Artist Spotlight - The Nextmen
Cambridge is mainly known for its famous university, an inordinate amount of cyclists, a terrible football
team, a river made for punting, a folk festival and being the home of Stephen Hawking, Clive James
and Jeffrey Archer.
It is not, one must admit, the first place one would look for producers of dancefloorhardened beats. It is nevertheless, the city that gave birth to The Nextmen, also known as Brad Baloo and Dom Search.
You may have heard of The Nextmen. In fact, unless you’ve been captive in Guantanamo Bay for the most of the Noughties, we’d wager you’d definitely heard of them and more than likely witnessed them at one of their many festival-stopping summer performances or heard their incendiary mixtapes on the neighbourhood ghetto blaster.
Dom (real name: Dominic Betmead) and Brad (real name: Brad Ellis) joined forces when Brad blagged a remix for London Posse and realised he didn’t have any kit with which to do it. In stepped Dom with his Roland S10 and not much else. “The track was called Style,” chips in Dom, “But it put us on the map. Everybody loved it. Radio 1 got hold of it.” “It was 75 bpm and really pedestrian,” deadpans Brad. “Fucking terrible.” Terrible or not, London Posse’s Style had something about it, not least the MCing skills of the posse’s Rodney P, with whom The Nextmen have subsequently enjoyed a long working relationship.
In 2000, The Nextmen released their debut album Amongst The Madness on the revered 75 Ark imprint. Originally intended to be a Mo’ Wax-style instrumentals album, their label began sending the beats out to rappers in the States and before they knew it, The Nextmen were hip hop producers, working with Public Enemy, Blackalicious, The Pharcyde and Morcheeba. Get Over It, 2003’s sophomore album for Scenario, confirmed their position as one of the UK’s brightest beatmakers, although now the boys regret going so far down that road. “Looking back on it, it perhaps wasn’t the best idea to make those hip hop albums…” reflects Brad. It’s not that they don’t love hip hop, simply that it placed them in a neat, but uncomfortable, box. “As a DJ it’s always been my favourite club music. We always played bits of soul, disco and funk stuff but we were 70-80% hip hop. It was nice at that point; there were lots of interesting records coming out. When those records that people were still playing were ten years old, like Pete Rock and CL Smooth, I thought, ‘God this is just so stagnant’.”
The changes in Nextmen direction – if they could even be described as such – grew out of their DJ sets, as they found the space to integrate the outer reaches of their record collections. It was an organic change, but one that was driven by their outlook: “As a clubber, I wanna go out and hear a varied style of music,” says Dom “I don’t want to hear one kind of music all night.”
This shift in approach found an echo in the studio, too. Newly energised by their live work, songs rather than grooves began to form in their heads; fruitful collaborations with Sway, Fat Freddy’s Drop vocalist Dallas, Zarif, Alice Russell, Chicago’s own Kidz In The Hall, Jamaican legend Niney The Observer and LSK from Faithless were proof that last album This Was Supposed To Be The Future would be a step away from their previous releases. “The last album has been more influenced by our eclectic DJ sets, because it goes right across the board,” explains Dom. “There’s some reggae on there, some dancehall, some soul, and a couple of hip hop tracks. If you look at our DJ sets that’s exactly what we play.”
The normally sedentary pair in the studio (“We can be lazy bastards” quips Dom) had taken ten years to produce three albums, although moreover this has been the result of their move towards world domination, constantly rubber banding from London around the globe throughout Europe, Australia, Asia-pacific and beyond, as the first choice go-to DJs for every walk of hype-hot party and festival (think: a sunken indoor swimming pool in Elizabeth Taylor’s private villa in Cannes, a deep dark bunker in Moscow, a mountain-top ski jump in Val D’Isere, a heaving Sydney harbour-side arena, a much loved local pit stop in Shanghai, a heaving New Years natural amphitheatre in Perth, their favourite beats and meats BBQ with Friends & Family in Manchester and you’ll understand).
The pair however realised their touring schedules hadn’t paused for some time, so completed the bulk of the recent album in four months, working with the uncharacteristic fervour of a pair of Brill Building song mavens, though it should be noted that, unusually for most DJ/producer duos, Brad and Dom are both accomplished musicians, the former a pianist
while Dom plays guitar. They appear suitably relaxed and inspired by the experience. This electric jolt to the creative glands has manifested itself in all areas of their careers and its clear that the last record ‘This Was Supposed To Be The Future’ was clearly a cleansing process for The Nextmen, the studio equivalent of a spot of Botox and a nip and tuck behind the lugholes.
Indeed since the last record the boys have travelled the globe promoting the LP across Japan, China, Europe and even featured on last years ‘Good Vibrations’ Australian tour alongside Calvin Harris and Kanye West. Since their ‘This Was Supposed To Be The Future’ LP, they’ve also remixed the likes of Ava Leigh (Virgin), Wallis Bird (Island), Fort Knox Five, Stanton Warriors and the legendary Stevie Winwood, which Dom says “was a dream come true to work with such an inspirational artist”.
Brad drops his voices slightly and adds, more seriously, “I think what we did on the last record was shift the perceptions of the Nextmen.” “It would be really nice to be seen as producers who make music rather than a hip hop act, and I think we’ve taken some major steps in the last few years to make that happen” adds Dom. So as the duo look forward to their forth studio album ‘Join The Dots’, the pair look to push the boundaries of their own work and what people expect from them even further.
This new record has those classic Nextmen reggae moments. It has that signature soul goodness, but it also tilts it’s hat in a major way to the dance music world, something the guys have been keen to do for a longtime, and something that’s been a key element in their DJ sets. “It’s just where we are musically and a reflection on what we like” says Dom.
Now signed to the Universal label, ‘Join The Dots’ is set for a Summer 2009 release and features include Groove Armada, Ms. Dynamite, Jimmy Screech, Dynamite MC and in typical Nextmen fashion a batch of newcomers in the form of Betty Steels, Ayah and Lindsay West.
“We’ve always worked with established names on our records, but we’ve also made an effort to unearth new talent and help bring them through”, states Brad.
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