The Real Top Cat
Greetings to you and you and all the soundclick.com crew,
There are other's with my name but there is only one Original Ganja Smokin Herbman Hustlin Sensimilla Smugglin Raw Bawn Ruff Neck Weh Strike Match Pon Him Beard Fi Light Him Spliff, and Im passin thru,
To the fans who have been following me and collecting my music over the years, respect due,
2007 I got a whole heap of new music for you.
Tell me about your history? How did you get where you are now?
Tenor Fly and Top Cat have been working together as MC's since 1989 on Sir Coxsone sound from Brixton South London. Both MC's scored number 1 hits in the reggae charts that year with Roughneck Fashion and Love Mi Sess respectively. After working together on the live sound circuit Tenor Fly and Top Cat started to record for the UK's premiere reggae label Fashion Records where they scored hits with "My Girl" (Tenor Fly and Nerious Joseph), Bright Side of Life (Tenor Fly), Gallist (Top Cat), Request the Style (Top Cat) and many many more. Top Cat started his own label in 1994 called 9 Lives Records and released the first two singles "OVER U BODY" & "DJ SCHOOL" from himself and Tenor Fly respectively. These tunes topped the charts that summer at no 1 and 2. During this time the Jungle scene in the UK was exploding and Top Cat and Tenor Fly vocals were being used in alot of the early tunes. Tenor Fly had previously been working with Rebel MC in the late 80's early 90's with tunes that hit the national charts like WICKEDEST SOUND with Barrington Levy, Tenor Fly and Rebel MC. He introduced Rebel to Top Cat and Top Cat recorded Love Mi Sess and Champion DJ for Rebels Congo Natty label. Over the later parts of the 90's Tenor Fly worked with the Freestylers on their Breakbeat projects and toured the world tearing up shows and stadiums, while Top Cat worked with various UK garage producers scoring national hits with Double 99 and Danny Lewis. After an absence of 4 years the TWO VETERANS teamed back up in 2004 and started to tour again with Congo Natty and 9 Lives Project, performing in as far places as Japan, Canada, Germany as well as the UK. This album represents the new works that these Legends of the Business have built since teaming back up. As solo artists they are world class. Together they are THE TWO VETERANS two of the greatest MC's to come out of the UK.
Have you performed live in front of an audience? Any special memories?
I have performed in many places around the world. There are too many special moments for me to single out one or even a few. I give the Almighty thanks for blessing me with the experiences I have had over my professional music career that has spanned 19 years.
Your musical influences
My musical influences come from reggae music, ragga, dancehall, and also jungle,drum&bass, breakbeat and hip hop. All the great Ragga DJ's and MC's, the great hip hop rapper's plus the great producers of those genre's. Joe G's, Congo Natty, Fashion Records, Gussie P, Deekline & Wizard, Chase & Status, Shy FX, Ray Keith, Bryan Gee and Jumpin Jack Frost to name a few.
What equipment do you use?
I have more than one studio set up,
At my main studio I use a Toshiba PC Satellite Laptop running the latest Sonar 6 Producer, Reason 2.5, FL Studio 6, for production and also mastering along with Wavelab and Sony Sound Forge 8. I use a EMU 1616m at the main studio as the interface and a Tascam US122 on the road. At the main studio I have Samson monitors and at the project studio I have Behringer mini monitors. I use an Edirol keyboard at the main studio and a Alexis Photon 25 at my project studio.
