Introduce Yourself: TERROR DANJAH

With an album forthcoming, that collates a whole heap of instrumentals and remixes, on (the recently profiled, right here on this very blog space) Planet Mu we thought it was high time someone let Terror Danjah speak to his public. Joseph Patterson caught up with him for a natter. Introduce yourself... Terror Danjah is a UK producer trying to break the sound barrier world wide with his sound and someone trying to make the rest of the world take note of the UK music scene. When was it that you realised that you wanted to make music? I was actually a jungle/drum & bass producer and I just wanted tunes with my name on them, the next thing I know I’m smashing dances and the likes of DJ Zinc and Bad Company were looking over the decks to see what I’m playing. I then some tracks with vocal help from Shabba and Skibadee and it took off from then. 1999, a long time a go (laughs). So why grime? There wasn't a name for the music we were making, it was just a vibe and I wasn't really into the UK garage scene. I came straight from jungle/drum & bass, so I had an aggressive and harder sound at the time, so I think the influences came from there. Ok, so have you experimented with making other types of music? I've always just made music I feel at the time, it keeps fresh and it’s also good to incorporate it into another genre, for example ‘Sidechain’ is featured a lot in electro/minimal tracks, so nowadays I’m applying it to grime tracks. What do you think about the current grime scene? Now it’s been branded, no one really experiments and it isn’t exciting. The listeners nowadays don't want singers on the music and it’s sad really, because everyone’s converting to funky, electro, UK Hip Hop etc. Grime has also lost it’s dance element. What other producers are you rating at the moment? In no particular order; Rude Kid, D.O.K, Sticky, Silencer, Swindle, Joker, Wiley, DaVinChe and Loudmouth Melvin. You have been lucky when it comes to gaining major label attention, can you tell us about a few of those journeys? Boy, how long is a piece of string (laughs). Lets just say I have worked with artists that were getting a lot of major attention and I made sure still to this day I get my music all about, to cut a long story short. Your recent single with Mz.Bratt, was recently signed, how did that come about? Our managers Maurice from Soul 2 Streets and Shaurav from 2 Tone Entertainment, are very well connected and believed in myself and Mz.Bratt, and shopped the single around. Luckily enough 'All Around The World/Universal' loved what myself and Mz.Bratt were doing and got involved. No disrespect when I say this, but you seem to me like a father figure in the grime scene, as in the fact your always looking after artists and bringing them through... None taken at all. Well I always believed in putting different artist to be the face of my many different sounds/genre and that is how I get my sound in different areas. Future plans? Working on Mz.Bratt's album, it sounds very epic. Got a greatest hits instrumental album coming out via Planet Mu entitled 'Gremlinz', ‘Hardrive vol 2’ and also ‘Zip Files vol 2’ on the horizon, so keep an eye out for everything. www.myspace.com/terrordanjah