Matt Jam Lamont talks Funky!!!

Matt Jam Lamont

I recently carried out an interview with Matt Jam Lamont for UrbanWorld.Com which unexpectedly drifted on to the subject of UK House also known as Funky. I thought that as a major DJ his perspective was very valuable……. Here are a few questions from the interview:

Is there any chance of you crossing genres in the future to playing UK House productions?

I’ve never ever stopped playing House. I was playing it before Garage came alive. So it’s not something that I’ve stopped or started playing. I’ve always played House. It’s just that I’m more known for Garage from back in the day. With any genre, there is always a new style that branches off and the UK stuff is raw, some would say under produced, but that’s what it is, but really it’s just another branch coming of the House genre. House has been there forever so it’s not me jumping on to anything else, if there’s a certain track that is produced and I like it, then I’ll play it.

Do you see the UK House scene growing and staying or do you see it rapidly going back underground?

Garage was around for nearly 11 years and it done what it really needed to do. The UK House scene, I think it could stay around as it has such a dominant father figure in House. It has a good chance of being around for the while. There are so many sub-genres from House, it’ll be interesting to see what it does. I think the production needs to be tighter on a few things, but look at Devil in a Blue Dress. It’s a big anthem. But for UK House to get more stronger abroad, they do need to tighten up production a little bit and have the big major players playing it abroad too. But I can see a good life span in it. I’ve noticed that up north a lot of the DJs have stopped playing Bassline, and are moving over to House and its known for people to jump genre to whatever is popular, so that happening shows that the popularity is definitely growing. But I would say that a lot of the DJs that are playing UK House also play US stuff too so it’s getting balanced out and with things from Defected etc so although there is a scene there, it’s not dominated by UK House productions.

The US productions are very prominent within the music…..

It’s like with Drum and Bass. It’s a very British thing but you have a lot of Americans and Germans making it too because they love it, so the UK House sound is not really anything new. But there is a certain sound that’s developing as a new branch of House music which is great. In a year’s time, I do hope that it will be stronger but I don’t think these guys will start to only play UK stuff. I think they’ll still be playing productions from around the world that plays nicely with what they’re playing, which is evident if you look at Footloose or Pioneer’s play list. The UK House scene is getting stronger, but I don’t think it’ll be able to do it on its own.

Do you think Funky and Garage are the same?

Yeah, but you know, I think that’s because a lot of the ex garage producers are now making it so its carrying a lot of the same sounds. So that’s why it’s more on a UK stage than a House stage. Because I can play it in any UK set and I play it with Garage. But it’s not new garage or anything. There’s not really much that that new about it, I could probably find something similar from 1990. Things start to evolve and its given a new name to help give it a push so I guess it’s simply just a new branch of house. It hasn’t blown up to me as yet because it hasn’t blown up in Ibiza. That’s the biggest clubbing island in Summer. So until that happens…….. I’m not knocking it at all. I hope it does get bigger because there are some tracks which I really do like. So let’s develop it and make it stronger now.

THIS INTERVIEW CAN BE READ IN FULL HERE!!!