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The Associated Minds stable

GEOGRAPHY has always formed an important part of music, and background that plants the musician and gives us a way of seeing into how he or she has interpreted their environment.

For a generation, hip-hop was not only the sound of the urban city, but also of the urban American city. However, despite this emphasis on locality, music often pays no heed to borders or indeed cultures. It seeps and it is soaked up across the world. And hip hop really is no different. It has been exported around the globe. Rap’s first superstar being white. The biggest popstar in the UK right now is the Bow-born grime MC Dizzee Rascal, while here in Wales there is a label that has been quietly highlighting the immense strength and artistry that hip hop can boast.

Associated Minds come out of Cardiff, but are not of Cardiff or defined by the place they called home. Started by two obsessive hip hop fans named Mayor and Ruffstylz, their objective was “the desire to release artists that we felt was not fully represented across the UK scene”. In a soulless hip hop world of tasteless bravado, money, guns and misogyny, Mayor wanted Associated Minds to be “something a little looser, progressive, intelligent, maybe even surreal and adventurous to the musical table”.

Although some of the artists on Associated Minds are Welsh, with obvious references to their own lives and experiences, Mayor is at pains to point out that they are not a Welsh label. “Our whole view on the outset was to avoid a local mindset and actually make music that appeals globally. Music shouldn’t have a nationality to us. We want everyone to enjoy it. So we work on that basis.”

Despite this, you can only build an empire from a strong base, and Cardiff provided that base for Associated Minds. The Welsh hip hop scene was hardly on the mainstream radar. Obviously people have had years and years of assuming wrongly that there is nothing here.” According to Mayor. Many Wales Home readers may struggle to name a Welsh hip hop artist, or perhaps maybe one – one described by Mayor playfully as “a novelty comedy rap act coming out and playing up to the idiotic chav role”.

Label artist Ralph Rip Shit

Despite the success of Newport’s Goldie Looking Chain, Mayor argues that it “fitted nicely with the mainstream national view of chavs and the Welsh and our working class. Those two things leave people thinking.”Wales? It’s got good hip-hop music? You’re joking.’”

With a mind to do something about that impasse, Associated Minds began releasing a number of artists that offered something different. From the monstrous drums of the distinctive Metabeats to the terse, paranoid couplets of Mudmowth – Associated Minds lifted the rock and found diamonds, and brilliantly rough ones at that.

With producers such as PLO providing the backbone of many of the releases, there feels and sounds like a common thread, in spite the diversity of artists. Mayor says that: “Initially, as the label started from a base of like-minded artists, it was all very organic and naturally grew. We all knew each other well and knew what we wanted from the music so it came together much flowed without too much conscious effort.”

Initial acclaim, particularly for Metabeats’ Metaphysical album, involved a branching out of the label’s work. “To work with a few extra artists we’ve had to be a little more careful who we work with,” adds Mayor. So what criteria do artists have to meet to release on Associated Minds? According to Mayor: “We have to love what they do creatively. They have to fit in with what we looking to do as a label and when they’re around they add to the vibe and family of artists as opposed to upsetting the balance.”

Willo Wispa

Mayor underlines the passion that it takes to keep beating down the door for Welsh hip hop when he is asked what he thinks was the highlight of creating Associated Minds. “A person coming up to me and saying that they love our music the most. Really for me the highlight is loving the music we make and genuinely having real fun with so many of the people we work with. They’re friends as much as they are artists on the label.”

For those who think hip hop outside of America, let alone within Wales, is a pale imitation of an original, go dig around the Associated Minds website. It is a treasure trove of original-sounding hip hop, sound and passion are universal. Bring the beat back.