Can you introduce your self and tell us about what you do?
My name is Goldie, I’m from Metelheadz UK. I’ve been involved in Drum & Bass music for 15 years and involved in Urban Arts and Urban Culture for 25 years.
Can you give us a brief history about your style, your music and how you came about it?
I met a group of guys called Reinforced who were mixing cutting edge music, marrying rave technology with Breakbeat and Hip Hop; it was the perfect fusion for me. I went to live in New York as a Graffiti Writer, did my University on the streets there, went back to the UK, started going to raves, heaven and that’s it… end of story.
The name Goldie, how did you come up with it?
I was in institutes from three to eighteen. I was in care; I was in three foster homes, adoption and 5 different orphanages. I came out of there and I came back and found my mother when I was eighteen and I kind of met her and started to understand her and I went to live with her in a place called Firetown, which is a bit like Brooklyn, sorry the Bronx really, and I just grew locks and became a Rastafarian as everyone does in the hood; everyone in England becomes Rasta, it’s part of your University of Culture, and I grew locks and I had very light hair and they all called me Goldie Locks. Then, when I started Break Dancing I had Goldie Locks on my tracksuit, when I cut my hair, I took off the Locks and kept the Goldie and there was coined the name. It wasn’t the gold, the gold came later.
What is the story with the gold?
Well I’ve always been fascinated with Alchemy. I mean it’s taken me forty four years to work out what I do and I’m an Alchemist, it’s as simple as that there’s no other explanation because I do everything. I don’t know why I do everything and why I want to do different things; why do I make jewellery, why do I melt gold, why do I make music in a studio, why do I conduct, why do I make music for an orchestra, why do I make long compositions, why don’t I make short ballets, why do I act? And it’s just Alchemy. I take the form that’s present and I mould the form.
You talked about making music for orchestra and the proms, how was that and what did you do?
The challenge for me in deciphering my life, of being misunderstood, is no longer in a sense, because I can go into their world, the belly of the devil, the Albert Hall and create a composition, not with electronic music. I had no aid, it was a blank screen, with an engineer that I don’t know, with Sibelius and I’m like okay we’re going get to know each other and you are going to make this music the way I want to make it. I put rhythms into a Dictaphone and just made it note by note, little by little created this piece of music.
When they asked me to do this they thought they were going to get Drum & Bass with a few strings. Nah, doesn’t work like that, it has to be a complete integration of the styles. Classic Goldie was a piece of music they commissioned me to make for concert orchestra, in the Albert Hall; I had eight weeks to do it and I did it and I went there and watched it being performed with another conductor and I just watched him play this piece of music and when you do that it’s a different way of learning because you realise you’ve had to let this go, you’ve had to let go and put it in the hands of an orchestra that’s going to play live and a conductor who will conduct them live. That’s different, that’s trust, that’s letting go. Which is also a lesson for me in life; you have to let go.
If you could interview anybody living at the moment, who would it be and why and what would you ask them?
The guy that I would interview the most right now at this present time is Gustoff Doddlemel, a South American conductor, without a doubt a fucking genius. A guy that comes in front of an orchestra, with a youth orchestra from Venezuela, that have grown together like a family; they were given violins at the age of four and he’s seen these kids grow. This guy can take an entire score and can put it there and can just do the whole fucking concert, he doesn’t have to see the score, he’s like a photographic artist, and that’s what I like.
