Jon e Cash

The first big tune of 2003 comes from Jon E Cash. "War" has been caned by Slimzee for the last six months. Now everyone wants a piece of the Black Ops' new sublow sound.Jon E Cash and partner 2 Real come from a hip hop background and bring hip hop elements and attitude to today’s UK Underground music. He knows the streets and what they need. (Metaphor) Jon E, feels that music is the biggest drug in the world, example- Music = the drug, producer = the grower, distributor = the smuggler, the DJ = the hustler, the raver = the customer. “Keep your shit pure and your customers will come back for more”."If you got to a rave, no one's dancing now," reckons Jon E. “Right now the scene is dominated by 8-bar-beats, which is good, but we need to move forward. We're stuck. We need more melodies, more structure and feel good factor. We need to elevate the game."Jon E Cash is ready to elevate his game: 2003 looks like his year. He and his fellow Black Ops members have shows on Lush, Horror, Code 10, Y2K, Freeze and Ice FM. He's got vocal, drum and bass and 4/4 ‘War’ remixes ready for January. Then there's his ‘Moving’ and ‘Swolla' by The Dutty Brothers. ‘Reality’ should be the first sublow R&B group. There's an X-rated new ‘Banned Beats’ label, a joint venture between Natural Essence & LD Cats and a near finished hip hop album. Jon E Cash is a fiend to music, he just can't stop making beats."By making music, kids have finally got a way out now. If you got a PC at home you don't need no studio, you're in the game. That's why the music's good now; it's an opportunity for the yout's to go forward. There's more producers than there ever was, it's ridiculous. They're putting out tunes before UK hip hop mans who have been in the game for years. The young guys now, I have to big them up."Jon E's also quick to big up all the cat's pushing the grimey sublow sound. The list is a who's who of new school sounds. "Oris Jay, Roll Deep, EZ, DJ Cameo, Martin Larner,The Black Op’s DJs, Musical Mob and all the up and coming DJs ” But most of all he's got to big up manlike Slimzee. "He played 'War' so much; People thought it was his tune! But just so everyone knows it’s come straight from the Black Op’s camp. “Message for bootleggers if you bootleg you get broke legs” simple things.”Jon E Cash is best known for the track 'War', a stomping grime monster (if you want to get specific, it's more a Sublow track - Sublow is a sub-genre of (U K G)that has dominated many a DJs box for years now. DJ Cameo, EZ, Slimzee all hammered the track and it's still big today. You'll find Jon E Cash releases on the Black Ops label, his own imprint and crew that also features his partner in sublow, 2Real. There's a barrage of other releases you need to check on Black Ops and loads more on the way.The Beginning “I’m a hip hop man at heart. I was there from day one, but I was bored with the whole scene, I felt there was no future for UK hip hop. You could spend all your life in the studio making music just to get one airplay from Tim Westwood. In 1999 I went to my first underground garage rave. Before that I wasn’t feelin’ garage but this was bangin’, it was UK. I thought if I could fuse this with what was goin’ on in hip hop, we could have our own hard hitting sound…” 1999-2002: The birth of Sublow “I said from day one it’s sublow. We were makin’ something new. We knew what we were doing and that it was just a matter of time. So I got into it, I put a track out called ‘Drop Top Bimma Kid’ in ‘99. 2real was there from day one, then I met Chaps, we hooked up with DJ Dice, put more tracks out, and then Dread D and Charmzy came on board. Back in 2000 we were all tryin’ to get our sound locked, but I was always targeting the bedroom DJs. What I was making then, the Pied Pipers and the Norris The Bosses weren’t feelin’ it at all. I was makin’ future music. From 2000 to 2002 I was struggling tryin’ to push this sound out. By then I had quite a bit of catalogue behind me. Tracks like ‘Haywire’, ‘Hoes Don’t Mean Shit To Me’… Imagine goin’ into a garage shop in the year 2000 and seein’ a tune called ‘Hoes Don’t Mean Shit To Me’! They’d be like, ‘We can’t take that!’ They couldn’t understand I was coming from a street angle. Now in 2003 everyone’s talkin’ this thugged out talk.” 2003: The Jump Off “I knew ‘War’ was a big tune, I did a mad marketing trick. I gave it to Slimzee and no one else. I told him not to tell anyone it was my tune, then everyone thought it was an East tune. A Roll Deep tune. Slimzee banged it out, people were asking me how I got it and it was my tune! Now I want Black Ops to take things to a bigger scale. Our aim is to push our MCs as artists. I’m gonna be putting out big rave tunes like ‘Kettle’, but also crew tracks like ‘Bang Bang Bang’ by Dutti Squad.” The Future: “My goal’s to sign my label to another label, have full artist control and push everyone. People think if they call their music ‘sublow’ they’re biggin me up, they’re not, you go in Uptown now they’ve got sublow racks, but it ain’t all my tunes, I had the brain to say “yeah”, lets ID the music, but I don’t run tings. I’m trying to pave the way for the younger producers. Ops is a product. The way I see our scene, we’re strong like the pound, we’re respected everywhere, except in the UK. If we don’t stick together and identify what we’re making, we’ll have nothing.” BLACK OPS UNCOVERED: THE FULL EXTENT OF THE BLACK OPERATIONS... The Labels: Black Ops – The main label. Next tune to watch out for is ‘Kettle’ released 1st week of December. Catch Black Ops tunes first in Uptown Records, London. Sublow.FM – Shares its name with the Black Ops internet station, designed to put out value for money EPs. Watch out for For Da Pirates Vol. 1 by Dread D out now, Vol. 2 by Jon E Cash out Feb and Vol. 3 by Charmzy later in ‘04… LD Cats – Sub imprint specialising in vocal tracks and artist based releases. Banned – D&B Label – Releasing ‘Kettle’ D&B remix (Watch out for Jon E Cash producing D&B under the alias ‘OB 1’). The DJs: DJ Dice – “We are trying to market our own style of music.” Can be found on Freeze FM Wednesdays 8 –10pm. DJ Cloudy – “There should be a lot of sublow raves by next year and the whole clique will be big.” Last seen on MajorFm.com Fridays 10 – 11.30pm, also on React FM 99.1 Sundays 6 – 8pm. Martin ‘Liberty’ Larner – “I’m playing out with Jon E a lot now, doing all the Sidewinder raves together, it’s something I’ve just become part of. Everyone is involved and wants to push what they are doing.” Known to play on MajorFm.com Thursdays 8.30 –10pm. Spin E B – “Sublow has come from nothing to be massive, we all help each other and we’ve got our own scene now.” Reported to play on React FM 99.1 2 - 4 Sundays. DJ Extreme – “I’ve known Jon E for a long time. We are pushing UK music and UK culture.” Has been traced to MajorFm Fridays 10 – 11.30pm. The MCs: Chaps – One half of the infamous Dutti Bros alongside Cash. “As an artist I try to portray how I’m livin’. Getting girls, drinkin’ champs, makin’ money, not just talkin randomly about shit goin on on street. I listen the Jay-Z and the flossers, that’s what I’m on.” Sly MC – MCs with Extreme, does a lot of vocals and is known to be working hard on numerous productions. “Black Ops is a big thing for us and it is going places.” Skitz MC – Notorious for writing his own tunes and productions. “I met Jon E years ago, we’ve been working hard but it’s all coming together.” MC Rider – MC/DJ/Producer – “There are loads of crews out there, but for me Black Ops is about consistency and making good tunes.” Known to regularly murk MajorFm.com, Extreme FM and Mystic FM. The Producers: Charmzy – Producer behind current club banger ‘R.Ha’. “I was makin’ grime since I was 14, linked up with Jon E and things have just got bigger and bigger.” Catch Charmzy and Jon E on Rinse 100.3 FM Mon 11 - 1am. Dread D – Last seen smashing up clubs with a remix of B2K. “I make what I felt, always have, which is the sublow sound, at first it wasn’t really what people wanted to hear but now it’s become big.” 2Real – Longtime Black Ops vets. Our sources can confirm we’ll be seeing a lot more from them in the New Year… The Collabs: Dutti Bros – Jon E Cash & Chaps Special Ops - Jon E Cash, Chaps & Capone (focusing on ‘real talk’) Dutti Squad – Jon E Cash, DJ Cameo, Kaoss and Chaps. Described by Cash as “the porno stuff”, producing a London version of Miami Bass. Catch them on 1Xtra last Wednesday of every month and on MajorFm.com Thursdays 10.30-11.30pm. Reality – “The R&B side of things, vocals, but at our tempo…” Below 40hz - The extended sublow family. Known members include J Sweet, Eastwood, Alias, Black Ops, The Masons, Scandalous Unlimited and Cash himself. The Mixtapes: Watch out for Sublow Volume 1 – Double CD, one mix CD and one of unmixed dubs coming April/May 2004. Our sources also understand a Dutti Squad Album is under construction. Distribution: Martin ‘Liberty’ Larner runs Non Stop Distribution, handling all Black Operations releases exclusively. For a free sublow CD, email [email protected]. The Events: ‘Vibes’ is every Saturday from 13th Dec at The Brink, Old Kent Road, London. “All the big DJs plus all the Black Ops cats will be there” confirms Cash, “it’s undiluted raving ‘til 5am, then an after party in Finsbury Park. We also have a Wednesday starting in the West End starting, playing old skool and today’s music over two rooms.The Black Ops label party is also happening at Smoove on the 21st September.” The Internet Radio Station: Sublow.FM – “Pirates have got maybe a year or two left” Cash predicts. “Everyone’s going to have internet in their car, on their phone, so that’s in the pipeline…” The Clothing Labels: Two new labels are launching next year, ‘Digiwear’ and ‘Mad Weight’. “Three years ago over here we had our own style” says Cash, “but now we’ve gone backwards again, youts are copyin’ Americans again. Them man love how we dress, but now we’ve lost the plot! We need to get that culture back.” The Website: www.dablackops.com + a new Jon E Cash site coming in the New Year. Where, we have been informed, you’ll be able to hear exclusives, and vote which Black Ops tunes come out next. Contact [email protected]. To book Jon E Cash or any of the Black Ops