#357. I Was Arrested 60 Times... Then Got 4 YEARS Inside: The Dark Side of a DJ's Life - Ibi Alfa Jnr

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2:25then what were you doing for a pound note? What wasn't I doing?

2:28Ibi Alfa Jnr: Commercial theft, shoplifting, drug dealing. Honestly, Dodge, like, you name it, there was nothing, really, that was off table for me, really. There's a time when you were in a situation where you thought, I'm actually going to lose my life. Yeah, many times. What drugs were you using at your height? Everything under the sun. I mean, I considered all that time, from about 30 to 40, that I was completely in the arms of the criminal justice system. What prisons have you been to? Grubs, Wandsworth, Pentonville. But I remember waking up in a Polish jail thinking, oh, you've really done it this time.

3:04What's the worst things you've seen in Nick? Death, probably, Dodge. This is a mad life. Is there any regrets you've got? Yeah, I mean, crumbs. Many, many regrets. But also, Dodge, I temper that with...

3:25Hey guys, we've been running this podcast now for five and a half years. We've had some most amazing business guests on here. Simon Squibb, Daniel Priestley, Barry Hearn. The list just goes on and on from billionaires to people who have built brands. If you want to come on the podcast and talk about your business and sit here with me in the studio and tell your story, go check out dodgewoodall.com forward slash guest and check out the three minute video. We've also left the link below as well. Ibby, welcome to the show, mate. Oh, Dodge, man. God, I just can't even believe it. Brilliant. amazing mate I can't believe we're here together we just had a chat now and we haven't seen each other in 34 years it is it is mate and do you know what's mad about this is I've been seeing bits and pieces of you but what come up in June this year front page of the Guardian newspaper your face Ibi Alpha mate tell me how on earth what has gone on in your world these last 30 odd years why were you on the front of the page of the Guardian that it was because I had a reckon out recently like ever since Once I was a kid, I'd been doing music.

4:26Do you remember I was in a band at school? Playing the bass and whatnot. And before that, even before I knew you, I'd been playing piano always. But I've always just been churning out the records, like techno records, house, you know, electronic. Some years you have good years, some years, you know, no one hears nothing. But I've just always been doing them.

4:47Ibi Alfa Jnr: But this year, I got really poorly about three years ago. I had a heart attack, Dodge. Two pulmonary embolisms. And while I was dealing... You had a heart attack? Yeah, mate. I had a heart attack. Full on, bosh, you're, you know, that's you gone. Heart attack. But the week before, I had a pulmonary embolism. What's that? When your lungs fill up with blood. I mean, usually you're gone with just that. Bloody hell. And then the week prior to that, I had one on the other lung. So it was... I knew I was ill. Yeah. But I couldn't for the life of me work out why. because I was living like a monk pretty much, you know, and I moved from London, living just by the beach, but I was getting more and more ill.

5:30Ibi Alfa Jnr: And it got to the point where I was going to the doctors a lot and they weren't making much headway. And it just seemed weird. You know when people have an allergic reaction to lunch, you see all their faces? But that was happening to me every day. And where were you when you had a heart attack? Indoors. I was indoors, yeah. and because I'd had pulmonary embolisms literally in a row, I knew that probably this was going to be it. You know what I mean? The first pulmonary embolism, I was up in Southampton, up by my sister, and she'd gone out and just blood was just coming out of my mouth. And as I said, I knew for about six, seven months before, I knew that this wasn't right.

6:16Ibi Alfa Jnr: People that were seeing me were like, dude, you look completely different. because my face was all swearing out. But the problem was, because it was a new doctor, they didn't know what I actually should have looked like normally. They were like, you know, dude, you're just middle-aged. What are you talking about? But I was like, no, like, this is... How did the heart attack come about, though? I know you've partied hard over the years. Shit. I know you've partied really hard. I've done my shit, mate. Trust me. You travelled the world partying, techno music, one of the old school. Was this like a culmination of too much partying with too much well do you know what I think there's a strong I've never taken anything off the table yeah and literally you're looking at at the worst I was having like four or five different doctors looking at me every week yeah and we've gone through everything but what we all collectively like the average suspect well we you know the aggregate of what our suspicions are something was I was allergic to that was loose in my environment yeah that no one could like precisely put a finger on you know um potentially like a cosmetic you know like um collagen and this type of stuff one that had a um like a sea product in it you know people get allergic to sea food and that so because sometimes i'd be like in boots or something like that and someone you know someone walked past with a big trout pout and i'd instantly my face would go or someone that had really strongly dyed peroxide hair, it would literally take me out.

7:50I spent three months in a room, not much bigger than this, completely on my jacks, just drinking water and rice and lettuce because anything that I was consuming was triggering it off. And the doctors were like, well, we don't really know what to do. And after you've had the first pulmonary embolism, they know that you know they gave me palliative care and they were like you know it was dark did you think you were on your last legs yeah fully fully and how did you feel about that well were you like I'm okay with this or were you like no I'm going to fight this I'm going to fight this to begin with I was like it's weird the first one I was confused you know and shocked because I thought to myself dude there's so many times over the years that you've really pushed it and you you know what I mean like the fact that you're even flipping above the water you should be like seriously you know and then I thought like now you know you're literally you're not even drinking and like you're doing exercise but you're literally the most unhealthy you've been ever and so I was like no this but then after that I thought well look if the doctors don't even come can't think of anything maybe this is just my time you know I thought and I made I was okay with it were you at peace with it yeah it was it's hard to explain but I really it was like I obviously don't want to rush towards death that'd be insane but I wasn't going to be like well if it comes I'm going to live in regret right you know so when did you when did you get involved in the rave scene oh crumbs like literally when we were still at school I was going out on the weekends you know like Ben Smith and that they'd sneak me out in the back of the whip you know yeah yeah yeah that's like Rug was he could never catch me so I was doing this nut about that always but but back at school Where has it taken you over the last 30 years, the music scene?

9:42You're creating really powerful techno music and all sorts of electronic music. Where has it taken you?

9:51Ibi Alfa Jnr: Mad thing, I'd say, I think it's something like 30 different countries have played out. I've made connections everywhere. There's loads of cities around the world. I know that if I was just, in fact, I've actually in practice done it when I've been fucking stuck in Berlin or something, oh, you know, I'm cool, I'm so-and-so. So that's really nice, you know, and I've managed to sort of link up people that might not have ever met before, you know, like all different folk that, you know what I mean? And, you know, like even this year, I've been like over the Czech Republic, played a festival a couple of months ago, this dude had a farm in the middle of nowhere, just on the border between Czech and Germany.

10:32he saw me on the front of a magazine and just emailed me like I ain't got much money but I'll pay for your flights and give you a few quid do you mind coming? I said to him literally you've got the balls to ask me I'll come do you know what I mean? It's an amazing time just out there with his old nan she was like literally she was older than Moses but she was a lovely lovely lovely she was confused I think seeing her still raving in her garden

10:55Ibi Alfa Jnr: and what not but you know and then the next weekend in Belgium like a different kind of turnout out but like and then um another you know couple in london completely different turnouts so you get to meet uh a real cross-section of people i've been fortunate to meet him but also not having the sort of pressures i guess of you know in the really populist kind of celebrity kind of thing you know yeah because that come that's a different type of thing do you prefer the underground or I prefer the celebrity stuff. I think I absolutely prefer just being underground, authentic, you know? Yeah, being real.

11:33Ibi Alfa Jnr: Because getting back to having the heart attack, all the cliches people say about, oh, music saved my life and that, those three months when I was literally on my jacks thinking, do you know what, dude? This is, you know, you're doing an audit of your life now, you know what I mean? You know, done all the administration stuff I knew, I had to do, like, prepared for it. But the reality was I honestly didn't think I was going to see the end of the year. And I've been, you know, the doctor, I had palliative care, kept, like, people from the doctors, and they were like, you know, this is probably you.

12:10What weight did you get down to then? Fuck, dude. Because what, you were six foot three, six foot four? Six foot four. Six foot four.

12:17Ibi Alfa Jnr: I got, honestly, there was a time I was losing about a kilo and a half, like, maybe, no, I'm trying to think. I've got down to about half the weight I am now. Bloody hell. Yeah. My God. Like, literally. And what was this three years ago? No, I mean, that, that, that was this time last year. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, the heart attack and the pulmonary hemorrhage is one thing. If you're lucky enough to survive that, it just unleashes all holy hell on your body. You know, like, the person I physically was before then is gone. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? and you have to kind of mourn for that person.

12:54Ibi Alfa Jnr: And psychologically, yeah, I'm altered, Dodge. It definitely changed me. Okay. But the joy that I had from music was it gave me, apart from wanting to just live, it gave me something functional to complete every day, you know? And this record that came out recently... It's a banger, by the way. Thank you, Dodge. Yeah, it's a banger. I listened to one of the table for that. Thank you, my friend. but that was done without any expectation that I was going to even survive to see it be released and I think because of that it's got a different kind of feeling open to it you know because my music no one's ever going to say it was made with the intention of like you know hitting the hit parade or anything that's not what it's about you know but I think with this one because it literally is yeah like almost like my last will and testament in, thankfully I'm still here, but I didn't expect to actually ever see it being released at all.

14:00Ibi Alfa Jnr: So there wasn't any sort of contrivance to think, oh, I want to get eight, nine tracks together for an album. Yeah, yeah. And then these guys from LA called, like they've been following me on social and whatnot, and we, you know, chatted occasionally, but then it goes, oh, you put stuff on Bandcamp all the time, like let's do an album. And do you know, the thing is, I was ill, you know, and I was more concerned about, like, I've got X, Y, Z doctor's appointments today. Are they even listening? Survival. Yeah, are they even listening? You get it, Josh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When it's on that kind of primal level, it really puts everything else in a...

14:37Ibi Alfa Jnr: Yeah, you don't want to sort of, like, belittle anybody else's interests or situation, but when it is really a matter of, like, yeah, that's great, but I don't know whether I'm going to be around for tea time tonight, it puts everything else into perspective. So I wasn't going into it thinking like, oh, you know, these guys are trying to do this or the other. I was more like, look, if they're going to do it, then whatever, then at least it's someone. I want to know, why were you front page of The Guardian? How did that come about? It was because of this record. It was literally like, at one point, this summer, it was in the top 10 most reviewed records in the world.

15:14Yeah. Which is bonkers. You know, because it wasn't, there's been, like Ryan and Justin they're these dudes from LA they've got their fingers in a lot of pies but they're not like

15:24Ibi Alfa Jnr: Stock Aiken and Walkerman do you know what I mean they're not like out there spamming and promote do you know what I mean they're just their contacts are more that they've built up over for 30 years just through people that they know being out there yeah so even even them they're like look we thought it was a good record for you but we didn't no one none of us expected it to have turned out turned out like this you know I mean it's yeah it's pretty bonkers and for me it's like yeah it's it's an authentic record you know like all my stuff is over the years I've told myself you know you're keeping it real you know and you're being true to yourself which I believe I was but never on the sort of like absolutely bass primal like if you you do if you're not even here to hear it when it's released don't hold anything back you know because always when you do a record for a label they kind of have an idea of what they want from you in a way they were steering on it didn't they yeah always a bit old do what you like but we really like that do you know what I mean like you know what did you get banged up for oh gosh Dodge what didn't I at one point crumbs how many times have you been banged up in jail I think five six times i went away separate times oh yeah like you know i never did anything but half so yeah mate i remember i was never what what what what your late 40s now tell me tell me when you got first banged up and what for i want to go through those first got arrested um like in a serious way just before my 30th around then I think it was that was when I knew that it was like I was you know I crossed over from just being a bit of an arse to you know actually quite you know I knew what I was doing like it was an organised situation it wasn't where like oh you know fuck that's happened whatever it was you know planning what we were doing um and um yeah I got nicked and it was for a few things like nicking stuff um from like we call it crafting right but what essentially is um you call it the criminal charge will be theft people on the street will call it shoplifting but we're not talking like going and grabbing a bag of cheese or a steak you know we'd sort of get into warehouses or um have quite a few security regards you just give a few quid to and then they you know what i mean um and you know we had me and my sort of cote at the time eddie he was a dude that kind of got me into it right and it was basically i landed in london um my daughter's mum and i split up and i'd you know i put everything into that do you know what I mean I put everything into the label I put everything into being a dad I put everything and I just was like fuck dude like literally she's got where you live she's got your kids yeah and yeah like the distributor was going under as well so literally everything that I even defined myself for let alone the actual material nature of it it was it was off and when I knew that you know tonight you might not even see your kid tonight.

19:01Ibi Alfa Jnr: For me, I wasn't a dad that was like, oh, you know, I'll read you a story later. I was helping out in the school twice a week. That was the amazing thing I got from music when it was completely playing my way from it because I could be there all the time. I was, you know, take it to school, help out of the school, like the school, you know, the school help. I was fully like that dad, you know, and that was, it's hard to explain to people, but that was what the joy from having that agency, that's what music gave me but that was all just gone and it seemed like I think we were raised very much to be part of a team you know what I mean like that was and I found it very difficult to navigate people that kind of didn't have that attitude it sounds strange but I know you'll get what I mean because you went through it as well so I'd find myself often putting myself out not looking for some kind of transactional relationship, but just with the assumption that, you know, I'd clearly done that.

20:05Ibi Alfa Jnr: So, you know, you'd be doing your bit as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I found myself with, yeah, like, most of the artists on the label, they were older than me. You know, I was a kid back then. What did you get Nick for the first time? And how long did you get banged up for? All clums. What I got Nick for, it was... How long did you get? commercial burglary theft shop gun equipped gun equipped going equipped like they're just the old bug bag and you know all this business not sure probably not a parent actually that time I'd been to court and I got bail but I knew that you know it was a chokey that wasn't even a question I knew when I was going back it was take your toothbrush so obviously I wasn't going to make it easy for them I didn't show up you know what I mean mate do it mate and man a living crumbs man what did how long did you get for the first one probably about six months or something like that and how long was it when you come out when you come out that you were then getting banged up the second time oh god probably I think that was a short period probably about a year yeah um when there was high engagement with the old bill you know what I mean and the probation services um But after that, I mean, I considered all that time from about 30 to 40, that I was completely in the arms of the criminal justice system.

21:33Ibi Alfa Jnr: If I wasn't in custody, I was on like PPO, like prolific offender. So they could just walk, you know, they'd pop around for a cup of tea whenever they wanted. You don't have any rights when you're in PPO. I mean, if you look at the actual technical specifications of that order, I mean it's ridiculous you can get nicked for like literally anything yeah okay so when you're walking around with that even if you're not in custody you may as well be I mean it got to the point where if I was getting nicked for something and there was a chance of getting probation I'd just take the extra time inside because I knew that I'd fuck it up yeah okay do you know what I mean I knew it and yeah it was that was it was a lot you know what I mean Sounds it, mate.

22:21Ibi Alfa Jnr: Five times. Yeah, I mean... In and out, in and out. I mean, that's... Yeah, that's the time that she went away. That's not in counting the nickings. Yeah, okay. I mean, like... I mean, I've been nicked probably about 60 times, George. You're joking me. No. Are you joking me? No. Essentially, I've put... Wow. Yeah, like... Yeah, you know me. I'm not a dude... No, you won't fuck about. I remember even at school you wouldn't fuck about. It was all... It was all... You were game from day one. There was never a middle. No. Yeah, it was all full on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Second time, what did you get Nick for?

22:54Probably something really similar to that. And once, like you're saying, once they're on you, are they conscious like, did you find, do you have any racial abuse?

23:02Ibi Alfa Jnr: From the old bill? Yeah. A lot of assumption. A lot of assumption. And a lot of shady behaviour. Sorry for that. That I would assume that, yeah, criminal behaviour. Yeah. that definitely was yeah race related what I found as well was that tall as I am you can be almost invisible in certain situations in society which was good in some ways but in other ways really really bad and you know I had a turn up once with this copper and he made the situation normally when you're PPO right and they nick you they're meant to have there's a whole procedure that they're meant to go through um and he made a situation that was quite small and escalated it like really rapidly because i knew that it was clearly just a new plot yeah we're up in soho somewhere somewhere like that so anyway i'll get nicked and almost just for the sake of him wanting to just like do the procedure it's like oh you're not getting bail it was pointless the whole station was absolutely full like it was pointless but that little stuff like that that cost me three months inside right okay you know what I mean just for the and the same guy I saw him in the paper about a year later getting arrested same copper yeah for getting arrested because he'd been spiked he said yeah and gone berserk lit pretty much literally where he nicked me at night.

24:45Ibi Alfa Jnr: I thought to myself, I'm probably more linear than that guy, but yet he's got the cuffs and he's walked away with doing that. Like, times when I've had like a brief tell me, oh, you know, it's only six months, you'll be fine. Like, just because I can't be bothered. Where I think perhaps if I had presented like visibly differently, they might have taken me a little bit more seriously, you know. But also it plays the same way that I've been in front of Beaks before when they're like, well, obviously you're an intelligent enough guy, you're taking a mic. Like, we're going to do that, you know? Yeah.

25:20Ibi Alfa Jnr: But yeah, definitely. It's one of those things when I think going through our childhood, you're not, it definitely didn't leave me that well equipped with navigating racism that way in a weird way. You know, people are like, you know, we'd all stay stuff at school, but it wasn't, I never felt like it was, like a pathology or there was it sounds crazy I never felt like it was more than like just lads I would give it yeah give it as much as you know what I mean do you know what I'm saying I was terrible like little halo sorry we were in the same in the same house weren't we yeah it was like the house full of wrong uns yeah it was Kimes you were marked from day one then all of us were marked it was like he's wrong I'm going to lose one.

26:11Can't control that one. Can't control, yeah. You'll send them the times. Do you know what's interesting when you hear this? Because I want to carry on with that, but I want to bring it back a bit further. Like, you were born and raised in Nigeria. No. You were born in England. Yeah, born in London. You were born in England, and your parents were Nigerian. Yeah. But you had foster parents here. Yeah, yeah. Tell me what that was like. Bonkers. Yeah. Absolutely bonkers. I had even that expression, foster parents. My mum was like, they're not your parents. You never call them your parents. You know?

26:45Ibi Alfa Jnr: Because it wasn't through the state. She was paying them. Right, okay. Yeah, there was a whole thing in the 70s, probably 80s, probably 60s with Nigerians, and they called it farming, where they come and have the kids over here, and then just put them in social services so that they could be raised in England. Yeah, okay. So my mum used the same pathways, but she was paying them, and obviously paying my school fees. And because of that, she had almost total control over it. Did you ever see them? I mean, they were like... I saw... I remember seeing your mum. When we first went to school... My actual mum.

27:21Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the age of 13, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember, yeah. Because she fucked off.

27:27Ibi Alfa Jnr: And your mum just took over. I never forget how they used to have stock. Yeah. Yeah. My mum, yeah, I lost mine actually in January. This year? Yeah, someone ran her over. You're joking, mate. At least I know where she is now. My God. Yeah, someone ran her over New Year's Day. Where? In Nigeria. Yeah. My God. Yeah. This is a mad life. Yeah. It is, it is. Yeah, like, even that, one of my sisters, that I didn't even know when we were kids, I had a vague idea that I had siblings but it was one of my sisters who now she lives in Southampton and you know we're absolutely close but I didn't even know her until I was 35 she was the one that called me up and was like look I've got to tell you something about my mum you know how did you feel when you heard that about your mum weird because I had suspected that she was already a corner yeah I called her up about a year before because you've got to understand and we didn't speak for like 25 years so what happened so she was there sent you school sports school and all that when did you lose contact with her then at what age after school you know when I got asked to leave yeah right did you get asked to leave yeah I was just gone I remember one day you were there one day you were I didn't know you got asked to leave yeah I got asked to leave man and then what I said this is quality by the way catching up after 30 odd years go on what I said to my mum was if she paid like a deposit on my behaviour yeah like so if I messed up then they'd keep the fees and I'd be gone anyway and it was sort of like I had all my bags packed ready to go back to school and I looked at Ruth my father's mum and she looked so sad yeah because they'd had like a to-do about the whole business about how you know I was going out of control and why they can how this situation even occurred yeah and yeah so So I think probably that confrontation had been in the pipeline for a long time.

29:34Well, you've got to imagine your foster mum is treating you as a boy, as a mum. Your mum's probably looking in going, don't take him over as your son. He's my son. Of course. Do you know what I mean? All that's going to be going on. There's million and one cultural differences. You've got to remember, like Ruth and Arthur. Was that your foster parents? Yeah, like they would have been 100 this year. Yeah, okay. You know, they were like. They were old when we were, but I remember. Honestly, they were like nearly 60 when I was a baby, you know. So they were old grandparents' age. Now my mum, you know, she was a young mum.

30:08And there was a power imbalance, obviously, culturally,

30:13Ibi Alfa Jnr: and conversely, financially, because she had all the money in the world. So she had the power, I guess. Yeah, but then socially, you've got to remember, we've been half of this upper-middle-class white folks living in Chichester that had a very 1980 view of how things should be, you know. You know, completely odd to each other, you know. Did you love your foster parents? Oh, yeah, deeply. Yeah, dearly. Now I'm older, I can see how human they were, you know, without disparaging them. And I definitely believe that I was blinded to the fact that they were fallible. as well for many years what do you mean by that?

30:58Ibi Alfa Jnr: just you know they were so sort of like held with such esteem by everybody yeah there were things that they did that I don't think were done out of malice but were that had an effect comments sometimes that you wouldn't that I would never have said to my daughter stuff like you know if you don't behave we'll send you back to your mum right okay do you know it sounds throw away but it's when you when you when you really think about it it's there was always like this parameter where all this this box which was outside the norm yeah for engagement with a child you know yeah and what was about your old man dad I mean wow He was a way up in Nigeria, wasn't he?

31:55Well, he was actually pretty much the first Nigerian Air Forceman ever.

32:02Ibi Alfa Jnr: He was one of the first ten the foundations of the Nigerian Air Force. Every Nigerian Air Force base in the country opposite is Ibram Alpha Road, or Ibram Alpha Street, or Ibram Alpha Lane. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. You're joking. him in that quality. Yeah, he's a full-on, like, you know, he's a full-on hero over there. But Ruth and Arthur, they'd always be like, oh, yeah, that's just a pilot. Right, okay. You know? Okay. Whereas... Were you close to your old man? No. No. Was he still about today? No, no. He died in 2000. I knew that he absolutely loved the bones in me. Yeah. I knew that. And when we spent time together, which wasn't a lot, he absolutely doted on me.

32:47Ibi Alfa Jnr: But the reality was he was a military dictatorship. So you've got the head of the army as president, head of the navy, head of the air force, number two and three. And there's no democracy. That was, you know, he was head of the air force. He was, you know. What he said. Yeah, it went. Yeah, okay. When I was over in Nigeria, it was, you know, it wasn't Chichester. It was a different world. You know what I mean? It was these, it was insane. It made coming to America look like it was Poundland. something, honestly, it was ridiculous, you know what I mean? Like, I remember, I remember, like, sitting in one of his houses once, right, and there was no, there was no toilet paper, and I was, I was calling out for someone, but the house was so big, no one heard me for about 45 minutes, I was just sitting there, like, shouting for someone to put me the toilet paper, but like, no one could hear me you know other times like you know some junior officer or having to like literally stand to attention and change the TV for me all day is that right can you imagine I can't know joining up the Air Force and you have to like stand there waiting on for muggins yeah and for me it was so different to what I was used to in Tijistar where you know you're sort of really deferential to adults and anybody and responsibility you know you know you know it was really awkward for me to be like you know I remember saying to him do you want to sit down he was like no no no I can't do that really what was it what age was it when you started you were partying hard taking a lot of drugs I think a lot of partying going round the clock when was it because you started early doors properly early you know at school yeah you know did you know there was all the magic mushrooms yeah in all the fields of course you know I was yamming them like there was no tomorrow yeah I don't remember in the cups of tea sometimes I was just eating them just raw on the downs like because I knew I can't imagine but looking back on it now that you sort of think fuck but also we had one of the cleaners he was getting us acid for like 50 pence another one was stupid enough to I think it was he bought ecstasy and once he'd done that he couldn't stop and also because I lived in Chai when the bus went on a Sunday on a Saturday school bus I'd take orders from some of the sixth formers and get them a bit of hash and this and that and get something for myself so even by then you know what I mean has that followed you all the way through to the age now pretty much you've been at it serving up earning a pound note using partying clubs travelling around Europe around the world pretty much non-stop but I will say, since I've been 40, I've been much more, I mean, even before that, I'd say I've been much more linear.

35:51I mean, I'm pretty much like T-Total now.

35:54Ibi Alfa Jnr: I have like a gin and tonic on a show, but much as I love to, I wouldn't want to risk doing any drugs and then having a heart attack because they'd be taking a mic.

36:07Ibi Alfa Jnr: But when my daughter was born, I came to the conclusion... How old were you when you had your daughter? Oh, crumbs. You were still at school. Yeah. I was probably just 18. Was I? Yeah. You know, there's only one person in our dorm had a kid before me, you know. Phil. Phil? Phil McGlinchey. Phil, do you remember him? Of course. He had a kid earlier, didn't he? Do you know, he's a flipping governor of a prison. Is he? You're joking. No, no. He was in our school in our year. Yeah. In the time. Is he a governor? he's a serious big time person in criminal justice you're joking honestly fucking tonk I'm going to take the mic now is he a lump is he yeah have you seen him inside no no that would have been awkward hello mate I tell you though I did make one screw down in Wandsworth once because all the Nigerians only my dad obviously and he come in he goes oh you boys with your silver spoon in your mouth I said yeah you haven't got a clue on your bike yeah but yeah like i mean when my daughter was born so going back to that olivia i decided to myself you can't spend money on drugs yeah because that's wrong and you can't take psychedelic drugs because you don't know what's going to happen yeah so but then you know going off to perform yeah generally like you know back in the 90s you get there and the driver would be like doing four or five pills before you even got to the venue it wasn't like these days when everyone's really sort of tick tock aware and they don't want to be seen licking their eyeballs you know what i'm saying like it wasn't even like that and you'd be lucky there if you get there in one piece you know um but then always sort of thinking well you're not paying for it like someone's giving it to you then you can get yourself in a full sense of security you're thinking well it's not that bad you've only taken 15 these because they you know reality was it's ridiculous yeah uh you know it's fucking insane like how would you explain your 20s oh crumbs um initially where were you living in brighton oh brighton yeah madly literally half a mile from where i live now okay um living in brighton that's a little and i i was first of all first job i had i was working in a factory because you know it's school we never got really told how to behave in grown-up life you know I didn't I mean you had you had a good male you had a good responsible someone you had your dad that you could look up to and see how you can make life well yeah role model you have a better one than that you know I didn't have that yeah Arthur was a he was an accountant and he knew that I was never gonna that was you know what I mean that was a conversation that we never you know what I made him it's completely be flooded do you know i mean it's just you know it was just sort of like we've got this music so it was just like you know i've got you know i was always like academic i suppose you know i've done all my math machus you're always intelligent you're always intelligent and everything i did all my exams early that's the mad thing all that stuff was a doddle the maths and everything because I know like now I know I have this ASD like acoustic spectrum disorder where things like pattern recognition I'm like quite good at and that serves me well but things like linear sort of literacy I can find more complicated do you know but yeah I did do this I was living in Brighton but I didn't know how to translate that into my life and also it's like you've got a baby you don't want to like have any you know I thought to myself everything that I'd grown up with like literally been able to click my fingers and someone had dropped me off something I would have rather just been able to click my fingers and one of my parents show up do you know what I mean so I always thought to myself look dude even if you haven't got all the money in the world you know you're fully there with her and that is you know so I went out went to a job agency and they got me a job in a factory so it was yeah like I don't remember my wage was £3.72 an hour and it was just like 12 hours a day and I just I didn't know how to translate did you know how to translate the gift you've got with music to turn that into a proper pound note and a living well a funny thing it's the first day we got to Hove we got the flat and everything and sort of navigated the not-in-laws and they were And, you know, to be fair, they're pretty reasonable considering the circumstances.

40:54And it was just like, fuck, what are we going to do? So I went off into Brighton. All I had was one tape with this track on and it being played on Kiss FM. Yeah. But that's all I have. And I went into a record store thinking like the last bit of money you've got,

41:12Ibi Alfa Jnr: you can either buy some food or you can find out how you can get this tape, copied a few times and maybe but it was literally a choice of like fuck if you do the tape you're going to get starving anabolic in but then obviously I went and got the tape but I went into the shop and I said to the guy like oh do you know where I can get some duplicates and he said yeah of course but what type of music it was and I said oh there's techno and he said oh I've got a club night do you want to come down and everything and I said well alright and he goes well give me the tape and I'll copy it and I thought to myself I wasn't thinking he was going to take the music and I thought he was probably going to stick it in a tape deck and it'd get chewed up and then I'll bring it that book that was you thanks very much do you know what I mean that was what I was worried about but anyway we went down to the club night and he introduced me to a fellow that I who made records I liked Christian Vogel his name was and I had a few of his records and he goes and Nick said to me oh look I've listened to the track I want to put it out on my record label so that was literally the first week we were in Brighton you know so somehow the universe brought me that so I had records out but I was still at the factory you know and we're talking mid 90s we're talking 90s January the day my daughter was born first record was cut that's January 96 yeah same very same I was all planning to go up to London to watch a big cut but then yeah I realised that wasn't going to happen so as you're going on through lifestyle So what happened in the 2000s?

42:46Where were you floating around? Were you always been based in Brighton? Were you lived in other places?

42:50Ibi Alfa Jnr: No, I really thought of myself as Mr. Brighton. You know, like we had the little, you know, you've got your Chicago house, you've got your Detroit techno. We had a little thing where it was Brighton techno, you know. Over in Germany, we were in front of magazines like Brighton, this and that and the other. And so we kind of had a little brand, but we didn't have any kind of really joined up connection. more than we're all sort of like sharing office and doing our labels separately. I think being young, we never really saw, you know, you're kind of a bit unnecessarily competitive and whatnot. So it was sort of ticking away, ticking away, but everything was through a publishing and distribution deal.

43:34Ibi Alfa Jnr: So it really hinged on the distributor like being proper and correct. but through that it gave me the exposure to be able to go to Germany a lot you know most weekends I was going there so is Germany close to your heart it's where I've had the most success ok yeah I mean I've been there a lot like I wouldn't even know how many times like there was times when I was going there like 3 or 4 times a week a month ok maybe more than that even you know like when the chips got really rough that was like you know my friends in Germany put me up for ages, you know. And that's where I've had the most success.

44:16Ibi Alfa Jnr: But it got to, like, the mid-90s, and I wasn't happy at home. You know, like, we'd had a kid when we were teenagers, but 10 years later, we weren't even close to the same people. I think because we'd both been to boarding schools around, you know, young. You know, I started boarding when I was just six, George. Did you? Yeah. When I met you, I'd been boarding seven years already. my god didn't know that yeah you know you know when you look back and you think oh yeah to send a kid at six years old to a boarding school no disrespect no it's not right at a six year old I couldn't think of anything would I send my boy to you that's not right no at all no is that where you learnt to fight I was waiting for that because you were a good fighter I used to tee up the fights you were terrible you could fucking have a row you could as well judge I used to tear him up going right who's having to tear up get some money I remember you had a tear up once you could probably box out of it you were actually decent you can handle it I remember you had a tear up of a Spanish kid Christian Horcher Christian Horcher do you remember him he was like three years older than us or two years older than us poor son had been put down because he couldn't speak English do you know what he got properly bullied at school didn't he imagine being Spanish coming into a school full of piss takers what's going on and they're like it must have been awful yeah it would have been brutal it must have been awful for him it would have been brutal plus he had a similar situation where he wasn't going back to his folks he was going places like Switzerland that's right he wasn't actually going so he had the same thing where the folks are just sending you over there getting there I'll never forget do you know what that fight was about what because it wasn't even at a beginning it wasn't even like about something that happened there and then yeah it was at the end of term I can't remember whether it's winter, Easter term, my foster folks had had a row with someone about parking a car.

46:11Ibi Alfa Jnr: Yeah. Because they used to come in this golf that my mum had bought them, right? Yeah. Because she never even used to drive until my mum insisted that they got a car. Yeah, okay. Like, can you imagine? Having, like, little Vivian coming around and saying, right, you learn now to drive when you're 16, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's done that, bought them a car. So they're having a row with someone at school about car parking. And something happened. Someone said something to her. but after that she was like said something to your mum or to your foster mum to the foster mum ok yeah and after that she didn't want to come up take me to school no more for a while so her daughter would take me sometimes but her son the youngest son I'm still close to he's really got me into music in many ways he's a scientist so he had he had he was Kako to be fair but he had a really swish sports car so in their like bless him in their mind they thought to counter whatever someone had said about the golf or whatever they were doing like Robin would take me up to school in a Swiss sports car do you know what I mean?

47:12Ibi Alfa Jnr: I can see they did it with the best intentions but this is how bad he backfired Christian Horsher said to me keys are like that but I only have a car like that to pick up brasses is that what he said? oh mate

47:27might not have been completely fucked untruthful

47:35happily married now yeah but he um but yeah like so yeah it was just like fuck i can't let that let that pass yeah so it's like yeah next um we're having it yeah i remember and it was literally we hadn't really put our bags down pretty much but that's what i was like i've just stopped swinging yeah i was done you know you were game from a young age it's weird now i look back on it and it's not right but I was but when you look when I look like now in your 20s what you're doing there in and out of Nick arrested 60 times like do you reckon that's do you reckon that's not having a role model as a dad or a mum being there fully fully yeah and just going working out what's going to work for you yeah because like I mean with Ruth and Arthur they were sticklers you know they wasn't you know they ran a a nice they're very, very religious.

48:31They had the very strong beliefs.

48:34Ibi Alfa Jnr: But there was only a finite amount of discipline they could have given me, essentially, because they were on my mum's payroll. It wasn't like the other kids that used to stay there that had social workers and all this type of thing. It was kind of like a different set-up. Do you know what I mean? And once I got older and was sort of testing the boundaries and stuff, I hadn't realised that I could probably do pretty much what I wanted without anyone really, you know, telling me off for it. Do you know what I mean? And yeah, one thing there is to another. And then when, like, literally when I left my daughter's mum, within about a year, Ruth and Arthur both died as well.

49:22Ibi Alfa Jnr: So little things like, you know, my mates, if they were having for a bad time they just go and stay they go back to their parents house for a bit annoying awkward whatever but that was never an option you know like one of the other kids that you stay you were you were properly by yourself yeah dude like like properly yeah absolutely from six yeah and then when your boss of parents passed and you were in early 20s whatever there's nowhere you go you are by yourself that was it wow i didn't i mean at that point i hadn't even spoken to my mum since the whole turn out at school because she she was like well if you're not coming back to school I'm going to go off and I assumed that she just brought back up in six months but she never come back and that was it and yeah it's not like now where it's sort of you know you've got socials and stuff you know like even getting a clear line to Nigeria is pretty difficult back then I'll never forget she went off and she called the driver she went off I think my suitcase with the school staff was still in the back of the car and she went off that was it the last time you saw her that was it yeah didn't speak to her again till about fuck about eight years ago and one of how did you get in contact oh this is the maddest one when I was 35 girl had one of my sister's names was messaging me on Facebook but you no just like disrespect to my ancestors but you know if someone's Nigerian and starts banging on about this and that on the internet you instantly light your radar so I'm you know what I mean I've won 6 million 6 million dollars can you send me can you I'm the son of the Air Force Chief but actually it was fucking true it was just true you know

51:17she's like she's like I think I'm your sister and I was like oh hello and also like I mean yeah I was 35 so it was 15 years back we're talking and also I was you know I was not at my worst but I was at it so I was kind of ashamed you know what I mean but eventually he plucked up the coverage she was like listen I'm in

51:40Ibi Alfa Jnr: central London you've got to come down and meet me and I boiled her off the first time second time I was just like dude don't miss it I went down there so she was sitting there with three other girls two other girls sorry and I'm thinking maybe they're one of her pals from university for a bit of, you know, mole sport. And I said, oh, these are your friends. You know, like, you know, obviously it was her, that's her sister, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she was like, you might want to sit down. And I said, what do you mean? She goes, well, that's my friend, but the other one's one of your sisters as well, mate.

52:10Wow. So now I've got two sisters. One of them lived literally 100, no, I lie,

52:18Ibi Alfa Jnr: but three, 400 metres away from where I was in Shepherd's Bush and I thought the amount of times I've been walking like down and she'd just been there. Yeah. So since then we've had Christmases together. It's just, it's mental. But turned out that approximately 30 half-siblings I have. Oh yeah. All from my dad. My mum just had me. But I'm 30 half-sisters and brothers? On Facebook alone I have 27 of them I'm in contact with all with your old man old man yeah and you know if you've got that many on the books you've got others on off the book yeah yeah but the youngest one of them I mean I've had to digest all this the youngest one of them she lives in Marbella yeah and we were chatting and she's about the same age as Olivia my daughter and she was like have you seen your mum how's your mum and I was like I don't want to call the scene but I haven't seen her since before you were alive and she was like but we speak to her all the time and it turned out the two two of my dad's former partners they were friends and then I was like you're serious and she said yeah I'll give her I'll give you a number so I thought an hour later the phone rings it was you know an unknown number because she was calling and I picked up the phone and said hello and I was like she goes do you know how this is I said of course I know are you mad of course I know it's you mum I'll never forget you know what I mean I instantly like a train that was her that was Vivian wow and then just you know as if nothing had ever you know as if nothing had happened you know and she's only had one kid yeah I wonder why she didn't want to well she used to love telling me because my head was so big that it nearly killed her I don't know I don't know I think she probably had some ideas about what was going to be her life but actually ended up with her having the gilded cage of all the money she wanted and no one to be with.

54:29Yeah, okay.

54:29Ibi Alfa Jnr: You know? Okay. I remember my mum when I was young of her just arriving some years and then we'd just go off somewhere, you know, stay till wherever. Yeah. And there was lots of drivers and that, occasionally we meet a friend some places but my overriding feeling as an adult is she was pretty lonely I think you know everyone would be like oh my god your mum she's so turned out she looks and be like yeah but you know I mean an example I remember I must have been about nine up in London and you've got to understand this is like she's my mum but she's almost half a stranger as well because she literally like wouldn't hear from her like it could be six months nothing and then she just I'm coming on Saturday and then you know instantly be like any plans I'd had for the holidays that was that was over any plans Ruth and Arthur had that was over everyone had to wait for Vivian to show up sometimes she wouldn't even show up and then like we were supposed to be going off one place we didn't know Ruth and Arthur didn't know if I was ever going to come back each time Mary Monta we went to the States it was only it'd be a month we're there six months you know and you know there's a lot of uncertainty total uncertainty every moment along this yeah totally now I know as an adult yeah it was that word uncertainty it was absolutely fact because it was I never I used to always have a vision of where I wanted to be when I was older but then I remember that was slowly getting eroded you know what I mean because I never I see how my friends lives were turning out or like you know their roots to what they were going to probably do but I never had that vision you know because there was never yeah I could never be sure yeah like you know yeah it was it was proper bonkers you know so when when you were in London what were you doing for a pound note oh fuck dodge what wasn't I doing I think when people hear about crime in a kind of glamorised, fictional way, they sort of think, oh, you know, everyone checks in and that one will be on the flipping drug dealing bench and that one will be on the nicking bench.

56:56Ibi Alfa Jnr: That's not how it works. You wake up and you think, I've got to make a pal note. That's what it is. Maybe you're rocking around with them people doing that thing that week or that month or that year or however long it is until your little firm gets nicked or goes, whatever. But it was literally, if it was something against, like, from a corporation or a state, it was completely fair game. If it was just against a newsagent, no way, no how, do you know what I'm saying? And that was kind of my deluded sort of belief that I wasn't doing anything too bad because it wasn't, in my mind, it wasn't to the regular board in the street.

57:39Ibi Alfa Jnr: But yeah, like, say, yeah, basically commercial theft, shoplifting, drug dealing, facilitating drug dealing. I mean, honestly, Dodge, like, you name it. Like, because at the end of the day, I lived on my own. You know how it's not easy in London. But one of the really important things I had to have was a place I could have my daughter to come and visit. So I went from, when I first arrived in London, I only had my rucksack. Because the flat that I was renting, I'd moved out. but the flat that we'd had collectively she hadn't been paying the rent for last while and the deposit was gone and I was really hinging on getting that to pay my own you know so when I showed up there that was gone they were in London and I was in the stum so and also it was kind of like I was crowd dodged do you know what I mean I've been like the dude you know if he's got a record label it's like if we need somewhere to go and stay we'll go around his house he's got the family unit so for me to have to be like oh fuck i don't know where i'm gonna go it took a long time it sounds insane but i literally hadn't like planned and i remember just getting on the train thinking fuck like they're in the house now and clapping like what are you gonna do yeah shit like that you know it wasn't even like a lot of money it was probably a couple of bags i mean i'm but not being derided, but on a grand scale of things.

59:16But that was, my next few months rent and enough breathing space. Do you remember at the same time,

59:22Ibi Alfa Jnr: the distributor had basically gone under. So getting any money back from them, I was in the bottom of the queue. You know, they had many other labels going on. And there was a kind of thing in independent dance music where that big distributor went down, the one in Europe went down. And there was a big shift with the whole MP3s not being criminal anymore, being legit. So it went from being able to sell, you know, if you sell 5 ,000 records, like£10 each, you're not going to be top of the pops, but you're doing them right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So it went from that to, like, people, like, oh, grumps, we don't know if we can do a record now, you know.

1:00:00Ibi Alfa Jnr: So, and also I was fed up with it and I was more concerned about, you know, how am I going to be in Olivia's life now and what the hell, you know. And how roughly old would she have been at that time? Eight, nine, I think. Okay. something like that. Were you, what drugs were you using at your height? Crumbs. My honest drug of choice was heroin drugs. Was it? Yeah, smoking it, like smoking it in joints. Like, I've tried everything. Yeah. Everything under the sun. But my drug of choice was smoking heroin in joints. Yeah, that was, that was, you know, that, it's hard to, I mean, yeah, like. That's that feeling.

1:00:39An extreme drug. What's that feeling like you get of smoking heroin? Oh, crumbs. Hard to explain. It was like, it was never, you know,

1:00:50Ibi Alfa Jnr: you see in movies, people are like, oh, I've tried that and it was the best thing. I never got that. Maybe it's because I've taken every drug under the sun. But I'll tell you what I did get was a fucking good night's kip. Yeah. Like, it was like a proper, a good night's kip. And also, when you're out grafting into the city, it's knackering. So, it was always sort of like I never really found myself off my head because I was never really excessive but thinking about drugs are physically addictive in comparison to psychological addiction it's like you don't have a choice you know what I mean it's like if you're looking at coming off an opiate withdrawal the physical aspects of that people are always like the flu like fuck I've had malaria it's not like the flu I am telling you like you so thinking to yourself oh you know am I going to take a week off everything to come off these opiates like what are you going to do call in your boss and say like oh you know I'm not going to check in that doesn't work on the street like you're fucked so I mean it's an excuse but it's very hard to really explain and I always say to people if it was that easy then it would never be the massive issue than it is in the first place um because yeah like it's never like running around off my lot it was like i you know i wasn't i wasn't a drinker really you know i'd have a drink if i was away or something like that but i wouldn't get drunk never really i'd never get drunk you know what i mean like i'd smoke a bit of weird here and now but generally it was yeah like getting from whatever I was doing sometimes I was very active and you know I have a couple of trips in front of the telly what's done next day you know so survival literally survival every day getting up pound note where am I getting it from what am I teeing up who am I working with what little firm have I got and then back home again have I brought some dough home yeah that was it and it's it's a cycle where what were you serving up everything really um bad like cracking herring you know that's you can look for the thing that's going to make the most money yeah you know what i mean like the spice world now but back then it wasn't a thing really you know if i'd been doing that now i probably would have treated towards spice another thing as well is i would have your like eddie crazy bastard that he was a Slytherinian dude he used to do to kind of introduce he used to do with us that I'm not sure about actually he he coughed and laughed he was so fucking bonkers but he he had an accident about 10 years ago he'd be like woke up in the street I don't know where I was someone had probably lumped him or something but he I don't know but he a little bit older than me if you did like into a chatbot make me an image of a cliched image of a shady Eastern European gangster that would be it that was Eddie yeah and we bonded because he was from a place called Palanga in Lithuania and I played there and like you never like the fact that two guys just meet like in London and we both you know it was bonkers but he was a great plumber Eddie and he was a hard crafter so we'd go out and do work together, you know.

1:04:30What sort of work? Just anything to get a chilling, you know. We had one woman down in Kensington,

1:04:39Ibi Alfa Jnr: and she would give you like a third of the price of anything from M &S or The Gap. I think I should have said from two well-known high street retailers, but, you know. and so you know getting to the back of a warehouse with one of them load up like flipping 20 shirts you're laughing and what she would do with her mum would drive you know they look very well to do they would drive around the nation going and getting a refund voucher off them all and then sell them down the pub so it was great for us because we always knew there was a pound I remember I was in flipping Berlin with one of my ex once and ran out of money and I was just called Harrison like bosh that was like the time that it was all you know that was a very very streamlined operation but it was also it was just absolutely like wild do you know what I mean just bonkers getting in the flipping van and just like a couple of crazy bastards you know no fucks given not at all there never has been the viewers there no I mean I God I've got to say, to be fair, like, I can see, yeah, I would definitely say that I do care about the stuff deeply, but also, if there's no option, I'm not going to be the dude that's going to be, oh, I don't know what to do.

1:06:12Yeah.

1:06:12Ibi Alfa Jnr: I'll do it. You'll do it, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is me. Has there ever been a bit of work you've looked at and gone, that's too dangerous for me? Not dangerous, immoral. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Definitely. Burglary is not for me because it's just a nasty thing, really. And I've shared self of people who I've thought are quite nice. And you can't pick and choose like your morality is, you know. But I often believe that what people see is, like, the state's version of morality isn't always what actual morality is. And I know, like, some of the biggest crooks are people that society, I know personally, society thinks are really decent people.

1:07:01But, yeah, I had to, you know, I think it was just sort of like, if it was something where it was a corporation or something like that,

1:07:09Ibi Alfa Jnr: there was nothing really that was off table for me really. The most like, I guess, convenient time was just, yeah, when I was just doing a phone, selling the heroin and the crack in West London. You know, that was... What period was that? It was around when Michael Jackson got off his, to our amazement, got off his, got not guilty. Yeah. So that was 2009. It must have been through, on and off for about five years, you know. But with that actual crew, yeah, like, I mean, I still see, I mean, God bless him, the sort of Boris, I guess, for lack of a better word, he died quite recently. But, yeah, the others, you know, if I'm in London, in West, I'll go and see them all, you know, like, you know, I care about them.

1:08:08it was times when they were there you know it sounds like you know weird but trust me like

1:08:16Ibi Alfa Jnr: times when i've come out of the boob or whatever like that you know or come out of the police station they've always been there you know no not even a quibble like yeah it's just you're there and they're not people that like you know have i've ever had much to give but they'd always give the shirt yeah do you know what i'm saying like you know what prison what prisons you've been to Oh, come on. Pentonville, not great because it was away. Scrubs, Wandsworth, Pentonville. And a brief, I think a weekend in Woodhill, just around the riots time because it got overcrowded, so they shipped anybody. It was all the way out.

1:08:55Ibi Alfa Jnr: But I had another case down here, so I'd come back. And I had a couple of weeks in, no, a week in a Polish nick. months because I'm so stupid as a case I didn't come and pick me up so I ended up having a little row with the hotel manager and ended up getting arrested but yeah that was about 20 years ago but that turned out the guy the British console their kid their son used to be a DJ at the venue and because I'd actually bothered to send them on records when I got home all the others people oh you were sending records you know I mean getting them dry and all that I never bothered but I actually had done that conveniently it turned out that one of them was a British consul's son and the daughter was a lawyer so when I found out because to begin with everyone was just sort of like he's probably gone off his own woman or something you know because some man no one was really worried you know um because I wasn't back i was out the family unit so you know it was just the assumption he's finished the gig and he's just won love somewhere but i remember waking up in a polish jail thinking oh you've really done it this time so we'll talk to us who's our fucking bonkers i wasn't even that worried were you not that's where you know when you get banged up you sat in this room you're going i'm here again whatever i don't care what are you gonna do it was like it was one of those things where it's like if you are doing that that's what's gonna happen isn't it there's no point in being i think in prison a lot of the my peers in in jail what was really difficult for them was they hadn't had any regimentation yeah on their lives yeah so suddenly confronted with being completely trapped in a box.

1:10:53That was difficult for them. But, mate, that's all I was ever used to. From six years old, I'd had rule. I would say to people, it doesn't matter what type of... Our institutions were expensive, but jails were probably on balance about the same price. And you'd be terrified

1:11:12Ibi Alfa Jnr: when you realised how much the systems were similar. you know can you see why people who get banged up come out and are happy to get banged up again and go and live a simple life in Nick three meals a day gym sesh add a TV in your room the only thing I remember when I first was away in England was my tour had an eye exhibition so I missed that and obviously sort of confronting the fact that fuck yeah like you know you're in the boob but as insane as it sounds having all of that responsibility removed it was alright and that worried me yeah and that worried me because it was just like this is not a place where I remember thinking to myself like if you're okay here something's gone very wrong and don't get me wrong it wasn't like I wanted to stay there but it wasn't like I was ever concerned about being there I remember thinking to myself well yeah I'm going to have a good night at this camp I don't have to worry about I mean I thought to myself like yeah I probably lost my flat I didn't somehow but you know all those sort of once you've accepted like you can't actually do anything about it you're just going to have to sit here until you come home it wasn't difficult you know what's the worst things you've seen in Nick?

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1:14:12Death, probably, George. Yeah, death, dude.

1:14:18Ibi Alfa Jnr: Probably hearing is even worse. Like hearing people screaming and not knowing whether, you know, you can't do nothing. but that you know it's also just weird stuff like I remember in the field once there was the mismanagement was just I mean it was amazing you know even for my like level of mismanagement and things I was like fuck it was jaw dropping I remember one day there was a female officer on the wing alone yeah she they just closed um not Brunsville of course Holloway yeah so they moved because you know she had to have a job but they hadn't given them any induction or any training she didn't even she literally didn't even know he was on nothing at all but she's on a Todd Felicity Association so she's got like you know probably 56 years on that land and and she's on her own you know without even knowing you know he could have been like oh no give us a key for that you know but there's this dude and he was just walking behind me just coming out with just filth you know like you know I'm not fucking you know like a prude or nothing but it was just sort of like no that's that's that's that's that's that's I didn't you know and I noticed everyone sort of looking a bit uncomfortable about it but then just feeling like what to do I can't put myself on offer and be like oh help in this group yeah but I can't really sit here and be listening to that because that could be you know that could be my friend that could be my kid you know stuff like that was almost worse than hearing someone getting weighed in because they hadn't paid for the burn or something like that you know yeah I think like another time have you had a tear up in Nick?

1:16:24no no not even I've had to I think they'd be mad if they churned on you do you know sometimes people you know me from when we were getting like one of the screws she said we were in the queue Miss White she was a little black lady and her heart was definitely not flipping white this woman she was a legend because she was a tiny little Jamaican lady but no one could have her over and we were in the queue everyone was talking someone said something about you know you don't sound like a Londoner you know and she's like oh he's in the worst of the lot of you it's time to be fooled by his nice talk or something like that and I was like you're giving away all my tricks that's right but see on a serious level no I think yeah perhaps potentially that's because I'm 16 stone and I can't have a rel but also I like to believe this because I have been able to not wind things up I think there are predators obviously in jail but I also think if you want to find trouble you get it before you've even left the USL example in Ville once Pentonville was where is Pentonville in the country North London North okay and what's that like as a prison it was Dungeon Victorian bad for me as well because it's West London you know so if it was described as a Wandsworth before they even hit the landing you know like no half the people no bother you know just literally and but in Ville it was yeah it was different because it was you know

1:18:08Ibi Alfa Jnr: different postcode which didn't make so much difference at my age but it didn't mean that if everyone like you're going to see anyone that you knew immediately you know so it's different I mean it's Peter and this guy comes in and he you can easily immediately tell he's adjut he's probably mid 20s so he's athletic still alright mate you know whatever you know yourself whatever and I'm already thinking this is probably not going to work two days do you know two days later you know as he's dropping his dryers and taking a dump do you know what I mean all evening that's how do you matter I've done that evening like I've just gone have a shit you don't mind do you

1:18:56get to know people very well but then by day three he's got more and more adjut adjut yeah you can't sit still as good

1:19:07Ibi Alfa Jnr: and I noticed he's going off in the evenings when they're administering medications he's going out and I'm thinking he's obviously on some kind of medication usually that's on some kind of like slowing down thing but he's coming back and he's spitting it into the toilet every night so by four or five days it's almost out of his system so in this little box with his kids who you know Rambo but I could you know I'm not being stupid I could have snapped him like a fucking twig but if you're asleep but if you're asleep someone's boiled up a kettle or something like that what are you going to do? yeah yeah yeah this is a kid as well I'm reading I love to read and I was reading Stephen Hawking's book it's not the type of book that you can read like you have to like actually read it a few times it's not Martina Cole do you know what I'm saying no disrespect to her and you know I was having to really study it and it goes to me what it goes this is his way it's like we've been there about a week and this is his way of trying to mitigate this obvious fucking gap between us to his way of breaking the ice why don't you watch big brother with me mate and i'm like michael no disrespect i'm banged up with a load of more i don't want to watch him on tv as well yeah thank you very much right that obviously didn't go down well then it was like you're always reading you're always fucking reading i was like yeah because like i'm when i'm reading i'm not here am i you know and then he goes what are you reading anyway so I get down and shit it's just a book about science it's like I don't understand most of it but what I do is fascinating he goes oh that's nonsense he can't write look at him he's talking about Stephen Hawking so instantly there's not even an attempt to like project into my world like nothing there was just this this thing you know and he's getting more and more wound up and more and more wound up and I said to one of the screws because she knew that because he'd been going there since he was a kid she knew it was trouble anyway and then we're going out onto this association sometimes and you get someone bit oh yeah do you know what i'll stay out yourself and i'm sorry because we're gonna have to deal with him today okay but if you're yourself mate you've got to stand with them yeah regardless of what an asshole they're being you've got so they're constantly having to deal with that and people looking to weigh him in because he had some bird that was bringing him in gear he didn't even need it all but he's bringing him away just so he could you know anyway now he gets to one of the SO's comes in just to check and I said you've landed me right haven't you I said I know I've sinned but like you haven't you're taking a piss do you know what she said to me I said you're alright but you get on with everyone we thought you might be able to calm him down and I thought to myself so you literally stitched me up just because I can't yeah yeah and I thought like no not exaggerate in yeah i could have opened my eyes and he could have been there with a kettle then what would i have done i'd have to weigh him in that could have got worse yeah and in the end they were like um what we're gonna shift you off because they kept on having him on the ghost train you know prison to prison to prison because he was just trouble he was pissed like full stopper pest but an athletic fucking pest it was psychotic most of the time so they come and they're like pom right you're off today and I'm just sort of sitting in my bed like thanks I'm gonna get back to watching law and fucking all the MPs and quiet and he's like no I'm not oh brilliant and then he's like right tomorrow when they come you do do do what I want you to do I was like yeah okay that's not gonna work and so like for me pressing the bell I'd have to be literally after do you know when we were raised you don't ask for help it was just you know you just get on with it so pressing the bell so what you can press the bell in Nick yeah from inside yourself from inside yourself okay no one will come no okay like if you're lucky I guess and you know your leg was hanging off and you had your finger on the door on the bell for half an hour someone might come but not if there's crisis but anyway he's up he's up they're coming to move him to take him off about you know early door six in the morning it's five o 'clock and he's on the floor and he's pressed the bell and he's lying on the floor going like that pretending he's on a slate dodge it was it would have been funny if it wasn't so fucking daft and he's got some toothpaste around his mouth to try and make out that he's frothing in the mouth and all that the governor comes and goes Michael good job but you've landed with your head on top of your pillow on the floor so I'll get up like conveniently so obviously that was scuppered so it's getting more and more you know because they're going to shift him whatever and I've had all this turn out over the last month with him where every day you know if I'd have killed him there's no guarantee I would have been able to explain why I'd done it you know and that would have been me yeah you're gone you know what I mean like did that go through your head yeah of course yeah you're like mate you're pushing you're pushing me too far.

1:24:36Ibi Alfa Jnr: It wouldn't have been out of me getting wound up by him. It would have been him doing something like attacking me. Because even a box, someone puts their hands on you. You're not going to be like, ooh, let's have a cup of tea and talk it out. You know what I mean? You've got to deal with it. And I try and tell people, it's not like when you watch a prison film on the telly, you can change over the channel if it gets a bit grim. You're there for 23 hours with this prick. you know what I mean when you've got like lockdown times and you're there 23 hours a day with that lunatic yeah how long were you in there for with him probably a month and a half with just him oh god my god yeah six weeks with someone who's going to do you nothing every day every day and you've got and you've got to hold back yeah I mean I'm quite okay with being on my own and reading and you know chatting to some of the old boys on the yard and whatnot playing a bit of pool minding my own business having a suit do you know what I mean but when you have someone like that in yourself in your ear hole all day every day they bring the engagement from the rest of the land in all the time because they're always it was interesting going back a bit a minute ago really interesting what you said this geezer does your head in he's a nuisance he's a menace he's a pest da da da da but you said you'd have to protect him if anyone wants to batter him yeah Because he's your cell mate.

1:26:04Yeah, of course. Of course, standard. And I think that probably goes back from school. Amazing. Protect your mate, yeah. Yeah, standard, you know. That was what was kind of annoying. That must have been played on you. Like, you must be thinking, hold on, what happens when a little turnout comes in now? Morgan's going to go and start swinging and banging him. I would have done. And what I tried to do was... Is that to protect him or to protect your cell? Protect the cell. Yeah. and also like behind all the bluster and that

1:26:33Ibi Alfa Jnr: I knew that he wasn't he was mad but I wouldn't I met people that I would classify as evil yeah okay but he was he just he'd never had a chance this kid do you know what I mean has there ever been a time where you thought you're going to lose your life not the heart attack there was a there's a time when you're going to you're in a situation where you thought I'm actually going to lose my life yeah many times funny a time almost funny one guy's heart that I actually had a war with. What the fuck, man? This is weird to talk about. I, like, and we, we planned stuff for each other and I see him in bush with his kids and we shake hands now because that was the situation then.

1:27:14But, yeah, like, you know. What was the situation? Why were you at each other? He wanted to, he wanted to nick my flat and he, to nick it? Yeah, he wanted to nick my flat and he thought if he put me away

1:27:24Ibi Alfa Jnr: then he'd get up, he'd get the place. That simple. a rented flat yeah but the guy i was renting it from was a villain and it was his place for he was away at the time um he was doing a six or so so mate he knew that if he got rid of me he could have a flat free rent sounds so pathetic yeah so but that's how grubby people can be when you you know yeah and he was not an English guy so it was and at the time where was he from he's from Poland oh okay so at the time he didn't have like real links over here so now he's got his family and everything it's the absurdity of the idea yeah but at the time he'd done some Berlin Poland he'd been over in the States with his mum he'd done a jail over there and he'd just landed in England without any links okay and And as far as he saw, you know, that was his way.

1:28:24Ibi Alfa Jnr: And the guy that told me about it was a guy I knew from the Scrubs, another Polish guy. And he was just like, listen, you know, Martin, he talks a lot when he's fucking drunk and he's been, you know, saying this and the other. And I'd sent something, but that wasn't a joke. Do you know what I mean? like big talk or not that's the type of bullshit that when people in that type of world people have a few drinks beer this and the other there's pride there's machism there's just nonsense the next thing someone ends up getting served that's how it works you know no one benefits from it at all it's just bullshit what went for your red when you knew that he wanted to serve you up to nick that flat you ain't a fucking flat you're having a laugh you didn't know literally I wasn't like what puts you on that defensive mode to go right i've got his card what was what was going through your thought process my thought did you ever carry well jokes now on occasion i have had things i shouldn't have with me yeah but one time i've actually been done for that it was a flipping craft knife that i legitimately bought from the pound shop and that cost me six months for a fucking offensive weapon because they stitched me up yeah yeah and they knew that wasn't that's not that oh you know so the moral of that story is yeah like you know you might do it one day and nothing will happen but it will come back on you yeah sometime you know when you were serving up cracking heroin were you using a lot as well crumbs still just smoking but that was one thing that was pretty constant it was even I mean he's dead now so he won't like the boss like we were a very close unit like there was boss's brother another mate the boss who you were serving up with your little firms yeah yeah his brother another fellow I mean they're all 20 years older than me they're old men now and another fellow there's four of us but we'd meet like a business you know 6 o 'clock every night we'd meet at the plot I had a room that I was renting up the road from the plot that no one knew about and a mother flat and when he recruited me because we had mutual friends and he just, I think he thought I was maybe a calm fellow or whatever.

1:31:12Ibi Alfa Jnr: I don't know, whatever he thought. But yeah, he said someone, I said, you know, do you want to come up and hang out for the evening? And he said, look, do you want to do the phone? Obviously, that put his brother's nose out of joint for the first six months. But after a while, he realised that things were running a bit more efficiently, you know. and yeah like yeah it was close close you know were you good at what you did I think so yeah because I don't I mean you don't get like a trip to the HR department if you fucked it up yeah and I think probably like you can have street common sense and you can have street sense and then you can actually have sort of fake academic I've always been alright with numbers do you know what I mean so and one of the things about the firm was I sorry I digressed a bit the boss would smoke but you wouldn't know that ok smoke heroin yeah ok in the community no one like no one would know that he was a pillar of the community yeah you know what community around Shepard Bush no around that's where he's from but more around Acton and that as well yeah but they whole family they're like I don't think they came on that exact Windrush but from that generation mother is he came out as a child in the 50s or 60s so and they've got a big family so they're completely ingrained within the community you know but not not many people would know that was part of his life but he was you know he was a very hard smoker you would have thought he'd be like some dread that smoked weed but it wasn't weed he was smoking it was guilt does it smell?

1:33:03Ibi Alfa Jnr: yeah like stinks yeah it really smells like not not nice once you smelled it once you'd always you'd always know the smell but because of that you're kind of exposed to it all the time I mean when I actually went away the first time I yeah I was dabbling yeah but it was when I was there that it went from more like a dabble to yeah you know I like this I'm going to have a fucking couple of splits every night rather than maybe one today and I'll leave it you know okay but it was always just that kind of like is there any regrets you've got yeah I mean crumbs many many regrets but also Dodge I temper that with I'm there's things that I would definitely like to change now yeah but not many perhaps things they're more like material things that everyone would like to win the lottery just bullshit stuff and there's a person when I had these heart attacks and the PEs I'd do some really big auditing do you know what I mean and yeah like I wouldn't be me now if I hadn't been or that it's a good ultimate cliche but it's it's a fact you end up where you are for a reason you know when's the last time what age were you the last time you've been banged up looking about Well, I think it's getting on for 10 years.

1:34:2910 years, okay. Yeah, and even then, that was a fucking craft knife. Yeah, okay. And before that? And before that, it was probably a good five years. Was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was your biggest sentence of the lot? Four in two, about two inside, yeah. So you got a four, but you did two. Mm. What was that for? Dealing. Dealing, okay. What'd they catch you with? Literally. Do you remember the day? Not the actual day, day. Well, not the date. The day you got in. Talk me through the day when you got nicked for that.

1:35:04Ibi Alfa Jnr: Vividly. Basically, fuck. We'd had a place down in, you know, Kensington Olympia, just off Bush. It's Kensington, but it's not the posh bit. But the day his place it was, he'd been away, and he had this sort of, like, they called it the penthouse. It was just the top flats. in a really nice road in Olympia and obviously all the neighbours paid two million and what not for the flats the last thing that wanted was a house service up there but I really needed somewhere to live do you know what I mean so I knew Angus the old dude who's actually ended up part of the firm he was part of the firm later on and he was Angus was like oh I've got a place that you can rent out it's a nice one in Kendrington and all this type of stuff so I thought oh seriously Angus what a touch do you know what I mean so go there Angus is like oh look yeah you're going to have to wait a week or so until we saw oh no obviously I know Angus now that's an absolute fucking pony but at the time I was like oh that's a week not to worry do you know what I mean but then it turned out one day the bus went and Angus went and asked the thing I tell you his face just dropped and I was like what's going on and he was just like I'm just going to pop out for two minutes he disappeared legged it and the guy that he flattered was a bust his case and everyone you know everyone thought I'm going to be gone so he comes in the flat and he's like who the fuck are you lot do you know what I mean and I'm like well I thought I was going to be renting the mates out turned out we ended up mates so I ended up just renting the room off him but when I at the time I was dating an Italian girl and what we do is block book Ryan out you know they do a really really cheap yeah so we just block book loads of them I'd just grab masks off during the week she'd be at university in Lyme and then we'd just go somewhere on the weekend you know and that's what we did and so like I'm away it was it's like my fucking coming on my birthday I think maybe around my 30th we went to Berlin for a couple of weeks but by the time I got back he'd let he'd let everybody into the place because there was no one to sort of keep keep the the hyperloic at the door so he started dealing but really like under the course dealing you know what I mean so I sorted all of that out and but we still had the issue where well we can sell drugs from this place so obviously that's what we're doing and I was also you know I was not not lazy but I was also doing a thing where I had a friend that was sending I was sending in like like fucking knock off jeans to all around to people, you know, they were all doing online, and then, anyway, so I went down to pick up a load of them, I'm walking back, and there's like a, I don't know, like a bridge, it's called the Green Bridge, yeah, and so I'm walking along, I look up the road, it's like something at the CSI, there's like vans everywhere, and whatnot, I see one of the customers looking really sheepish, getting pushed into the back of an unmarked, and I'm like, oh fuck, you just keep on walking, my friend, yeah that never went but never saw the inside of that flat again but i knew it was on me yeah okay luckily i had two mates that were squatting in white city polish just like squatting but they were capable do you know what i mean they had nice out you know they were like nice things and i had them from what they were doing they weren't fucking around and lucas even used to get tags to the squat so i went around the cottage there but i knew it was only a matter of time okay so where were you when you actually got nicked?

1:38:55In the job centre. Okay. Now, it'd come up to Christmas at home and I, at the time, was sort of like not having any engagement with the government at all, you know, because

1:39:07Ibi Alfa Jnr: there was no need. I was like renting here and there and whatnot, do you know? Yeah. So, obviously, for like price of£60 a week or whatever it was from a doll, there's no way I'm going to sign up for that and let them know where I am every five minutes. But it's come up to Christmas and it was like, well, you're basically a muggins because that's you get a christmas payout you know what what what for signing on yeah and um and yeah if money was more tight because the firm was gone you know um or that firm was so i'm in a job and i see she's kind of got

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1:41:16I'm not excited but I noticed something but I didn't think anything of it so I come back to the appointment I can't remember when it was whenever a couple of days or whatever so I go to the appointment but I'm cautious always

1:41:32Ibi Alfa Jnr: about everything about these things but I knew that if you're 10 minutes late that could be the end of it you know okay you know they'd be like you're late or whatever so i left i was just a little bit like just so i could recce it so i get there and she's just talking nonsense almost now i can say this hindsight just like oh you know did you do that let's just sort of like well i haven't even signed up for anything just holding you there basically yeah okay but it got long long long so she had to let me go and then obviously i know this is hindsight but i'm just thinking she just don't I don't really know what she's doing with her job, but something in me was just like this.

1:42:10But I remember just waking up that day, and half of me was just like, no, I'll just go up. But also I thought to myself, you go uptown, do something, get nicked, and you'll be in the boob anyway for Christmas. Well, you do this, probably get some money for Christmas, and then go out. It was absolutely wild logic, Roger. Just insane logic. just like so anyway I go down to the job centre and there's three like what I thought were on house people sitting on the on the bench you know and I was even smiling at one of them and he gave me like a half smile so I thought whatever he's probably fed up because it's early morning so I go and sit down it's the same woman but she's bright red now and keeps on looking over her shoulder at me not me over her shoulder I know this was hindsight and then the script is just getting more and she I'm just sort of thinking this doesn't make any sense and she passed me another piece of paper and she's shaking she goes can you put your name and I looked at the piece of paper it's fucking blank yeah so I knew then you're on yeah jump up then three on house there was a bill I was like get down I was just sort of like you need to calm yourself down mate you know what I mean you know I saw you roll off it so I like do you know I remember going yeah yeah that was that was me that was me and I remember Olivia she had yeah she had a fucking art exhibition on Tuesday that was the thing you were gutted about yeah not being there yeah did Olivia ever visit you in prison no I wouldn't at all never she used to write to me religiously

1:43:57Ibi Alfa Jnr: but even that right one screw like Olivia like bless her she'd write letters that she'd do all she'd you know she'd type them all up she'd fucking scan photos on the you know like one screw it always mysteriously like his finger had gone through the letter just petty nonsense do you know what I mean like did you have any ag with any screws? any screws that have probably wound you up and gone you know what you're going to get it I have had a couple of occasions And then I thought to myself, by rights, I should square that off of you. But I've also realised that that's what they would have wanted me to do.

1:44:44Ibi Alfa Jnr: And, well, without sounding too sinister, in that situation, we knew where the gays lived, so I could have dealt with it after I got home anyway. so it's just it's usually like a combination of probably like petty bigotry and incompetence yeah like last time I was away remember I was fucking fuming because I hadn't done anything and my brief attitude was it's only six months but you can handle that like it's nothing and I was like you fucking do this do you know what I mean you're having a laugh like I've done nothing wrong this time literally I was trying to help someone cut a speaker wire and so anyway I was fed up and also I needed I promised to Levyar that I wasn't going to get in the stum again you know how old is she now she's 31 31 in January unbelievable isn't it wow yeah unbelievable how are you how are you today how are you today how do I feel yeah today happy see you man it's fucking excellent like I'm just trying to stop I just feel like I want to cry with joy you know isn't it yeah when I see you early it's like when you've seen someone for 30 odd years I know it's mad isn't it but it's like but it feels normal yeah it feels like I can't remember I was banging around knocking around knocking around with each other like and now let's look at face like that situation like it's one of them ones where you can't explain it to other people you know like yeah Where are you at Of your music today And just for the listeners Out there Tell them Your name Your album Promote the arse Out of it Because Someone's going to Pick this up Because your story Is mad You've got a mad story But you've got Beautiful music And you're a kind Hearted soul Thank you So what is the name Of the album Where can people Find it This one was called Infinite Black Inside Infinite Black Inside Which is Yeah like and IBI.

1:46:51Ibi Alfa Jnr: Yeah. Because I found out that Ibi in my mother's language means bad luck. Is that right? But you couldn't write. So that was always like a bit of a nudge nudge wink wink from my uncles but they were like oh Ibi. I only found out. And Ibs the irritable bowel syndrome that was another joke for me. So yeah Ibi it was just not about hairs or nothing like that at all. It was just about having black moods sometimes you know what I mean that was all but I also knew that it would play on some clowns minds thinking oh is it black you know but it was literally nothing to do with that so it's called infinite black inside and it was yeah because sometimes people want to project all the time about stuff that they can't commend but you can't project nothing of a black wall you know it's just something about my so I'm sweating here something about my spiritual beliefs as well the void they called it you can find out a lot about forgive me you can find out a lot about yourself by sitting in that black space of where there's no stimulus where there's no noise around you know which is you know obviously the paradox because of music but from that space where you have to really do a hard audit on yourself where you're just sitting still with everything flowing over you I couldn't get to that space until I was, yeah, like 40-odd.

1:48:22Ibi Alfa Jnr: But I could broach on it, you know, when I was smoking the heroin, I could broach on it, but it was a completely false, you know, it was a chemically-driven meditation. But, yeah, that's what it's called. And literally, it's a collection of, like, nine tracks that I made when I thought I was on my way. you know I never thought died here on vinyl and these guys from LA I honestly thought they I thought they were just catfishing where's that past the vinyls you've given us I thought they were taking a piss when they contacted you yeah and that's how cheers I thought they were literally I thought it was a catfish and yeah it wasn't and so take a look at that people that's my man oh bless you definitely check that out go on Spotify I listened to it last time No, not Spotify, Bandcamp, please.

1:49:18Oh, really? No, I found it on Spotify. Did you as well? Yeah, mate. Bandcamp's better for me. Is it? You get a pound note for me. Check it on Bandcamp. It's mad. With Spotify, the money that is made is equivalent of two million streams or something like that.

1:49:32Ibi Alfa Jnr: But on Bandcamp, it's much, much more, like, you get proper money out of it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, like, you know, with Spotify. Mate, you need billions. It's ridiculous. You need to be on your tier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, to have like, for a little indie guy like me, it's not. Where can people find you, if people listen to this now and want to contact you, where can they send you a DM and have a conversation, open the door, where can someone out there who's in the music scene and go, mate, I want to hook up with you, Ibi, I want to listen to your music, Ibi, I want you to come and play here, here and here.

1:50:02Just do me on Instagram or something and I'll give them an email, that's how people do it. I booked yesterday the biggest show ever. For me, there's an event called Primavera in Spain big fucking thing with Chemical Brothers but I booked that like for just after my 50th birthday and up until now all the shows I've been doing I've done without an agent so you know and the other record there Dodge sorry that one the white one Under the Fear that is the test press for my new label which is that's it Infinite Black Records yeah and I got that in the mail just two days ago. Happy days, mate. And that,

1:50:44Ibi Alfa Jnr: yes, that will be out with a proper sleeve and everything. Yeah. It's meant to be October the 17th, but I doubt it will be fully manufactured and really that. But it's all, yeah, test presses come. It was mad the test presses were outside the front door but I was so busy on the weekend. It was like, just found them there because another great thing that I'm doing, I should probably talk about it while I've got this. Yeah, yeah, of course, go for it. In November, doing an art exhibition in Frankfurt, running from November the 13th through to the new year, where, because this is the 30th year of me doing records, so I've got three big, like, 60-inch screens, where one screen just kind of show, like, clips and that from over the last 30 years.

1:51:34Ibi Alfa Jnr: The other screen built, like, some videos and stuff specifically for it. and the third one I've got like eight artists younger artists that I like their stuff like yeah visualists like and it's mad it turned out like one of them's from Japan one of them's from Canada one of them's Zimbabwe but lives in England without any contrivance it ends up a real cross section of society yeah so I'm really happy about that it's a lot of work and I don't want to budget for them I really want to make it good for them but yeah they got the gallery we did something last year at the same place but I didn't have so much organisation or input but yeah somehow they've managed to make some fun just before you finish up here tell me some of the biggest raves you've played at or been to around the world that really stand out for you all crumbs I've got to say Mia Kuzma in Belgium played that literally two weeks ago that was probably one of the best shows ever the crowd was just amazing like it was so well organised everyone was so it was just lovely yeah it was one of those ones where you think that's why I do it this other one Buscemi over in the Czech Republic hi Martin Buscemi is called it's cow or moo in Czech so it's farmers lovely yeah but But some of the ones that people might think were really great because they were huge aren't the ones that I like as much, you know.

1:53:17Like, yeah, I think, honestly, this year I've just been spoiled. Because it's probably one of the... Also, it's like old enough to actually be able to enjoy it. Not be totally wasted. I actually remember everything. And also not be sort of like thinking, oh, crumbs, you know. everything back home you know a bit of a flux you know it's the first and also like not that ill anymore so it was yeah it'd be mate I've loved this mate I've loved this we've gone on for an hour and 50 minutes you know I can talk all the way but just fascinating mate one being in your presence and from not seeing for all those years but two to see what you've gone through from six to where you are now that is one eventful life one mad life mad life and I'm just so happy but you're still alive.

1:54:07Me too, Josh. Because I've probably reconnected now. You ain't getting anywhere now, mate. You ain't getting anywhere. Mate, quality. Mate, thank you for your honesty. I haven't even cried. Yeah. No, it's good, man. But I really appreciate your honesty. How many people... Listen, people come in here and lay the cards on the table. You've just gone, wallop. That's it. That's my life. What am I going to do? I ain't going to sugarcoat it. Look, do you know what it is? Yeah. People say... I wanted to have a definitive version for me. Yeah. you know and what better place than you to be able to do it thank you my pleasure mate I've loved it absolutely loved it thanks for coming down here mate anyone out there please please please go and check him out Instagram Ibi Alpha Junior Ibrahim Alpha Junior go and check him out Google him get in contact with him get in contact with me if you want his mobile number da da da da and if you're good I'll put you in contact and see what comes about from this I wish you all the best in the future I think you've got a massive future and loads of positivity coming your way.

1:55:08Thank you for that. I'm fucking glad you're still alive as well, mate. So, honestly, I don't know why I'm not quiet. I was just there. Thanks, Dodge. Quality. Respect. I can see you, man. Respect, mate. Nice one. Nice one. Hi, guys. I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Can you do us a favour and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show? Cheers, guys.

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