CHERRYBOY

CHERRRYBOy Magazine — Scratcha DVA

Scratcha DVA (aka Scratcha, Scratchclart and Leon Smart) is a Hyperdub heavyweight who has spent over a decade shaping underground UK dance music, from Grime and UK Funky to House, Jungle and Drum & Bass. While clubs fell silent, he channelled his energy into music and mental health, emerging with a wave of new projects that cement his reputation as one of the scene’s most forward-thinking voices.

Cover for Aftotek by Optigram, 2021

Phoebe: How have you coped outside of lockdown so far?

Scratcha: It’s been good, the clubs ain’t there but I’ve been working, I’m inside a lot anyway. I’m making a lot of music, and we’re going to get back to it.

Phoebe: Are you excited to play new music, live?

Scratcha: Yeah and hear it you know. It’s been a couple years, it’ll be interesting to see what is played. I just have this funny feeling that going to get back to what they were playing before and in my head there should be loads of variety but I have a feeling that there’s not.

Phoebe: Collaboration is key to your music and something you’ve been implementing heavily to your sound over the past year, how did this become so important to your practice?

Scratcha: I think it’s important more on a basic level, for example if you’re producing you might get writers block and some people sit with writers block for months, whereas sometimes an easy way to get out of the block - I’m not saying that having blocks is why I collaborate - is to collaborate with someone else. Collaborating also can take a tune to where it needs to be, I’m happy to collaborate because it will get the best result out of the tune sometimes.

Phoebe: You’re also known for championing young artists starting out in this industry, what unique challenges do you think these producers are currently facing?

Scratcha: Challenges, I feel there’s a lot especially for younger rappers. When the first generation grime, there were a lot of people trying to do grime but it was more like Dizzy went through, your Wileys, now I feel anyones rapping or making beats - it’s like there’s nothing else. Maybe I’m exaggerating, and it’s a good thing actually, a lot of the youth are just getting into music as a given but I feel like it could be seen as a good thing and as a challenge. I feel they have fewer challenges because there’s less gatekeeping to get to where you want to get to, it’s not like before where you had to go do this, you had to do that, you had to be on that platform, you had to get a radio plugger, you had to do pirate radio, then you had to go to radio but all that’s gone now. For the youth, they can just make themselves with the platforms that they have at home and I feel like they probably have fewer challenges than they had before. Don’t you think?

Phoebe: Social media has taken out the middleman, people have blown up on their own - without traditional promo. You’ve also started a new podcast, has the pandemic allowed more space for you to reflect on the industry or pursue other avenues you couldn’t see yourself taking before?

Scratcha: I’ve just had my head down tunnel vision and maybe I didn’t like it, now I have had time to let go and do what I actually enjoy. I enjoy sitting down talking with people about facts, music, whatever it is, podcasting was always on my mind to do. Friendly Fires clash, was something I quickly put together, but it started picking up steam so now I’m going to continue it. It was a clash between 12 producers, there are 10 judges and it was run on Instagram, they all had to make tunes towards each other and it ran for about a month. It’s staying creative, that’s the main thing. It’s not just all about making music. You know because Marcus (Hyperdub label manager) will tell you, over time I’ve worked at Hyperdub I might have had these blocks or I might get depressed about press, then creativity has to go somewhere else and i’ll want to create a short film or something visual. I just can’t stop creating.

Phoebe: You’ve been a very notable presence on the dance floor for the past decade, how have you seen the atmosphere change up until the pandemic and what do you think it’s going to be like coming out? For example music played in clubs was once more varied now it seems to be dominated by techno.

Scratcha: Some techno pandemic should’ve happened years ago. Right up before the pandemic I feel a reset needed to happen and there was a lot of techno out there, which is great, but as I’ve said, its given time for people to sit back and think do I really want to do this. Maybe that’ll be the same for promoters, they might think ‘I had my head down and I was just booking the top five RA (Resident Advisor) techno guys but actually what I really want to do is take a risk’. I know Fabric is definitely doing that. Hopefully, we’ll see more of that from promoters, not that I don’t like techno, but it’ll be nice if there was more black electronic musicians and DJs in the bigger festivals.

Phoebe: Resident Advisor is an example of a platform that has completely changed over the past year.

Scratcha: Do you remember every day it was like ‘Black Black Black’, wow what’s happening, this is great but they weren’t even being subtle with it, it’s calmed down a bit now though.

Phoebe: Let’s hope they’re putting that forward to bookers.

Scratcha: In my life, let’s say my career, I would say I’ve never played to a crowd of Black people, imagine that and I have played in South London. I’ve played all over London, but I’ve never played to a crowd of Black people. I think that’s weird and that needs to be regulated as we move forward.
In my life, let’s say my career, I would say I’ve never played to a crowd of Black people My mum lives in Peckham, when I go to see my mum in the daytime, I walk down the road, it’s pure Black people on the high street, come 8 or 9 pm the Black people disappear and there are just white people going to the club, going to Bussey Building and I’ll come and play and think what happened to the Black people? Where did they go? This is something I really want to see change.

Hopefully moving forward these promoters and big clubs make it more integrated because it’s funny, when you go on Twitter you see people post videos of raves back in the day or carnival, and everything was so mixed and now it’s not, it’s very segregated. It’s very segregated out there and that’s what I’d like to see change.

Phoebe: Definitely going forward those changes need to take place. What can we expect next from you apart from playing live again, have you got any other projects?

Scratcha: I’ve got a few actually but most importantly is my next EP Afrotek, which I’m dropping on Hyperdub again. I’ve been doing a lot of self-releasing as well. But for this new Hyperdub release, I’ll work with a singer called 3LON, from Baltimore. Elon but spelt with a 3. People do mad ways of writing their names these days on the internet. I’m also working with Uncle Mez a Grime artist, Mxshi Mo, Scottie Dee and DJ Polo again, so yeah that’s going to be my new EP!

@scratchclart
Album artwork by Optigram

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