An interview with DJ Yoda

When it comes to mashing up hip hop's various bastard genres, DJ Yoda is the capital's ultimate party-starter. The North Finchley-born turntablist and audiovisual innovator can fire up his decks in front of 20,000 people and get every single one pogoing to '80s theme tunes, and, at the same time, rock an intimate basement with fresh native sounds from across the urban spectrum. At least that's what he'll be doing at our first club night of 2010, Nite Sessions at East Village, where he'll be unveiling - or, rather, unleashing - a specially made-for-Time Out clubbing-through-the-decades set in the basement rave space.

Oh, and he's also one of the nicest men in clubland, one of the most versatile, and he owns a dog whose breed that we really can't pronounce...

Hi Yoda, how are you?
'I'm having a printer nightmare, I'm about to throw it out the window. It's unbelievable: I can operate all this complicated musical technology but I can't print out a piece of paper!'

A day on Hampstead Heath should calm you down!
'Yeah, I know the heath really well because I live right by it and I walk the dog by it every day. It is a very nice, grounding thing to do - especially when you're in and out of flights and ferries and trains all the time.'

What kind of dog have you got?
'She is a very complicated breed called a Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen. She's basically just a Basset hound, but French and hairy'.

How has growing up there, in north London, influenced your musical tastes?
'Quite a lot! The most important thing about being in London [at that time] were all the pirate radio stations, like Energy FM, because so many of the genres of music that I play started out there. I remember hearing drum 'n' bass and dubstep and grime all for the first time, and even dancehall stuff for the first time too. I'm really proud of it in London - you don't really get there anywhere else.'

Have you had any other defining musical moments in the city?
'Carnival has been important. My Carnival memories mainly involve my mates getting mugged while I was trying to watch the Wu Tang Clan! But I remember hearing some music for the first time at there and wanting to discover more. My first clubbing experiences were in London too: the crucial place for me was the Blue Note for the Metalheadz and the Ninja Tune nights. I watched Coldcut have pizza delivered to them while they were playing there and I just remember thinking: That's what I want to do for a living when I grow up.'

Did you ever keep it local?
'Oh yeah. The first time I ever DJed in public was in the shittest club of all time in Golder's Green. It was really tacky inside. You know how some places are so bad that they're good? This was just so bad that was bad.'

How is your set at East Village going to differ from your usual themed sets?
'It really works in my favour because I'm known for playing every kind of music, so it means I can be really wide with my choice of tracks. For this London-themed set, I'm going to play some British hip hop, as that's what I grew up on, but I might go a bit deeper than that and find some influential funk and jazz. And then newer stuff, like funky and other dance sounds that are being made here.'

Is there anything that you do, or are going to do, that people don't expect you to like or expect you to play?
'My philosophy behind what I play is really simple: I'm not trying to be controversial or ironic, I just genuinely like to have a laugh. So if I like a song, no matter what kind of music it is, if I think people will enjoy it, then I'll play it. Like I said, it's got to the point where people aren't surprised if I play a theme tune to a TV programme, or if I play some like mental 160bpm soca, or one heavy metal track. I hope people trust me and can see that there's some merit in it, whatever it is.'

What London sounds are inspiring you most at the moment?
'For the past year it has definitely been dubstep, but some of that stuff is getting a bit formulaic now - and the same with a lot of the electro stuff that I'm being sent. I do play some electro stuff and a lot of that's made in London, but there's hardly anything new or interesting that is coming out apart from the odd one or two things.'

It has splintered too: you've got the full-frontal tracks and then the downtempo stuff.
'Exactly the same thing happened with drum 'n' bass: it reached the point where it could be either club music or home music. I wonder whether people try and get too clever with it and it takes away from what was really good about it in the first place. The same happens with a lot of genres and it takes a real genius to do something new with it.'

I find a lot of new dance music that's hailed as exciting actually quite dark, serious and even 'blokey'. Is your music an antidote to that?
'It can be. I think a lot of DJs forget about the fact that, ultimately, people are out to party and have fun. It's so basic that it seems ridiculous to say it! Comedy is a really important part of music too, because music should be entertaining. I like it when you're DJing and you can see people laughing. I'd rather it was like that than with people's "screw faces" the whole time.'

How do you balance your tongue-in-cheek, quick-fire style with artistic integrity?
'I don't think it's that hard because I just play stuff that I like. I would never play a song that I don't like just because it's popular. I know that there's stuff that I play that DJs I'm friends with would be too embarrassed to play. But maybe because I've been doing this a while now I've got confidence in my own taste.'

Do you think it would ever be a good idea to let people get more into a tune?
'It depends what music you're playing. All the hip hop DJs that I looked up to when I was starting off DJed like that. It's more about displaying skills when you're performing: if you're just going to let a song play for five minutes and slowly mix in another, there's software that can do that for you! I think it's really important that, if people are paying to come and watch you, you display some unique talent that no one else can do.'

Is there anything you do differently in a smaller club environment?
'Yeah, definitely. I think in a smaller venue like East Village you get much more interaction with the crowd; you can see the whites of people's eyes and relate to them a lot easier. It's actually really weird playing on a stage in front of thousands of people because you sometimes feel a bit like you're DJing to yourself as there's no physical connection. And people aren't coming up to you, shoving phones in your face with texts on them saying “please play this”. I get a lot of requests!'

Your DJ sets have equal amounts of skill and bangers, but also humour. Would you say those were the ingredients for an ultimate party DJ?
'Yeah, I try and keep a balance between those. I keep in mind that, wherever you play, there will be people in the crowd that don't care about what the DJ is doing specifically, they just come out to party and have a good time and dance. So I want to make sure that whatever I'm doing, there's enough flow in the music and enough interesting sounds that those people could party and ignore that. But at the same time, for the people that are interested in DJ skills and want to watch what I'm doing carefully, I try not to leave them dissatisfied either.'

Does being cutting-edge and cool bother you?
'That's a difficult question to answer, because I only play what I think is cool. When I toured in Australia in January with my AV show, I ended it with that song "You're the Voice" by John Farnham, which is a cheesy '80s song that was massive in Australia. But I love it. And I know that other DJs might feel that's too cheesy, but I just like the song and I can see the reaction that it works. So, no, I wouldn't be worried about what other people think is cool, I just worry about what I think is cool. I'm only conscious of trying to come up with interesting stuff. If interesting music is coming out, then I'm keeping an eye out for it. But not just for the sake of it - I mean, I wouldn't play new stuff just because it's new, I'd only play new stuff if it was interesting.'

You once said in an old interview that you thought electroclash was contrived. Are there any new genres that mash up old genres that you feel the same way about now?
'It's a good question. A lot of the new genres that I like are doing that, and I really like them. Like, probably my favourite genre at the moment is this bounce music from New Orleans. Which is kinda party-style hip hop. It's a bit like Baltimore Club, but slower. A lot of [the artists] are gay: it's like a gay hip-hop scene in New Orleans, weirdly. There's one guy called Sissy Knobby, who is pretty good, and then there's another guy called Polo T who I like.'

That's really interesting.
'Yeah, Baltimore Club was my music of last year because it encapsulated everything that I'm trying to do in music: taking stuff that you know, and putting a hip hop, clubby spin on it. And this New Orleans bounce stuff is doing that for me.'

So even though you tackle all these different genres, does it always come back to hip hop for you?
'Yeah. The style that I play all of this stuff in, whether it's house music, or drum 'n' bass, or dubstep, or funky, or dancehall, the style that I'm playing it in is hip hop. I might not even play one rap song the whole night, but it'll be a hip hop DJ set. I think a lot of people forget that that's what hip hop's about. Somewhere along the line it became about money and pop music and 50 Cent having his top off on the cover of albums and gold and drugs. And the idea of it in the beginning was: you take a rock song, you take a funk song, you take a country song, take a kids TV theme, you take some classical music, and you mix it all together and you make it a party. And that's the basis of everything that I do - it's to try and go along with that original idea of what hip hop should be.'

You've released plenty of themed mixtapes. What genres are you planning to tackle next?
'At the moment I'm trying to get my second artist album finished, so that is prioritising itself over a new "Cut and Paste" mix, although I've got a queue of ideas for next few! But I want to get this album finished first before I return to them. I don't want to tell you what they are, though.'

No fair!
'I'm formulating ideas in my head, but I don't want to put it out there because other people will start to put the idea together before I can! Suffice to say: it's unexpected.'

How do you stay so down to earth?
'I don't see how I could do this any other way. Last week I was in seven countries in eight days!' The only way you can do that amount of gigging and touring is by basically being organised and not going crazy.'

If you could go back to any London era, which would it be?
'You know what, it's quite predictable, because I just had a mix out of 1930s music. But I would definitely pick the '20s or '30s because I like the whole bowties, posh people, Champagne and jazz music. It sounds decadent and like there was a lot of fun to be had - and a lot of not caring about other stuff. I think I would've been a rich eccentric person with a mansion, who put on unpredictable parties.'