Next in the hot seat is MC Rude the sound of Uproar and Fruit Club.

MC Rude the sound of Uproar and Fruit Club

1. What got you into the rave scene?

It was mainly my friends older brothers who were all going out every weekend & then coming back telling us what they had been up to, I really wanted to go, so they let us hook up with them, I went had the best time ever & that was that !!

2. Do you remember how old you were when you first went to your first rave? What raves were you going to week in week out back then?

Yeah I was 15 when I went to my first event, Fantazia, I remember being in the queue feeling really nervous as I didn't know if I would get in, but I got in & loved every second of it!! After that I went to some Universe parties, plus the early Dreamscapes, Sterns & the Rhythm Station, they were wicked times, not that I can remember much of them!!

3. When or what was it that made you decide to pick up a mic and think "I wanted to be an MC"? Who have been your influences in and outside the rave scene?

When I used to go to events I was always looking up at the stage to see what was going on, I used to love looking at the lights, production & stuff, I just wanted to be involved & be part of the event team, so I thought that as I'm quite an outgoing person that MCing would be the best thing for me to do. I used to look up to MC's such as Robbie Dee, Joe Peng, Ribbz, Tekno, all the Bristol boys!! It was Joe Peng who was my main idol though, I just used to love his MCing & the way he could adapt to any style, he was the king!!! Outside of the rave scene I used to like a bit of Hip Hop & Rap, so it was Dr Dre & Snoop dog that I looked up too, west coast shiiiiiit!! Ha Ha!

4. Do you remember your first booking and what it felt like to get on the mic for the first time?

Ha Ha! Yeah I remember my first gig, a friend of mine decided to run a do locally & I kept bugging him for ages to stick me on the flyer & let me MC, eventually he gave in & let me do it. I remember just getting completely off it & getting up on stage, I think everybody else in there must have been pretty messy too as everyone was telling me how good I was, but I listened to the tapes after & I was bloody awful!! Ha ha!! I know those tapes are still around somewhere & I'm just hoping that they never surface, I would die of embarrassment, they are truly shocking!!

5. You are also DJ Seduction's MC at the moment how did you guys hook up together?

Well, he came home early from a gig one night & he heard noises from his mums bedroom...!! Nah, ha ha, what happened was I was asked to run an old skool arena for an event called Serotonin, so I managed to get hold of John (Who had retired from DJing at the time) & get him to do a "one off" set, now things went a bit wrong, John wasn't happy & there were a few words said, basically though it wasn't my fault & after explaining this it all got sorted & we became good friends. After that night & a few others John realised how much he missed it all, he wanted to come back, we chatted a lot about it, eventually Uproar was born & Sedders returned!

6. How would you describe your style of MC'ing?

My style is evolving again at the moment, I am working on making my lyrics longer & giving them more meaning. I was always about an 8 - 16 bar man, but with guys like Storm & Whizzkid leading the way, you have to keep up, I think to be a decent Hardcore MC these days, you have to have plenty of solid 32 bar lyrics, this is what I working towards week by week, I will still use some of my old classics, but the music has changed & so must the MCing !!

7. Apart from Seduction who else do you enjoy MC'ing for or would like to MC for?

Dougal, defiantly, I really like his sets, I think his sets are excellent at the moment. The only DJ's I haven't MC'd for & would have loved to would be Carl Cox & Sasha back in the day, that would have been wicked!!

8. How does it feel to work with Seduction? Are expectations made of you working with someone with such a high calibre and influence within the scene?

Well, I think that it's always going to be difficult as Sedders is one of the DJ's that most MC's want to chat for, but I think that we work together so often now that we both know each others styles, I know when John is going to drop a track, or mix it out, he knows when I will start a lyric & cuts it up over it, I think we work well together so I think that peoples expectations are usually met.

9. Not only do you MC but you also DJ and promote as well. Working alongside Seduction with Uproar and also Fruit club. Could you delve into how you got into promoting?

Basically It was in the early days of the Fruit Club, the guy who used to run the event (Stephen Reid) always asked myself & the other residents advice as to who he should book, sometimes he would book who you wanted & others he didn't, I found it quite frustrating as I really believed in my own ideas regarding line-ups & the way an event should be promoted, (though to be fair, Fruit Club was rammed week after week so he must have been right with who he was booking) the event stopped for a while, but when it came back I was more involved in what was going on regarding the booking of DJ's etc, this opened other doors for me & I promoted the Old Skool & Hardcore rooms for Serotonin & Havoc, which as I said before, led to Uproar. I am still actively involved with the Fruit Club today, co-promoting the event with Zoe. Uproar has given me the chance to promote massive events though & I am really happy with how things have gone, what we have achieved in just over a year is amazing, long may it continue!!

10. How do you find time to juggle between promoting and mcing?

There are a lot of politics in this scene, as people know, so it's a pretty hard job & you soon find out who your friends are! I think that is the only difficulty in promoting and MCing together. At the moment I am writing new lyrics everyday & practicing them until I confident that I can use them at an event, this takes time as you have to be comfortable with a particular rhyme before you can use it, but even with the promoting I still find time to do it, although sometimes it does feel like I don't get much time off from Hardcore!!

11. Working alongside Seduction with Uproar, how did it feel to host the Last Hardcore rave at the Sanctuary?

That has got to be the most stressful night ever, both John & myself were working our nuts off for most of that night, a few things went wrong that took a lot of effort to put right again, so from that point of view it was hectic! We went all out to put on the best production ever seen in there, we had over 40 moving light heads, 4 massive screens, powerful lasers & huge dance platforms! The feedback we had was very positive & I think we gave it a pretty good send off. After everybody had left I was sat on the stage watching everything being taken down & I felt quite sad that it was all over, even if you don't like the venue you have to say that it was the home of UK Hardcore & had been for many years, It's going to be interesting to see if people are willing to take chances & travel to new venues, I think the next 6 months is make or break for the big Hardcore events.

12. What are the plans for the future of Uproar outside of Swindon, seeing that the Sanctuary, Milton Keynes is to finally close its doors this summer?

We have our next flyer out, we will be holding a special one off event at The Emporium in Coalville on August 28th, this is a massive club that can hold 2700 we will be transforming it with a huge production & for the first time ever we have 3 arenas, so I am very much looking forward to that. We have a new home, but some things are not ready yet, so it doesn't look like we are going to be able to use it until the end of the year. I think you will see the Emporium being used more often by the big promoters, we are using it, so are Vibealite & I also know of another who has plans to hold an event there.

13. It's been noticed that Uproar recently has been trying to find new MC's for the hardcore scene, with the chance of mcin' at the main room of Uproar in the near future.

Yeah, John & I were chatting & we think that it's always the lesser known DJ's that get a shot at our events in the main room & that we have been overlooking the MC's. This is the reason we decided to run our "Search for an MC comp" the winner will get a chance to MC in the main room at our next event after August, there has been a great deal of interest & I had over 30 demos for that, just by advertising on the internet.

14. Have you had a chance to listen to some of the entries and what is the quality of the up and coming mc's?

Yeah I have listened to about 10 of them so far, the quality is generally very good & I think it's going to be a very difficult choice as to who wins, it will be a mixture of lyrics, timing & how the MC flows that will be the key, but I think it's good that it will be a hard choice, it means that there is quality waiting to come through.

15. What advice would you give to anyone thinking about becoming a hardcore mc?

I really think it's best to hook up with a DJ, so that you can learn how they DJ & the way they mix etc, when you can start a new lyric etc. I started off 10 years ago working with a DJ called Webley, it helped me loads & I don't think I would be where I am today without that. You have also just got to stick with it & take the knocks, it's very difficult & there is no point even starting if you are not 200% committed to it.

16. Finally KFC or MC Donald's?

Has to be McDonalds, I'm not a great fan of KFC, too greasy!!

17. Top ten tunes (in any order.)

I'll have to do 5 upfront & 5 Old Skool !!

UPFRONT:
CLSM - JOHN PEEL IS NOT ENOUGH - CLSM
DJ SEDUCTION - DANCING THE NIGHT AWAY - GAMMER REMIX - MAXIMUM IMPACT
COMPASSION & SKEEDALE - VISUAL PARADISE - MAXIMUM IMPACT
STORM & EUPHONY - WHERE'S YOUR HEAD AT - MAXIMUM IMPACT
CLSM - WICKED MC - CLSM

OLD SKOOL:
FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON - PAPA NEW GUINEA
NRG - HE NEVER LOST HIS HARDCORE
THE PRODIGY - YOUR LOVE
LIQUID - SWEET HARMONY
DJ CRUZE - BASS GO BOOM

Shout out list:

Smythy (For driving me everywhere), Sedders (you bell !!) & Danielle, Zoë, Storm & Whizzkid (Cheers for all you help with the gigs & the MCing), Sy (You old dog !), Slipmatt (me 'old son !), Dougal, Darren Styles, Hixxy, Marc Smith, Sharkey, Kevin Energy, Jon Doe, Vibes & Livelee, Breeze, Forcey, Stompy, Vinyl Junkie, Ribbzy, MC Odyssey, MC Smiley, MC Wotsee, MC Marley, Gammer, Sal & Alex @ Futurevibe, Mark & Chris @ Sidewinder, Barney @ Jedi, Lee UHF @ Total Bedlam & Lisa, Mike @ Lakota, James & Damien @ Delerium, Funki @ Moondance & Freedom 2 Dance, Richard @ Raindance, Glenda @ Revolution, All the Jellybeanz crew, Roger Snypa, MC Dope, All the crew on USH.net, Julie Delicous, D-ice, Gareth Kickback & all the UK Hardcore ravers, it said all the time that it's all about you & it is, your the best every time !!!

Big up Nit for the interview !

Visit www.RUDEBOY1.co.uk to keep up to date on all of Rude's up coming gigs.