Variety is the spice of life and that is certainly what you get with the debut album from Bongo Chilli (real name Clayton Brown). The album is called Real Musician and it showcases his ability to adapt his voice and vocals to many different styles of music – using his voice as an instrument, with the scheduled release date in June 2007 it’s the beginning of a bright future for this artist.

Originally hailing from the Jamaican parish of Trelawny, he grew up as the youngest child in a musical family and got his first start by imitating his older brother who was trying to make it as an artist. Apart from his siblings the main inspiration to the young Clayton was the deejay Papa San who ruled Jamaica in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. His brother used to bring all the sound tapes home and Clayton would copy the lyrics and learned how to chat on the mic.

Fast forward a few years to 1995 and Chilli moved to Nottingham, UK to stay with his Aunt and try to make a living here. On arrival he suffered from a minor touch of culture shock but he soon got used to the different runnings in the UK and got his music career underway by discovering the local community studios and making some new contacts. It was these studios that opened up his musical ears to new sounds “a lot of the other artists in those studios were doing UK hip hop and that was a whole new sound to me – in JA it is pretty much 100% dancehall so it was good for me to hear some new beats and lyrical styles – the hip hop guys were really into what I was doing and that gave me confidence that I could do my thing over here and people could understand it and appreciate it.”

The link to Sativa Records came in around 2001, when YT was booked to perform at Chilli’s birthday bash, they impressed each other with their skills and stayed in contact – which led to them teaming up on the record ‘Summer Paradise’ in 2003 (now remixed for the album). Once involved with the Sativa camp Chilli met the producers NJC and Innerheart who provide the majority of the riddims for the Sativa artists. NJC is also a drum and bass producer and this opened up another musical genre for Chilli when he re-worked a dub-plate lyric he had and NJC fitted it into a storming d’n’b track – the result – Gangsters Life was released in 2003 and has been included on the album, despite being four years old it has hardly dated at all and could easily have been recorded only yesterday.

The d’n’b link also opened up plenty of other avenues for Chilli to MC and he loves the fact that he can turn up at any type of party and rock the crowd. He gives serious thanks to Daddy Freddy for taking him under his wing and bringing him on tour throughout Europe “Freddy a mi Godfather, he took me to Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic – all over Europe we mash up stage shows together so me have to give thanks for that – we can go anywhere and rule the place as long as the mic is turned up loud, if the sound is right then it doesn’t matter what language they speak as they will be able to hear us and feel the vibes.”

Positivity and faith is a key feature of Chilli’s music and his outlook on life, he lives the Rasta way of life having been educated by the elders back in JA and he has bought that knowledge and ideology back to the UK. As an artist he feels a responsibility to be a positive role model and you will not find any bad language or slackness in his lyrics, as he says “a lot of MCs today are getting out of hand with their language, I want my little daughter or my grandmother to be able to listen to my album all the way through without having to fast forward tracks or have me explain what some derogatory terms mean – it is an album for people who love music and so it should be open to all.”

This positive approach is also manifest in his work for the local community and the school system in the North West where he runs ‘Caribbean Rap’ classes for kids teaching them how to articulate themselves through writing lyrics and advising them that the lyrics don’t have to be violent or trouble making – but that they can use the words to tell stories about their lives and what they feel about problems and things that may be affecting them. Because he can talk to the kids on a street level that they can relate to he earns the respect of even the most unruly of them and has seen some really good results.

After releasing eleven tracks for other labels over the years he was delighted in 2005 when he teamed up with his long time bredrin Dan Dan and together they launched Bongo Chilli Records to highlight their work and give them an outlet for their musical creativity. Four of the tracks from the new album were produced by his in-house engineer ‘Rogue State’ so everything is coming together and all the pieces needed to make and release music are in place. He is happy to be living in Huddersfield “it’s calm up here and I like that, it isn’t all hectic like in the city” and if he needs a musical fix he has people like The Rootsman and D-Bo General nearby in Bradford and together they are building up the reggae vibes in the North of England.

The album shows many sides of his lyrical abilities as the beats range from classic reggae one-drop to dancehall to drum’n’ bass to grime and he is looking forward to taking the finished product back to Jamaica to show all his old crew what he has been up to in England “the tune on the album ‘Back a Yard’ is like my dream – but I definitely wasn’t going to go back until I had the finished CD to play to people!”

Watch out for Bongo Chilli holding the mic on a sound system near you soon...

For more info and to download MP3’s please check the website www.sativarecords.com

Words by Daniel Turner. © 2007