Introducing: Royal T - "It's All Grime To Me"

Sometimes great music can evolve from really simple ideas or the simple desire to make music for purely for enjoyment purposes first. Over a handful of releases on labels like No Hats No Hoods and Butterz, Southampton resident Royal T has done exactly that and now he’s being backed by one of the biggest forces in the London underground, Rinse. His ‘1UP or Shatap EP’ fused Nintendo sound effects with those cheap, quintessentially potent grime strings, his breakout ‘Orangeade’ was high octane driven by a screeching mid range bass line and his remix of TRC’s ‘Oo Aa Ee’ positively reveled in the chance to ‘go garage’. Throughout all Royal T’s work to date there’s been a pure and simple rave friendly thread that drives his beats. His recent 12” for Rinse, ‘Inside The Ride’ b/w ‘Cool Down’, absolutely personifies that: the heavy garage skip of the former comes backed with siren bass, twanging drum fills and rave stabs whilst ‘Cool Down’ backs off a little from the fist pump, explicitly going more 4x4 at his familiarly excitable pace. He’s signed up to Rinse for a full artist album, of which the afore mentioned 12” is a neat and precise indicator of, and with an appearance at this Thursday’s Rinse takeover we figure it was high time we caught up with the producer to introduce his music. Can you introduce yourself and what you do to our readers? I'm Mark aka Royal-T and I’m a grime DJ/Producer from Southampton. Obviously you came into the light via Butterz but how does it feel to now be releasing music with Rinse? It hasn't really sank in yet to be quite honest, I’ve been listening to Rinse for years… All the stuff that has influenced me today has mostly come from the heart of Rinse so just to be a small part of the legacy is heavy to me. Your latest 12” (Rinse Presents: Royal T #1) seems to fuse the 2-step and the grime stuff we’ve heard from you before; was it a conscious thing to kind of merge the two sounds? Not really, I always just make what I feel like I’d want to hear or what I think is missing in the scene. It's just fun to me. I’m making hybrids of all the stuff I loved hearing growing up but it's more of a natural thing than being something that I’m planning out from A to B. ‘Cool Down’ sounds like speed garage... haha... do you think the 12” is a good statement of intent for your work with Rinse? Yeah I like the fact people are trying to put genre names to my music. I like making music that causes discussion whether it be negative or positive. With dubstep being the biggest thing at the moment I think it might be nice to hear some 2 step for once. It's all grime to me though; it's just my interpretation. What can we expect from the album? I've just had a lot of fun with it, I think people are expecting 10 tracks full of garage but it's not the case. I'm just trying to push the boundaries of how far I can take the grime sound. I've enlisted the help of a few of my music friends who I won't reveal just yet for the album so there are a couple collaborations on there... Have you been to any of the Rinse raves here at fabric? What do you think we can expect from your set? I've never been to a Rinse rave at fabric before, but I’ve been to fabric a couple times. First time I came here was when I played Room Three. That usually happens nowadays, like the first time I ever went to FWD>> was when I played there. I guess that's just because of my location though! You can just expect a lot of energetic grime or ‘that Royal-T sound’, as a lot of people are telling me that I’ve got lately. I just play what I would like to hear if I went raving really. Catch Royal T at the Rinse FM party here on Thursday. Photo: Rob Vanderman