Ralph Lawson is what we’d refer to as a stalwart of the British underground. He’s a man who has been deeply entrenched in house music for over 20 years and has been involved in supporting/nurturing countless British talents along the way either through parties or via his well-respected label, 2020Vision. He maintains a successful DJ career and also knocks out a top quality tune here and there, when he has time and, on top of all of that, he’s a father of three… and a great bloke too. (He didn’t pay us to say all this honest!). This year 2020Vision celebrates its 20th anniversary with a huge compilation and a tour as well, this weekend they hit the amazing disused train station, Shoreditch Underground, for one last big bash before it gets turned into flats (boooo!). Ahead of that party, we had a little chat with Ralph…
We actually went to your first event back in 2011, so we wanted to know how you managed to negotiate holding an event there in the first place?
My partner at the time, Danny, managed to find it. I think it was one of those things where a friend of a friend knew someone there, pretty simple and lucky too.
And how did this closing party come about?
It was nuts. It was one of those really, really weird chances… I was walking down Brick Lane on the way to a meeting and I was curious about the venue. I knew the land was going to be developed, so I went down the narrow street where the building is to see what they’ve done there. I noticed that the padlock was missing from the door to the main entrance, which I thought was a bit odd. I just knocked on the door and it just so happened that the owner was inside, rebooting the power – he told me it was taking longer than expected to develop so he wanted to open it up one last time to do some events, one was a reggae dub event, one was a cinema and he only wanted to do one dance-y type event and, luckily for me, I happened to be in the right place at the right time. He remembered me from the first time and liked the video we made, so he offered me the closing party and of course, we bit his hand off!
I’m now working with LWE, who are consummate professionals when it comes to events; health & safety and so on. With their backing we put a proposal forward and got a licence for one last event there.
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That’s great! Something we’ve always been aware of is 2020’s focus on visuals as well as great music. I saw your event manager Kag posting some cool stuff on Facebook recently, can you tell us about that?
I’m massively into the visual side of things, I like making a show – music is one part of it. I think people can be a little bit lazy when it comes to production, but it’s really important to me. People use their ears, but they also use their eyes so I love doing something special with the visuals, whether it’s a piece of artwork or whether it’s with technology. We got into this projection-mapping idea, where we could throw images on to anything, any object, and make it look incredible. We built these cube structure, that could be arranged in any kind of way and create a 3-D effect. It’s just something nice for people to interact with and look at while the music’s going on. We built that at the beginning of the year, road-tested it and debuted it at fabric at the first Content show.
2020 has a strong identity in terms of the artwork, does that come directly from you?
Yeah, I’ve always been into design from quite early on. I got massively into New York street art around the same time I was getting into music in the early eighties, before house. Hip hop and early electro came hand-in-hand with graffiti and street art, they were totally linked. Famous artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Futura2000 and a lot of those guys who came from the era of bombing trains were influenced by what was going on in the clubs as well. So, when I first started going out to clubs… I remember going to a night in Camden at Dingwall’s, called High On Hope and Keith Haring had actually be over to paint the inside of the club and it was all UV, so there were all these mad Keith Haring dancers illuminated in ultra violet light. It made as much of an impression on my teenage mind as the music did. It’s always been a really important part of youth culture and music and it’s been pushed to the background in recent years. I just really appreciate aesthetics and always have done.
Do you collect a bit yourself as well then?
I do actually yeah! I’ve got quite a few bits and bobs. Not so much lately, but I like photography – I’ve got some nice prints; abstracts, street art taken in interesting ways.. just stuff to brighten up the house a bit.
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Is there anyone in particular that you’re into?
I always liked pop art, obviously it started way before us with Warhol and Lichtenstein. But there’s a British artist that did a lot of stuff, such as Blur’s album covers, a guy called Julian Opie. There’s a photographer called Catherine Yass who I like a lot. Obviously, being from Leeds, what Damien Hirst does is really interesting. There’s a lot of really good British art actually.
I tell you who else I found really interesting was Glitchr. He hacked into Facebook and Twitter and changed the characters to create art. People using digital technology to create art is really interesting.
How long did it take to get the Content album together?
Oh my God, about two years. I decided I wanted some big names on the compilation, so that when I’m sitting in my armchair sipping my cup of cocoa I can think back and be like, ‘Oh yeah, I represented those guys on my label’. Everyone responded in a positive way, even if they seemed like they might be ‘too big’ for 2020 or had their own thing going on, they all agreed to do one track and loads of people came through. Some people didn’t make it in time, but that’s something to aspire to. I’m just really pleased we have the likes of Matthew Herbert, Groove Armada, Simian Mobile Disco, Cassy and Mathis Tanzmann plus new artists like Citizen and Ejeca. I wanted to mix it up between hot new artists and more established people.
How does it feel to be 20 years deep with the label?
OLD! I dunno how the f*** it happens. It makes you feel quite old, but I got my head round it and I don’t actually feel that old, I’m full of energy, full of enthusiasm and really into new music. Into uncovering and finding new music, which is the most important thing a label can do – supporting new artists, new music and we’re quite UK-based. We’ve always tried to support our local scene and, on a wider scale, the UK itself, first and foremost. We also have artists from all over the world on the label, but there is a focus on supporting new artists from the UK.
Have you thought much about the future of the label?
We have, this year has been all about the 20 years… I did think long and hard about it, we didn’t even call the album ’20 Years Of 2020 Vision’, you won’t see that anywhere; for a start, it’s too many twenties and secondly, I didn’t want it to be this point in time where you look back and focus on the past. For a start, it’s all new tracks, it’s all exclusives and it’s all content. People go, ‘Where’s your content man? Where’s your content?’, you know it’s the silly catchphrase, this buzzword. What does it actually mean? I thought, if I’m going to appropriate the term it’s got to mean something, solid, high-class, international respected exclusive content in a beautifully-designed package mixed by me over three CDs. We wanted people to really think about the terms they bandy about and make them mean something. We knew it would get us a bit of hype, but after that, that’s it, it’s back to business. You won’t hear anything more about looking backwards. Next year it’s going be new, new, new, fresh, fresh, fresh – all 100% new material, hitting hard. I’ve just signed an artist who I’m really excited about, called Citizen, who’s based in London, he’s making some great stuff at the minute. We’re really going to be pushing him and getting him where he deserves to be. We’ve also got another really interesting artist from London called Forrest. he’s next after Citizen. Together with a lot of good solid club material too, we’re gonna come pretty strong and fast I reckon.
After the Shoreditch Underground party what else is on the agenda?
Well, I’m massively excited because I’m going to be fulfilling a huge long-time goal of joining Circo Loco at DC10. It’s been the holy grail of dance music and been a massive ambition I’ve wanted to achieve as part of my life as a DJ and I’m finally going to be doing it, on my birthday, on the 22nd so that’s going to be a big one.
Indeed it will. We wondered, since you’re a father of three, how do you manage to juggle your family and personal life with your career?
It’s the love of a good woman. You can’t underestimate what having a great woman can do for you. I mean we both work on the family. I’ve always been a DJ since we’ve been together and she’s always known that, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be hard at times. She’s really covered my back many times with the childcare, I’m very lucky to have a strong, long-lasting relationship – that’s been the key really. It’s that and being more organised, it’s a balancing act and I’ve never been able to do it 100% perfectly but I’m getting. It’s like I wake up in the morning and start spinning a few plates straight away and, as the day goes on, I start spinning more and more and I have see how many I can keep spinning throughout the day. That’s what it’s like!