’s come up and is killing it right now, I know there’s a lot of underground cats that are doing well at the moment. There’s my boy, he’s not out there yet but one of my boys called Quiz, one of the meanest rappers. Yo, shout out to my boy Benny Banks as well, he’s killing it to. Them guys are all killing it for me, I love their stuff.
If you could DJ a live show alongside one rapper who would it be?
KRS ONE
Your favourite DJ’s/producers?
Premier all day, as a DJ and a producer, amazing to listen to. I also like to dabble in and listen to other kinda styles as well, I love listening to the stuff that Dr Dre puts out, I love Timbalands variety of styles, I like the way he can adapt to the artist that he works with, he really puts out beats specifically for that person and it’s amazing that he can do that, it can’t be easy man
Favourite film?
Right now, I gotta say Transformers 3 or the Avengers, Avengers is my film of all time
Most memorable battle you’ve done?
That would have to be a toprock battle that I did in Liverpool, the lineup had some really good toprockers, they were amazing and I managed to come out on top of that and that was pretty memorable for me. There’s another really memorable one, me and my boys flew over to Switzerland in 2006 for Circle Kingz and we all stayed in this youth hostel, there was only 3 of us, there was me, my boy Manny and GG. We was all just chilling in the lobby and it came to about 3 in the morning and we were all half asleep, out of the blue Justdoit from Rugged Solutions comes out and he’s like ‘I’m calling out La Familia right now’ and it ended up being like 8 of them battling 3 of us and we went at them for like a good half hour and it was crazy dope, no music, it was just straight up, man for man, that was an amazing experience and really sticks out to me
Which bboys in the UK scene do you currently rate?
I don’t wanna sound biased but right now my boy Spin is killing it and is really well rounded and my homeboy Leeroc who’s come up outta nowhere and is killing it, I’m really proud of him. There’s other guys out there, I’m really liking what Ben Jammin’s putting out there, I’m liking what Sunni’s doing right now, he’s doing a lot. Another guy I’ve got to mention because he’s really shocked me, he came back from a knee operation, is my boy George from Generation iLL, man he put down some stuff today, it was crazy, I was like ‘I gotta hit the lab now’ I gotta hit it harder than ever because he’s come back out of nowhere and he’s just killed it, my boy GG as well, he’ll tell you, he loves to watch George break
Lastly any shoutouts:
Bigup to my crew La Familia, my mentor DJ Renegade, without him the UK scene wouldn’t be as good as it is right now because he really put a lot of work into a lot of us, especially in London and he started taking it out of London, shoutout all of Soul Mavs, Generation iLL, one love to those guys for putting in the work, shoutout to Hooch, Spindoctor, Marie, Mouse and everybody else that’s put their faith in me to rock their jams or whatever. BIGUP TO HIPHOP
By Joe Downes @joeydeezgi
