Leaders of the Next School

Sup world, for the uninitiated allow us to introduce ourselves. We’re Associated Minds, a record label working with some of the newest rising artists from all over the UK, currently based in Cardiff. We’re not an experimental ‘sub-genre-of-the-month’ label but a hip-hop record label that still isn’t scared to play with what people expect.

The label was formed in the summer of 2004 after the two founders, Ruffstylz and Mayor met at a De La Soul gig. They got talking and both had the feeling that there was a gap in the hip-hop music produced in the UK and there was a need to try fill that gap. From then on Associated Minds set out to show to the world what we know and love about hip-hop. We’ve looked to represent and push artists with talent we saw around us who didn’t necessarily fit the latest fashions or predictable UK stereotype and try and give them the platform to develop they deserve.

Happily we can say that so far everyone in the Associated Minds family is defined, unique and on top of their own craft. It’s difficult to summarise it all but the spearhead of the music we release would be best summed up by saying we have always been and still are, inspired by ‘hip-hop’ and everything that falls under that banner. Be it old, new, hard, soft, rowdy, ignant, witty, lo-fi or hi-gloss it doesn’t matter to us. It just needs to have that essence and feel to it that makes you react. And now we’re hopefully moving into a space where we can be seen as contributing something all of our own to the music. Metabeats, Ruffstylz, Beatbox Fozzy, Ralph Rip Shit, P.L.O., Sam Rockwell, Mudmowth and Willo Wispa are the names to remember.

We’ve always figured that artists that are remembered and cared about in the long term are born out of personal secret obsessions and never-ending journeys of the mind we all need to consume to feel alive. All the artists over the years we have loved and supported as fans gave us that buzz. The reason you love them is that excitement you felt/feel on hearing them do something you’ve either never heard done before or, not done with so much ‘come-off’ factor. And we’ve tried to bring that to the table with the artists we’ve chosen to work with. So A.M. is proud to present you with our obsessions. Whether it’s the full colour attack of Mudmowth, the unparalleled enigma of Ralph Rip Shit, the virtuoso raw musicianship of P.L.O., Ruffstylz’ lyrical rollercoaster onslaught, Fozzy’s impossible beatboxing, Sam’s hit-making boom bap, Willo’s hilarious surreal punchline comedy or the universally dope neck snap genius of Metabeats, the aim is to deliver satisfaction, that unmistakeable feeling.

To date we’ve been very nicely written about, become familiar with numerous Single
Of The Month or Album Of The Year awards in the press, toured the whole
of the UK and Ireland, supported the likes of Nas, Kool Keith, Prince Paul, Kool Herc, rubbed shoulders with De La Soul, Dizzee Rascal, Prince Po, even Duran
Duran and walked beyond brick walls by not seeing them. We’ve also focussed on offering people a quality of finish – something we also felt was lacking in a lot of the way hip-hop in the UK is presented. At times it’s seemed harder for us not being based in London at the centre of where everyone lazily looks. But in turn that has benefitted us to just stay on our own game and not follow. We’ve focussed on producing good value releases that look good as well as sound good and in turn not undervalued ourselves when giving people music worth buying and supporting. That has helped us in managing to shift decent unit sales and along with radio and TV royalties so far we’ve done ok.

Getting the large hill of goodies we’ve got stockpiled out for people to hear is the immediate short-term vision and trying to progress, one solid step at a time. Looking at the horizon we hope to fulfil a legacy of historic hip-hop, made the way true hip-hop fans live for and to grow beyond the limits of what we can imagine. Our goal everyday is to improve with everything we do, and remember to enjoy every moment along the way – and we plan to bring as many moments as we can. Hip-hop culture has the most rebellious way of evolving, all death cries have been answered with life and here we are with fresh blood. We’re passionate about this music. And never bored.

You can find us at…

www.associatedminds.com
Your local vinyl retailer
i-Tunes

Mayor

Filed under: Bonafide Exclusives by P.A.