Krafty Kuts slams the deserters

“To cut a long story short, I saw a lot of people trying to get an easy buck in thinking they could switch to another genre and make house music. But to be honest, they’re just small fish in a big sea.” That stalwart supporter of the breakbeat genre Krafty Kuts will be returning to Australia shortly, and he’s flying high on the hype from his acclaimed Against The Grain compilation, which is packing 20 or so of his famous breaks ‘rerubs’ and has responsible for injecting a fresh dose of energy into the struggling scene. With things looking like they’re now taking a turn for the better for breaks fans, Krafty chatted to ITM on the phone recently where he had a sly crack at the producers who exited the scene a few years ago.

“I’m not going to name any names because I don’t want to get in trouble, but I know there were a lot of producers that left breaks that could have been stars in the breakbeat scene – and now they’ve gone onto be nowhere near as big as they would be if they’d hung around,” Krafty told ITM.

“You could probably name 5 of those people right now if you wanted to – you know who I’m talking about – and it’s a shame, because these people have realized that they should have never left breakbeat. It’s such a good scene, and if they’d only just stuck by it, and actually tried to be creative…”

Krafty Kuts has been a solid supporter (and believer) in breaks for over a decade, recognised at the 2007 Breakspoll Awards for his ‘Outstanding Contribution’ to the scene, and he says the key is to maintain the passion and believe in what you’re doing. “I’ve loved breakbeat since day one, and still love it – and I still see people going nuts to it, whether it’s 500 people or 25,000 people. This whole year I’ve done all the festivals; Glastonbury, Glade, all of them all over the world, and there wasn’t one festival crowd that didn’t like what I was playing,” he says.

“People still love it; unfortunately, it’s just a smaller scene now. But when you do go to hear it – even though there’s only a handful of people making it now – boy does it knock you for six.”

Hear more from Krafty Kuts in the latest ITM Podcast, and stay tuned for ITM’s full-length interview. Catch him playing around the country this New Years:

Wed 30th Dec – Pyramid Rock Festival, Victoria
Thur 31st Dec – Rhythm & Vines, Gisborne
Fri 1st Jan – Summerdayze, Melbourne
Fri 1st Jan – Field Day, Sydney
Sun 3rd Jan – Summerdayze, Perth
Sat 9th Jan – Summerfielddayze, Gold Coast
Sun 10th Jan – Midsummer Circus, Adelaide