The Bristol / Welsh Connection: 80s & 90s
Although Cardiff is my hometown, I’ve spent a quarter of my life, at various moments, living over the bridge in Bristol. I’ve always felt a strong connection between the two cities, to the point where I’ve even argued the case for Bristol being part of Wales (but that’s for another day). In my role as Hip-hop Coordinator at Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales), I’ve been collecting oral histories around the impact of hip hop culture here, and I’ve become even more aware of the many links that bind Bristol with our country. There’s some great connections between them and so I wanted to write a little something on their shared histories. This will eventually lead to one of the most noteworthy moments in recent rap ‘beef’ history. But that’s in the next post. First let’s start at the beginning.
As with most hip hop history here in the UK, it starts with “breakdancing” and in particular, the breakin’ battles between Cardiff and Bristol crews in the first half of the 80s. The initial one of these was between the Bush Ploy crew from Bristol with Dennis Murray and members of E Force such as Smurf and Pencil, and then Jaffa and Chrissy Stevens of Street Crew with Mark Allen representing Cardiff. Bristol came out on top but all of them would then head to Maskells in Newport to battle together against crews from across South Wales. A mutual respect grew and friendships formed which led to Jaffa and Chrissy spending most of their weekends over in Bristol, breaking, hanging out at the Special K cafe or going to the Wild Bunch parties.
In 1986, Jaffa was at St Paul’s Carnival with Dennis Murray who was playing on the Galaxy Affair sound system, whilst Wild Bunch were just down the road outside DJ Milo’s house. It was whilst observing Murray ‘backspinning’ two copies of ‘Headlines’ by Midnight Star that Jaffa finally realised he needed to buy his own set of record decks and become a DJ.
Dennis Murray would go on to become one of the biggest DJs of the rave period under the name Easygroove, whilst Jaffa would help to lay the foundations of the hip hop scene here in Wales, and remains one of its cornerstones still today. It was DJ Jaffa who first set up his decks outside of Rudy’s Donut stand in Queen Street, Cardiff to create the first proper hip hop jam here. He brought a microphone along, just in case there happened to be any MCs about and a young rapper from Gabalfa called Dike (pronounced Dee-Kay) jumped up with him. They would eventually form the crew Hardrock Concept with local graf writers such as Coma and Fina Outline, and rappers 4Dee (Mellodee at the time) and MC Eric (now Me One) of Technotronic fame.
Bristol remained a regular spot to visit for Welsh hip hop heads throughout the late 80s, as the scene was much more established. The record shops were better, the jams were better, and the graf writers would head to the Dug Out in Barton Hill to check out pieces from the Bristol artists (the links between graffiti artists go a lot deeper but I don’t have enough info to cover that side of things just yet). There were also better radio stations with pirates such as FTP and BAD. That said, on a good day you could pick up Tristan B’s show on BBC Radio Bristol from as far away as St Mellons.
During this period more connections formed as 4Dee entered a rap contest at Dean Lane Skate Park in Bedminster, coming second but securing a few shows with Dennis Murray (who he also knew from the breaking battles) on the strength of his performance.
Meanwhile over in Swansea the hip hop scene was building. Martha’s Vineyard was the spot for heads on a Monday night and they also hosted the Welsh heats for the biggest annual DJ contest in the world, the DMC Championships. There were some great turntablists in South Wales. I’ve posted previously about DJ Excel (aka Huw Wackman) from Cwmbran, but the best in Swansea at the time was arguably DJ Demo. In 1989, he was the only Welsh DJ to qualify for the evening heat at Papillons in Bristol City Centre. Although he didn’t win that night, this brought him to the attention of DJ Bunjy, who would become another pioneering DJ and producer of the 90s rave scene (as well as a founding member of reggae band Laid Blak), but at the time was looking for a scratch DJ to join him, Mikee Eff (who later had a big hit with Nomad as Mikee Freedom) and Tricky Kid (yes ‘that’ Tricky) in forming a new crew called Un Deux Trois Inc. DJ Demo became a member and even arranged for them to play at Martha’s Vineyard through DJ Lomas (yet another rave legend).
As well as Jaffa hanging out with the Wild Bunch, and DJ Demo being in a crew with Tricky, there is one other link with Massive Attack. I mentioned Dike from Hardrock Concept already, well his sister Nicolette who also lived in Gabalfa during the early 90s, was the vocalist for two tracks on the ‘Protection’ album, both ‘Three’ and ‘Sly’.
Of course, given the fact that Bristol has always been a few steps ahead culturally, it’s not surprising that a number of my fellow countrymen end up residing there. Myself and Blaktrix had already lived there before even moving to Cardiff or starting to rap, though we would both end up back there again afterwards (more to come on Blaktrix next time). But in the 90s there were three Welsh rappers of note that made the city their home and became woven into the fabric of the Bristol hip hop scene.
First up is Majesta from Magor. He became associated with the Transcript Carriers, a crew which included Sir Beanz OBE and Mista Deed (aka Scoutleader Deed) who went on to form Parlour Talk. Majesta put out a tape as The Sound Of Fury in 1997. This featured a DJ called Frikshun (aka DJ Name) and guest spots from Parlour Talk. The tape came out on a label called Undivided Attention, which confusingly was also the group name used by Beanz, Deed and Majesta for later releases on Hairy Parents Recordings, but more about that when we get into the 2000s next post. For now, here’s a track featuring Majesta, from Parlour Talk’s 1999 album ‘Padlocked Tonic’ on Acid Jazz.
Nobsta Nutts from the Headcase Ladz was the next rapper to head out there in the mid 90s. He seems to have kept a relatively low profile music wise in this period, but he did help to inspire Junior Disprol, then known simply as Ehf, into moving out there as well. Both were working on a hip hop fanzine called ‘From The Underground’, which was meant to include an interview that Nobsta had done with Bristol hip hop stalwart Turoe, and another that Junior had with the Numskullz. Sadly neither ended up being printed but Junior started to get more and more involved with the locals. He had linked up with some of the scene’s mainstays such as Bubba Loui, Probe Mantis and Awkward, at hip hop nights in TJ’s, Newport and the poetry tent in Glastonbury’s Green Fields, where they held freestyle sessions from 1996.
The end of the decade was a great period for Bristol hip hop and Junior jumped right in. There were: rap cyphers at Cosies; battles in Backyard Records, where he met the third Aspects member and co-owner of the shop, El-Eye; and great labels such as Hombré, through which Aspects released ‘Revenge Of The Nerds’, featuring Junior Disprol on the track ‘Here Come The Monsters’, or Hombré’s subsidiary label, Mapache Brand which released ‘Binary Exponents Volume #1’ by the Binary Brothers (Jamie Hombre and MC Retna) featuring Junior alongside Braintax, El Eye, Sir Beans OBE on the track ‘You Better Change’ plus also a vinyl release for the Sir Beanz and Junior collaboration, ‘Mars Attacks’. The first time the name Junior Disprol appeared officially.
‘Mars Attacks’ had originally been on the ‘Tape Feast’ cassette, with Junior recording under the name Fog Scratch Leg. I bought a copy directly from Beanz in 1999, largely because of that track. I didn’t know Junior at that point, but had loved his feature on the Shonky LP. The tape also features a track with Majesta. Both rappers by then had been fully accepted as honorary Bristolians, to the point where Junior was on Bristol’s team in the infamous Bristol Vs Brighton battle. There was a Cardiff Vs Bristol battle too, but that was in the 2000s, so to see which team he chose for that you’ll have to wait til the next post, where there will be more from these two and a whole bunch of others besides.
Note: Nobsta Nutts had recorded a track for the ‘Tape Feast’ cassette as well, but was majorly hungover on the day and didn't make the final cut.
