The “Godfathers of Dubstep”, Skream and Benga were in town recently as part of their tour. You may remember a time last year when the duo were in Kuala Lumpur, rockin’ an epic set at Vertigo Club complete with high energy madness coupled with a little bit of crowd surfing. Yes, crowd surfing (read: Benga)! So imagine how excited we were to see the boys again.
Thanks to our friends from Livescape Asia, we were given the opportunity to speak with them hours before their set. Here’s what went down:
Hi you two! How have you guys been?
Both: “We’re good! And you?”
Pretty good! Looking forward to your set tonight. What were you two looking forward most to when you knew that you were coming back to Kuala Lumpur?
Skream: “That reaction from you! Haha. It was the highlight of our last your so yeah..we’re really looking forward to tonight.”
Benga: “I nearly killed myself the last time (crowd surfing). I’m all about staying alive now.”
So this dubstep pop thing is happening right now. It’s so rampant! Taylor Swift has done it, Britney Spears has done it, Justin Bieber has done it..what are your thoughts on that?
Benga: “We love it. It’s great.”
Honestly?
Skream: “No, the problem is..is that it just sounds rubbish. That’s the problem. It’s really bad sounding dubstep stuff – almost the ‘brostep’-ish side of things. They don’t sound good.”
Benga: “If people are picking up on it like that and if they come to us or people that produce good dubstep then they’re gonna get wicked mainstream records that are worldwide smashes but..they’ve yet to do that. Haha!”
But say, if Taylor Swift came to you and she was all, “Guys, I wanna do this dubstep record and I need your help..” would you do it?
Benga: “I think I would – if Taylor Swift came to me and said..could you produce a dubstep for me? I would do it. Because I think..if the record was good, it would go somewhere. Like even on this album ‘Chapter II’ that I’ve made, I’ve had so many artistes come through and they’re massive artistes. And if the record wasn’t good enough, I wouldn’t use it.”
Right. And the thing is, until today, your fans and the people in the know still refer to the both of you as the “Godfathers of Dubstep”. And that’s great, really. But how does that affect the both of you in terms of the pressure to perform or succeed?
Skream: “It’s kind of irrelevant now, I think. It has become an easier way for people to sell us.”
Benga: “Yeah, it’s very easy. It’s when people tell other people that we’re the inventors, it sell us. But no, it doesn’t make it harder for us. For me, even now, ‘Chapter II’ is a good way for me to kind of go out and do what I’ve always wanted to do. Being called what we’re called, it just makes it easier for me to do what I want to do.”
And how’s the music production process for you guys? Do Skream and Benga ever argue?
Skream: “With each other?”
Benga: “At one stage, we definitely did. We used to compete. Like if Skream had a big record, then I’d want to do a big record too. And vice versa.”
Skream: “Not in the sense of you know, competing with each other. I think we just bounce off each other really well.”
Aww. Now that’s bromance right there. Thank you Skream and Benga for speaking to us! Also, special thanks to our friends from Livescape Asia for making this exclusive interview happen.
For more information on the “Godfathers of Dubstep”, hit up their website.
