PAUSE MEETS: Murkage Dave

Explain to me your journey, how did you come from throwing Murkage raves to becoming Murkage Dave?

From when I was like super young and stuff I was always singing and I actually ended up doing the raves because my song was remixed by a UK garage outfit. DJ EZ picked up for a while I on one of them pure Garage compilations. Basically, that’s why I ended up doing the raves, I wanted to create something for me and my friends to play and perform.

I did get a little lost on the way and ended up getting quite deep in as a promoter but my first love is always music. Through being involved in the raves I got back into experimenting with music.

Performing with Stormzy and Jaykae, how has that changed your life?

I didn’t perform with Stormzy, but last year he came out on Jaykae’s show! I’ve performed with Jaykae a lot. That was cool because I feel like that record was on the radio a lot and it helped people understand my vibe. When we perform we look at each other and are like “Bro, this is so much fun.”

I feel like at that point my stuff wasn’t really connecting, but working with him let me know that what I was doing was good and I just needed to keep going.

Are there any arenas that you aspire to perform in, and why?

Of course, yeah! My goal really is to kind of, not change and talk about the same things and be the same that I am now. Take it to the biggest level I can. I really want to set a path for people within the culture to feel comfortable to be introspective, vulnerable and talk about their problems. In a similar way, I remember when Giggs was doing his thing,  a lot of the artists didn’t have careers – he showed everyone that you can come with authentic street content and win.

I feel like I want to open a new path for what I’m doing. I get a lot of messages from people who make music and they’re like “you make me feel like the stuff I’m doing has got value.” Everybody is out here killing something or fucking something, but I think there’s a lot of other stories to be told you know.

English Culture appears to be at the pinnacle of your craft, is that intentional?

It’s not that it’s intentional, I guess it’s just a product of who I am. I’m a city kid, I was born in East London, I lived in Manchester, when I was 18 I moved to Manchester for quite a few years. I’m back in East London, I’ve spent time in Birmingham, I’ve spent time in Bristol. My parents weren’t born here and stuff but I was, and I guess in London everything is crashing into everything you’ve got people from here from there, this culture, this different scene or whatever and I guess it’s not really deliberate but I’d say I don’t really have an identity and a part of me making music and making the album that I did is trying to find that identity and it’s been kind of interesting.

I was backstage at the JayKae show and it was cool to see how many Emcees came up to me, man I’ve been listening to for years came up to me and said that they like my album or that they listened to it or that they’ve taken things from it like “You’re saying things I want to say but I can’t say record.” So it’s been really good for that as well, it’s kind of showed me that I don’t have to pretend to be anybody else and I don’t have to be a tough guy or pretend to be some kind of sexy guy, I can basically be myself and actually, man are going to respect me for it so I guess it’s a constant journey.

Name 5 places in London that would “See Man Smile”.

That’s a good question actually. It’s closed down now but VISIONS Nightclub. I was a resident DJ there when i moved back to London and I used to really enjoy and have some great times there so definitely Visions. Leytonstone, combing back to the Wanstead flats in Leytonstone, going back there. I incorporated the two towers from the Wanstead flats in some of the artwork from my single “Put you on my shoulders” which is also on the album because I used to ride my bike there and trying to get off with girls when I like was 14 or whatever, so anytime I go past it, my mum and dad still live on that street and Knarks who I work with on music lives around the corner so I’ve been back around there quite a lot lately, and I have a lot of fond memories from like riding my bike there and stuff.

So it’s Visions, Wanstead Flats. I would say my studio, what I like about my studio, I used to have a space of Hackney Road but they’ve knocked the whole place down now but I used to enjoy being there even though it was pretty horrible and I never had any equipment in my studio but it’s nice to just hide away and put off, maybe catch a bit of a high and just write. There was no equipment so I’d just write on voice notes, so I’m always happy. I feel like no matter what’s going on in life if I go to the studio and I write, even if I don’t come up with something I just feel better.

So we’ve got three. Maybe someplace I like to eat, basically, there’s a place, it’s basically like Nandos but it’s not, but basically my group chat with my boys is called “GoonBible” like “LadBible” but we’re goons init so “GoonBible” and we do a thing called GoonBible Nandos once every month or once every 6 weeks we link up and talk shit, but we can talk about our problems as well, and that was the was inspiration for my song “Niggas Need Eachother”.

So I’d say GoonBible Nandos, we tend to go to the Spitalfields one actually. So I’ve done somewhere I can make music, somewhere I eat food, used to live and visions. I guess that the last one is a toss up, I like going back to Stratford Mall, it’s fallen to shit now that Westfield is there but I got a lot of fond memories from there because I used to work in the JD Sports.

JD was the first time where I’d see emcees come in and buy trainers so I just kind of an experience, but also I feel like Stratford Mall because it was the first place I learnt how to talk to or chat up girls, I used to sing to girls when I was like 14 or whatever and you’d literally try and talk to a girl and you’d have like 30 seconds before you were going to get air, so it was kind of learning how to talk and being a cheesy guy really so just those memories.

You’ve got a last minute booking to perform in LA, and you’ve got an hour to pack and head to the airport. What are the first 3 things you reach for?

To be honest, I feel like I keep plugging Blood Brother but there’s a Blood Brother Kagool thing, there’s one that I roll with all the time so if it was a festival and I didn’t know what the weather will be saying I’d roll with that because you can wear it was a jacket and if it’s tipping it down, zip it up and no piece of rain is going to touch you, so I’d probably roll with that, that Kagool.

You have to make sure that your footwear is correct, depending on where it was it, I could draw for a pair of Dr.Martens, I like Dr.Martens when they’re beat up and they’re old so maybe an old pair, if it was a muddy festival or maybe a pair of Reebok classics or something.

Maybe Reebok workouts, and then I’d have to have the sidebag again because it comes everywhere with me and I’d say if I’m going abroad and I need to take my passport, I always have my sidebag on me. I don’t know how men coped before it was socially acceptable to have a sidebag because otherwise, your pockets were just full of bullshit.

Who are your preferred brands of the moment, and why?

I just wear shit that I get given for free, mainly. But I wear a lot of True Religion because I feel like they’ve really upped their level lately. It’s funny because I think in different worlds True Religion means a different thing, to me it’s just something that drug dealers used to wear and I remember Jim Jones from the Diplomats was wearing it and that’s how I remember it so it kind of has that nostalgic feel for me, but also I really like the stuff that they’re putting out now so I wear a lot of it, and it’s good quality stuff.

I wear a lot of Reebok, they’re owned by adidas now but the design of it still feels British. Reebok Classics were the shoes I could afford when I was working at JD’s, I got a bit of discount and I could afford Classics, I couldn’t afford AirMax but I could always afford one-pair of Classics so I just stick to that.

Obviously, I wear other brands, I wear Nike but I do look Reebok, and I’ve bigged up Blood Brother, I really like Blood Brother’s stuff. They’ve stopped making stuff now but I really like Agi & Sam, I know both of them but Agi was my boy, we were both in Manchester around the same time so we used to hang out a lot, and we had such a different upbringing but we could both relate to each other. I wear a lot of Agi & Sam coats because they’re so sick, I’ve been a bit lucky with that, he’s hooked me up. It’s a bit of shame that they’re not really active but I’ve got a lot of time for them.