Diversion Tactics Interview

"We make hip hop, it’s not local and the drums smack."

If you hadn't heard, Diversion Tactics are back with their album 'Careful on the Way Up'. Zygote, Jazz T and Chubby took time to answer my questions about the LP, the label and life:

Certified Banger: Whasup? Let’s begin with introductions: Who are you all and what part do you play in the Diversion Tactics machine?

Chubby: Frontman. Emcee. Recovering alcoholic.

Jazz T: Deejay. Producer. Promoter

Zygote: Producer, Engineer, Deejay

CB: Tell us about your new album. How would you compare it to your first album? What did you want to achieve with this release?

Jazz T: We toured hard off the first album so it was time to drop the new ish. Some of the tracks were performed live over the years anyway. As me and Zy had done our solo projects we all wanted to create another D.T. classic.

Chubby: It's a testament to keep doing your thing, making music your way and staying true to the culture. A little nudge to those that were full of it and ahead of themselves when we came up and ain't about no more. We got to remind people we still here in spite of all the Boot releases from the last eight years. We grown up. The music grown up. And still we proceed.

Zygote: The first album was sort of 15 years in the making; it was a lot of stuff we had to get off our chests. The new album has hints of the style of the first but also hints of maybe where we are going as well as where we are from.

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Diversion Tactics, Krate Krusaders, Tactical Thinking and 3 Amigos Live At Top Billin!

Featuring the hefty line up of Diversion Tactics, Krate Krusaders, Tactical Thinking and 3 Amigos this is defo not one to miss for you south coasters. 9th December is the date, White Rabbit is the place - I only wish I could be there.

'Careful On The Way Up' - Diversion Tactics (album review)

Authentic Hip Hop from the UK – don’t believe that? OK – Percee P and Tim Dog, two pioneering Bronx rappers, feature on this LP. Believe me now? Thought so. Need proof from the UK? UK legend Blade endorses this by lending an out-of-retirement verse – dopeness and total awesomeness in my books.

‘No Collaborations’ features no collaborations – with lyrics like “if you think this is about you, then this is about you” Chubby holds his own over the banging beat shaming you for ever needing big names to recommend ‘Careful On The Way Up’ to you. As well as Blade ‘Three Card Blag’ features back-on-the-rise D.Gritty – top tune.

When top quality producers Jazz T and Zygote aren’t doing their dusty thing, Tommy Koi is flipping some 80s-sounding cheese on ‘Return of the Ladies Man’ and The Last Skeptik is doing the honours on the neck snapping ‘Where I’m From?’ (on which Chubby discusses the roots of Hip Hop).

Previously heard tracks ‘Can’t Swim’ and ‘Back To School’ (produced by J-Zone) still sound aces as part of this small (35 minutes – just how I like it) but perfectly formed LP with won’t be released until January 11th 2010 on the Boot label.

Ty, Wizard, Foreign Beggars, Diversion Tactics - Links and News

Ty is featuring all over the shop these days, and his latest feature is on The Beatmonkey's 'For The People' (which you can hear here at youtube). You can also buy it here with its lovely remixes at itunes.

Check out the new Cappo and Endemic track from Endemic's 'Needle Drop' EP out soon - it's on youtube.

Someone's also whacked up a whole host of rips from Wizard's 'Ear To The Beat' (Ramson Badbonez's 'Jammin On The Street' for example) on youtube - go listen then cop the CD from Suspect Packages - it's well worth your cash. Wizard also has just dropped his 'Spare Time Remixes Vol. 2' as a free download here.

Also on the itunes front: you can now get hold of Diversion Tactics' new single 'Can't Swim'/'Back To School' which features production from J-Zone.

Also on the Suspect Packages front (support them, they support our scene more than anyone): you can pre-order 'White Noize' by Orphans of Cush, 'United Colours of Beggatron' by Foreign Beggars and 'Alphabetix Anonymous' by Alphabetix - all worth gambling on for sure. LDZ's 'The Puppa Murc EP' is now available there too. Disorda also has news of a Dubbledge mixtape coming soon called 'One Inch Punch!' - sounds good.

Today's UK Hip Hop Free Stuff - Sway, Diversion Tactics, Percy Filth and more

There's decent music and stuff coming at me from all directions so here's another one of those posts where you can download a few unrelated tracks:

Just got Sway's version of 'Run This Town' - the Jay-Z track that most MCs are now riding. Sway does as well as you'd expect him to. In other Sway/Jay-Z news here's Sway chatting about Al Shux, Sway's boy who produced 'Little Derek', 'Products', 'Back 4 U' and 'Saturday Night Hustle', who has just produced 'Empire State Of Mind' on Jay-Z's 'Blueprint 3'. Oh, and here's the behind the scenes video for his latest single 'Mercedes Benz'.

Ed Strong of the almighty and underrated IRS crew sent me a new track from them this morning. It's called 'Cold City', it's produced by Wizard and is a return to form for the boys - it's got me reaching for their 2007 album 'The World Is Theirs'. Check the interview I did with them back then. Look out for a mixtape soon.

I can also point you towards some free clean downloads of Diversion Tactics forthcoming 12" single. 'Can't Swim' is produced by Zygote and Jazz T and 'Back To School' is produced by J-Zone! Both tracks are beasts and great examples of proper entertaining Hip Hop - watch how you relate to 'Back To School'!

I also picked up this track by Mr. Jinx over at his bandcamp page via the UKHH forum. The track is called 'Ha Ha Ha' and Mr. Jinx appears to be Scotlandish and may possibly be on Scotland Yard Recordings. Also, here's one of those youtube video things for his track 'It's Coming'.

You've probably heard this by now but Percy Filth dropped this little freebie of a beat on Twitter and I'm really feeling it so here it is: 'At The End Of The Day' - could by many a footballer's theme song.

Organix have dropped part 5 of their series and this time the topic is bad experiences and it features Mal, Scrabble, Dweller, Pez, Diligent, Fingers, T.A.D and Trick.

Here's a track by 'On The Radar' artist, Miss Tofelees. It's called 'Move', it features Kats, Domer and Ryan O'neil and is going to be on 'Almost Fameless Mixtape Vol.4', which will be released September 27th, as well as the Almost Fameless Mixtape UK Edition, which will feature a few previously released and unreleased tracks by Miss Tofelees and Jone$y including collaborations with several UK emcees (some of whom I've featured on Certified Banger) and other UK producers.

Lastly, here's a few tracks from newcomer Naturekid. You've got 'I Like Getting High', which is what it sounds like it is, (can anyone tell me which other song shares the sample?) there's 'Coolin'' which is actually by singer Terrence Mas featuring Naturekid and there's 'Bring Me Down' which features a bloke apparently called Crazy. See what you think peepholes.