Music

1 Er, you might know this already but Chris has just produced a mix CD for fashionable nitespot Fabric
‘I guess whenever you make a mixtape you wanna say: This is where I’m coming from, you know? It’s like providing clues for the crossword. And you’re still like, what the fuck’s the word? Ha ha!’

2 Contrary to hip hop’s reputation for coolness, it's got Yes’s ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ on it
‘“Owner Of A Lonely Heart” is hilarious, because there’s a really cheesy element to it, but it’s also got really cool guitar in there. The mix is all over the place ’cos I think as dudes, and as people who go out and party and also stay at home and think about God’s love for the world, we really have a wide range of influences.’
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3 Fortunately, this kind of idiotic playfulness comes from the Old School, and is thus unpunishable
‘There’s a good bit in [turntablist documentary] ‘Scratch’, where Steinsky’s talking about an Afrika Bambaataa show, and Bambaataa hands the record over to Jazzy J, and it’s ‘The Clapping Song’ by Shirley Ellis. He’s playing that break at a hip hop party and people are buggin’ out! And that sort of sums us up.’

4 It’s a philosophy which has won them a loyal fanbase in London
‘Yeah! When we first came over, people were like, “Oh yeah, there’s a good buzz over here”. I’d been fucking painting a ceiling and working at a bar before we got on the plane, and then those first shows were crazy. It was really cool.’

5 They managed to rock last year’s V Festival despite going on at midday in the blazing sunshine in front of a bunch of picnickers
‘We’re like, alright, it’s early but it’s time to go – we gotta do this and hopefully people will follow. Then hopefully when you drop that first beat, they just go nuts. Sometimes that works, and it’s amazing – that’s what it’s all about really.’

6 Despite being globe-trotting hip hop medium-stars, they’re happiest dicking about in the studio
‘You can put the project down for a minute, you can walk down the street get a cup of coffee, you can come back to it. The show is the show – there is nothing that beats it, but there’s that pressure.’

7 They’re part of an emerging New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore scene which is so emergent it hasn’t even got a name yet. We’re thinking of ‘Spunky Blunt Beat’, but if you’ve got any better suggestions please send them in
‘Sassy Gold is doing pretty dope things. Pase Rock, who we perform with a lot is definitely something to look out for. Amanda Blank who we work with frequently, definitely – she’s in the same vein… that’s three! That’s a scene!’

8 The sound is a reaction to both over-serious mainstream rap and over-earnest left-field hip hop
‘We’re just trying to bring back the party. We’re saying, let’s have some fun and get some girls to the club for once.’

9 They’ve been educating the kids
‘People have been opening up to different kinds of dance music in the young scene. I mean, people have been dancing to house since the ’80s, but to get younger kids into it? That took a bit of work.’

10 In case our relentless pro-Spank Rock campaign hasn’t indoctrinated you yet, you must buy their album ‘YoYoYoYoYo’, which is the ‘Sgt Pepper’ of booty
‘Wow! Yeah, man! I like that a lot. There’s been a lot of things said about us, but that I like.’