So Solid Crew

Sean Hughes, RIP.

This was the first place I ever heard of So Solid Crew.

So in this episode, MC Harvey was on and I believe So Solid Crew was from New Cross or something.

I think Peckham.

But yeah, definitely the next postcode over in one direction or another from where we were.

Which I think they kept referencing.

People don't know So Solid Crew.

I guess they were presented as a South London Wu-Tang Clan.

It just changed into something else.

I mean, I was involved in that because I worked with the So Solid crew.

And I was kind of getting it on with Garage anyway.

Okay.

So I probably got more in common with a grime party than I have with an R&B party.

Do you know what I mean? Not that you can't slap a wall at an R&B party, but it's not really that thing.

you know so yeah and I was happy to work with a so solid crew you know I was very lucky we did tracks like Oh No and I can't remember all the tracks I did with So

Solid but

Yeah.

So how do you find coming away from something like so big, like so solid crew to obviously going into like more your own thing now, I suppose, aren't you? Yeah, that's it.

How do you navigate that?

I'll

But it's beautiful.

And over the last, say, eight years, however long it's been since then, you've obviously gone on this journey of, you know, when you was younger, you was in the gangs and involved with all of that.

And then, of course, you then... luckily come away from that and you've gone into so solid crew and had an amazing time there and of course being in the music industry and everything i just had such an amazing experience i was

very lucky that i had my family very very lucky that i had my mom and dad supporting me obviously i was doing things wrong yeah but through it all they didn't give up on me They should have been a lot of times.

But

from where I'm at, like, North London, we never really had... like an inroads to like, it's going to sound mad, but the grime scene, do you get what I'm saying? So like, if you're growing up in North London, well, when I was growing up, like my first, like you see So Solid crew on the TV, big them up naturally, you get me? They set a presence.

So Solid felt like they were just...

It felt like watching Americans, if I be honest.

It's the complete opposite end, you get me? And it's so big as well.

But obviously, like, when they're bussing, I'm like, yeah, six.

So all my lyrics is just So Solid Crew lyrics that I see on telly or rap songs that I know, XYZ, ABC.

But in North, we had, like...

My brother Dan the Man.

DJs Skip and Frost are part of the So Solid crew, based in South London.

So Solid is Britain's most successful and infamous garage collective.

The boys became involved through their DJ brother.

I can do what some adults can do, even though I'm just a kid.

Skip and Frost being the So Solid kids is a serious business.

As well as performing with the So Solid crew, they play their own gigs from Cardiff to Ayia Napa, commanding fees of up to £200 a night each.

They host their own weekly pirate radio show, and even have their own mini groupies.

Xena McNally leaves and we get the classic Mystique trio whose second single All I Want a number two hit behind Shaggy's track Angel.

Mystique had split up though in 2005 around the same point that Alicia Dixon married Harvey from So Solid Crew, and Alicia Dixon signed a half a million free album deal with Polydor Records, who clearly thought they had a star on their hands.

She worked with some of the best producers in Britain at the time, Brian Higgins from Xenomania, Paul Epworth, who of course goes on to produce Adele, Richard Stannard, who had written most of the Spice Girls stuff.

Although there was some shakiness, initially there was going to be a different lead track from this album called Superficial, but then Lipstick was chosen.

Should I just find it very quickly? Yeah, if you can.

While you're finding that, Harvey from So Solid Crew being in the crowd, great.

Lovely.

incredibly that you know not the best rapper in the stadium you know yeah when you've got billy webb there as well of course so that's a nice um that's nice for billy i was gonna

say is was um i'm trying to think of a rapper that would have been funny to suggest was a newport county game yeah what but i can't think of one go and find the announcer greg sorry i was just filling time by talking about harvey from so solid crew What's your favorite So Solid Crew song, right? I

only

know 21 seconds to go.

We saw the Seattle Seahawks had the Legion of Boom.

Els, So Solid Crew?

Well, I'm a fan of the original So Solid Crew.

I'm not going to Yeah, I can work with a So Solid Crew or just as they like to be called towards the end, just So Solid.

I'm going to say something.

It's not really a hot take because I think everybody will agree.