Yeah, man. He won't look me in the eye. Why won't he tell me how old he is? You're makin' issues at this precise moment. I've heard blue-rinsed old ladies being less evasive.
I'm like Cliff Richard. Put that down. He stares at his feet. I tell him I have no problem with him, and that knowing someone's age, even approximately, helps you get a better picture of that person.
No response. How old was he when he got into hip-hop? And I came out DJ-ing around ' When he was nine? I'll have to work it out. Next question. Does he think it's a strange question? Come on, man, I'm in showbusiness, man. Not showbusiness, but Showbusiness, man. You can understand that. When I tell him we're done, he exhales, long and hard, before bemoaning at some length those who "be hatin' on me.
Outside, a baffled man in Hare Krishna garb stares at the bright red van. I shake Westwood's hand, looking at a pleasant but hugely over-sensitive guy in early middle age. He looks at me as if I'm the devil. Then he heads toward the van. The last time I see him, he and the Krishna devotee are knocking fists. The real-life Ali G. He's a middle-class white man who's the face of hip-hop to faithful fans of his Radio 1 show. But not everyone loves Tim Westwood - last summer he was shot in a London street.
Danny Leigh meets him. I don't hate him at all. Depends what newspaper you read, man. Paul, do I know how old you are? Let's move on. I ask more questions but he just keeps taking offence. What's your life, man? Wha' appenin', man? Yo, man Flex was there for me for that and I'm very grateful to him from everything, man. He's been an inspiration from day one, man.
You once cited how hard it is for a hip-hop DJ from the U. How do you feel the perception of British tastemakers and DJs in hip-hop has changed? I've had a blessed life. It has been a blessed journey, man, and an amazing experience.
I think with the internet and everything, the role of the DJ is so changed now. We're not the tastemaker, we're not the person that brings you the new music. There's no such thing as a world premiere. The consumer would get the music before us and be able to find what music he likes as opposed to what we're saying is hot. I think the role of what we do now is just to reflect the soundtrack to people's lives.
So I'm just reflecting people and how they live their Saturday nights. So if you're in the car going out to a club or going out with your boys or if you're at the crib getting ready to go out, chilling, smoking, whatever you're doing, what I'm doing is just providing you a soundtrack.
Like when you go to a club, just getting turned up. So that's what I see my role as and I think through the likes of YouTube now, we can visualize and syndicate a lot of stuff that we do so it's blessed that people in the states are seeing what we're doing 'cause before when it was cassettes what used to happen was is on that school bus run on a Monday morning, people would be saying like, "Yo, who's got the Westwood tape?
But now you can just syndicate and get it out there for people to have if they want it and consume it, man. So I think it's blessed that some of the shit that we've done now can be experienced throughout, which is blessed, man. I mean, I've just been grateful to be part of this, I've been grateful to put in work.
We've had some real moments, man, some real hip-hop moments, man. You've been at the forefront of the U. Who would you say makes up the Mount Rushmore of U. I'ma be honest, going back in the day, there was a lot of wack U.
It was all doom and gloom, it was like I mean, anyone can rap and anyone can dress like a hip-hop artist so it doesn't make you any good. So everybody used to rap in American accents, everyone was rapping some miserable shit, man, [while] we was up in the clubs celebrating life, man. There was some good cats out there in those early days. The London Posse were like some early cats in the game that had something good to say and then S.
But what's happened now is our own music came, this style called grime and instead of beats being 70 beats per minute, they'd be beats per minute and no samples, just like a crazy, intense music. And don't get me wrong, grime is very much like punch you in the face music, man.
It was like real out there, like, intense hard music and some great artists come through that. And the artists which dominate to this day through it, like Skepta, Stormzy and Jme, incredible. But then, what we're seeing now is the rise of U.
And Giggs has definitely been the founder of that. He represents where he's from, Peckham, intense, man. Peckham rides for that cat, man, and he's made some of the biggest records out there. And then also in that, you now got all these new U. They're representing they're specific areas and they're so connecting, man. You could call it, like, U. It's absolutely the realness of what they're living and they're telling their stories and their stories are the realness, man. And people are really buying into it, man.
Especially young people; they can so really relate to their struggle, man. It's all the street shit, but it's the most powerful music out there at the moment. So I think U. And we represent a lot of these guys. We do this thing called Crib Sessions. Giggs, he was banned from the radio, he was not allowed to come into the radio [station].
They thought he was too gangster to have in there and then he had some beef with one of the producers and he was banned. So what we did, we set it up in my crib where I live, where I keep my records and we got all of the equipment in there and now these artists come down and do freestyles, we do the occasional interview.
These artists are doing enormous numbers, getting millions of views from these Crib Sessions, literally millions. People are really, really feeling it, man, because it's not the radio, it's not no editorial restrictions, there's no restrictions of swear words and the artists can come be themselves and get their drink on, get their smoke on, bring all the crews, all they mens and dem so they can get they shine and they can just win.
And talking about U. He's setting it on fire, man. You'd [also] have to claim Dizzee [Rascal], man.
You'd have to put Dizzee in the history of. And you'd have to put another artist called Wiley in the history. They make really different music to what they started as, obviously. Dizzee makes music with Calvin Harris so he's obviously big in that white scene, but Dizzee was definitely founding in it. The s saw names like Dizzee Rascal and Lady Sovereign exposed to the public, but they never seemed to be wholly embraced by the American rap fans compared to how artists like Skepta are now.
Why do you think grime is finally beginning to catch on in a big way in the states after all of these years? I think, maybe, and I can't call it, but I think Skepta so positioned himself and went to the states a lot. And then the love that Drake's shown him, I think those cosigns by those major artists, especially Drake, has made people pay attention to what Skepta's doing.
And Skepta's part of the crew Boy Better Know so people have looked at them and then from there, you'd see the likes of Stormzy, you'd see the likes of Section Boyz, Lethal Bizzle and so on. But I think, really, the heat's come from Drake showing love, man, and that love is really powerful, man, and I think that's why it's resonated more in the states.
But that's only from me looking at it from the U. How did it feel to be vetted like that by one of the hardest artists in the game? When that record came out, man, people up in The Tunnel used to think I was some out of state drug dealer that Noreaga was [dealing with]. Like I was the plug, I was the plug in Atlanta or Miami that he was coming to see [ laughs ]. They didn't realize I was a DJ, man, they thought I was the plug.
That's what they thought, man, 'cause in those days you couldn't even research cats like you can now so yeah, people thought I was some plug up in Atlanta or Miami. Yeah, man. That's just love, man. He showed love, man. That was my theme music for many years. We was really shutting down shit with that, man. That was love, that was real love. Yeah, [we're] super cool.
He came over with C-N-N the other day and everybody was getting high backstage, man, and he came to the crib and did a freestyle as well, man. I got nothing but love and respect. These veterans of the game, we wouldn't be here where we are now without them, man, we gotta pay them homage.
We're probably living in the best era, I feel now. I think is the biggest era of hip-hop and it's only gonna continue, but those veterans, man, that's part of me. That's all just part of this journey and I've got nothing but so much superthug love for those guys, man.
You've had a lot of interesting and humorous moments. Most recently it was having Rick Ross pay homage to pears , as well as your interview with Young Thug , which got a lot of feedback as well.
That was hilarious, man. That was a hilarious moment. I think with Rick Ross, man I don't know, I've met him so many times before, but that was just a moment where he was high, I was high [ laughs ]. Also the one backstage with Young Thug, that was a big moment for me, man. That was real good. Nah, man. They was just real casual throwaway things. To be honest, that pears stuff, we didn't even see it until it became a meme and then it was a Vine.
And at that time I was on LWR. LWR was one of the early pirates. To tell you just a bit about the pirate technology, those early pirates like Invicta and Horizon, which were the first pirates back home, they were very much controlled by these white guys who were from Essex, which is out of town.
And LWR managed to get the technology on how to build a transmitter and that was the first street-owned, street-run station. That was like the founding father for all the pirates back home and the pirate scene is perhaps the most important scene out there in the UK. And soon that technology became available, so we used to broadcast every day.
There was also a loophole in the law as well. Sometimes they bust the studios, but they rarely bust the DJs. But in the era of LWR…. Some guy researched this and found this out. And as a result, everyone was broadcasting from their crib and nobody was getting raided.
So we were legal stations for like two years. How instrumental were pirate radio stations in getting music out there?
What used to happen is, the records would come in to the specialist stores, certain stores were known for hip-hop, and on the pirates it would be mostly club DJs.
I used to do like a drive time show on pirate, Monday to Friday, four till six, and we used to broadcast from North Peckham estate, which like was a notorious estate in South London.
From your experience, warming up for some of the big DJs or playing the odd hours, what was the value in that for you that you got out of that? I mean, to be honest, this place is not full of established DJs yet, so I am sure that you all have to play your position over the time. Some days you have to play the back, you know?
You were saying that all that music was so important to you when you were getting into it and you see these kids, who are 17 to 19 and Biggie and 2Pac is their old-school. I was with Russell Simmons the other day and we were talking about this is being a beautiful journey, this hip-hop game, a beautiful experience, a beautiful journey in life.
I met him on the second hip-hop record. We helped make 50 Cent enormous, we helped make Eminem enormous, but we recognize that as heat and may that work. How do you balance moving with the times with something that you mentioned earlier on about responsibility towards the crowd and understanding the history of where this music comes from as well?
How do you balance that? I think you have to realise, now and today we are in the hip-hop generation. A lot of record companies talk about this being like a rap era for the next five years. This is no rap era; those are the same people who said this hip-hop game would never fucking last. You are saying you move with the times and you move with the music, do you still like the music that you are playing?
I have a passion for this game, I love the game. I love the music, shit excites me. Now, hearing a new 50 Cent track, which is hot, excites me.
Let me just tell you about the business side of things. The artists come in the show and we really talk. My Friday show is only two hours long and when 50 Cent came in, he talked for two hours, I think we played two records. When Jay-Z comes in I really want to learn from these guys. On his new album, he talks about his old concept that was his marketing plan. He elevated this DJ game beyond your wildest dreams — he is bigger than artists. You know what I mean?
You got to be able to understand the business. Realness is with this as well, man. You moved from pirate to, I guess, mainstream radio. Obviously, on pirate stations you could play whatever the hell you wanted to. What happened on mainstream? Did you decide what you wanted to play? Even though I was mad at the time, just being on the radio for 15 minutes, when I used to do a daytime, drive time show on the pirates.
I was only on 15 minutes at three in the morning, at least I made all of my mistakes in the middle of the night. And so by time I got my main slots, by the time I moved to Radio 1, I really made all of my mistakes, really. I mean, I still get into trouble, I still fuck up a lot, but a lot of those dumb mistakes I made early in the game.
I made those on pirate radio. No, you just teach yourself and then when you get together with people like Marley Marl, you know, I was always very keen on listening to New York radio, seeing how they got down. Especially, for a lot of these underground cats because we have a lot of resources at our fingertips, digital formats and also the ability to burn CDs really quickly, etc.
But there is a revolution definitely about to happen. There is definitely a great time to be an independent. I think there is gonna be a real revolution about to happen. But I think the revolution, which has happened already in the past, has been the joint venture. To me the revolution of hip-hop has been the empowerment and getting people rich from the ghetto. People have come from the street and now own multi-million dollar businesses and companies.
I really, really respect him. Yeah, you know, when we were first in the game and UK rap was starting to really jump off the first time around with the likes of Cookie Crew and Hi-Jack and groups like that. We produced some records ourselves. The thing with London posse, they were rhyming in a UK accent as opposed to an American accent, which was really happening at that time.
And that was a label called Justice and we did that for a while, but then I just found it too hard, to be honest. Plus it was real hard work, plus UK rap never really jumped off either. One of the things I would say about Justice, that was my company — a record label — and then Justice became my company now, Justice Entertainment. I work for Radio 1, but they pay me a production fee to deliver the radio, so I hire the studios, I hire my own team of people I work with — producers, broadcast assistants.
So that is definitely one option to look at. That street team promotes all my own parties for me and promotes the radio show and promotes the album. We recruit the street team literally off the radio, from the streets, from the clubs. And also we do a lot of parties, we get booked for a lot of parties and we earn good money out of that.
But this is just how it goes. What you got to understand about that is that if I got a party in London, Birmingham, Bristol or Manchester, which I promote myself that enables me to have a street team that can work that, make that happen and it also enables me to have like 30, leaflets out there with my name on it, my show times and it just keeps you hot in the street. Nowadays, if you want to be successful on the radio, you got to be hot in the street.
If you want to be successful as a club DJ, you got to be on the radio. And not all of it makes money, man. You use the money that you earned from elsewhere to subsidise other things that you need to do.
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