Junglist values are the absolute bedrock of the genre. Community. Culture. Inclusivity. Or, as the great MC Fats once said: ‘Peace, Love & Unity.’ You get the gist. A connection to something more than the music. It’s a home. A feeling. An unspoken code of togetherness. But how prevalent are these values in today’s scene?
Markee Ledge is on a mission to bring true junglist values back to the forefront, and rather than alienating the new generation, he’s bringing them in and showing them the ropes.
Through Rolling Deeper – his new compilation series and community-led movement – Markee is building something beautiful. Rolling Deeper is a place where artists, old and new, can really lean into their sound, connect back with the foundations of jungle and, in turn, reap the rewards of a supporting and unwavering community.
Simultaneously, Markee continues to release music true to his signature sound, with his new album acting as a perfect extension of the ethos and messaging behind Rolling Deeper. Introducing: MIND BODY SOUL – an LP rooted in spirituality, human connection and music’s power to move people.
With an abundance of good things going on, we caught up with Markee to hear more.
Markee Ledge! Tell us more about your Rolling Deeper compilation/movement.
I decided to do the Rolling Deeper compilation to try to build that underground community again. Putting the focus back on underground drum & bass. I think there are a lot of artists out there, but everybody’s quite disconnected right now. People want to feel connected. Some of the artists have contacted us because I’ve been playing their tracks for the last few years, and when I’ve said I love your stuff, they’ve been so happy. People want to feel that connection.
I’ve made some really nice connections with some of the younger artists coming through as a result of doing the compilation too. Some of the younger guys like Mikal, Tech Noir, Teej, J:Kenzo, Myth and Sikka have been releasing on some good labels, but I think it’s really hard for artists to get recognition. They are so out there on their own. So I thought it was a really good idea to bring them together. There’s a bit of a community here. There’s a sound that we love and we want to push. I want to stay positive on what we’re doing here and encourage people that they’re on the right path. Follow your sound and follow your artistic drives.
That’s a great ethos and way of moving forward!
It is! The community that has come with the compilation and has been really nice. We’ve sort of created this umbrella, and I’m going to do it annually now. It’s taken me out of my comfort zone as well, but it’s been good. Really positive. I’ve got the Rolling Deeper page too. I’d like it to be a platform for artists. Artists that are into this music can collaborate. When you post a track or post a video, just add Rolling Deeper as a collaborator. I’ll accept the collaboration, and that helps to build the community.
What are your ambitions for Rolling Deeper?
Ultimately, I’d like Rolling Deeper to be a room at festivals. That’s where I’d like to go. I know I’m at the start of the journey. It’s good to have dreams, but it has to be one step in front of the other. I’m just enjoying doing music. Having a dream and having a direction that you want to go in, and seeing there is a pathway towards it, is such a positive feeling. People can be so lost, thinking, I don’t know what I’m doing, or am I doing the right thing? To be orientated and know that you’re on your own path, and it’s a good path, and you’re enjoying it, that’s a key thing in life.
You’ve also got the Rolling Deeper residency in Prague. What’s happening over there?
I’m doing a monthly residency now at Cross Club, which is a really cool underground club. It’s got three floors, so I’m going to be doing one floor initially. A key thing I really wanted to do as well is bring in MCs, because I think in Europe, a lot of events have DJs, and they do have MCs, but maybe not as featured. When I went to the club, I said, look, I think MCs are really important because they communicate jungle culture.
It’s harder for a DJ to break through because there are thousands of DJs, but actual OG MCs, there are not that many really. So I linked up again with Megatron MC, who was the original Ruffneck Ting MC from Bristol, and I said, look, you should be up there really. There’s an opportunity, you should be doing this. We’ve been working together quite closely ever since. He’s been writing new stuff on the next album and stuff, so that’s been good as well.
Exciting stuff. Tell me about Mind, Body & Soul and the Equinox series.
For my last album – the album before Laws Of Emotion – I started doing something called the Equinox series, because I was moving back into drum & bass, but I had a lot of music that was quite vibey. It wasn’t really dancefloor stuff, it was all sorts of different tempos. I decided to put a series together and make it for the seasons, because certain music fits so perfectly into seasons. The series really helped me because I feel like, as a musician, it’s good to have deadlines. Otherwise you can just write and write, and time just goes on. So that’s been really good. It’s made me focus and set up a little structure.
Mind, Body & Soul is my new album. I released three EPs last year and then brought them all together with some VIP versions. That was always the plan. The first EP was about the mind, the second one was about the body. Before, I was writing music and the ideas were there in the music, but I wasn’t really being explicit about it. I was just letting people find it themselves. This last couple of years, I thought, I’m going to be a bit more clear about the message I’m putting out there. People have picked up on it now. It’s jungle, but it has a bit more of a spiritual, conscious angle to it. Not religious or anything, but frequencies are like a religion for me.
Can you talk more about how spirituality and music are linked for you?
I remember even as a kid going raving and thinking that dance is like the universal language. We keep getting bombarded in the press with these things that divide us, and to me, music rises above everything. It’s such a human thing. These frequencies come through the air and they hit you, but you actually feel an emotion from that. It’s pretty crazy, some kind of magic. That’s what I love about music. I’ve always felt music like that, so it’s just trying to bring that through in the music. When you hear a track you like, you don’t know why, do you? You just feel it. I love that. It’s got a sort of mysticism to it.
I’m really interested in human cultures and human arts. I’ve got a great collection of Aboriginal art books and stuff like that. It was spiritual and religious, but to me it’s human culture. I think we should be celebrating actual human culture. We’ve always had dance and music and song. Before we had writing, stories were passed through song. You always remember the words of a song because it’s linked to a melody. I find that really interesting.
In this modern era drum & bass, do you think we’re missing that human connection?
I think we need a bit more positive messaging in the music. Again, humanity, a positive human message, connection between people. When I was doing the Kosheen stuff, that was more personal relationship-type lyrics, which was great, but I wanted to make music that was a little bit more universal. That language of dance. There’s a lot of music that’s got the energy, it’s got the production, but it doesn’t really have the soul. As artists writing music, I feel like people try and fling everything in. It’s like, yeah, ok, but what does that actually mean?
I’m definitely attracted to music that is more spaced out and has more of a story. It doesn’t have to smash out every time. We used to have tracks that were just that continual rolling. It just kept going. The track that springs to mind is Alex Reece ‘Pulp Fiction’. It had that groove that just keeps building. I like music that builds and things happen. Not just dropping on that 32 bars and once you hear that drop, that’s the end of the tune. I like tracks that have a bit more of a build, a bit more of a story or some thought behind it.
Totally agree. What’s next for you musically?
The next album I’m going to do is called Elementz. It’s following on from the Equinox thing, but rather than spring, summer, autumn, winter, it’s the elements: fire, earth, air and water. Again, keeping it anchored in the earth and natural cycles. I’ve been getting Megatron over quite regularly to work on different tracks. We work well together. There are some tracks on this new one where I’ve got different vocalists as well, going back to writing lyrics and songs again.
Another idea I’ve got for this album is I’ll probably do a vocal track, but then an instrumental version, like a Rolling Deeper version of the tracks as well. A lot of people like non-vocal tracks, myself included. When I’m DJing, especially if you’ve got an MC there, you don’t really want tracks full of vocals.
Amazing! Do you have any processes, rituals or techniques when it comes to writing music?
I’ve got all these notebooks from where I’ve been writing song ideas down over the years, like diaries. I’ve got a drawer of diaries. I look through them and I keep finding these lyrics and poems and stuff, and I’m like, okay, I need to use that. I realised I was always continually writing, even though a lot of it I didn’t use. When I was in Kosheen, I had the other singer and we would sit down and read the lyrics together, but it was sort of done on the day. At the same time, I was writing stuff on the side which was never used. Now I feel like I’ve come back around and I can actually use some of these. Nothing goes to waste.
I was thinking, finding people to collaborate with is hard. So the way I look at it now, I’m collaborating with my younger self. That young guy had a good idea. He just needed a good producer now!
What’s the bigger message behind it all for you?
Jungle is such a UK thing, and it was always about connection. It’s such a unique blend. The way the world is now, you look at the news and think, wow. I want people to come together a bit more and I’d like to push those real junglist values: connection and respect and love of culture. I want to advocate what it is that we believe in. People can feel that.
