Singles, Scenes & Samplers: FAFU on his backstory, return to DnB & new single ahead of forthcoming solo album
Photo Credit: Clay Patrick McBride
Songwriter SPOTLIGHT Q&A: FAFU
FAFU has always waved the flag for drum and bass stateside – from DnB remixes of classic hip hop to getting five star vocalists to feature on his beats. After his return to the scene with 2025 single Old Habits, he’s pushing on with a solo album this year. And he gives us his full story below.
How did you begin your journey as an artist? What led to the production of your first track?
When I was a kid my friends and I were always trying to play different instruments, and starting bands and stuff. At one point I got a drum machine and a 4 track cassette recorder and started experimenting with making tracks, inspired by hip hop, funk, jazz, and rock etc.
“I was influenced by artists like the Beastie Boys, Prince, Bad Brains; and a lot of classic music like James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. I was discovering them both through regular exploration and through sampling.
My friend Eman let me use his studio space while he was on the road, and I made a DnB remix of Public Enemy‘s Rebel Without A Pause over there. He had some tube mic preamps that I overloaded to get the drums banging. That’s the earliest drum and bass track I remember really making and finishing, and I pressed that on a white label. But now that I think back, I did kind of experiment with some jungle vibes earlier when I lived in L.A. Because I remember a track when I sampled Graham Central Station‘s Hair bass intro. This was a long time ago.
What was it about Drum & Bass in particular that enticed you to start producing it? Who was your favourite producer to begin with?
In the mid 90’s I was playing a lot of MoWax, Ninja Tune releases, and that kinda stuff. We called it trip hop and acid jazz, but me and the other DJs in the scene weren’t playing the Massive Attack or Brand New Heavies, who seemed to be the standout artists if you search those terms now. Almost everything I was playing back then was instrumental and was really more just experimental hip hop beats. I was living in Minneapolis back then and I was playing on a pirate radio station called Beat Radio, and in some bars and clubs.
“Then I moved to New York around ‘98 and my friend Pericles really got me into Jungle and DnB. I was working in the studio with Bad Boy Records at the time. I was surrounded by hip hop but going out to Jungle parties on the weekends.”
I had a studio on 26th street, right next door to Baseline (where Roc-a-fella recorded) and I would split my time between making hip hop beats and DnB tracks. So that was my routine, and I’d spend so much time on each DnB track that the hip hop stuff was like a palette cleanser. My favourite producers back then were DJ Zinc, Congo Natty, Shy FX, and Dilinja.
What has been the biggest challenge releasing DnB singles again last year?
Good question. I don’t know. Ask me after I release this album, haha. This is really my re-emergence in the DnB scene. While I’ve spent the last year or so creating the project and releasing tracks, I still feel like I’m just newly back and hoping to be able to create some work that the community responds to. The creation process doesn’t feel challenging since I’ve been doing it for so long in other genres. The other side of it, the business side, I’m figuring out as I go. But I’m lucky in that I have a whole team of friends and supporters who are helping me with that journey.
“Honestly it’s really just been a process of casting a lot of lines out there and hoping for some bites. Figure out where you get the response and double down on that. I’m not really business or marketing minded so I ask a lot of my friends for advice on that stuff which has helped lead to creating a team.”
Getting people’s vocals recorded or getting videos shot can definitely be a challenge but once you do it and if it works out well it’s that much more special because it’s not easy. But I think for me, for my journey, it’s really just a matter of if I put in the work, it will pay off. Period.
How have raves and dance music events changed in the US, and New York, since 2020?
Since I’ve been away from the scene during that time I can’t really answer that. I can say from the events I’ve been to recently that there’s still a strong sense of community and good vibes.
In relation to your ‘Old Habits’ single with Superbad Solace and Oddisee, what old habits inspired this song?
“That’s a good question. Oddisee would have to answer that as he wrote his parts first which established the concept of the song. But I’d say all three of us have an old habit of creating music, which we’ll probably be doing for the rest of our lives.”
If you follow the lyrics he’s talking about old habits dealing with relationships with women, but also his habit of rhyming. Solace took the line “Old habits die harder…” and talks about how he’s fully committed to what he’s doing, his family, and being who he is unapologetically. On the music side the track represents a bit of an old habit for me, as it’s essentially a DnB version of a hip hop song I produced about ten years ago, called Creme de la Creme featuring Timeless Truth.
What’s the meaning behind your latest single ‘Infinite’, and what vibes were you going for with this one? The bass line in this one is a banger, how did you approach it differently to your usual bass line crafting?
“Oh thank you so much. I appreciate that. That track hasn’t really found its audience yet I feel. There is a remix coming out with T.R.A.C. (V recordings/Sun and Bass).”
That track was really inspired by that opening riff that was played by one of my musical collaborators, Tom Scott (no not that Tom Scott), who plays keys on some of the more musical tracks on the album. He had sent me that riff as part of another track he and I were making for some clothing brand in our advertising work, and for whatever reason the client wasn’t happy so we were just throwing out different ideas. He sent me the hook and I thought it would work better in something else. Then a year or two later, on Christmas Day of 2024, I took it and created the track.
For the bass line, I think I wanted to keep it more of a constant tone, like a drone in far eastern music, because the riff has that eastern vibe and is doing so much. I made it distorted because I guess that’s just where the vibe took me. And then the breaks are slightly offset from where they would typically be, which was a happy accident in which I was being lazy – I was working on it late at night, and it just kinda sounded dope so I went with it.
A few months later Yungchen Lhamo came to my studio to put her vocals on the track. She had Tibetan Buddhist prayer books and she was reading those and improvising. I think that was all in one take that I ended up chopping up, and she sang acapella for about five minutes after the track ended, which I shortened to make the end. What a voice. So many people ask me what the sample is – no sample, It’s real!
What’s your favourite thing about being an electronic music producer?
“Honestly, this is the first time in my life I’ve done a whole album as FAFU. That’s what I like about it. Everything else I’ve done was part of a group or being the producer on a project, all of which is great, but this time I’m the principal artist.”
I collaborate with plenty of other artists but still get to make all the final decisions, and that’s refreshing. I realized I needed to put all the effort into something I control, rather than always trying to do it with other people. In a lot of cases people don’t come through with their end of it, or life happens for them or whatever.
What do you think is missing from the music industry and electronic scene in the US at the moment?
I miss the days when people made music before tiktok. I like full albums, not 15 second clips. I don’t like how streaming pays. I’d love to see more hip hop heads embrace DnB.
What do you have planned for this year, and what are your goals going forward?
Well, in the short term I’m releasing my next song, Rollin With You – which is another liquid jungle track and features Smoke DZA, Chuck Inglish, Lexx Sequoia and my homie RalphReal. We have a dope sort of concept video coming out for that. That drops around Valentine’s day, since it’s kind of a DnB love song.
“I’m going to drop one or two more singles after that, and then probably in May I’m releasing my full length album which is called Delco Plaza.”
I’m going to be hitting the road doing shows with RalphReal as my MC starting soon. Hopefully, we’ll get over to your side of the Atlantic this year, but all of that is still in the early planning phases. Also, hoping to do shows with T.R.A.C., Ming and some of the other people I’ve been collaborating with.
Other than that, just more music, more remixes, more collaborations, and more videos.
