Newtrament...London Bridge seen in LA

The other week I got all nostalgic about the Bristol and old skool hip-hop scene and wrote about c.1985. One of the YouTube clips that sparked off the post was a Newtrament vs. Wild Bunch warehouse jam.

Little did I know that as I was driving around LA last week would I meet Newtrament himself!? It was odd. You couldn't make this up, seriously!

It all began as I was returning to my hood where I spotted a familiar looking face hanging out having a conversation about Turntable Lab. He certainly sounded English and with the gold teeth caps he was certainly a b-boy.

Only in LA? I almost drove off pondering the rare sighting, except the stranger beckoned me over. Now, I say he looked familiar but I didn't know who he was and nothing clicked until the man said he had a record deal with Jive (do they still exist?) and a record called "London Bridge". Abracadabra! "Are you Newtrament?", I asked.

He's been here 17 years...yep, he's been on the west coast since 1991! "Why? What are you doing? Who do you hang with?", and many other questions were answered as we chatted for 30 mins or so. It's a documentary! I told Newtrament to write a book. This brilliant blog explains the formative years of UK hip-hop and the strong US connections way back in the 80s.

If you're not familiar with Newtrament's 1986 electro jam featuring Sir Drew (who still lives in west London) here it is courtesy of a fan and YouTube.



I'm lovin' the vocoder version...