DJ POGO

DJ Pogo is undoubtedly one of the UK’s top turntablists, widely respected as a great ambassador and connoisseur on the scene. His The Breaks series of compilations have brought the history of hip hop breakbeats to a whole new generation of inquisitive heads; his Lyrical Lounge club night packs Camden’s Jazz Café every month; he pioneered the concept of Team DJing with Cutmaster Swift and produced Monie Love before she hit the big time. We caught up with him to get the low-down on the next chapter in the Pogo story...

How did you get the name ‘Pogo’?

It comes from way before I started DJing. I used to be a computer freak - in the ZX81, Spectrum era and there was a game on the Spectrum called Pogo. The original was actually called Q Bert - so DJ Q Bert takes his name from the same game! Anyway, I used to play this game all the time and my friends started calling me Pogo. Eventually, I sold all my computer gear and my BMXs to get my turntables - but the name stuck.

How did you first get into DJing?

I’ve got a lot to thank my sisters and mum for. My mum used to listen to soca and reggae music - she’s got a big record collection herself. She would stand up at our one turntable and do her own selection. You had all different forms of music on the pop charts too - I remember the New Wave stuff, Gary Numan using synths for the first time, Chic’s ‘Good Times’... Then one day in 1979 I was listening to the pop charts with my sisters and it was like ‘Brand new entry, fresh in this week!’ and up pops ‘Rapper’s Delight’ and I was like ‘What the hell is this?!’ That was when I heard my first hip hop record. At the same time I’d seen our school caretaker DJing at an end of term disco, and my uncle had also got turntables and I was totally fascinated by it. And then they had scratch DJs and breakers on The Old Grey Whistle Test on the TV and that freaked me out. By 1984, I was DJing Tuesday nights at Club 85 in East London - which has been knocked down - playing R&B and rap.

Which other DJs did you look up to in those early days?

We used to go to Spats in the West End and I met a lot of great DJs there - like this guy called Cosmic Jam. Him, Mastermind, Cutmaster Swift and the Imperial Mixers - they were the main crews back then. I used to follow Cosmic Jam around like a puppy. He was phenomenal. No one talks about him today but if he was around DJing now he’d eat everybody, me included. He taught me a lot of stuff. You had to learn fast to keep up. In those days all you did was record-hunting and DJing if that was your chosen art. I started taking it really seriously in ‘86 - I wasn’t one for messing around with girls, I didn’t go to parties (except the early warehouse parties we were involved with)... You had to hibernate, practising ten hours a day. If you weren’t putting in those ten hours, you felt bad!

Where were you playing out at that time?

All the early warehouse parties, before raves came along. We used to go along with bolt cutters, open old factories and play. And we did the first British Rap Jam - Freestyle, it was called - in 1985. Wherever we heard there was a jam going on we would go. If it was in Bristol, we’d jump on a train and go- we met Roni Size and Krust at rap parties years ago.

And in the late 80s you got into the competitive turntablist scene?

At that time, the competition DJs weren’t really on a street level and people kept saying I should audition for the DMC because I’d walk it. So I did the audition - Chad Jackson was there, the champion - and I played a set that practically wiped him. He left the room and didn’t want to know. DMC were like ‘You’ve got to do our competition’ - it opened up their eyes to a whole new world. I kept telling them that there were lots of guys like me. There was Dr. K (who’s DJ Hype now), The Syndicate, The Deckmasters... I phoned a lot of my friends up and told them to enter and that’s how the British crews got involved with DMC. I opened the door, the floodgates... The DMC thing changed our lives. Me and Cutmaster Swift were doing a double team thing at the time and they sent us on a world tour, which went on to spawn the world team championships!

And were you producing tracks at the time?

I was working with two rappers - Monie Love and MC Mellow. Cooltempo and Republic signed them. I produced Monie’s ‘I Can Do This’ which went top 20 in the British charts. I’m still doing production now. I’ve been working with Cutmaster Swift and Biznizz since the 80s and we call ourselves the En4cers now. En4cers just means ‘to enforce your opinions on other people so they have to listen to what you’re saying.’ Madcut from Bristol’s also involved - he’s going to be in the DMC this year. Watch out for hi