Monthly newspaper and online publication targeting 18 to 35 year olds. The ultimate guide to the hottest parties, going out and having fun. Music, fashion, film, travel, festivals, technology, comedy, and parties! London, Barcelona, Miami and Ibiza.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/214332
28 DRUM & BASS / DUBSTEP guestlist.net IEW V R TE N I Issue 57 / 2013 Shlomo Shlomo's link up with the talented anonymous of the towns he's playing in, the donation of the money from selling his music and the story behind Planet Kahnia insinuate nothing but a good guy. The interview I did with him is up online now, but just in case you love the printed word, here you are... Alex | guestlist.net You really came to fame in 2002 with Foreign Beggars, how did that collaboration come about? Was it you hounding them, chasing them, or did they come headhunting you? No, erm, I actually tell the whole story of this in the show I'm doing at the moment. I was 18 and I'd just moved to Leeds and I'd never been to a Drum 'N' Bass rave before and all my DJ heroes were all performing and there was one MC who no one had heard of before but he was taking on the other MCs. There was MC Shabba, MC Skibadee who were the famous MCs and this one kid who no one had heard of, blew everyone's minds. Anyway, they threw all the kids out at like 5 or 6 in the morning and I was outside just beatboxing as loud and as fast as I could. Then, all the MCs and DJs came out of the stage door and they stopped to take a look at me beatboxing and carried on walking! But then, the last guy to come out was this short guy, this MC, and he stood next to me and started rapping and he basically said, "Dude, you're a really good beatboxer, what's your name?" So, I was like, "Oh, my name's Shlomo" and he said "My name's Orifice Vulgatron and I'm in Foreign Beggars and we're about to start touring and releasing our first single and we want you to come on the road with us!" I was just like "I don't know I've got my Physics lecture in the morning!" But, I ended up spending 5 years in the back of a tour bus travelling all over the world with Foreign Beggars. style? Yeah, totally. In terms of just being hyper and really up and "in-yourface". That's not really the kind of music that I actually listen to when I'm on my own. I'm a much more chilled out kind of character so I just learned a lot about how to get crowds excited but these days my music's much more chilled out as well. I've got the full on frenetic music but I do, like, a whole stage show and, obviously, you have to have which is all about my Grandfather who was an astronomer. He was called Professor Khan and, just before I was born, they discovered a new planet which is the size of England. It's actually an asteroid somewhere in our Solar system and it's called Planet Kahnia. As a child, I believed it was going to be mine because my surname's Khan, I thought everyone had a planet and this was ours. It focuses on that story because I got into an argument with my cub scout who told me that " Yeah, I only need another £8 billion then I can get on my spaceship and fly past the moon all the way to Kahnia ! " Did you adapt your style from them? I remember watching a video on YouTube of DJ Yoda describing your style as being "really intricate", and I think he described it as being "dense" as well, saying that his production was almost empty compared to your style. Do you think that your time spent with Foreign Beggars contributed to your more of a journey within it so I tell stories and I do have those frenetic, crazy rave moments, but I also have some much more gentle, chilled moments where you can be a bit more introverted and "melancholy" if you will. Do you want to say a little bit about your current tour? Yeah, so it's a theatrical show like a one man theatre show called "Human Geekbox" and it's got a story to it I didn't have my own planet and it destroyed my dreams as a child! I wasn't very impressed so the rest of the show is me winning back the magic of Planet Kahnia. It's really good fun. So, all the proceeds from this tour, apart from the ones going to War Child, obviously, are going towards your trip to Kahnia? Yeah, I only need another £8 billion then I can get on my spaceship and fly past the moon all the way to Kahnia! So I'm going to 15 different towns and in each town I've been using Twitter, Facebook and my blog to find talented performers in each town and on the day we get together, write a song, perform it in the show and then, immediately after the show, I upload it to the internet and people can choose how much to contribute to download the song and then all the money goes to War Child. It's been going really well, it was a terrifying concept because I thought how am I going to write songs with people I don't know in places I haven't been to before with no time. We have like an hour or two in each town! It's been great , I'm really fond of them all. It's really exciting. Watch the full Shlomo interview at guestlist.net and find out how to donate to WarChild through his music too! facebook.com/shlomizzle