I’ve read you are a very active and restless man. What’s your secret? Or better, what inspires you and really keeps you going?
Well, I’m a workaholic, I love what I do, and I love music…so it’s very easy to work hard when u love what you are doing.
Tell us about the very beginning. How do you see the evolution of sound and music to present?
At school we are taught about evolution, how we evolved from apes. You can see the chart of the progression. Well, that’s how I see my sound, also evolved from some primitive ape style sound to where it is now... It’s very important for me to keep going, create and move forward.
You’ve played with a good number of bands and musicians worldwide. Which of these do you keep a better memory of and felt you learnt the most from?
They all have been great fun. Doing the stuff with Mucho, working with ONE SELF, doing my present project - The Electric (Lil Ste, Pugs Atoms, Sabira Jade and myself), working with Skinny Man, Demolition Man… All these are great. But I guess working with Yarah Bravo has been the most fun!
What started the well-known Russian Percussion Live Project? Are your still working and performing together as a band?
No, the evolution of Russian Percussion was ONESELF, and when that stopped that’s that. I guess the RP was a pre-cursor to anything I’m doing live now and to how important it is for me to keep working 'live' as well as producing...
The success of “The art of Listening” is simply unavoidable. Would you agree that the album is a crucial reference point on the unique “Vadim-sound trademark” label?
This album was a milestone for me musically because it was the first time I used live musicians, also from this album onwards my music starts to incorporate lots of live instruments, from horns, to violins, drums, keys....
Tell us about ONE SELF. What positive and negative aspects would you say stand out from this powerful union?
It’s the first proper group I had in the sense of a live touring group and also having an album. We had great reactions from the crowd, people felt motivated and inspired by us in a way that never happened to me prior to this. Unfortunately Yara and Blu Rum felt out and that was that, so ONE SELF is dead now.
What are your current and near-future projects, and how far you’d like to go with it all? Anything cooking with your new Reggae alias, Junior Rankin?
I have a brand new group - The Electric – that’s me on the beats with Lil Ste, Sabira Jade and Pugs Atoms. We already have something like 12 songs, and it’s a mix of Hip Hop, Soul, and a little Electronic, but all with the bump-a-bump.I’ m also recording an album with Sena, from Ghana and working on the next Dj Vadim album which will be more Reggae/ Ragga. And I’m remixing loads of things - this year I have already done Nextmen, Sola Rosa, Kissing the Lips, Alice Russel, Stevie Wonder, Mr Dero, Kidkanevil, Chali Tuna, MIA and Fat Freddy’s Drop....so busy busy!
Please could you name for us the 3 most important things to you, both in life and music.
The 3 most important things to me in my life are God, my wife, and my family and friends.
