NEWS
EVENTS
Mad Professor fills us in on all things sound system
Reggae | Wednesday 16th September 2015 | Christina
Neil Fraser, aka Mad Professor, is one of the leading lights of dub music and has been central in bringing the genre into the digital age. The Ariwa studio and label boss has collaborated with some of the biggest reggae artists in the world, including Lee “Scratch” Perry, Jah Shaka and Pato Banton, as well as huge names outside the genre like Sade and Massive Attack. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of sound system culture in the UK, he’s going on a special five-date tour with Channel One next month. We caught up with him to chat about all things sound system before he hit the road.
Hi, how’s it going?
Going, going, going, gone. Working hard.
And how’s your summer been?
Summer’s been very busy, very busy indeed, every weekend going somewhere to do some show.
Were you at Carnival this year?
I haven’t done Carnival in about twelve years. Usually it’s a weekend and I’m usually working. I haven’t been since the days when you had to run from police [laughs].
How is everything going with Ariwa?
Yeah, you know surviving. It’s very bad business because everything’s for free. It’s not easy but you’ve got to survive.
So this year is a big year for sound system culture, its 60th anniversary, why do you think that it’s been so successful in the UK? Why do so many people love it?
It was a Caribbean source of entertainment, all we had in the early days was sound systems to maintain our culture. The next generation of English youth adopted it and it spread across England, all the cities, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester.
What makes sound system so special and unique?
I guess people take it serious. The amount of money people put into it is incredible and I guess before we came into it nobody thought it was that important. Before people were making records specially, we were just playing whatever records were on the market. We took it to the next level where we were making records you would only hear on a sound system. You want to hear certain records, you got to hear it from a sound system. You wouldn’t hear it on the radio, Capital FM wasn’t playing our music, you had to go out to a sound system and hear it, and then you know “Ok! I like that record, I like that song!”
Did you ever want to own your own system?
I didn’t want to do that because all my friends had sound systems and I knew if I had a sound system it would turn us into rivals. And because I was running a studio and a label, I was quite happy to be at that end, I didn’t want to become rivals. So to this day I didn’t want to have a sound system.
And to celebrate the big 60 years you’re teaming up with Channel One for a tour, can you tell us a bit about that?
Well, they’re nice guys, they’ve got a nice manager. It’s good that we team up because it’s entertaining, they bring the spirit, so that’s good, very good.
You’ve worked with loads of artists from many genres, so do you think that dub and reggae is one of the most powerful forms of music because you can apply it to so many other types of music?
Yes it is a powerful form of music because don’t forget it’s an independent music and yet it’s at every festival. Every festival you go to, what’s the choice of music? Dub. And yet it’s ignored on the radio. The system is so fucking racist, they refuse to play it. Maybe when more white people get into it they’ll start playing it but for years they ignored it. You go everywhere, to all the festivals, what is it you hear? “Blood, blood, blood” or “I’m gonna put on an iron shirt and chase the devil out of Earth” [laughs]. You hear all them classics. It’s out to people without any BBC play.
Isn’t it better that it’s not mainstream, it keeps it underground for everyone?
Yeah but in a world of clarity, transparency and fairness, is it really fair that when you turn on the radio you hear the same bullshit every day?
No you’re right, it’s not fair!
That’s why radio don’t work half the while. Right now radio isn’t working. Who listens to the radio? It’s all a hard sell thing. They’re trying to brainwash me into hearing Adele or whoever. They don’t play the people’s choice.
Do you think that it will ever change, that it will be on the radio one day?
Like I said it might change when most of the artists are white, which means that it’s not really fair, which means that we’re still upholding the same slavery and the same point where Bob Marley had to make a song “until the colour of man’s skin is of no more significance”. It’s a shame that we have to really still draw that. I mean I hope it will change, there are little changes that you see but nothing’s really a good change as it should be by now.
What do you think the future holds for sound system culture?
Well we’ve got to take it to the next level and people have to put more into it, make it better, use technology more. Yeah man, we’ve got to embrace technology.
We said before that you’ve worked with a lot of different artists, what was it like working with Lee “Scratch” Perry?
It’s fine man, you know Perry’s like my godfather. Two weeks we worked together making a record called Black Ark Classics In Dub. Perry’s got so much ideas, he’s an inspiration, he always comes out with things that could work. He contributed a lot to Bob Marley’s success as well.
Is there an artist or group that you’d really love to work with?
Yeah man, The Prodigy.
That would be good!
There’s a few people like that. Whitney Houston, but she died. Michael Jackson.
And apart from the tour, what else are you most looking forward to for the rest of the year?
I’ve got a few new records coming out, yeah man, just more music.
If you weren’t making music what would you be doing with your life?
I’d be working on mobile phones because I love electronics and I’d probably be having my own brand of mobile phone.
The Mad Professor phone!
Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
What would you do to make the world a better place?
What would I do to make the world a better place? Ban all politicians. Yeah ban them, they make the world a more unstable place.
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