Format, otherwise known as Matt Ford, is mad for music. Ever since the release of his debut album Music For Te Mature B-Boy back in 2003 he’s continued to lead the way in funk,


soul and hip hop. Having worked with some big names like Jurassic 5, Simon James and Sureshot La Rock, he’s coming back to Norwich to play some supercool tunes for us to get down to at Te Talk this month. I spoke to him about beat matching and who his favourite DJ’s are.


How did you first get into DJing? When I first heard hip hop records in the ‘80s , scratching was such an integral part of most songs I loved so I naturally wanted to try it myself. I got my first budget turntables & mixer when I left school at 16 and within a few months realised I needed to upgrade to Technics 1200s and I never looked back! What sort of music were you into as a child and a teenager? As a child I was just listening to whatever music I heard my parents playing, or whatever general pop music I heard on the radio. When I was 10 I discovered Madness and got obsessed with them and started to form my own tastes from there. I really got exposed to hip hop properly thanks to Run DMC, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and the Electro compilation series


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when I was about 12 or 13. How do you feel about Serato and other modern DJing tools? I respect the minority of DJ’s who use Serato creatively, rather than the majority who use it because they are either too lazy to carry record boxes or don’t buy records for whatever reasons. A lot of the other technology I see people using is just doing all the work


for them. It quantizes & matches beats so they aren’t doing anything! I guess there are many types of ‘DJ’ so to each his own. Do you still beat match? Tat seems to be a dying art form, unfortunately. Yes, absolutely. Mixing is the first thing I learnt as a DJ, before I even attempted to scratch. Although I play many genres of music, I always do it in a hip hop style with mixing & scratching. What artists have you listened to most through the years? Probably the household names who have a prolific catalogue of music throughout the years, like KRS-ONE, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, James Brown, Herbie Hancock and Kool & Te Gang. Is it true you were once Jurassic 5’s bus driver? How did that come about? Yes! My old friend Mick ‘Blue Eyes’ organised J5’s first UK tour and needed someone reliable to drive the bus, look after the guys and take Cut Chemist & Nu-Mark to as many record shops as possible along the way. It was probably the best two weeks of my life at that point in time! I got to watch & learn from them every night, and it was an important part of my own development as a DJ and producer. You supported Grandmaster Flash here in Norwich last year; what was that like? Nervewracking? No I’m used to supporting DJ’s & artists I


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