Sounds Of The South: Prestige Pak

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SOUNDS OF THE SOUTH:PRESTIGE PAK

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MusicWords By: Conrad ClarkeIllustrated By: Tom Shotton

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Conrad Clarke sat down with Handsome Rob of Prestige Pak. Prestige Pak is an inclusive eclectic dancehall collective based out of London. Their music tastes, backgrounds and influences are as diverse and inclusive as their nights and sounds. Read the full interview below with Handsome Rob, 1 of the 4 members of the Pak, he discusses his roots, his journey to dancehall and the imminent world domination coming for the Pak.

Read our full Q&A discussion below:  Q: Tell us a bit about your background? How has it affected how you view your identity today?My background in terms of heritage, my dad was born in Hong Kong and his mum is Malaysian but there’s a bit of an interesting story there. My dad’s mum left in a mysterious way when they were young children but I don’t know the ins and outs of that story. Then my mum was born and raised in Watford so is as British as they come. Me, my Dad and my brother, we all identify as being Chinese because I only found out that my Grandma was Malaysian when I was 18, so all my life I have thought I was Chinese and it hasn’t changed now.

I like Chinese culture, there’s a lot of positive things that come out of Chinese culture. Personality traits such as being studious, an emphasis on respect, respect for elders, work ethic and being humble. Those are the main values that have been instilled in me, consciously or sub-consciously. That being said, British values and traits are the most dominating, just because the only Chinese person in his life really is my Dad. Although my Dad came over when he was 14 and went to boarding school, so he’s had strong British values instilled in him from then anyway really.Being British isn’t a bad thing though, I think a lot of people shy away from it. Obviously, there are a lot of things that have happened in terms of the empire and colonialism, but there’s also a lot of positives that have come out of Britain. If you think about it in terms of timespan as well, there have been a lot of civilisations who have been Colonisers so it’s not like it was a new thing.All in all, my British values dominate me today, but my Chinese values have stopped me heading towards the negative aspects of being British such as thinking you are the top dog. That may just be something very specific to being from London, as London British culture is completely different to being British in other parts of the country. So now I could say that London culture is what I identify with, being around diversity and multiculturalism and what not. There’s no cultural diversity in China, it’s so difficult for Chinese people to come to the UK and adjust, there is a huge culture shock.With Prestige Pak and what I try to do with a lot of aspects of my life, is try and make things diverse and you shouldn’t be forcing it to be diverse, but it should be naturally diverse because that’s how society should be. I don’t like it when you can tell the line-up for an event has been made to include a token minority as an act.

Q: What does Britishness mean to you in the 21st Century?Britishness for me is being progressive. That’s the main thing. British culture has always been leaning towards looking into the future, which might just be my lens. Obviously the last few years where we have had a Tory government, it hasn’t been that progressive but society itself has balanced it out and been a lot more progressive. When you compare Britishness to what being American is, that is very different because Americans are way more conservative. I think British values align a lot more with European values than American.

We are only ever looking at what aligns with your views, I always try and look at other views. Some people think this is really weird, but Nigel Farage has a show on LBC and that’s probably one of my favourite shows because I get to listen to the other side.

Q: Moving on to Prestige Pak, why primarily Dancehall and what is it about Dancehall that drew you all together?Originally when I started DJing, I wasn’t into Dancehall. I think it is really difficult for straight white guys to understand. They don’t understand the lyrics and they might think the motions are very aggressive. Growing up, our first experience of clubbing was going to garage raves and house raves so the dancing wasn’t as sexualised. When I started going to Rototom, that’s when I fully saw the power of Dancehall. It was mad, especially with the girls. Girls go mad for dancehall when a tune they like comes on. If you are a DJ, I want people to be having fun. So, my philosophy is, if the girls are dancing then everyone is dancing.

I started off playing dubstep in my bedroom and I like dubstep but no one else likes dubstep so obviously, I wasn’t going to get any girls playing dubstep tracks. In the beginning I was playing hip-hop and Rnb, which in a way is similar to dancehall because it all comes under the umbrella of rap music. Rnb is a combination of singing and rapping, that’s what dancehall is but in Jamaica. Even in the UK now, Not3s, J Hus it’s all rap music. In Jamaica they are dancehall artists but essentially they are rappers.Another reason, when me and Lil C started playing together we were at university and we had had enough of all the techno and house. Every night is UK bass and becomes very aggressive and very drug orientated, Dancehall is a lot less drug orientated and that’s what I liked. We just wanted to come away from university culture and wanted something different.Dancehall is an exciting scene to follow because music is coming out constantly. Its constantly changing and constantly evolving. In a similar way to how I was interested in the grime culture, there were loads of tunes and loads of battles. The scene is less formulated and that is the same for dancehall.Nowadays the UK rap game, I’m quite disappointed because the majority of the new wave artists are not MCs. I believe being an MC is such a dying art, no one wants to be an MC and host a party, but that happens in Jamaica with Dancehall.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built="1" admin_label="section" custom_padding="0px|0px|0px|0px"][et_pb_row admin_label="row" make_fullwidth="on" custom_padding="15px|0px|0px|0px"][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://between-borders.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/B168299-R1-05-10-2.jpg" custom_margin_phone="|-50px||-50px" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone" /][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" text_font_size="12px" text_font_size_last_edited="off|desktop" text_text_color="#c1c1c1" text_line_height="1.5em" custom_margin_phone="|-15px||-15px" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone"]

Photogapher: David Brimacombe

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Photography: @ask_carlos

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" max_width="3000px" text_font_size="15px" text_line_height="2em" text_line_height_phone="1.5em" text_line_height_last_edited="on|phone" custom_margin_phone="|-15px||-15px" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone"]Q: What about Prestige Pak makes it so inclusive?Now I think about it, it’s a bit of an oxy-moron. We are saying to live prestige but also we can’t all do that together? Everyone can be prestige though. We didn’t start as 4 members so we can’t assume that we are going to be 4 of us forever. Other members are welcome if we deem appropriate. There are also other people that are associated with the Pak...The parties and cultures that we are inspired by are people like Pxssy Palace and Gal-dem, and because of their attitude to people being underrepresented, so they will put on a party for them and they also party the best. Then musically we are represented the best by people like Hipsters don’t dance and Swing ting. This is because they have taken different sounds from around the world, from Afrobeat, to Dancehall, to Reggaeton to Old school hip hop, to what’s going on in the UK. They are bringing it together for more of a UK context. That’s what we are trying to emulate.The element with Lagoon (Femaysha), it seems like it shouldn’t work and I can completely understand where it comes from because he’s not really that into dancehall. That’s good though because you always want to be challenged, so you want to be bringing in new styles. He brought in a whole new wave such as new things coming out of New York and Atlanta and hearing it all is refreshing. A lot of late night and rave music which is what I have been craving because nights that we get associated with might be seen as more mainstream.I don’t want to be shoehorned in the warm up category, I would love to be able to play 5-6 or a closing set. Maybe a bit less dancehall and maybe more of a chilled out vibe.Speaking about MCs, does Lagoon almost bring more of an MC kind of vibe?Yeah definitely, that’s why it’s interesting because we are trying to bring out the MC. Within Dancehall there aren’t too many good MC’s who exclusively MC, that’s obviously because the transition between MC and artist happens too quickly. It’s a learning process as we go along with Lagoon, it’s not that he’s got bars or anything but it helps the crowd engage with the DJ and the music. All it takes is for someone to say, ‘Make some noise’ and the whole energy of the room increases.

What can we expect from Prestige Pak for the futureWorld domination, so looking to go international. At the minute, we are Prestige Pak UK, we are looking to go Prestige Pak Intl. We have been trying to get something sorted in Berlin, something in Madrid. Been trying to keep doing our show on Radar.

With the show, we want to try and keep pushing with guests as radio is a combination of what you are doing and what guests you bring on. It gives other people a voice as it is not all about us. Your notoriety is built on who you are associated with. We want to always get someone on that we rate more than ourselves.One main thing that people forget about, is that time is a huge factor. If you are consistent over a long period of time, then that is what makes your mark. If you do something huge once, then that’s it. Another influence of ours is the Heatwave, when I was younger they were doing small clubs, now they are doing huge venues and that’s because they have been consistent. That’s what we’ve been striving for. We have to be like Messi, but don’t want to be like Demba Ba who was hot for a minute and then fell off. The all inclusive factor, we all identify as different things. When I speak to people and they say that a night is advertised for people of colour or queer people etc, they feel like they can’t go to that. We try and meet in the middle and make it a safe space where it will be naturally diverse, we are not forcing it. There will be all kinds of people there and we hope that everyone will get along and be Prestige.You can hear the sounds of the Pak here:https://www.mixcloud.com/PrestigePakUK/And check out their socials:Twitter: @PrestigePakUKInstagram: @prestigepakukFacebook: @PrestigePakUK[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label="Row" make_fullwidth="on" custom_width_px="2600px" custom_padding="0px|0px|0px|0px" parallax_method_1="off" parallax_method_2="off" custom_padding_last_edited="on|phone" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone"][et_pb_column type="1_2"][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone"] [/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider admin_label="Divider" color="#ededed" show_divider="on" height="2" divider_style="solid" divider_position="bottom" hide_on_mobile="off" disabled_on="off|off|off" /][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" text_font_size_last_edited="off|desktop" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone"]Words By: Conrad Clarke, 26th May 2018 [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built="1" admin_label="Section" background_color="#f9f9f9" custom_padding="20px||0px|" disabled_on="off|off|off" global_module="30533"][et_pb_row admin_label="Row" global_parent="30533" make_fullwidth="on" custom_width_px="2600px" custom_padding="0px|0px|0px|0px" parallax_method_1="off" parallax_method_2="off" custom_padding_last_edited="on|phone" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone" use_custom_width="off" width_unit="on" use_custom_gutter="off" allow_player_pause="off" parallax="off" parallax_method="on" make_equal="off" parallax_1="off" parallax_2="off" custom_css_main_element="padding-left:30px !important;||padding-right:30px !important;"][et_pb_column type="1_2"][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" global_parent="30533" custom_margin_last_edited="on|phone" /][et_pb_divider admin_label="Divider" global_parent="30533" color="#ededed" show_divider="on" height="2" divider_style="solid" divider_position="bottom" hide_on_mobile="off" disabled_on="off|off|off" /][et_pb_divider admin_label="Divider" global_parent="30533" color="#ededed" show_divider="on" height="2" divider_style="solid" divider_position="bottom" hide_on_mobile="off" disabled_on="off|off|off" /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label="row" global_parent="30533" make_fullwidth="on" custom_padding="0px|0px|0px|0px" parallax_method_1="off" use_custom_width="off" width_unit="on" use_custom_gutter="off" allow_player_pause="off" parallax="off" parallax_method="on" make_equal="off" parallax_1="off" custom_css_main_element="padding-left:30px !important;||padding-right:30px !important;"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" global_parent="30533" header_text_color="#ffffff" header_letter_spacing="19px" text_letter_spacing="1px" custom_margin="15px|||"]

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