Goldie

British drum'n'bass artist, DJ, and TV personality.

Born: 19 September 1965 in Walsall, England, UK.

The first superstar produced by the breakbeat jungle movement, Goldie popularised drum'n'bass as a form of musical expression just as relevant for living-room contemplation as techno had become by the early 1990s. Though he hardly developed the style, and his later reliance on engineers like Rob Playford and Optical to capture his sound puts into question his true musical importance, Goldie became one of the first personalities in British dance music, his gold teeth and b-boy attitude placing him leagues away from the faceless bedroom boffins who had become the norm in intelligent dance music. After spending several years working on his production skills at Reinforced Records (the home of 4Hero), he founded the Metalheadz label, which released seminal dark yet intelligent singles by Source Direct, Photek, J. Majik, Optical, Lemon D, Wax Doctor, and Peshay, amongst others. He released one of jungle's first and best full-length albums with "Timeless" (1995), which put him squarely at the top of the drum'n'bass heap –at least in the minds of critics and mainstream listeners– though his follow-up album, "Saturnz Return" (1998), displayed an ambitious, personal side of Goldie hardly in keeping with jungle's producer mentality.

A native of Walsall, England, Goldie was born to a Scottish-Jamaican couple and put up for adoption. He bounced around child-care homes and several sets of foster parents during his childhood years, and became fascinated with the rise of hip-hop, breakdancing, and graffiti art. By 1986, he was involved with breakdancing crews around his home of Wolverhampton; after making several trips to London for all-day breakdancing events (and to see hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa), Goldie appeared in the English documentary on graffiti art called "Bombing". He also spent time in New York and Miami (working in a market stall selling customised gold teeth), but returned to England by 1988. For a time, Goldie worked at the Try 1 shop in Walsall (also selling gold teeth), then moved to London. He began hanging out with two fellow heads from the British hip-hop scene, Nellee Hooper and 3D (later of Massive Attack), and by 1991 he'd been introduced to the breakbeat culture that birthed jungle; at the seminal club night 'Rage', DJs Grooverider and Fabio pitched ancient breakbeats up to 45 rpm, blending their creations with the popular rave music of the time. Goldie was hooked on the sound of raw breakbeat techno, and he gradually switched his allegiance to jungle from the British hip-hop scene that later generated trip-hop.

Through his girlfriend dj Kemistry (later to make her name with the mixing duo Kemistry & Storm), Goldie hooked up with Dego and Mark Mac, two influential figures in the emerging drum'n'bass scene. The duo's Reinforced Records and recordings as 4Hero were fostering an increasingly artistic attitude to the music, and Goldie learned much about breakbeat production and engineering at their studios. He recorded his first single as Ajax Project, then debuted on Reinforced Records as Rufige Cru with two singles at the tale-end of the breakbeat hardcore scene, "Killa Muffin" (1992) and "Menace" (1992). The single "Terminator" (1992) under name Metalheads, broke him into the jungle scene, which besides pioneering the crucial jungle concept of time-stretching (basically extending a sample without altering its pitch), evinced the growing separation between the uplifting rave/hardcore scene and its emerging dark side, more reliant on breakbeats.

The name was later taken for his influential Metalheadz label, which released material from a legion of crucial jungle artists: Photek, Doc Scott, Dillinja, Source Direct, Peshay, J Majik, Alex Reece, Lemon D, and Optical, amongst others. Later singles such as "Angel" (1995) and remixes for 4Hero's Reinforced Records spread Goldie's fame, and in 1994 he signed a contract with London Records offshoot FFRR. His first major-label single was "Inner City Life" (1994), from his debut album "Timeless" (1995). He gained additional fame in early 1996, when an American tour supporting Björk sparked a relationship between the two and led to a brief engagement period before they called off a wedding. Goldie resurfaced with a high-profile follow-up, "Saturnz Return" (1998), with another epic two-disc set including one track, "Mother" that in itself broke the 70-minute barrier. The album tanked with critics and fans, leading to a return to the underground later that year with the "Ring Of Saturn" EP (1998).

Save for a handful of mix albums (most notably "FabricLive 58" (2011)), two studio efforts credited to Rufige Kru, ("Malice In Wonderland" (2007) and "Memoirs Of An Afterlife" (2009)), and "Sine Tempus" (2008), a soundtrack to an unreleased film directed by the man himself, Goldie's career over the next two decades became less and less music-focused. He turned his hand to acting, appearing in Guy Ritchie's film "Snatch" (2000), the James Bond film "The World Is Not Enough" (1999), and the perennial BBC soap opera 'Eastenders'. He also appeared on a number of reality TV shows, including 'Maestro', where he learned how to conduct a symphony orchestra, and 'Goldie's Band: By Royal Appointment', where he put together a band of unknowns to perform at Buckingham Palace.

He was awarded an MBE on the Queen's 2016 Honours list for services to music and young people. A career-spanning compilation, "The Alchemist" (2013), was released by Rhino Records. Goldie's third solo studio album and first in nearly two decades, "The Journey Man" (2017), was released on Metalheadz through Cooking Vinyl. Guest vocalists on the album included Terri Walker, Naomi Pryor, José James, and Natalie Duncan, the latter of which he had discovered while making 'Goldie's Band' TV show.

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