Cwmbran To Cali - Huw Wackman
There’s no denying that my life has had a serious change of pace having left my job in Bristol at one of the word’s leading festivals and heading back to Cardiff to take up a position with the museum. That said, with my main topic of concern at work being hip hop in Wales, this last year has been an interesting one, no question.
We’ve seen the first Welsh rapper at number one in the album chart. We’ve seen an influx of new and exciting talent across the elements alongside a renewed interest in our history and pioneers, and now we’ve had our first Welsh DJ to enter the ‘World Final’ of the DMC DJ Championships.
Spoiler alert, Huw Wackman (aka BadMeaningGood) didn't claim the title, but there’s no question that he did us all proud and it looked like he had a hell of a lot of fun in doing so. Plus he’s still the first Welsh UK DMC Champion and that’s a massive achievement.
It’s been a long journey to get here. BadMeaningGood first entered the DMC Championships back in 1987 when there was Welsh heats, held at the legendary Martha’s Vineyard in Swansea. As DJ Excel he managed to reach the UK finals a total of 5 times, but was the runner up 3 times before calling it a day. He managed to earn the respect of his peers though:
He joined The Enforcers with 3 of the most respected British turntablists of all time, Custmaster Swift, DJ Biznizz and DJ Pogo; he invented the ‘twiddle scratch’ which DJ Q-Bert then took, and some might say developed, into the crab scratch (for non hip hop junkies that’s the world’s number 1 turntablist and one of the most iconic scratches); always creative in his routines, his hilarious ‘Hamlet’ moment in 1991 has gone down in DJ history; he eventually won a respected title in 1994 and became the Vestax UK champ.
This year though he returned to the ring for one last shot, inspired by the sad loss of his mum, Shirley. Under the temporary pseudonym Huw Wackman, he finally took the title at this year’s DMC final, which somewhat ironically took place at Boomtown (where I was Head Of Music up until last year - for those new to this blog), as I mentioned earlier, our very first Welsh UK champion!
This meant that last night, or during the early hours of this morning for those of us back in Wales, he took part in the World final over in San Francisco. Many of us were rooting for him and despite minor technical hiccups he really did deliver a top quality set with all manner of daring tricks and entertaining skits, putting in some of that old school showmanship to the competition which the current generation have largely missed. Perhaps partly because his thinking was so out the box, he failed to make it to the top 3 but you can tell that he had the best time taking part, plus if he inspired just one young DJ to think more creatively in their craft, and find the fun in a generally quite serious sport, then the world has definitely won.
That’s not to take anything away from the top 3 DJs, they really were spectacular with their skills. K-Swizz from New Zealand took the title once again and it was well deserved. DJ Fummy from Japan placed 2nd and Brazil’s Erick Jay came in at number 3. I think this might have been it for Huw Wackman, but if you ever get the chance to catch BadMeaningGood then make sure you do, plus he’s available for group DJ lessons if you ever need such a thing.
