Jam Thieves have stepped up on New Playaz with the blazing City On Fire ep. Pardon the pun. With a title like that you know it’s possibly not a simple ‘hands in the air’ type affair. You’d be right about that.
City On Fire is a great ep. Can I ask where the title came from?
The title of the ep is a way to protest! In the city we live every moment the TV programs shows news about corruption.
Violence, protests and chaos.
We live in a time bomb.
I note you’ve worked on some interesting stuff in the past, can you give us the lowdown on your moves in D&B leading up to the ep?
Over those seven years doing drum n bass, we signed with majors labels as Serial Killaz Recordings, Radius,Hangar, Proximity, Mac2, Syndrome Audio, Animated, V Recordings and others.
I love the samples on here, did they come first and inspire the tune, or… ?
Usually we start with the music and the sample comes later, when we feel the need to add one sample, we add as the style of music.
The names of the tunes are very ‘crime noir’, very dirty, inner-city themed, bit 70s too… is that the intention?
Yes, that’s the intention. We are from the outskirts of São Paulo and we live in a neighborhood with high crime, so the names of our songs are report of what we live.
We grew up listening to James Brown, 2Pac, Notorious BIG, J Dilla and this influenced a lot in our lives.
Do you guys have an interest in true crime? If so any stories or stuff you read/watch?
We are not criminals, but we live around the crime ha ha.
Film soundtracks inspires us a lot, we like the Quentin Tarantino, Nick Nolte, Danny Trejo, Spike Lee… and try to use samples that train of thought.
Can you take us through ‘Hustler’?
We were in the studio listening to KRS-One, ‘Outta Here’ and we had the idea of doing a song with a lot of bass and a repetitive and striking vocal.
And the name of the tune?
Generally we finished the song and then put a name and ‘Hustler’ was nothing too special.
Our idea was like a “cheater’s name”, and then we asked to our English teacher what he thought about the name and he suggested “Hustler”.
Who in D&B inspires you guys? Hazard must resonate with you guys.
In the D&B who inspires us are: Hype, Ed Rush, Calibre, Marcus Intalex, Bad Company and others.
And Hazard is really important to us. We admire and listen to his songs since we were kids. We’re impressed with his creativity and power to make the hits he has.
Having an ep with him and receiving his production advice was an unforgettable experience that surely we’ll tell to our children ha ha.
To work with Playaz must mean a lot to you…
In mid-2002 we had the pleasure to see the DJ Hype playing in a festival called Skol Beats and from that moment we began to admire the True Playaz.
We can’t forget to mention the music of Pascal, for example ‘A New P-Funk Era’ that marked much of our history.
Today work with these three idols is a dream come true.
Playaz Family!
What D&B is in your head right now and why?
Hazard ‘Murder Tonight‘ because we like a lot of the elements and the music swing.
Any final shouts?
We would like to send a big shout for Tobie & Vittal/Serial Killaz and everyone who’s following our work.
