Eddie Otchere talks Bass in the City

October 3, 2018

Eddie Otchere is probably best known for his photographs of seminal rappers and DJs of the mid 1990s and early noughties. His celebrated works include portraits of Biggie Smalls, Blackstar,Goldie (pictured below), Omar and many others. Cherry Anna Brearley spoke to him about his upcoming appearance at the Bass in the City event at London’s City Life Festival:

Hi Eddie. How are you? What’s on your mind today, what are you up to?
All good thanks… I suppose I have been thinking about love and the idea that when married men cheat, they perversely still love their wives, however, when married women cheat it’s because they no longer love their husbands. I say this because I’ve recently curated my first radio show for Soho Radio and wanted the show to reflect some emotions I’ve been going through. It’s been on my mind but I find it funny that musically it’s R. Kelly that plays it best. In his song, When a Woman’s Fed Up and A Woman’s Threat from TP-2.com album he really addresses that inverse law of adultery. Aside from that, I’m planning the next run of courses I’ll be running this winter.

You must be busy in the lead up to the Bass in the City event. How did you come to being involved?
It came out of a conversation and a desire to create a book about London’s lost clubland. Given the demise of so many venues in London I wanted to use my pictures as a way to chart and recognise the spaces where Londoners once danced and how all peoples dancing in a room made us more tolerant of each other.

So I read you’re from Mitcham. That’s super nearby where I was born in Croydon. How did a South London boy like yourself end up being a music photographer, and working with all these incredible artists worldwide? Can you tell us a bit more about the trajectory of your career?
I grew up in Vauxhall, bordered by Stockwell, Brixton, Clapham, Battersea and the Thames, in many respects I feel like I had been relegated to Mitcham. As a Londoner I believe you don’t start in the burbs you end up there and really want to do your best to get out. That said, the area where I grew up was resource rich. Brixton had a darkroom called Photofusion, come to think of it so did Clapham, a women’s only darkroom at the swimming pool there. Plus, one of the oldest members darkroom in the country is in Kennington. The point is, resource rich South London gave me the opportunity to create prints and, having come up in the golden age of Hip Hop, I was compelled to document the culture around me which was quite rich. Brixton was a particularly rich vein of culture, rappers coming through the Academy and the Fridge and strong desire to be the badddest hood in London. Mitcham, by comparison, is a cultural vacuum – easily gentrification’s greatest challenge – but by the early noughties Croydon found itself at the heart of its own scene, which was Dub Step. It seemed like all the failed DnB producers had handed down their studio kit to their younger brothers and they in turn managed to pull off a coup with Dub Step. Lately though, I have noticed Mitcham is the second epicenter for the Afrobeat scene.

I digress. So, being a shooter for hire I just travelled to where the action was and made my business to be there to document the energy from all those music and the cultures that spring up around it. Hip Hop in New York. DnB in London. House in Paris. Techno in Berlin. I wanted to in the epicenter because that’s where the bass goes boom! I would have kept going but I went ‘half on a baby.’ Sorry that’s a R. Kelly reference.

Have there been any major setbacks – times when you thought you were ‘done’? It’s been quite a while since you started out and music has changed so much throughout that time.
I think with the advent of digital photography I foresaw the death of my career. I refused to switch and clients were not having it. Their expectations became ridiculous. Not wanting to pay for photography, wanting the shots just after it was shot, graphic designers doing shoots just to cut the photographer from the budget. Everyone including the make-up having an opinion about the shot because of the screen. It got weird. As photography was being usurped, fauxtography began to erode long standing skills that went into creating a photograph. It was sad to see some great lab technicians taking jobs as bag checkers at Heathrow airport. But in the wilderness, I saw grime re-emerge and I saw film re-emerge. I saw vinyl come back and I realised if you can rise from the ashes once, you can do it again and again.

..And on that note, what have been the highlights?
The return of real photography. Out the ashes came a generation of youngers who felt a need to be analogue and a generation of olders teaming up with them to share the knowledge to collect and eulagise the goodness of film, the don gorgon cameras and lastly the revival of true archival printing. Big up Vicky Grout, Films Not Dead and The Brightrooms.

The upcoming Bass and The City event is all about exploring the impact of the Jamaican sound-system culture on the London music scene. As a Londoner, I feel like my knowledge of this is somehow inherent, but it’s not something that everyone knows about. What are the main points you’ll be looking to get across at the event?
A sound system is about community and all the community coming together and dancing under one roof is so powerful that we need to praise it. In fact, every bandstand in the country should have a sound system to go with them.

The incredible impact that the city’s cultural diversity has had on London’s music scene and sound has always been so apparent throughout the decades. Do you ever think about how, with new influences… political, technological and musical, that’ll change in the future? What do you foresee for London’s music scene?
I am not sure, as I can’t see where the safe spaces are for loud music. If I knew where they were, I’d be there but so far… Ghost Notes in Peckham presents amazing new music but it’s tame, much more jazzier and technically more proficient than previous generations but is too cerebral for the body to enjoy. Jimothy Lacoste from Camden points to more irony in our rappers but, scene wise, I’m not entirely plugged in. I have an 18 year old daughter who keeps me wise but really it’s my brother that’s truly got his finger on the pulse and he recently put me on to Estate Agent drill and that blew my mind. Check it out on YouTube. Makes me wanna earn a passive income, wear a bad suit and make Margaret Thatcher proud.

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As part of the City Life Festival, Bass In The City takes place on Saturday 13th – Sunday 14th October as a series of interviews uncovering the cultural lineage of our city’s iconic sounds – from Jungle and D&B to Dubstep and Grime. The interviews will be hosted by prolific music journalist Lloyd Bradley and, as well as as Eddie, will feature founding member of Soul II Soul Jazzie B, and Drum n Bass legend DJ Fabio. https://secondhome.io/cultural-programme/bass-in-the-city-sounds-like-london

There are heaps of other amazing events taking place at the City Life Festival. Have a look at the full programme here: https://secondhome.io/cultural-programme