05/01/2024
I donāt know how to start.
Iāve known Conrad for 27 years, and have so many stories to tell.
Whenever he was in front of me on stage, I always couldnāt believe what was happening and felt so grateful as it was the ādreams can come trueā moment every time for me. I even got nervous sometimes.
He was a true hero for me, and I was a huge, huge fun of his unique style from my late teens (even tho I didnāt understand all the lyrics, I loved his voice and flow.. This guy was GREAT! ).
Eventually I sent a demo cassette tape to LTJ Bukem and Good Looking Records.
They opened up the door for me to this worldwide dnb scene.
Back then it was so rare for someone from abroad to come to the UK to play, or release music on the local labels.
Conrad was always nice to me and treated me as an equal- Even when I had zero English skills. He taught me what working in this industry is like and how professional artists should conduct themselves.
Back in 2003, I had a few days in the studio with him when Golden Girl was born. I knew he had started to experiment with singing during his sets, but never really had a chance to record on a song. We were making a track with his razor sharp amen break and my string samples. He chopped up my sample like crazy which I would edit while he slept, then we put an 808 bass and a DX7 bass sound playing the wrong note together. But somehow the bass line became in key and pretty unique at the time. But I knew it was still missing something, so I told him to sing something on it, but he wasnāt sure about that. But I kept pushing him and the Golden Girl melody and lyrics came out instantly, almost as tho he already had the melody and lyrics for ages in his head. I never forget when I played it in The End club in London and how many rewinds i had to do. We were looking each other ā¦ what the f**k!! Obviously we didnāt know what we had just madeā¦I was so so proud of him when he sung the song with Fabio & Grooverider Orchestra concert last year. He loved the orchestral sound, so I guess he was super happy about it.
We had plans to make many more tunes together, as well as works in progress.
I was only talking to him last week to decide on a track name we did recently (well I just used the recording of his voice from one of our gigs, but he liked it ) and discussing when to record this other new track with DJ Marky. I canāt still believe this honestlyā¦
Rest in peace. Fly high. You are free now.
I will miss you so much my big brother.