Interview: Blazey Bodynod

Fifteen years from its East London birth, grime’s gone global. From the chart success of Stormzy and Skepta to the admiration of superstars like Drake and Kanye West, the movement’s profile has never been bigger.

One man has flown the flag in Bristol since day one. Blazey – “Bristol through and through…born in St Michael’s Hospital ‘pon the hill”­ is the DJ and promoter behind Bodynod, which returns to Motion this month and will surely sell out.

“I listened to hip­hop, R&B and bashment religiously until my mid­teens,” Blazey recalls, “then I caught the raving bug…drum & bass raves like Helter Skelter, One Nation and Telepathy.” In 1998 he picked up a UK garage tape and everything he’s pushed since then – grime, dubstep, bassline – grew from there, including the ravey, bass-heavy deep tech sound he’s become involved with in recent years: “I’ll ramp with anything as long as it falls under that born­-from­-UKG banner.” 

He found his niche as MCs came to the fore, garage tunes got tougher and more minimal, and many Bristol promoters lost interest: “I picked up the ball when they decided it wasn’t for them anymore…we would bring down artists such as Pay As U Go, Heartless Crew…Bristol ravers were fully in tune to UK garage and grime. There is this popular misconception that the city was way behind London which is definitely not the case.”

Later Blazey joined with Pinch to launch Subloaded, one of the most influential Bristol club nights of all time. “The intention for me was having a happy medium of grime and dubstep, which shows in the very first lineup that we did at Thekla back in 2004. For some reason though, grime took a bit of a funny turn at one point, and the creative output in the instrumental side of things somewhat slowed down.” Subloaded went on to become a pillar of the dubstep scene, as chronicled in the must-watch documentary Living Inside The Speaker, in which Blazey features heavily. 

As dubstep’s glory years recede into memory, grime’s are happening now. “The internet and social media is the main reason why it’s become so big”, he says. Until recently “you would pretty much only listen to grime if you naturally fell into the culture…the internet has completely smashed that rule.” From the tweets of Wiley and JME to Youtube channels like Grime Report and Logan Sama’s Keepin’ It Grimy, the internet allows grime to present itself on its own terms, sidestepping the negative spin the media once gave it. The scene itself has made inroads into mainstream radio, with Roll Deep member Target becoming the voice of the UK underground at BBC 1Xtra.

Grime MCs now routinely headline clubs and festivals. The moment Blazey realised everything had changed was when he brought Skepta and JME to Motion in 2014: “Tropical x Bodynod was the eye-­opener for me as it was the first sell­out grime rave of its size in Bristol. It was nice to hear the music I love being presented with the same intensity as it was back in the day, but minus the likelihood that something may kick off in the dance.”

He recently hosted Durkle Disco’s first mixtape (grab it from Bandcamp), which features more Bristol accents than a City/­Rovers derby crowd. “I still cannot fathom how Koast managed to get so many MCs to complete such a well put-together project” says Blazey.

Alongside Big Narstie, Giggs, Bloodline and Logan Sama, this month’s Bodynod will feature Bristol MCs like Jay0117, Gilly and Dash Villz. Could Bristol produce a grime star of its own? “Yes, no doubt about it,” says Blazey.

“One piece of advice I have for Bristol MCs is to make club bangers. We have sit-down­-and­-chill grime tunes for days, but we need a definitive club banger that people can connect to regardless of what region they’re from. The live element is something Bristol’s MCs need to fine tune – their presence, delivery. I’m all up for trying to help them get to that level.” It seems a lot more likely to happen while they have a champion like Blazey.

Bodynod presents Keep It Grimey, Motion, March 11. For more information visit www.motionbristol.com