This summer, Toddla T released an album of maximalist tracks that spit in the face of genrefication. The only way to describe the style of music held within Watch Me Dance would be with the word "bangin'." It's the perfect, roll-down-your-windows-turn-up-the-bass record that just seemed to come from nowhere in particular, but everywhere at once. It was rushed out the door by Ninja Tune, however, when the record turned up leaked online, cause the label to announce that they'd lost all hope for making any money back from the record. Thankfully, Watch Me Dance is the kind of album that's easy to come back to time and again, a pop Dagwood that, if nothing else, will help Toddla T establish himself with some of the world's most respected young producers. With guests ranging from Roots Manuva to Roisin Murphy to Skream, Watch Me Dance should land on lots of year-end Top 10 lists. But, that's not really, entirely the point. The point is, Toddla T is a funny, lanky lad with a penchant for cold beers in the hot sun, so that's just what we did in the Flaunt parking lot, just prior to the album's release. Trust me, if this album passed you by the first time, dig it back up. It's phenomenally brash, hooky, and full of funky life.

You got a lot of amazing people on the album. Does that just come from like kind of being around the block? You’ve been on the scene since, I read, you were 14.
Yeah, all the collaborators just happened, really. Even the bigger names, I’ve worked with them in the past, I DJ’d in the same lineups. The Jamaican stuff that I did over there, I was just in the right studio at the right time. There wasn’t really a single collaboration which was so contrived with management and things. Everything just happened. I did 40 tunes for the album. I stripped it to 11 that I felt flowed the best. It wasn’t just about having really big names, it was just about making sure songs were right. And if that was with someone big and established, so be it.

The album is extremely cohesive in that it’s got the party vibe all the way through. I wonder what you were looking for for this particular album, and how you were editing things out.
Well my first record was a lot more clubby, and with this, I wanted to draw even more reference points of influence and soul. Things like soul and rave and R&B and pop, I never really went with on the first record. I was always into it anyway, so on this one, I gained more confidence, and gave a fuck less what certain people thought. I said, ‘This is what I want to do, so I’m going to put it into the mix.’ That was the main thing, just making it a wider scale of music. And I didn’t want to make the second record the first record twice. I wanted to make sure it was different enough from the first. I’ve changed a lot. Obviously, I’ve been DJing on the road, since the last one, every week. I moved to London from Sheffield. Up the reggae side of it, I went to Jamaica, right into the source of it. So, obviously, that’s going to change the sound of the record, as well.

Of course. How long were you in Jamaica for? When did you go?
I went four times. The first time I just went. The second time I went with Major Lazer to work on their album, and did a load of stuff by myself. Then I went again. Then I went again and did a video and DJ’d and got more vocals. So, it’s just back and forth, really.

You get to go to a lot of places as a DJ, but you have to get the vibe of the place from the venue you’re playing at.
Being in L.A. now is cool, because I’ve been here longer. I’ve got three days here. Last night I got something to eat, and just drove around, and all that shit. Normally, you wouldn’t at all. But you still do get a vibe, even if it’s just a snapshot. But when you’re making music it’s different, because if you go somewhere to make music, you get more time in it. DJing is generally in and out.

Did you DJ at all while you were here?
I DJ tonight at Dim Mak Studios.

So, Hollywood just up the road from here.
Yeah. I don’t really know much. I just turn up.

Where do you ideally like to get asked to play?
Ninety percent of my gigs are in the U.K., just because of my popularity there. But, I don’t know—I do really like the States. I mean it’s the place I play outside of the U.K. the most by far.

You play in Miami a bunch.
Yeah, yeah, all that shit. Toronto is always really good. Always. There’s not a particular place. I like playing in my hometown, just because it’s like my hometown and it’s friends and family.

Everyone comes out and gets crunk.
I guess when you get asked to play mental places, say, places in Asia and Australia, it’s like, ‘Whoa, I’d never be here if it weren’t for music,’ so that’s always quite special. Before I started DJing, I’d never even been to Scotland, which is like two hours up the road. And that’s not because I was broke or had a poor background, it’s just because I was just doing my thing, and now it’s like I’ve seen so much just playing music, it’s amazing.

Where did you start with your musical education? When you were 14, you started to get out there as a DJ, but to become a DJ, you kind of have to have a couple years of listening to music.
When I was about 10 or 11, my cousin gave me Biggie’s first album on a tape. And then I went to my grandma’s for the summer and listened to it everyday. I thought it was the best thing ever. And it still is my favorite record ever. And that was the start of my obsession with hip hop. And from there, I listened to local radio, Radio 1 with Tim Westwood, and I’d record MTV Raps on MTV. I was a hip hop purist for four or five years. When I got turntables, I’d been buying records anyway, because of that. And so, it was like, ‘This is just what I’m into. This is what I’m going to do.’ So, it was hip hop that set me up. And then, when I started going raving, as older, you see different things and you hear different things and everything just widens out. But it was hip hop that started the whole thing really.

I feel like hip hip is a good entry point for a lot of people.
In England, no one was really that into it at the time, compared to now anyway. So, it wasn’t like all my mates were into it.

So, when you started DJing, were you actually doing what a DJ does which is ‘bringing hip hop to Sheffield’? I mean, was that your goal when you were 14?
The thing is, I started DJing when I was 12, but then I got my first turntables I could actually mix with and pitchshift on when I was 15, 16. So, that’s when I started playing out in the bars. I was playing hip hop. There was a couple of us that were. But, when I was playing out, it was the start of the ‘Jiggy’ era, so it was when Diddy and R&B was happening in England. You’d hear that everywhere. But then, when I started DJing properly, it was pure hip hop. Then I opened my mind a bit and started playing all kinds of shit. So, it wasn’t like I was bringing hip hop to Sheffield, but before I started DJing, I didn’t really know many people who were into hip hop; it was niche.

I had a little cousin that, when he was 12, was using a mixer, pitchshifting, everything. And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s bananas.’ Between the time you were 12 and when you became national, what was that process? What are your parents thinking?
I always wanted to be a DJ and a producer. I left school at 16 to go to music college and worked at the same time—at shops and supermarkets and things—because you’ve got to, obviously. Mum and Dad were proper cool about it. They knew that’s what I was all about, so they were just like, ‘Yeah, do your thing.’

Did they know you were talented?
Well, no, not really. I don’t think they really did. I don’t think they still do. Nah nah, [I’m joking]. They [know I’m talented], really. They love it. What happened was I got a release, and I got a mixtape that went online, and it all went bananas, and overnight I was getting offered loads of money to play all around the world. Even though I’ve been waiting for this moment for 10 years, when it happened, I was proper freaked out. I was like, ‘What? No one really likes me back home, so why are they going to want me in Switzerland for loads of money?’ It took a long time for me to gain confidence and adapt.

Sheffield is a bit of a funny place, because it was a steel town. And when the steel industry died, it just made it like Detroit. ­­­­­­­­­­­The club scene and the retail industry was behind the cities. The nightlife that was going on was pretty shit man, and the only way we could go and hear the music we really wanted to hear and play music we wanted to play was at little parties. That was how us local DJs put music together. It was Sheffield style, so a lot of Caribbean influence, but in all kinds of music, so techno, soul, and electro, and West Indian roots. And that’s how I started trying to DJ. And then I started making music that reflected that. And then put out a record, and it snowballed.

Isn’t Jarvis Cocker from Sheffield?
Jarvis is from Sheffs, yeah.

That was the main thing that happened there recently, right?
Arctic Monkeys are the biggest thing from Sheffield in the last 10 years. But Sheffield to me is an electronic city now. In the ’80s with all the electro-pop like Cabaret Voltaire and Human League, and then Warp Records started, and techno really started then. That type of vibe was massive. It was before my time, but they used to play a lot at Chicago and Detroit records, and then we had a bassline house scene at a club called Niche. And then people like me who are a bit of everything. Even though the indie band [Arctic Monkeys] popped, the thing that was consistent was the electro thing.

Do you think Sheffield is like a hub of electronic music?
Even though it was very few people, it was quite influential and had quite a big impact.

Well, Warp’s a pretty big deal.
Warp’s huge. It’s the biggest independent—apart from Domino—left in our country. It started in Sheff, but it’s not Sheff at all anymore.

Was that presence still there when you were coming up?
No, it had gone by the time I was growing up. Rob Gordon, who basically started Warp. I’d seen him around as a kid for years, and never knew it was him, and I went around his house because he fixes equipment—he’s a sonic genius. I was like, ‘Fuck me, that’s the guy I’d seen out as a kid.’ When I went back to locate the records that he had made, it sounds similar to what I’m into now—it’s really weird.

It seems to me like it’s electronic, but ‘working-class electronic,’ if that makes any sense—people fixing their own equipment, making their own shit, cheap synthesizers.
Yeah. That gave me the sound I got today, because that was the thing I used to buzz off. Even though we’d look at American music and Jamaican music and European music and London music, the studio’s [in Sheffield] would have gear that was cheap, little synths and things, and they’d rag it together. I went out and did my own version of it, really. If I didn’t grow up in Sheff, I wouldn’t make the music I make now, not a chance, because I wouldn’t have seen it and heard it and buzzed off it. I’d probably made music, but it’d be a bit different.

When you’re making a track, are you hearing things that you used to hear? Are you pulling in sounds you used to hear?
Definitely. Say I’m making a 90 BPM [track], so, a hip hop feel. I’m trying to get the right sound on the snare. It’s not like I’m always thinking of a hip hop track, I’m just thinking of music in general. I might think of one from like a mental record from the ’90s or whatever, like a garage record, or techno record, and then it just goes in there. For some people that might be a bit mad. But for me, that’s normal, because I’m into everything, and have been for ages.

When you sit down, and you start a new track, and you put a couple sounds in, and then you start to realize that this is starting to feel like something—tell me about that.
If I get to a certain point, I just avoid sounding like somebody else. I’m always consciously trying to get away and make it as individual as possible. [A ladybug lands on Toddla T’s hand, and he blows it off.]

That’s good luck by the way.
Is it? It’s all going to go well now. Yeah, so that’s the main thing, just making, steering away and making it my own, and not making anything that sounds like anyone else. And that’s always a concern for me. That’s the most exciting thing, when you start making something and saying, ‘Well, this don’t really sound like nothing, but I like it.’

You have this back-and-forth conversation, which is, you want to make something that doesn’t sound like anyone else, but you also wanted to make an album that has a lot of your influences.
Yeah, of course. My take on that music though.



I mean, there are tracks on it that are totally ‘Prince sounding,’ and there are tracks that are totally ‘M.I.A. sounding,’ for instance.
Funny you should say that about M.I.A., actually, because "Galang" was produced in Sheffield in a flat with one of those old, cheap synths we were just talking about. Ross Orton produced that record, who’s someone who I use his studio. He don’t like M.I.A.—thinks she’s shit. He don’t care. He’ll tell you. He’s a producer, he ain’t caught up in no bullshit. That was the attitude in Sheffield at the time, it was a bit like, just do your thing. But, the hardest bit of making a record, when you’re switching between a lot of styles, is the cohesiveness. Because I want it to sound like a record, but I wanted to try different things, I didn’t want to make just hip hop, or dance, or garage, or reggae, or whatever.

When a lot of people make an album, it can oftentimes seem like the whole thing sounds the same all the way through. But like, you know, you’re record is definitely super varied, but it still sounds cohesive. What makes it Toddla T?
I guess it would be the sound of the drums, the sound of the bass, the sound of the mix, the effects; it’s produced all by me, so I’d like to think it all sounds similar, sonically. Even though the writing and the styles of the tunes might be different, it’s got a sound. So even the Prince-style track, ‘Watch Me Dance,’ has still got similar type of drum effect  as later in the album on a reggae-type track.

With like rock music and like indie music, you can kind of get away with something that’s ‘emotional,’ you can make whatever the fuck you want. It’s the feeling. And with electronic music production, you kind of have to be a little bit more calculated.
Yeah, I don’t know man. Like, if a geezer writes a track on a guitar and he sings, I don’t see it as that different as me making an instrumental and then getting someone in to write a song with them, just a whole different way. I was in a shop yesterday, and this indie track came on, and it was cool. I was thinking, this is so far removed from what I do, it’s unbelievable—the production, the sound, the writing—it’s so different, I can’t actually imagine doing that, but it was cool. He’s just kind of doing what I’m doing, but in such a different way.

What are you trying to do?
Just make tunes, really. I’ve just always done my own thing. I don’t think I could be here today if I had just started making dubstep, or whatever was popular at the time, because everyone’s doing that. I’ve always done my thing, which sometimes goes against me. Like when I DJ, it’s quite eclectic; I jump around. It’s funny, because I’m on tour at the minute with Roska, who is a U.K. Funky DJ from back home. He’s the same: even though he plays U.K. Funky, his sound is a lot of things in one. And we were just saying, there isn’t a set night that we go to, where they’ve booked a dubstep DJ or a house DJ, where it has to be just like dubstep or house and people know what they’re getting into. Whereas, when we play, we’re just bringing our thing to a night, rather than fitting into the night. Which is kind of cool man, because I don’t think I’d be here if I didn’t do that.

Does your eclecticism come from really loving music and being a consumer of it?
Absolutely. I was in the hotel last night, and I was on YouTube all night, just looking at new rappers, new songs, new production. I love that shit man; that’s my entertainment. Obviously, I can apply that, because I might buy the songs, or play them on the radio, or use an artist, or be inspired by a production. But first and foremost, I just love it, man. It’s just fun, it’s entertainment. It’s what I like to do.

One thing that stuck out at me on the research I was doing on you: you’re album leaked.
Oh yeah. I’m pissed.

It’s this 21st century problem that happens. And it brings into question digital ethics. I was wondering what you think about the way that music is right now in terms of digital, like how do you feel about getting leaked?
You know what? Records are always going to get leaked. Standard. But it pissed me off because it was so early. The guy that leaked it was a journalist. He was sent a record and he just abused his role. It was quite malicious. Not to me, personally, but just to music in general. If somebody sends you a record and you leak it, you know exactly what you’re doing. For me, that’s fucking me up a bit. It pissed me off because everything was going so well, in England, and then, all of a sudden, they have to put the record out, and it’s slowing me down. But, it’s always going to happen, whether it’s him, or someone finding the CD, or someone robbing the CD, or whatever. It’s a tricky one. I don’t think we’ve learned how to sell music again.

It’s really tough, because you can personally sell ‘you’: you can be a DJ, you can perform, all that shit. But the difficulty is the ability to sell bigger, because how are you going to work with the record label, if the record label becomes obsolete.
This is it. I make 95% of my money off of DJing. That’s me though, that ain’t the label. If I’m not putting records out, I won’t get DJ sets. I’ve got to put music out, really. And I want to put music out. So, the label needs to exist for me to have a career. But they need to make a living, because that’s a whole job in its own thing. Ninja Tune, my label, they’ve been really clever on how to look at different avenues of getting income: licensing, and syncing, and things like that that you don’t think of initially. But the records sales, that’s a big problem. We just need to learn how to sell music again, because I don’t think it’s really happened yet. It’s slowly getting there: I think iTunes is incredible. I was in the car last night, and I heard this new J. Cole record with Jay-Z. It was just amazing. As soon as I got to the room, I just went, ‘Search, buy album, boom.’  Ten minutes later, I had it, and that was pretty brilliant.

It’s getting a little bit easier to justify buying MP3s, because the physical act of buying is getting easier.
My friend says this all the time. He Googles tunes, and sometimes, and he wants to get it, but sometimes the first thing that comes up is an illegal thing. So, he just grabs it, and then he can’t actually find a legit one. We’ve got to reverse that. It’s so easy to get, you can literally press a button on your phone and it’s everywhere.

There are certain things they’re trying to do. I feel like Spotify is legit; it’s giving a little bit back to RIAA. That model used to be the radio, and now, Spotify is kind of like the new radio.
On demand radio. I see a lot of kids listen to my old albums on Spotify, which is cool.

But people still want the easy score.
Well, not everyone can afford everything that they desire. It’s totally tricky. Before, you’d save up for an album. But it’s cool; it’s just different now.

Digitally speaking, on the listener side, you get to listen to as much music as you possibly want. Whereas on the artist side, you can get lost in the amount of people that can make music.
The amount of content. There’s loads more out there now. It’s easier to make music, it’s easier to host music. I don’t think it’s a bad at all, people moan about it all the time: ‘There’s too much music!’ Fuck it. Just go with it.

Adapt, don’t cry.
Yeah. It’s not the days of going to a studio, paying an engineer, spending three weeks making a tune, mixing it down, mastering it, sending it to get pressed on white label vinyl, six months in the clubs, getting a radio spot. It’s just a different. And that’s cool, man.

As far as the record goes, how do you feel about what it’s going to do. Or, what do you need it to do?
I haven’t got big expectations. It’s difficult for me to say, because I’ve never had a record out in American before this one. A label like Ninja can handle something underground and specialist like me. I feel no pressure for me to go to places, i.e. mainstream playlists, because the label and the people around me don’t expect that, but if it goes there, so be it. Whereas if I was on a major label, I’d have to do that. I’d have no choice. I wouldn’t be able to go and just make something that’s a bit mental. There’s no expectations at all.

I feel like mainstream is a little bit more mental than it used to be. Do you feel that way?
Like the sound of the music? Absolutely, but there’s still a lot of shit. Like a lot of shit. There’s some good pop. Good pop’s the best music out there. When there’s a good pop record, you can’t fuck with that, it’s timeless. But then, there’s also a lot of shit. But that’s standard though, isn’t it? That’s probably been the same since people started making music.