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Kurupt FM give us their personal highlights of raving in London in the noughties
Having a party on the bus in the daytime
‘You see the vibe you get on night buses, yeah? That’s what daytime buses were like back then. People were Bluetoothing tunes on their Nokia phones, playing them at the back of buses, MC-ing. You’d see all the people on the bus turning around, tutting along to the beat. And sometimes, out of politeness, they would clear the top deck, just to let you have a rave-up.’
Collecting flyers so it looked like you’d been to actual raves
‘Record shops was a big part of London culture back then. (For any young people reading this, a record is like a CD but heavier.) Most of the time you wouldn’t actually buy any records. What you would do, though, is take all the flyers to put up in your room. People would come round the house and they’d be like :“Rah, did you go to all those raves?” ’
Getting your wardrobe right
‘Every genre of music has its own clothes. Steves started on the gabber scene, so he used to wear the kind of neo-Nazi bomber jackets all these racist people like. But then the garage scene was a bit more smart: your Moschino, your Ben Sherman and your Reebok Classics.’
Trying to get into superclubs
‘Beats wore his dad’s suit to get into Ministry once – he looked like he was going for a job interview at a call centre.’
Hanging around in the venue toilets
‘Garage crews Heartless and Pay As You Go had this mighty rave at a club called Destiny’s in Watford. Beats was working the toilet that night. He says he couldn’t hear it properly. But people say the best acoustics in the club are actually down near the toilet bowl because you can feel the bass in your chest, so he probably had a better experience than anyone else. And he got paid.’
Going to squat parties in Hackney (then trying to get home afterwards)
‘The normal clubs wouldn’t let us in, but Steves put us on to squat parties. You’d meet up, call the party line, top-secret location. There was one time after a rave when Steves wandered on to a building site. He fell asleep and woke up and there was all these builders. He didn’t want to get in trouble, so he ended up helping them and got a little job for four days. Nice. Got a bib and everything.’
As told to Amy Smith.