Foreign Beggars, known for their cross genre appearances in the UK grime, bass and even the dance scene continue to make waves throughout 2012 -visiting Spain, Austria, Czech Republic and France in the next two weeks alone. MC Orifice Vulgatron speaks about the group in London and their upcoming appearance at SW4.
> Initially you started off in the Metal/grunge/indie scene, what triggered the change to the more urban sound?
I think for myself and Dag, we met each other in Dubai when we were about 13. Dag was building his studio so he was heavily into hip hop and electronic beats and started to DJ when he was 15. I think we were doing everything at that time. I started rhyming when I was 16, so I was in a rap group and was also in a metal band playing bass. Being in Dubai there really wasn’t that much entertainment so everybody just got seriously into music. Doing lots of stuff and started throwing parties, putting gigs on. Metropolis, he wrote his first rap when he was about 9 or 11 when he was in Ghana. He’s been into hip hop most his life and then tasted other things a little bit later. For me I think I’ve been into hip hop since the early, early, early days. Like since NWA, Ice Cube, True Life Crew era. Around ’89 I was kind of hooked on it. But I mean we’ve never really been singular about our tastes in music.
> Do you feel that moving to London was instrumental to this change in style?
Yeah - I moved to school in England when I was 10 until I was 16 when I went back to Dubai. That’s when the music stuff got much more serious and moved back in ‘99 with Dag Nabbit. Our main intention when we moved back to England was to start a drum and bass record label, so we were making drum and bass tunes, and doing underground raves, some pirate stations and things like that. We were still making hip hop in our studio at home I think around 2001. The hip hop stuff was really ready to go, so that was the stuff we put out first. And it was about the end of 2002 when we were getting ready to put the first single out. That was when the name was born and I met ‘Nonames’ at different hip hop shows and that’s when we really put the group together.
> You have collaborated with some top quality Producers in the past like Nosia and Vato Gonzales to name a few, is there anyone your particularly keen to work with in the future?
We’ve kind of been lucky actually because a lot of the people we want to work with we ended up working with in recent times. We’ve got our next single coming out which is a track that we’ve done with Knife Party and we work with a whole host of producers from different styles, like Alex Perez for tech D&B, loads of people for UK grime and dubstep and then we work with Kidkenevil for hip hop. Also we worked with Starky who’s a grime producer from Philadelphia. Then we work with this guy called Salva from Los Angeles. I can’t even describe the music. It’s like bouncy hip hoppy, grimey stuff! Overall we’re kind of lucky really, working with all sorts of people. I mean for us for the future, I think any kind of producer I’d like to work with would be Rick Ruben or somebody of that kind of status. But we’ve been pretty lucky with the producers that we’ve been working with so far.
> So are we gonna see this kinda mish mash of stuff on the SW4 stage?
Yeah most definitely! Our show starts as a traditional rap show but it’s going to go all over the place. Got hip hop in there, got some house, a lot of grime that goes into dubstep, drum and bass. Just a whole variety of music that we’re doing. The new single that we’re doing with Knife Party is 110 bpm, I guess the new genre now coined “Moombahcore” but it’s very hard-core rap based as well.
> Skrillex is headlining SW4 Sunday - how did you find working with him?
Yeah, we dropped two tracks with him on his debut EP that came out on Mau5trap. We got a track called ‘Scatter’ which was a collab we did and then a single that we released last year called Still Getting It. We dropped a video for the US tour we did with him called Mothership. But we got a track that just dropped on his label with Koan Sound.
> You have done some huge shows around this part of London - notably your appearance at UKF Bass Culture Brixton Academy, do you enjoy these shows big shows or is it nerve wracking?
For me, the big ones are my favourite shows because it’s big show, big stage, you can really blast out, the sound is good. You know people are there to have a good time but the collective energy is really high. So it’s a bit more of a challenge but that nervous energy is something I feed off, so I wouldn’t really call it nerves. For me, the bigger the show the better!
> So how do you think SW4 will compare to Brixton, and other dark sweat boxes?
I think SW4 is going to be awesome simply because it’s different generations of people who are into it and if you’re going out to this kind of music, it’s just straight party vibes. All the people who are playing or producing this music, their skills are top level, their sets are so well honed and prepared. London has burst so many of these styles that it’s nice to bring all of this shit back home and just do it in the middle of London outdoors. I think it’s going to be sick.
> Also performing on the same stage as you are Public Enemy! Are you guy’s fans?
Yeah massive fans. Been fans since ’92.
> What’s your seminal track from Public Enemy?
I don’t know man, I’m not sure, there’s just too many. One that’s jumping out for me that makes me really happy is the collaboration with Anthrax ‘Bring the noise’. For me, at the time Anthrax was one of my favourite bands, Public Enemy was one of my favourite bands and the fact they put such a banger together and it wasn’t like a fail situation, I loved that tune.
> So what does it mean to you to be supporting the heavy weights of hip hop? And will one of you be performing with and oversized clock around your neck?
Ha ha, no clocks in our show! It’s really great to be on the same line-ups and playing alongside those people. Obviously we’re maybe two generations of hip hop later and the fact that we’re from the UK and up on stage with them for us is a privilege! We did our first two US tours in the last year and played at Webster hall in New York! It means a lot for UK rappers to be going over there and getting respect.
> So who else other than P.E. are you looking forward to seeing at SW4?
Ah definitely looking forward to Flux Pavilion’s set. There’s also Delta heavy and Loadstar, those guys are good. Looking forward to seeing them.
> And finally why should your fans come to see you at SW4?
We’re going to play some brand new stuff that we’ve never ever played in London before, we got new singles coming out, and we might debut the new show there. So it’s one to look out for.
>> Foreign Beggars play the SW4 main stage hosted by UKF Bass Culture on Sunday 26th August.
Sunday Tickets still remain for SW4 - For more info, visit http://www.southwestfour.com/
> Initially you started off in the Metal/grunge/indie scene, what triggered the change to the more urban sound?
I think for myself and Dag, we met each other in Dubai when we were about 13. Dag was building his studio so he was heavily into hip hop and electronic beats and started to DJ when he was 15. I think we were doing everything at that time. I started rhyming when I was 16, so I was in a rap group and was also in a metal band playing bass. Being in Dubai there really wasn’t that much entertainment so everybody just got seriously into music. Doing lots of stuff and started throwing parties, putting gigs on. Metropolis, he wrote his first rap when he was about 9 or 11 when he was in Ghana. He’s been into hip hop most his life and then tasted other things a little bit later. For me I think I’ve been into hip hop since the early, early, early days. Like since NWA, Ice Cube, True Life Crew era. Around ’89 I was kind of hooked on it. But I mean we’ve never really been singular about our tastes in music.
> Do you feel that moving to London was instrumental to this change in style?
Yeah - I moved to school in England when I was 10 until I was 16 when I went back to Dubai. That’s when the music stuff got much more serious and moved back in ‘99 with Dag Nabbit. Our main intention when we moved back to England was to start a drum and bass record label, so we were making drum and bass tunes, and doing underground raves, some pirate stations and things like that. We were still making hip hop in our studio at home I think around 2001. The hip hop stuff was really ready to go, so that was the stuff we put out first. And it was about the end of 2002 when we were getting ready to put the first single out. That was when the name was born and I met ‘Nonames’ at different hip hop shows and that’s when we really put the group together.
> You have collaborated with some top quality Producers in the past like Nosia and Vato Gonzales to name a few, is there anyone your particularly keen to work with in the future?
We’ve kind of been lucky actually because a lot of the people we want to work with we ended up working with in recent times. We’ve got our next single coming out which is a track that we’ve done with Knife Party and we work with a whole host of producers from different styles, like Alex Perez for tech D&B, loads of people for UK grime and dubstep and then we work with Kidkenevil for hip hop. Also we worked with Starky who’s a grime producer from Philadelphia. Then we work with this guy called Salva from Los Angeles. I can’t even describe the music. It’s like bouncy hip hoppy, grimey stuff! Overall we’re kind of lucky really, working with all sorts of people. I mean for us for the future, I think any kind of producer I’d like to work with would be Rick Ruben or somebody of that kind of status. But we’ve been pretty lucky with the producers that we’ve been working with so far.
> So are we gonna see this kinda mish mash of stuff on the SW4 stage?
Yeah most definitely! Our show starts as a traditional rap show but it’s going to go all over the place. Got hip hop in there, got some house, a lot of grime that goes into dubstep, drum and bass. Just a whole variety of music that we’re doing. The new single that we’re doing with Knife Party is 110 bpm, I guess the new genre now coined “Moombahcore” but it’s very hard-core rap based as well.
> Skrillex is headlining SW4 Sunday - how did you find working with him?
Yeah, we dropped two tracks with him on his debut EP that came out on Mau5trap. We got a track called ‘Scatter’ which was a collab we did and then a single that we released last year called Still Getting It. We dropped a video for the US tour we did with him called Mothership. But we got a track that just dropped on his label with Koan Sound.
> You have done some huge shows around this part of London - notably your appearance at UKF Bass Culture Brixton Academy, do you enjoy these shows big shows or is it nerve wracking?
For me, the big ones are my favourite shows because it’s big show, big stage, you can really blast out, the sound is good. You know people are there to have a good time but the collective energy is really high. So it’s a bit more of a challenge but that nervous energy is something I feed off, so I wouldn’t really call it nerves. For me, the bigger the show the better!
> So how do you think SW4 will compare to Brixton, and other dark sweat boxes?
I think SW4 is going to be awesome simply because it’s different generations of people who are into it and if you’re going out to this kind of music, it’s just straight party vibes. All the people who are playing or producing this music, their skills are top level, their sets are so well honed and prepared. London has burst so many of these styles that it’s nice to bring all of this shit back home and just do it in the middle of London outdoors. I think it’s going to be sick.
> Also performing on the same stage as you are Public Enemy! Are you guy’s fans?
Yeah massive fans. Been fans since ’92.
> What’s your seminal track from Public Enemy?
I don’t know man, I’m not sure, there’s just too many. One that’s jumping out for me that makes me really happy is the collaboration with Anthrax ‘Bring the noise’. For me, at the time Anthrax was one of my favourite bands, Public Enemy was one of my favourite bands and the fact they put such a banger together and it wasn’t like a fail situation, I loved that tune.
> So what does it mean to you to be supporting the heavy weights of hip hop? And will one of you be performing with and oversized clock around your neck?
Ha ha, no clocks in our show! It’s really great to be on the same line-ups and playing alongside those people. Obviously we’re maybe two generations of hip hop later and the fact that we’re from the UK and up on stage with them for us is a privilege! We did our first two US tours in the last year and played at Webster hall in New York! It means a lot for UK rappers to be going over there and getting respect.
> So who else other than P.E. are you looking forward to seeing at SW4?
Ah definitely looking forward to Flux Pavilion’s set. There’s also Delta heavy and Loadstar, those guys are good. Looking forward to seeing them.
> And finally why should your fans come to see you at SW4?
We’re going to play some brand new stuff that we’ve never ever played in London before, we got new singles coming out, and we might debut the new show there. So it’s one to look out for.
>> Foreign Beggars play the SW4 main stage hosted by UKF Bass Culture on Sunday 26th August.
Sunday Tickets still remain for SW4 - For more info, visit http://www.southwestfour.com/
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