Music
Dub Smugglers explain how to cut a dubplate
The Manchester crew have assembled a mix of their special Culture Clash secret weapons.
Dub Smugglers live at Culture Clash Manchester
© Leo Francis/Red Bull Content Pool
If you attended Red Bull Culture Clash Manchester back in March, you won’t have forgotten Dub Smugglers. They were the sound doing it old-school, with the wooden speaker system home-built in the traditional Jamaican style and the huge bag of dubplates from huge JA names like Cutty Ranks and Eek-A-Mouse. They rocked it on the night – so much so that official winners LEVELZ announced from the stage that they were dedicating the trophy to the crew to their left.
With four sounds furiously prepping for Culture Clash London, RedBull.com thought we’d catch up with Ed Speed from Dub Smugglers to learn a little bit about what dubplates are, and how they’re crucial to a soundclash.
A dubplate is a unique remix or remake of an existing track, usually made with the help of the artist. Says Ed:
It’s your individual take on different tracks and riddims, and the way that you play them. Because of Red Bull Culture Clash, we’ve now got all these custom dubplates, and speaking as a dub crew, it’s great to have all those in your arsenal – it’s a way to set yourself apart from the other crews and what you do.
First, listen to an exclusive mix of Dub Smugglers’ dubplates, including some never-before-heard tracks that didn’t get an airing on the night. Then read on to hear Ed’s guide to commissioning your own exclusive dubplate.
Step 1: Make a wish list of artists
Ed: “As soon as we knew we were playing Culture Clash, we went to the pub, got a bit of paper and scribbled down a long list of who we wanted to cut. Then I called around all the different reggae artists, crews and studios, asking who would be the best link to these specific artists.
"The good thing about reggae is that dubplate culture is still pretty popular, so it wasn’t too difficult to get in touch with the right people – probably easier than if you were dealing with drum’n’bass artists or grime artists. The biggest difficulty was getting people to turn it round quick enough. We got the Cutty Ranks track two days before the clash and we were still editing it and remixing it right up to the day of the event.”
Step 2: Get a middleman
“If it’s a UK artist, that’s a bit easier to sort out – if you’ve got a studio, just invite them down. But if you’re cutting music from Jamaica, you need a really good middleman. In Jamaica there are people who do it for a business, working with crews in the UK, Europe and America who want dubplates. They’ll help link you up with artists and build a relationship – some send out newsletters, others you correspond with by emails, WhatsApp or Facebook."
Someone like Capleton or Sizzla might cost you around £500
"We got in touch with OBF Sound System, and they know a guy who goes to Jamaica a lot who put us in touch with some of the studios. We were cutting at [reputed Jamaican crew] Kilimanjaro’s studio, and it was absolutely wicked – without him we wouldn’t have been able to link it up.”
Step 3: Transfer the money
"The biggest worry when you’re cutting dubs is Western Union. They have a quite prehistoric way of transferring money, and you need to send the money direct to the artist by name. Getting their full name is always a struggle – then your money is sat in this halfway house, and you’re at home, really hoping that it ends up in the hands of the right person. Once you’ve sent the money you don’t hear anything for three days to a week, so you’re checking your email every night, thinking: 'Is it going to happen?' And then suddenly it appears.
It’s like record collecting, it’s quite addictive
"The price really varies – it’s like A-list, B-list and C-list celebrities. If you’ve got a good middleman, getting a dub from someone like Capleton or Sizzla might cost you around £500. While someone like Johnny Osbourne or Burro Banton might cost you £200, £250. You can get a better price by swapping currency. The artist might ask for it in Jamaican dollars, so you find a currency with the best exchange rate. It’s quite an expensive thing to get into, but it’s like record collecting, it’s quite addictive.”
Dub Smugglers' Kwasi Asante
© Leo Francis/Red Bull Content Pool
Step 4: Tailor your dubs
“The main thing that you’ve got to be careful with is the quality. You could chuck £200 quid to someone, and then what you get back is rubbish, you can’t even use it. Often you’ll have to cut up a dub a bit, edit it so it works. The Eek-A-Mouse dub we spent quite a lot of money on, but it came back and it was a bit out of time, and not that good quality – you couldn’t make out all of the vocals, some of them didn’t really sound like words. But Will recut it – he’s really good at editing, and he managed to make it work.
Traditionally, people will cut dubs to acetate – but it costs 50 quid a time
The Cutty Ranks dub, on the other hand, was great quality – really good and on point. Traditionally, people will cut dubs to acetate – that’s the easiest way to cut music so you can play it on a record deck. Ideally we’d have cut them all that way, but it costs 50 quid a time, so we ended up playing our dubs as digital recordings through time-coded vinyl.
Step 5: Get out there and destroy soundbwoys
“The cheekiest dubplates that we made were the ones we had of LEVELZ. I worked with [LEVELZ MC] Skittles quite a while ago, he lives really close to me in Manchester, and he’d sent me a Fox vocal – Fox didn’t even know we had it. So well before the dance, I made a dubplate using them with the vocals laid on top. When they played their Eek-A-Mouse dub, I played our LEVELZ dubplate back at them. That was great.”
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