Part 1 of 5

Skiz Fernando, also known as Spectre, The Ill Saint, The Eye and Slotek, has been around hip-hop for a long time. Behind the scenes. Lurking. His Wordsound label was launched in December 1994 in the midst of a successful career as a journalist, which most notably saw him releasing a book, "The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture & Attitudes of Hip-Hop" (Anchor/Doubleday). He still continues his freelance work as a journalist to this day (recently with the likes of HHC, Wax Poetic to name a few) whilst also managing to maintain things at Wordsound, which underground hip-hop, and music-enthusiasts have come to know as a trusted source for progressively different, dark, yet always engaging music. More recently Wordsound has put out their first film 'Crooked', written & directed by The Spectre himself. On Sunday the 6th of April 2003, Skiz Fernando and I talked about all things music-related. Fellow nefisa-member Christina took a few photos. Thoughts travelled and unravelled whilst Coltranes "Love Supreme" played gently in the background. Check out the interaction and enjoy, Y.Misdaq aka Yoshi

Yoshi - So how established do you feel Wordsound is currently?

Skiz- We definitely have our hardcore following, I mean after ten years you'd think!

It's been ten years now?

Yeah, next year [2004] will be ten years.

So how long has it taken you to reach this level?


As far as I'm concerned we haven't reached any level. I mean, we're aiming for total domination! We just put out our 45th release, Spectre, 'Psychic Wars'. Normally we don't sell more than three to five thousand copies of a given release, and I think there's a lot of room for improvement. But, really, this whole operation is just me, putting out records from my living room.

You just talked about total dominance, but I always thought of wordsound as something totally underground, not meant for a mainstream audience even?

I think our stuff has gotten so much more accessible through the years. If you listen to the first stuff, the first ten albums, that stuff is 'out there', that's what I would call 'out there'. But we've really made great strides to reach out to people. If there was any promotion behind these records, I'm sure we'd have a huge audience because people need this music - especially in these times. What was the first album you got?

I think it was Subterranean Hitz: Volume One (pictured left)

Okay, that's a good primer. Sub Hitz is something that I would call hardcore music. It's the kind of grimy music that makes you scrunch up your face and snap your neck. Hip-hop is not at that stage today. It's glossy, it's all about the clubs and everyone is on the R'n'B tip, everyone's got to have a singer.

How do you feel about the latest release, Psychic Wars? Is it still grimy? 

Its smooth with the roughness like an uncut diamond. I like to take it to the next level every time, and this time I just gave it all I had - this is the album I'm happiest with. It's not even hip-hop anymore, it's just a whole new type of music, and that's really the goal, to make a whole new music. We really create our own genres here. When Spectre first started, I was calling it dub-hop. Or dance-noir (laughs) 'cos I'm a journalist myself, so I have to come up with these labels...But ultimately Psychic Wars is a sound you haven't heard yet. *

The Wordsound stuff is pretty underground here in England too I think, but a lot of people know about it.

See in England, you have precedent for this type of stuff, you have your Mo' Wax, your Warp, your Rephlex, your On-U Sound - all these weird indie labels, but they're still doing well. I mean just look at Warp - that new Beans' album is out on warp...I haven't heard that one yet though have you?