Kurupt FM are back
Kurupt FM are returning to the airwaves, but perhaps not where you’d expect.
From 17 May, the garage legends will broadcast shows into 2,200 Subway restaurants across the UK and Ireland after Subway struck a collab with the boys for a takeover of its in-store radio network. An exclusive online mini-series capturing the takeover will be released on Monday 17 May, with fresh episodes dropping throughout the week.
We managed to grab an exclusive chat with MC Grindah, DJ Beats, Steves, and ‘Mr Alan Brown Sugar’ himself Chabuddy G to talk about the takeover, their recent projects (including an album and trip to Japan), and what the future holds for the Brentford boys post-pandemic.
So how exactly did Kurupt FM make the move into the sandwich world?
“I think I hoodwinked them a little bit.” admitted Chabuddy, manager of the boys.
“As a manager sometimes your artists aren’t fully on board, so I said ‘listen guys, do you like sandwiches?’ And you said yes, and I said ‘do you like radio,’ and they said ‘well yeah we love radio.’
“So then we just turned up in a Subway and they had to perform. So in a way I hoodwinked them.”
The boys will be broadcasting into Subway’s 2,200 stores nationwideThere was a key incentive for them though.
“We got unlimited sandwiches on the day,” Steves told us.
Like all good managers, Chabuddy had engaged in intense negotiations to get the best for his guys.
“Subway said, ‘look do you want to get the boys onto the station?’ I said we need to have at least unlimited sandwiches, that’s a deal-breaker,” he explained.
“They said ‘okay fine’ and so we did it, we went to Subway radio.”
Cue quite an in-depth explanation of his pitch for a new sandwich idea, the details of which I won’t go into here, but you can hear in the teaser episode here. Let’s just say it’s small, full of sauce and wouldn’t be very satisfying…
Seven exclusive online episodes will be released from 17 MayFans will be able to tune-in via Subway’s YouTube to catch-up on the series after each exclusive in-store transmission. Additional bonus content and clips will also be dropped on Subway and Kurupt FM’s TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.
Last time we saw the pirate radio station in action it was a turbulent time for them. At the end of series five of the critically-acclaimed show, Grindah was moving to Essex with partner Miche and daughter Angel, leaving Brentford, his crew and the station behind.
But before the pandemic hit, Kurupt FM had been hard at work trying to crack the international market…. in Japan.
In August the boys are hitting the big screen with People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan following their venture to the Far East.
Of all the countries to promote garage music, why here?
“I’ll tell you in one word,” said MC Grindah. “Because they are more advanced than the UK.”
“Japan decided they were ready didn’t they,” Steves added.
“You think about it,” Grindah explained. “People became thick over here over time, because they were once intelligent back in ’98 to ’01 (coincidentally the period in which garage music was at its peak in Britain).”
“The chemicals in the Thames innit,” Chabuddy chimed in.
Grindah continued: “Basically we just thought where is the most advanced world, within our world, that would understand garage music? And it turns out Japan was one of them, do you know what I mean?”
“Cuz you know the future is always the past as well, because things go in circles,” Steves helpfully explained.
“So Japan is the most futuristic place so it makes sense that our music would work there because its old. Do you know what I mean?”
Although it’s safe to say that for there were a few cultural shocks for them during their trip, particularly for Steves and his habits…
https://twitter.com/KuruptFM/status/1392195428242927616
Of course the base of all of this is the music, and 2021 looks set to be a huge year on this front for the crew as well.
Kurupt have teamed up with another titan of the UK garage scene, none other than Craig David himself, and have released their debut original single Summertime with him. The guys have got an album on the way, The Greatest Hits (Part 1), and it sounds like there are more big names that will be featuring on that.
Although Grindah was sure to not give too much away about the record.
“Well lets just say the album’s wrapped. Let’s just say that we’re not saying anything.
“Apart from Mist, Jaykae, General Levy, Rude Kid, Sir Spyro, Chase & Status. And that’s all we’re saying.
Steves asks whether that’s everyone.
“Oh, MJ Cole!”
“And Zinc. But that’s all we’re saying,” Steves reiterated. Like they said, they’re keeping it all under wraps so there is absolutely no way at all that any of them are appearing on the album….
NUFF LOVE FOR EVERYONE BUYING AND STREAMING OUR NEW SINGLE ‘SUMMERTIME’ U LOT ARE SICK! FULL KURUPT FM ALBUM COMING SOON! HERES THE OFFICIAL ALBUM ARTWORK FOR U TO SOAK INTO UR EYEBALLS ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Tlwrj2g2Dg
— PeopleJustDoNothing (@KuruptFM) May 7, 2021
With new music then, surely this means performances? We asked them how they’d coped with the lack of live music and performances since the pandemic began. It did sound like they’d managed to get their performance fix despite the lockdowns though.
“Are you still doing mimes Steves, on the high street?” asked Beats.
Steves replied: “Yeah I do a sort of thing with a tambourine outside Ealing Broadway station where I just sort of skank out to drum and bass.” Beats adds that he’s spray painted head-to-toe in silver as part of this.
“Wait Stevie you’re getting paid for that?” asks Chabuddy.
Steves: “Just donations.”
Chabuddy: “Okay well I need to make 15% of that. How much have you made?”
Steves: “Dunno, like £40?”
Chabuddy: “Okay you owe me £20.”
But tambourine-drum-and-bass skanking aside, Steves admitted he couldn’t wait to get back to big venues.
He said: “For me it’s quite exciting to get back into doing a bit more of the bigger stuff. Because I do miss some of the proper big stages we used to do, like festivals and that.
“Ealing Broadway station isn’t the same.”
Beats added: “Even just going to watch Zippos Circus and that, like you can’t do that at the moment, you know what I mean? Just things like that, normality.”
Apparently lack of performance hadn’t been an issue for Grindah though.
“I’ve been alright” the MC said. “I’ve been doing my own performances to Beats once a week, at the end of the week.
“I get him to open up Skype and throw a performance at him.”
“Yeah they last about four hours,” Beats said.
“He’s got a notepad called The Archive and he just runs through it, loads of his lyrics.”
Grindah continues: “Sunday I threw a 1993 dance hall set at him, where it’s all lyrics, in a Jamaican accent of course. And he’s mindblown a lot of the time. I won’t see him in shot and then he’ll come back and I’ll be like ‘what did you think of that?’ and he’ll just explain his best bits.”
“He made me get these £300 Bluetooth headphones,” Beats explained, “just so in case I do need to go to the toilet or whatever I can still hear it.”
So what does the future hold for Kurupt FM then, after the Subway takeover? Is further success and maybe even a number one in the pipeline?
Grindah answered: “First up you’ve got the film coming out in cinemas this August, and then you’ve got the Kurupt FM album.”
“But we are ready. We are ready to smash the back doors in of the whole industry.
“[A number one] it’s coming.”
And the final word perhaps needs to go to manager Chabuddy G: “Our career has been blocked in the pipeline, like a blockage, and now we’re just gonna completely dissolve it. Floor through that shithole.”
Well, you have been warned.
You can hear the Kurupt FM takeover exclusively in Subway stores from Monday 17th May or via catch up on youtube.com/user/
Meanwhile the single featuring Craig David is available to buy, stream and download now, and People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan is set to to hit cinemas on 18 August.
Get ready for some lyrical blows to the jaw…
