Evolvers

Despite some remarkable beginnings, which included DMC World Championships and trend-setting hip hop mixes, London’s Scratch Perverts have almost become better known for their adaptability.

Early British hip hop gave DJs Tony Vegas, Prime Cuts and Plus One the inspiration to become world beaters on the scratch and crossfade. But since turntablism’s slow fade into obscurity, the trio have transformed themselves into club thumpers, capable of both starting the party and staying with the contemporary tastes of the scene.
“In the last five years there’s been a real explosion in youth music,” explains Tony Vegas from his Hackney home in London’s east.

“Dubstep is a real youth music, and a youth movement. This is music being made by young people, and that’s been a big change. The hip hop scene that I grew up in: that’s gone, that’s changed, that’s 15 years ago, and now with these kids, the biggest reaction I always get is the tunes that nobody has ever heard before. That’s when music is relevant to a generation or to an age group that’s craving new music. There’s a real subculture about it again now, and that’s the first time for a while that it’s really felt that way.”

Vegas is relentlessly positive about this phenomenon, and it’s a refreshing change from the doom, gloom and dissonance you often get from older artists. “Without people of this generation, we’d all be playing the same old shit still. There are pressures that go with it, no doubt, but at the same time you have to hold your hands together and feel very lucky that you’re living through this time and there are a huge amount of talented young people driving this interest in music.”

A Scratch Perverts performance always covers many musical genres, but Vegas confesses it will be a set anchored in dubstep that the trio will spin when they return for this year’s Blah Blah Blah festival. “The set’s going to be fast moving and there will be a lot of skills stuff that we now incorporate into the set, rather than make a showcase of it,” Vegas says. “It’s the best of both worlds, and I’m quite excited to deliver a good, fast set – high energy and lots of action. I can’t wait. It’s been a few years and I’m really excited.”

SCRATCH PERVERTS PLAY BLAH BLAH BLAH AT SOUTH BANK CULTURAL FORECOURT WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 28.