All City

For the last ten years, All City Records has been a bastion of hip hop in Dublin. Records, spray-paint, a music label, as well as the latest addition of a street art gallery downstairs, has seen All City turn into a one-stop-shop for those into hip-hop culture. The success of last years '7 X 7 BEAT' series, which featured the likes of Mike Slott, Hudson Mohawke and Onra, looks set to be followed by the LA 10 X 10 Series, highlighting the talents of a bunch of LA producers, with the first release featuring Dibiase and P.U.D.G.E. All City head honcho Olan took the time out to answer a few of our questions.

All City

How did All City get started? Did it just snowball from some early hip-hop endevours and having a laugh, or was there a masterplan behind it all?

Me & Davy Splyce started it ..just to give it a go..we knew we wanted to try something a little different - Dave has since legged it to Tokyo which is about as far away from me as you can get which I am sure would tie in to the opinion many people have of me.

A lot of record shops have been and gone in the last decade, it’s a difficult time for those in the business. With All City though, it’s not just a record shop, it’s somewhere to check out the work of local artists (through the gallery downstairs) or meet with international street artists (through the book signings and in-stores). It’s also somewhere to pick up some paints and inspiration! A bit of an urban culture centre maybe? Do you think All City’s strength lies in the diversity of what it offers?

Right - we had no intention for it ever to be just a record store - we wanted it to have a bit more energy than that and record stores exclude a lot of people by the very fact that a lot of people don’t actually know what a record is and these days actually paying for music is an alien concept for a lot of people! Hip hop does have a culture around it that extends beyond records and music so we wanted the shop to be very much part of that. Sadly hip hop has fallen the f*ck off and the shop has morphed with that but the principles of music within a wider more diverse culture remain..its about doing interesting stuff such as the gallery, book signings, classes..for ourselves as much as anyone else..like if you bought James Brown records in the US in the 70s you could have bought ‘em in K-Mart - it was removing records from this wider base that killed them.

Last year’s 7x7 series got a lot of people to sit up and take note of what you guys are up to, and helped put Dublin on the map as a home of quality labels. What’s lined up with the 10X10 series? Any other plans for 2010?

Mmm the 7s were just about the disillusionment around hip hop for me and then other reasons for the producers involved. They’d obviously have their own thoughts. I love Beatnicks & Beat Dimensions..it’s fashionable to knock wonky/post Dilla/blip hop/whatever you want to call it – but fuck that it was a breath of fresh air so I was happy to be involved with it. The 10s is more about geography – just an outsiders perspective on one of the most interesting cities on the planet – L.A. Its not about one style but the influence of a place on a sound really..if you let the series unfold it will be worth it..Old & young – everything from ambient to hip hop..I don’t want to spoil it – up next is Samiyam & Ras_G – just enjoy that for the minute!

One of the things that really appeals about All City is the fact they provide platforms for the youth, such as the graf jams out by the Tivoli. It’s good to see some all-ages stuff happening that isn’t done in a patronizing way. Is this done to keep the All City buzz going, get some younger people coming through with their skills?

At the risk of sounding patronizing yes it is, I don’t want to be a cock but there isn’t a lot for kids in Ireland - if you don’t like sport there’s not many place to meet like minded peeps as a yewt and All City is that. It can be quite trying cos some kids can be little bollixes but I’m definitely proud that some fucking sound kids have come up through this shop and gone on to be great writers, DJs and some budding producers also.

Deviant’s recent ‘Shoes Not Not’ on Alphabet Set was one of my favourite records of 2009. What do you make of the Irish scene at the moment? Any particular acts to watch out for?

I suppose i didn’t grow up caring whether someone was from Ireland or not - i mean if you listen to jazz are you going to check Coltrane or Paddy Cole? I’m not really a patriotic person - in fact I’m kinda of proud i don’t speak a word of Irish cos I do like Irish peoples pragmatism so I don’t really look at it like that. T-Woc, Deviant, Sarsprilla can hang with anyone. Krystal Klear is making noise, Major Grave is sick (I want me records back!). I hope I haven’t excluded anyone - feel free to send me shit - i listen to EVERY mp3, cd, usb I get.

Does the locality of an act even matter as long as the music’s all good?

Yeah it does matter in the sense of places influencing sound be it Jamica, NY, London or whatever..absolutely - that’s not to go against what I just said it’s just in the sense that of course you are very much influenced by your surroundings. The lack of industry has hampered the Irish sound for a long time. The lack of national curiousity about technology or whatever.

2tall, Kper and Clockwork’s ‘Boom Bap Continuum’ mix from last November was one of the highlights of last year in terms of beats. There’s an interesting quote in it at one point, talking about the elusive properties of ‘beats’, the fact that they’re not necessarily a hip-hop thing, they have their own little international community…given that the whole ‘wonky’ thing rose up simultaneously in a number of locations, do you think that’s down to an existing international network of beat-makers engaging in a friendly competition? Is this what’s needed to advance sounds, as opposed to individual cities being quasi-militaristic about ‘their sound’.

Genres are certainly not dead you can certainly move between them more freely - plus one thing often overlooked is that people are making music at older ages. There’s a lot of 30+ people making beats and the advantage of aging is you don’t give a fuck about what you listen to. There’s less need to hate summat cos it doesn’t fit into your notion of preferred genre. After a certain age you’re hardly going to only listen to UK funky or jazz or whatever. It’s some pick and mix shit. Fuck it, I love apple drops and cola cubes. I mean Om Unit is an interesting case cos he has taken that road a lot of aging hip hop heads have. You know if you come from hip hop you’re not allowed experiment with other types of music but if you come from say electronica you can dip in and out of any genre you like. Its great to see that he can remix Joker and then do a soul track with (the INCREDIBLE!!!) Georgia Anne Muldrow. And then if you’re younger and you have an iPod - why on earth would you restrict yourself? I got a shock a few years ago when I saw my younger cousins ipod - over 5000 tracks on some Abba to Zappa shit. It took years to assemble those collections and now you got ‘em in a heartbeat! So why would you only like one thing?

To get a taster of All City flavours, check Om Unit’s ‘Past, Present & Future’ mix here. Also, keep checking the All City website for info on upcoming releases, some tasty things just out, including an instrumental 12 from Devonwho, an LP from Knxwledge and the first two releases of the LA 10 X 10 series.

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