DJ RON

The name DJ Ron is synonymous with the word jungle, the two just trip of the tongue, you know the format - DJ Ron the jungle don, etc! Look back at any of the old flyers when jungle music was still very much an underground force (compared to today), and you can guarantee that Ron's name will crop up again and again. However, over the past couple of years his presence has been noticeably absent from the DJ circuit; although still remaining in the public eye through his varied vinyl excursions, not least the remarkable "Quintessence EP" on Parousia. However, the comeback is imminent, as I discovered when I hooked up with Ron to discuss this and other musical matters at his London Some'Ting Records HQ.

Music has always played a role in Ron's life, be it tuning in to the latest chart hits on Top Of The Pops, checking the latest soul and hip hop cuts, or his first real love - reggae. It was on the London reggae sound systems that Ron got his schooling and where his talent on the turntables first came to light. Moving with the times, Ron became involved with the acid house / rave scene in the late '80s. Back then, he was the DJ for Rebel MC and got his first insight into the mainstream music industry - appearing in the videos, going on tour and all the trimmings that come with a major label deal. The musical transition into jungle happened and Ron was there, rinsing out the airwaves firstly on Rush and then Kool FM, and smashing up the dance at places like Roast and Telepathy.

His name rapidly became the 'champagne' toast of the jungle scene as he appeared at raves up and down the country, spreading the jungle sound. His DJing was soon backed up by his first productions on Rufftone Recordings and later on London Some'Ting but, suddenly, Ron hung up his headphones at the beginning of '95: "I just had no buzz for DJing from about 1995 through to about the end of Summer '97, and that's a big gap. Mainly because the music changed really quickly and I wasn't in touch with it - that's the most honest way of putting it." Then, as Ron explains, at the beginning of 1996, he signed a deal with Parousia putting further pressure on himself and his DJing: "I wasn't known as a prolific producer and when, all of a sudden, someone comes along and offers you a recording deal, it does have a bearing on your overall circumstances. It's something that's never happened before and you have to go through negotiations and, of course, the ego thing. So, production, the change in music and things that were going on in my personal life all had a lasting effect on my DJing over the past years."

Into '98, and DJ Ron is ready to spring back. "I've got inspiration now," he says, "the crowds are back up to date and enjoying different styles of music. One thing I've always known is that, throughout all of that time, there was always good music, but the DJs weren't playing jungle - and by jungle, I mean what the DJs are playing now. A mixture of everything - that's what jungle is. It can be soul based, funk based, hard, heavy, rootsy - everything all in one set. You don't have to be in there playing jump-up all night to get rewinds, or just heavy drum & bass - DJ skills are coming out again and that gave me a vibe." So, with DJ Ron back on the road (so to speak) we can be sure to hear much more of the sounds coming out of the L.S.R. studio, which leads me neatly into the production career of Mr. Ron Samuels.

'Hard but musical' is how Ron has described his style in previous interviews, and this succinct phrase is indeed the best way to sum up his sound. In the early days, there was a ragga edge to his productions and his label's output, for example Ron's classic debut "Crackman" and New Blood's infamous "Worries In The Dance" and, while fitting in with the sound that was tearing up the raves, there was no way these tunes could be labelled as simply 'flava of the month'. There was always a musical element present that carried them above many of the copycat tracks around at the time, and it's undoubtedly a major factor in any of Ron's compositions. His first break came from an unlikely source, for as he explains: "I was really into this song with the lyric "crackman on the line...', and it was by chance or destiny, whatever you want to call it, that I was driving with a friend of mine listening to the track and he said that he knew Earl and Patrick from UB40 (the song's writers) and that he'd try and get a remix for me. So, we went up to their place in Birmingham, became friends, and that was my first introduction to the studio. They actually gave me my first and second break because I did something else for them after that called "African Chant"."

After the success of those releases, Ron thought the time was right to set up his own label and launched London Some'Ting in 1994. First off releasing tracks from New Blood and Prisoner, and then coming with the tune that really brought Ron's studio skills to the fore, the majestic "Canaan's Land". Its fusion of dangerous beats, ragga chat and luscious melody made it a record that well and truly stood out from the crowd back then and still sounds crisp today. A string of remixed classics followed this, namely "Crackman", Nut Nut's "Special Dedication", and the seminal "Just 4 U London", before Ron decided to expand the business with the birth of two new labels, Pimp and Picasso: "Pimp came about because I'm a good judge at spotting trends and I said a long time ago that the pimp, kinda '70s funk thing is gonna become heavily in; even though at the time I started the label I was unsure of the exact sound I would be portraying. Production in those days was a lot more complicated than some music being built today, and a lot of those old songs are no longer being used. The only time you ever hear that music is in rap songs where somebody loops something out of a well know song, and Pimp is all about doing that - we'll use some snippets from that era and make songs out of them."

Well, eight releases in and Pimp has already established a name for itself within the scene. Tracks have kept on coming from Ron himself as Starsky; Rockerfella and The Junglites (who have both also had releases on London Some'Ting), but this is just the warm-up. "Pimp is really stepping in this year," grins Ron, "we're going to bring the Pimp right in because it's time to do the 'R' funk you know. You've had the P-funk, you've had the 'V' funk and now you're gonna get the 'R' funk". Another strain of the 'R' funk can be found on the Picasso imprint, which burst onto the scene last year with a concrete 12" from Ron that really set the agenda for the label: "I didn't think I could put a really hard, slammin' tune out on London Some'Ting, although I could have done - I just didn't think that I could at that time. I thought it would be better to have another label for that, which is where Picasso came in. Picasso's slogan is 'musical abstract art' because, in every release, there's an abstract element of creativity and I believe that even if I put - bleep, bleep, blah, blah - it's still somebody's interpretation of music. It's not really a label for tunes that you'd play in a rave and get reloads for, although there are some tracks that do have that dancefloor appeal." If you haven't checked out the Picasso sound yet, then waste no more time and hunt down "Subconscious" / "Creativity" and "Bad Like Badu" / "Something" by Ron and also Fresh's forthcoming lick, "The Hand Of Fate". Definitely one of those tracks with that dancefloor appeal!

London Some'Ting, Pimp and Picasso are all run centrally from the relaxed but business-like L.S.R. offices, although that's not all that goes on down there. L.S.R. is also home to Outraged Clothing, producing 'remix-active sportswear' - check their infamous 'Junglist Movement', 'Roots', and 'Needafix' designs (respect Leke); and Fuzzed Records, a new garage label, showing that Ron is keen to give props to people with vision. You can definitely sense that everyone who works there is fully committed to the cause and, as we all strive to make careers out of this scene, commitment becomes more essential as everything becomes bigger business. Something that Ron is keenly aware of. "Being a brand name DJ is a heavy commitment and you can mess up if you haven't got the balance right. The bottom line is that, before you're a DJ, you're a human being and so you need to tax your brain sometimes, and I don't mean just on the PlayStation. If there was no DJing, none of that stuff, could you still survive? For me, that's why the business side is so important. It's important for other people as well, because there's a lot of people who work here with me who were doing pretty much the same things that I was doing beforehand. You just need that little break to get you going and start using skills that you've never used before.

"It's only been a year since we've been running the record company like this, and it was only while I was out in Miami (at the Winter Music Conference) that I actually realised that the hard work that we'd put in all year had paid off. When I was there, people were coming up to me in the street, literally in the street, and they'd be saying [Ron now puts on his best American drawl], 'Hey man, yeah man I really love that Pimp stuff man, and oh man, you've gotta send me some of that London Some'Ting'; and every release we did last year had no promotion. We never sent promos to the DJs and we never mailed out to the press either. We started the labels on the basis of, if Joe Public walks into a shop, would they be interested in our records? We've now proved that we can make sales without the help of anybody else, and so this year we're gonna add all of that to it and see what happens - it can only get better."

Now, before I pull the curtain on this feature, there will be some of you wondering why I haven't mentioned much about Ron's Parousia deal. In a nutshell, that's because it may be a while before we see Ron's name on another Parousia record sleeve. In his own words, they have reached a 'checkmate situation', although Ron has no ill feeling about the matter. "It's no skin off either of our noses because it's been a nice experience and I'm really confident that if I ever wanted to walk into another deal I could get one, because I know how to play the game now. It's only a game you see, like everything, it's just a case of whether you know how to play or not." So, with that said, it only leaves for me to thank DJ Ron for taking the time out for doing this interview, and to welcome him back onto the DJ circuit. Watch out in '98 for the return of the original jungle don.

Forthcoming singles: Leo - "Positive Charge" / "Schizophrenic" (LSR);
Rockerfella - "'Bout It" (Pimp); DJ Ron - "Industrial Dub Wise part 3" (LSR)