UKHH.com Interview [Dylan Facer]

UKHH.com was established back in 1999, so it has to be one of the longest, if not the longest running UK Hip Hop platform. I wanted to show some respect for the longevity of the brand and discover the history behind it. Dylan is a key member of the team so spoke to him to find out more…

So Dylan, let’s start from the beginning, who launched UKHH.com and what was the plan?

Yeah sure. The site was started by Jay (aka Smiffy) and Spoon. As far as I know there wasn’t anything like it at the time and there was a lot going on that wasn’t really being documented back then, at least in an online space. So I think the plan has always remained the same really, and that’s just to shine a light on some of the dope music coming out of the UK scene, and give an insight into the people behind it.

How did you end up joining the UKHH team?

It was through Theo, who runs Hoochinoo Live. We were going up and down the country filming the first season of Rappertag at the time, as well as putting on regular Hoochinoo events in London. This was around 2012. The guys approached him and asked if he wanted to take over management of the site, so he asked if I’d be up for running it with him. We discussed it and as we were working with so many artists on various things we figured it made sense to document the music they were putting out and combine everything we were doing.

The most memorable UKHH content, for me personally, are the videos you filmed with my friend G00SE, the first bus diss track and the follow up attack on Ryanair. Can you talk me through that whole saga?

Haha, yeah man that was jokes. I didn’t actually do the First Bus one. G00SE hit us up and said he was planning on doing it and would we be interested in hosting the vid on our channel, We’d worked with him before so knew it would be gold so we agreed. Straight away we were talking about what we should do next. I think he put out a facebook post asking what to do next and the response for Ryanair was overwhelming.

We obviously had to go somewhere so i booked the cheapest tickets which were to mallorca, I won’t get in to all the madness that happened on the way over there and the trip itself as we’ll probably be put on a no fly list, but on the way back was when we got the majority of footage, we got to the airport super early and they were giving out free gin, so we were drinking and filming, It was mad cause G00SE was dressed up in a pilots uniform swigging gin and cussing Ryanair, looking like a disgruntled ex employee or something, I think that freaked out a lot of the other passengers. We had planned on filming some more on the flight back. But the shit was so delayed we both ended up falling asleep.

Haha, typical the Ryanair flight was delayed, evidently they fully deserved the diss, I just remembered I filmed in IKEA with G00SE on what sounds like a similar vibe (level of liquor), there’s a couple stories from that shoot too! So can you tell me about one of your personal favourite experiences being involved in UKHH?

Yeah I was watching that the other day actually, sick video, can imagine it got quite messy. There’s been a lot of highlights really, our 20th birthday event in 2019 was a vibe, we had Chester P, Mysdiggi, TrueMendous, King Kashmere, Cappo, Genesis Elijah and a sick open mic, I shot the video for Chester P’s Fuck Your Future shortly after that which was another highlight for sure, Chess was walking around Camden in an old gas mask which was quite the prophecy. Interviewing people like Ra the Rugged Man, Fliptrix, Lee Scott have all been sick. The whole summer of 2018 was amazing we covered three festivals (Nozstock, Boomtown and Outlook) shooting content at each, shout out Kieron for pulling all that together, and also Rappertag, we shot roughly 60 vids for that over the years so that’s been a lot of fun.

Yeah evidently you guys have been busy! What should we be looking out for next from UKHH?

We got a few music videos that will be dropping soon on the channel, and some sick interviews on the site. We’ve recently launched a regularly updated playlist on Spotify ‘IYDK – The UK Hip Hop List’ so keep an eye out for that. Other than that hoping we can pick up some of the stuff we were working on before the world stopped turning. Can’t say too much but we had some exciting collaborations lined up, so fingers crossed we’ll have some announcements soon. Other than that, I’ll definitely be shooting a load more content for the channel once things open up again, and of course more reviews, interviews and articles for sure.

Yeah this worldwide pandemic has slowed up content creation a bit hasn’t it! I feel really hungry to get back out there and start making regular videos again, will this past years events (or lack of) affect how you move forward with UKHH?

Yeah man, it definitely put the breaks on things for a lot of people. I don’t really see it changing anything for us in the long term. Even with what’s gone on there’s been some great music that’s come out over the past year that we’ve been lucky enough to cover, and I can’t see that stopping. I also think there’s also been a lot that’s been held back that we’ll start seeing once things open up a bit and people can perform again. So we’ll definitely have a lot to cover. I feel like the hunger we’ve all been feeling and lack of outlets is gonna lead to some super creative stuff coming out, I also think events will be liver than ever. That’s my hopes anyway. So nah, I don’t think this will have a long lasting effect on what we do.

Yeah live events are gonna be crazy as soon as they start up again! So to wrap up, which upcoming artists do you think we should all be on the look out for in the coming year? And drop me some links to reviews or general content on your site that you think readers should be checking out.

Definitely keep an eye out for Lebbs, his debut EP will be dropping in the not too distant future. Chie & King Bracket, Sane, PROSPECTS, Blak-Ram, Abby Power, so many more that I’m forgetting right now haha.

Check out the Spotify Playlist IYDK: The UK Hip Hop List, that gets a monthly refresh. We’ve got a new segment dropping soon called ‘In The Green Room’ some real interesting interviews with scene legends, and if you haven’t checked it yet check The Expendables vid on our channel, massive Posse cut that came out last year from the Phoenix Da Icefire & The Strange Neighbour ‘Cinematic’ LP

Thanks again for taking the time to talk with me bro. Massive honour to be interviewed for such a sick platform

Big up
Dylan

Thanks very much for your time with this interview and your efforts over the years, I look forward to seeing more from UKHH as time goes on, peace!

Readers, if you haven’t already then go check out UKHH