Label Spotlight: Run Da Riddim
Hi! Who are you?
We are Run Da Riddim, which is Jamaican slang for “Play the music”. Our original founders are Calum Leighton (Leighton) and Olly Ley (Chunk) who became friends at school through their shared love of music. They first started discussing the idea of creating a label at the beginning of 2021 when they were only 16 years of age. Later that year they met Callum Whiting (SEF) who became a co-founder.
What’s your ethos?
Leighton’s motto was “Let’s make jungle massive again”, so that’s what we want to do. But we are much more than that. Firstly we wanted to create a label so that we could represent ourselves professionally, and then use that as a platform to help other artists like ourselves who were looking to break through and put their own stamp on the D&B scene. But above all, we just want to use our label to express our love and passion for music.
Tell us your origin story...
Calum and Olly were just having fun mixing in Calum’s bedroom one day and started joking about how it would be great to create a label. We were already big fans of labels like Born on Road and Jungle Cakes so they gave us the inspiration I guess. The discussion moved on to ideas for a name and we quite quickly stumbled upon Run Da Riddim, and then started drawing up concepts for a logo. We later drew a mind map as well with all of our ideas of what we wanted to do with the label which included running events, releasing music, guest mixes and even podcasts. We’ve done all of them since, except the podcasts!
After all the planning we wanted a way to officially launch the label so decided to host a Summer Day Event where all of our residents could play, giving some of them their first opportunity to DJ at an event in front of a big crowd. We all had the best day, especially Leighton who had worked so hard to make it happen.
At the end of the day we were all congratulating each other saying how this was the start of something special. Little did we know that less than 12 hours later tragedy would strike when our founder Leighton, and two of his friends, were in a fatal road traffic accident.
Where are you based? Tell us about your local scene
Calum and Olly both went to school in Chippenham, Wiltshire and then went to Access Creative College (formerly dBs Institute of Music) in nearby Bristol to study DJ and Music Production. They found themselves in the heart of the UK’s drum and bass scene with events all over the city every week! There is a real mix of events from large to small, day to night with the full spectrum of dance music represented. We recently hosted our own 12-hour rave at Lost Horizon in Bristol from 3 pm to 3 am, both inside and out! There is no better city to be for anyone with a passion for D&B.
All of our residents are based in and around Bristol, Bath and Chippenham.
Do you have a specific sound or vibe?
We originally started out as a jungle/D&B label with lots of rolling bass and wobbles! But we also have residents that now focus just as much on 140 and UKG so we really are a multi-genre collective these days. Whatever genre we are playing we always want to get across an exciting and energetic vibe!
Do you have a regular artist roster? Who can we see releasing with you?
We now have 12 residents, including our late founder Leighton, and his sister Darcey (Dar C) who only took up mixing after losing her brother two years ago. As well as Olly and Callum, the other residents are Jacob (JIB), Tommy (TJB), Tom (H3), Beau (Rolla B), Oscar (OP Breaks), Gaby (GMD), Jay (TOFA) and Poppy (POP:P).
Last summer we released our debut album called “Sounds of the Jungle” which Leighton had already started planning a year previously. As well as featuring several of our residents, including Leighton, OP Breaks, TOFA and H3 we were thrilled that Euphonique, who had taught Leighton at college, completed one of his tracks for the album. We also featured the shell suit otherwise known as Scuffed who Leighton had met many times on the scene, as well as the vocals of Marns who was at college with Leighton and Chunk.
Half of our residents have had official releases now, including on Run Da Riddim as well as other labels such as Jungle Cakes. The other half have been working hard at their production and we are planning a “This is Run Da Riddim” album for early next year to coincide with Leighton’s 21st birthday. The idea is to showcase all of Run Da Riddim’s talent and will be our 21st Birthday present to Leighton and our fans!
In the last month alone Scuffed has released two more tracks with us which is really exciting, including a remix of a tune by Omari Banks, a reggae and R&B artist from Anguilla in the Eastern Caribbean whom Leighton had met on holiday there more than 10 years ago. We have actually just completed a mini tour with Omari Banks across 3 different cities (Birmingham, Bristol and London) combining live music from Omari and his band with DnB/Jungle riddims! Scuffed’s remix of ‘No Point To Prove’ coincided with the Bristol leg of the tour and it was a particular highlight when Omari joined Scuffed on stage to sing along live.
Tell us about your A&R process…
We all regularly attend raves and events which is a great way to hear new talented DJ’s who more often than not are also producers playing out some of their own tracks. We are very active on Instagram and also Soundcloud where we will actively search for new tunes to listen to or play out and so is a great way to discover new talent.
Collaborating with more established artists will inevitably help you grow and improve both musically and technically. So we have been reaching out to a number of artists that Leighton had met to finish his tunes which is great for his legacy as well as our label, but other residents have had some great collaborations too such as Rolla B with Deekline on Jungle Cakes. It is something we will definitely continue to encourage amongst our residents.
We have actually just created a new email we will be using to encourage people to send us their tunes, so if you think your sound would suit our label please send it our way to [email protected]! We will listen to all submissions and provide feedback- whether we think it might be suitable for our label or not.
What makes you different from other labels?
The youthfulness and energy of our residents, which isn’t surprising given our founders were only 16 when Run Da Riddim was conceptualised! We all have our own different strengths, favourite styles and genres with a common passion for music, but now we are all galvanised by an even greater passion to keep Leighton’s legacy not only alive, but to grow the label to where we know he wanted to take it.
He was such a caring guy, always looking out for others, and was the most passionate person about drum and bass music you could ever meet. He was always radiating positive vibes with a big smile on his face, encouraging others to follow their dreams as he was doing. He was a visionary with so many ideas for the label, and was a very talented DJ and producer with more than 20 projects on the go. It has been two years now and we are probably only just half way through bringing his plans and projects to life.
One project is called ‘Bars & Bass’ and the idea is to showcase talented MC’s across the scene. This is one we want to get off the ground next year, so any MC’s out there hit us up!
What does it take to run a drum and bass label in 2024?
Time, effort, consistency, but most of all passion for what you are doing. It’s not easy and takes up a lot of time. Most of us have full or part time jobs outside of Run Da Riddim, or are studying at college or university, so if you are not passionate about what you are doing it would be very difficult to keep putting the hours in day after day with everything else going on.
And it’s not just about having a collective of very talented musicians. You need a variety of skills. Networking is so important as you never know when it will provide your next opportunity, whether it’s finding someone who wants to release on your label, or vice-versa, or to collaborate on an event or tune. It comes naturally to some, but others need to make a concerted effort. We’ve found the scene to be so supportive and approachable though where everyone is happy to help each other grow and celebrate in each others success.
Multi-media is obviously very important these days too. It’s great throwing an amazing event or releasing a banging tune, but unless you can showcase that through multimedia it’s much harder to reach new followers and grow your brand. And if you are lucky enough to have someone in-house with the skill and time to do it you can save yourself a lot of money!
What have you got coming up that we should look out for?
We have some really exciting projects in flight. One of our residents JIB has just released his debut track ‘Turn It’ on the label. The track ‘Move’ by Leighton and Scuffed that we released as a single in August is the first track of our next EP called ‘Dance To The Rhythm’ that we are releasing at the end of November. It features 4 tracks by Leighton that have been completed by other established artists who are releasing on our label for the first time – Jappa, Jman, Toby Ross and Oram.
We are also really excited about the track Badger has completed recently for Leighton which he has been playing out all summer, including at Glastonbury and in Ibiza! It was just the week after he hit the UK’s official Top 40 charts with his remix of Nathasha Bedingfields ‘These Words’ that Alex somehow found the time to get in the studio to work on Leighton’s track. We will be forever grateful for his time and support, and for coming down to Bristol to headline our 12 hour tribute rave this summer. We don’t have a release date just yet but expect a big announcement coming soon! It will also be the first garage track to be released on our label, bringing some multi-genre flavours.
Longer term we’d like to establish a practice and recording studio in Bristol and also build our own rig! But we are talking a few years away yet.
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