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This week I'm joined by Martin 2 Smoove — Ministry of Sound Milkshake resident, tour DJ for Eve and for Romesh Ranganathan, and a man who held down a Pacha residency alongside Trevor Nelson. Martin was born in Kerala, raised in Basildon, and spent his teens watching Trevor on MTV Base thinking that's the job I want. A night out at 17 watching the Dream Team turn a room inside out sealed it. What follows is one of the most honest accounts of the slow route I've had on the show: an economics degree taken to keep his parents happy, summers as a runner at Wise Buddah fetching drinks for 50 Cent, years of breaking into halls of residence with armfuls of flyers, and a long stretch between 2010 and 2012 where nothing moved at all while everyone he graduated with got on with their careers.
Then a call from a contact at Atlantic about an American artist needing a tour DJ turned out to be Eve, and thirteen years later he's still there. We get into the craft of it too — the Leicester Square residency where the owner would ask him to clear the dance floor on purpose, six years playing 80s and 90s pop at Jazz Cafe that taught him more about music than anything else he's done, why Shazam charts are a month ahead of the actual charts, and why being easy to travel with matters as much as what you can do on the turntables. Martin's the kind of guest who makes you want to take the unglamorous gig. Really enjoyed this one.
What we get into:
- Growing up in Basildon with no music in the house, and finding Michael Jackson, MTV Base and Trevor Nelson
- Seeing the Dream Team at 17 and deciding on the spot that making a room happy was the job
- Studying economics at Keele to shut his parents up, and hating every minute of the academic side
- Why he'll still take the right gig for free, and how the long-term view has paid off repeatedly
- Being a runner at Wise Buddah, getting studio drops from Mariah Carey and Xzibit, and learning artist etiquette the hard way
- Warming up for Trevor Nelson at universities, and twenty years of Milkshake at Ministry of Sound
- The 2010–2012 stretch where nothing happened, and the digging-for-diamonds meme he wishes he'd seen then
- Two summers at Pacha, and bringing R&B and hip hop to an island that wasn't playing it
- Leicester Square and Jazz Cafe: learning to clear a dance floor on purpose, and what Karma Chameleon does to a room
- The U2 end-of-tour party where nobody danced for four hours until one request changed everything
- Getting the Eve call, messing up the second gig, and the look of death on stage
- Gumball 3000, working Mondays unpaid to learn the clothing business, and a BAPE collaboration on the way
- VJing Romesh Ranganathan's arena tour, and how to add value rather than just play a set
- Why Shazam charts beat the official charts by a month
- Running a DJ agency with Andy Purnell and Luke, and why being easy to travel with is a professional skill
