Logan Sama: The Grime Minister

Little Dee, Logan Sama, Blacks and P Money at KISS

Logan Sama has become like the Prime Minister of the grime scene. You’ll always catch him being blunt, straight to the point, controversial and protective (when it concerns the grime scene anyway) and he has obtained great respect for doing that over the many years that he has been involved. I caught up with the KISS DJ to talk about grime, mainstream radio and…The Chemical Brothers?
MindOfGrime: Over the years you have become known as the Prime Minister of the grime scene. Why do you think that is?

LOGAN SAMA: My radio show has always been about promoting the scene. From keeping the live sets going on legal radio, to showcasing the most exciting talent to a commercial radio audience. I guess it is by default seeing as I have the only 100% grime show on legal radio, I got ”elected” to that role. I’m a public servant of grime.

MOG: Servant you know [Laughs]. Okay, so tell us about your DJing history…

LOGAN SAMA: I just started buying records when it was called garage in like 1999, listening to guys like Ez, Karl Brown and Fonti. I used to have a mess about on friends decks, because I only had a hi-fi turntable. I got proper decks in 2001 and ended up getting a show on Rinse FM in 2002. In 2005 I got onto KISS and that’s how it I got here.

MOG: Your show every Monday night on KISS has been a huge part of the grime scene getting out to the masses…

LOGAN SAMA: It’s like the first rung of the ladder for guys who are really hot on the underground to climb into mainstream visibility. All these guys in the charts now have to come through my KISS show and 1Xtra to become commercially viable artists. Of course I focus on the grime sound though, rather than the artists specifically.

MOG: What was it about grime music that made you decide to make a career out of it though?

LOGAN SAMA: Just out of chance really. I happened to do really well, really quickly and I have to thank my family for being supportive and understanding when I dropped out of university to ”be a DJ”. I know my dad thought I was fucking mad.

MOG: I’m sure he’s proud of you now Logan. In January the station decided to cut your show from 2 hours to just an hour. Tell me honestly how you felt about their decision?

LOGAN SAMA: Well firstly it wasn’t just my show, it was all four shows in the 11-1 slot. So that’s the funky house, drum & bass and electro shows too. It was just a scheduling shuffle, not anything reflecting on the popularity of the genres, obviously I am disappointed that I have an hour less time to promote the music I love and the live bars get cut down as well, because that’s my favourite part. It’s going to be tough to work out a new format for the show, but I am sure we will manage. Radio is always changing and nothing stays the same, these things happen and I am glad there’s still a place on legal radio for a 100% grime show.

MOG: That is very true! Do you personally like any other type of music apart from grime? I mean, what did the parents play when you were growing up, because I’m pretty sure they weren’t into Tempa T or Big H?

LOGAN SAMA: I like loads of different music, random shit. Dean Martin, Nirvana, Chemical Brothers and Masters At Work. Before I got into garage and the underground stuff I used to listen mainly to some mad electronic stuff like old Prodigy, The Crystal Method and a load of other stuff. When I was growing up it was all 80’s bands and I remember my old man used to have a load of cassettes like Sting & The Police, Dire Straits, Genesis, Adam & The Ants and Blondie. I enjoy 80s pop music cos’ they use a bunch of cool synth sounds that I often hear people going back and using today with plug-ins for their software sequencers.

MOG: You run a label, Ademantium, right?

LOGAN SAMA: There’s just so much music being made and I saw that not enough of it was coming out. I started the label up to try and get some of the tunes I was playing on the radio out into the shops and I know it must irritate the piss out of people to hear tunes getting played by DJs on the radio and they can’t get them. When I was a fan of underground garage, starting out I wanted every tune I heard and then when I got into DJing, guys like Slimzee and Mak 10 had all this amazing music. I just wanted to make sure more of it ended up in the shops and hopefully that can continue into this new decade with new sales models.

MOG: What do you have planned for 2010 and beyond?

LOGAN SAMA: I just want to continue to promote the grime sound. This decade is going to be really exciting, because with the Internet we really have all the tools to do everything ourselves, so I am going to try and do as much with it as possible. Multimedia shows, live events, connecting with the buying market, that’s what I want to do and just really get this great music out there as wide as possible.

Catch Logan Sama on KISS every Monday 12pm – 1am

(This was a 5-10 min chat with Logan, he couldn’t done it any longer)

Huge thanks to Logan Sama for this interview,

Mind Of Grime.

[Via http://mindofgrime.com]

Ethnographic Research

Research is on.

This week started on a Saturday, like most Student weeks do. Me and flatmate, coursemate and friend Alice set out in Wood Green, equipped with camera, boards, questions – and warm clothes. It was a windy London day, and we were all ready for approaching unaware and innocent- looking people on the streets for quick interviews.

We divided between our projects, and decided it was best to go for one project per interviewee, as the girls we interviewed initially seemed relatively overwhelmed by the amount of questions. For my project I got the girls, a man who ate a snack bar – andErnie, a body builder promoting his nutritional scheme! Oh lucky day. They were all wonderful, and it was very interesting to hear a quick opinion on what they think was ‘healthy food’.

Later this week I had an intertview with a fellow student, Ryan, one of hopefully many interviewees this week to reveal insights and to dismiss/reinforce stereotypes and statistics in my research. Another interview was made of one of my friends, Katharina, where I got the insight from the girlfriend-perspective – how she percieves the way this group interacts with a healthy or unhealthy lifestyle. First interview of Ryan is filmed, second of Katharina is taped and noted.

HOOK – TARGET GROUP – BRAND

So, for updates on how the research fits into the plan of mapping my project in terms of a key target user, here’s my thoughts:

• HOOK: My hook, I have decided, are men between the age of 24-35, and in a pre-/no family lifestage, which is based on statistics shwoing this particular group as more likely than anyone to have an unhealthy lifestyle. I’ve renamed this week ‘Research-Week’, where I will only focus on ethnographic research to ground my concepts into a real scenario with real people. The research this week is divided between; Full interviews, on-the-streets interviews, ‘consumer safari’ and revising of earlier diary research. As I have limited time, and in the need for insights and opinions, I have decided to focus more on the full interviews of the actual target group, than to spend time analysing what they eat, to draw cocnlusions from that. As I tried this with the food diary for one day, it seems more rewarding to go into a discussion around the topic in an interview. All the interviews are filmed with notes.
• CONSUMER PROFILE: Will be a summary of the insights, different types of people and common features from the interviews and observations. This will be made at the end of this week when all the interviews are over. Monday is set for analysis and idea generation.
• Personal VIEWPOINT, brand, or both?: I think it would be more interesting, and more suitable for the diverse nature  of my products (old, new and future) to choose a person, and include some of the brands in his life. So a mix of both I assume. I will be looking at brands that have coherence with my project brief and target group, to form a story behind him. Examples now would be: A beer company, a pub, a sandwich or kebab shop, a supermarket, a gym, a soda company, a workplace and a phone company. Ish. More info coming next week.

And – I saw this advertisement for Google Chrome in the tube today, which I think tells a nice story of the consumer.

[Via http://maidmonica.wordpress.com]