Create your own luck – Inspiring Interview with world renowned DJ/Producer/Musician/Actor and Artist Goldie
Photo by Guillaume Kayacan
Do you ever wonder why other people have more luck than you? Maybe it’s because of what they’re doing behind the scenes. Come back stage and learn about luck from a man whose experienced success in music and art. Discover how role models can help you cut through the crap and what to do to create your own luck.
Goldie has worked with David Bowie, Noel Gallagher and KRS1 plus he has his own record label called “Metalheadz” which has released numerous pioneering tracks. He also starred in the James bond film “The World Is Not Enough” and Guy Ritchie’s “Snatch”. As well as being a much sought after graffiti artist whose artwork is coveted by top DJs.
Hiya Goldie, I’ve read your autobiography “Nine Lives” which I thought was so compelling. The thing that strikes me, is even though many terrible things happened to you as a child, you still managed to turn your life around. You’ve experience success in many different creative industries, how have you done that?
People say to me ‘well your lucky’ and I say ‘listen there’s no such thing as luck’. Luck is chance and circumstance. Taking a chance with that opportunity to create your own luck.
They don’t realize, when they say “your lucky”, that in the past, I’ve stood in New York in the South Bronx freezing my tits off, waiting to meet a guy that can change my fucking life forever. That I sat outside a club, with a dub tape that I’d spent my last thirty quid to record. I put the time in to do those kind of things. And my position in this game is to continue to learn.
Photo by Gus Coral
You mention music, many people will know you for being a DJ and Producer, however, they may not know that your first love was graffiti. So lets go back to where it all began, how did you initially get into art?
I saw subway art, liked it and wanted to do it. I started drawing alphabets and getting really creative. I hung out with some guys called the “Wild Criminals” and just started drawing everywhere I went. Then I saw a couple of graffiti writers called Brim (Fuentes) and Bio (Wilfredo Feliciano) from the TATS CRU in New York. They’re still an active graffiti crew, one of the best in the world. They got me into the REAL side of graffiti. That’s how I learned, from the BEST.
Photo by Gus Coral
How did you develop your skill?
Bio came over, he showed me how to really do letters. He got my sketch books and ripped them up. I literally had to start from fresh. I started to realize the fundamental aspect of graffiti was the letter form. What interested me, was that it grew from a letter form into social commentary very quickly and people began to respect it for its progress.
Photo by Gus Coral
When you look at the construction of the letter form its not dissimilar to technical drawing. If you understand the form that’s 80% of the hard work done. I was driven to be able to do characters, letters, background, the whole thing, which is synonymous with the way I make music. I construct my music as a whole story. The intro, sound, the background, I set the tone. That’s what graffiti always taught me, the whole spherical angle.
It’s also incredible what graffiti has taught the rest of the world in terms of what it can do, for example; Marc Ecko has built a whole empire from employing graffiti techniques. Ecko was to a certain degree a graffiti writer who relied more within his sketch book scenario then everyone else. The hours he put in perfecting his craft have paid off, he’s managed to apply the medium in a way which is now developed into a multi-billion dollar industry.
Were you thinking about the message of your graffiti, as well as how it looked visually?
I was always writing stuff with a message in mind. I was really inspired by early writers like Dondi and Shy 147 they were really ground breaking. They were going into (railway) yards and getting shot at. These were ultimately guys who were getting into deadly situations because they wanted to paint so fucking badly.
Did you learn technical skills from the people around you?
Oh totally. Technically you have to put it down to a social dilemma. If you place me in Miami, in a place that makes gold teeth, and you place me with an air brush and you leave me there for a couple of years something’s gonna happen, by default. Any artist in an environment like that is gonna be in the same position.
Miami going down south taught me sculpture. When you look at micro cosmos sculpture, its gold teeth. Even dentists get amazed at street culture and how they learned how to do gold and grills. There is an art to it, it’s like a miniature sculpture it’s exactly the same process.
Have you always been as ambitious and productive as you are today?
After Miami, I returned the UK via London and I ended up staying with Gus Coral who was kinda like my mentor. He was like my dad and really looked out for me. I didn’t have the rent to pay, so I would paint and do canvases. I’d be doing air brush compressors, I’d be casting gold, making rings and jewelery. This is all in a fucking council flat.
I was in London and was trying to pitch artwork to people. That’s how I really got started. I was pitching artwork to Island Records they were signing different Hip-Hop bands. There was this group called the 11:59. They wanted some designs for an album sleeve and so I put all this artwork together for them.
Artwork by Goldie for 11:59, image courtesy of Gus Coral
I learned a lot along the way. Before I even went to New York I was working in a screen printing factory. I was printing t-shirts and learning how to do screen separations and all that stuff. So I’d kinda done a lot of everything before I was twenty two.
Is that where you got your confidence from learning all these different techniques and skills?
It was more lucrative than wanting to be a drug dealer. I was always socially driven and I was more scared of ending up being stationary. Not doing anything with my life, that scared me more than anything else. I wanted to chase the dream, I had to achieve that.
Once I’d mastered how to make jewelery for instance I stop doing it. The same with airbrush t-shirts. I wanted to learn the craft fully and then move on with something else.
Photo by Gus Coral
What’s been the biggest barriers that you’ve had to overcome in your career?
I don’t know, if I put barriers psychologically in my head then they will be there. But they don’t really exist, what exists is people’s acceptance.
I’m all giving man if you guys accept me. That’s all it is. This is from a kid that struggled to fit in. So that’s reflected in my work. I always felt I was the outside child because I was an orphan for many years. I didn’t feel the same as everyone else so to get people to see my work was a challenge for me.
Many years ago we used to do shows in Levi’s in Oxford Street with all my paintings. But back then you couldn’t even give them away. That was twenty years ago. Now I see my work selling for a lot of money. They even chase us around the country for this stuff. They’re desperate to buy it!
Click here for Part 2 Of This Interview Where Goldie tells us that if he didn’t ask the right questions his career would be over. He also shares with us what he thinks are the three most important things in life. These things are the keys to his success and how he overcomes fear. He also explains the real fears he had to face as a child.
