With Red Venom there's so much going on it's hard to keep up...There's a vinyl album here, called Red House; there's a new hip hop album in the making over there called Transparent Cyphers; there's a live jazz hop project going down at Matt and Phreds; there's this DJ who was in Ice T's Rhyme Syndicate; there's that DJ who works with Eminem...and there's superb sounds splattered all over Soundcloud, and brilliant videos all over YouTube...Oh, and there's a kind of `best of' album about to be launched called The Lost Files (1973-2015)...
The Lost Files is a good place to start...and a good reference point to explain the phenomenon of a voice musician whose sounds have been everywhere from Sandra Bullock to the Salford Graffiti Wall in Ordsall.
So, sod Sandra Bullock, and let's begin at the Graffiti Wall, the backdrop to an absolutely ultra track called Homeward Bound, compassionately highlighting the Salford experience with the chorus `Yo my dirty old town, you're where I'm from...'.
With accompanying fiddle from Toss The Feathers' Dezi Donnelly, the track shows how Red Venom transcends the genre of rap or hip hop. It's just musical. Incredibly, the tune, like a lot of Red Venom sounds, went unreleased due to the usual big record label rip off problems, hence the Lost Files title of the album. To promote it, Homeward Bound was re-issued on YouTube last week and begs to be viewed (click here).
The 21 Lost tracks are almost like an anthology of Red's work... "I've been doing it twenty odd years, since 1986 when I started out as a breakdancer" he recalls "Then I wanted to be a DJ but I wasn't very good at it, so I started impersonating rappers as a joke but then people said `Why don't you write your own stuff?' So that's what I started doing..."
"It's been a big part of my life writing those tracks" he adds "It's the story of when I was growing up; when my mum passed away and when my sister passed away as well at 26, and all the struggles over the years. There's a track called B-Boy Supreme, with Man Parish, about growing up in the 80s...Follow Me, an anti-gangster rap, has the same break as Happy Mondays' Step On...there's a lot of different styles there."
On Soundcloud* and YouTube (click here) there's a 22 minute pre-album mix tape by DJ Phurty to whet the appetite.
Meanwhile, there's an ace current vinyl and CD album out called Red House, on which Red has been working with a host of huge hip hop names including Craig G, Man Parish, Lord Jazz, Mikey D and Donald D, who was in Ice T's Rhyme Syndicate. And there's another Red House hip hop album in the making provisionally called Transparent Cyphers...
"The idea is that it's Red's house, like a party with lots of guest artists" he explains "We're bringing loads of guests from America and from the UK, and if anyone from Salford wants to get involved they're welcome. There's a guy called DJ Doom who's worked with Eminem, he's producing two of the tracks. Doom's from the Bronx and has been around a long time and worked with some serious artists. We did the deal before Eminem approached him so that was good business sense!"
From Salford to the Bronx it's been a hell of a journey... "It's like a fairy tale because when I was a kid in Salford I always dreamed of being played in America and now the Salford thing has took in America" says Red "Everyone's been trying to break America but I broke it years ago on the underground tip; my stuff gets played even more there."
Indeed no-one would guess that Red Venom is from Salford from his vocals... "I was taught to use my voice as an instrument; if it doesn't sound right change it, and, ok, it does sound a bit mid Atlantic but if your voice isn't right who's going to listen to you? It's like someone who can't sing."
If the stage accent isn't Salford, the sentiments that cut through the tracks are totally Salford. It's all part of Red Venom's refusal to be boxed in by any genre or rules. The sound is incredibly musical...
"That's what happened to hip hop with Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five" he explains "It was musical, the rappers didn't rap all the time; the DJs had their part, the break dancers could dance to the beats, and the rappers had their bit, whereas now the rappers want to take over hip hop. You get people rapping for the sake of rapping and not saying anything. They're saying nothing just rapping, rapping, rapping...You look at Facebook and there's fifty million rappers and everyone's got a hip hop name..."
What makes Red Venom stand out is that he's classy. The videos are polished. The tracks are neat. The lyrics are clever and political. And the music appeals way beyond a rap/hip hop crowd. He's currently working with actress and jazz singer Cheska Totti on a jazz hop project, with an album in the pipeline that's evolved from live sets at Matt and Phreds in Manchester.
The sound harps back to Red Venom's biggest hit that never was, because of those record company problems. It's a jazz hop track called Let's Get It On that featured in the Miss Congeniality and in Sex In The City...and is still getting played everywhere.
"It was used in the trailer for Bewitched, it's turned up on Sky sports advertising the football and the video still gets played on VH1 on the classics and rare hits; I didn't even know it was rare" he laughs "We shot the video in the Roadhouse, it was set in the 60s then it goes into 2000s; and it's got the world champion breakdancers in there. It still pops up everywhere. Chris Moyles was playing it recently but he kept talking over it so you didn't hear the raps. It's a very jazz sound..."
Let's Get It On was made about half way through Red Venom's career and the sound is still evolving in all types of different directions. So many that it's hard to keep up. But it's all part of a Salford scene that began in the 80s, when crews would come from all over Salford to the Precinct or the old Clarendon baths to breakdance, rap or buy electro tapes.
He reels off names from back in the day like NSU, Hyperdrive, Salford City Breakers, DJ Poz and Emcee D... "A lot of people in Manchester didn't see that side of it because they stayed in the city centre thinking they were cool but really Salford had its own hip hop scene."
For twenty years both that scene and Red Venom have been under the radar of classic Salford music. Now The Lost Files will hopefully set the record straight...
*Listen to loads of Red Venom tracks on his Soundcloud channel - click here
**And on his YouTube channel - click here
For more details also see the Red Venom website - click here
Also check out the Facebook page: TheRedVenom - click here
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