WONDER interview

words: alex BOK BOK

In late 2003, the seminal What instrumental became a mainstay of grime radio sets, while also setting a new half-stepping pace for the future of dubstep. Later, when Dizzee Rascal used the track on Showtime for the seething Respect Me, the name of its producer – Wonder – was everywhere. In the mean time, Wonder had a hit production for Kano’s What Have You Done. Both instrumentals were truly new, alien pieces of work that oozed and bounced in half time in a completely new way. In a post-modern music world, over-saturated with internal references, Wonder creates brand-new aesthetics.

Nothing has ever sounded like What before. What made you make that tune? I'm interested in how the idea came about - did you hum the bassline or something?

I had only been producing for about two months before I made what, I had my own studio but one of my friends Geeneus had a studio that he let me use, and I was in there producing a track similar to What but it was moving fast and was kind of bumpy, but I always like doing something different so I thought let me strip it down and then What appeared. I didn't really have a visual of what before I got in the studio. I guess it was waiting to come out of me.

What Have You Done had a different feel about it than What - are you keen to approach every production with a clean slate?

Yeah defiantly, when I make a new track I always try and make it sound different to my other tracks. With What Have You Done I made it for a MC to write a song for it, whereas What was made as just a instrumental.

It seems that unlike some other big producers in the scene you are less keen to build up a Wonder brand - like for example your tracks have no one signature sound and you've done a few different styles now. Does it bother you that people won't necessarily pin something down as a Wonder beat straight away?

Na it don't bother me cause I like the fact that people sometimes don't know it’s my work, and when they find out there like ‘is it, wonder made that’. It means that I can always take my production to different directions.

What do you think of Wiley's Morgue? A lot of people say it should have been labelled a What remix.

When I heard it I had different thoughts, I didn't like it all, but then I had moved on from What so it didn't bother me to much. As for a remix, I don't think it would have worked cos it sounded like what too much but without the bassline, plus there's only one other track out there that stands next to What as a remix and is the official remix done by Geeneus.

Your DJ sets have that trancy quality of dubstep and the FWD camp, but then your beats are also pretty MC-friendly as well.


Where do you see the boundary between grime where the MC is more important and dubstep where the DJ is more important?

I think there is no boundary – a MC should be able to mc over a beat whether its grime or dubstep if they’re feeling it, and both the DJ and MC are important in both scenes. I like the fact that I can DJ somewhere like FWD and have a dubstep MC over my tracks, then play on radio and have a grime MC over the same tracks, so I don't really place myself in a certain scene.

Your spirit of finding new sounds that haven't been used before is inspirational. Where do ideas come from to use a particular sound that's unusual?



I look for sounds that no one else would think about using, then I just do what I do as a producer to get them sounding how I want it to sound. Most of the time I like to use samples, I could be watching TV, listening to radio or just lying in bed thinking and then I hear a certain sound or something that I think I could use. I think the thing that makes you stand out is being different which is what I try to do.

Which direction do you see yourself moving in - more dark rave-friendly beats or more beats for MCs? Where do you see the grime scene in a year's time?

I’m kind of moving in the direction of making tracks for MCs but at the same time the same track could get played as a instrumental. As for where do I see grime in a years time, I see it worldwide. I’ve just finished a tour supporting Dizzee in America, he's defiantly reppin for the grime scene, doing 25 states showing to them what grime is all about and it was amazing to see when I was dropping certain tunes some of the crowd knew the tunes and there was people outside handing out grime mixtapes. I think if the grime scene keeps doing what we do, it can defiantly go worldwide.