Marga Boys: (l-r) Nick Stez, Pij and Lee Ramsay
Check out exclusive samples from the Marga Boys tracks,
Marga Boys Theme:Get Hi With Me feat C-Mone:Michelle feat Karizma
Words: Jared Wilson Photos: Joe Ryder
Lee Ramsay has been rocking Nottingham for over a decade now. At the age of 24, he is an OutDaVille veteran and one of the most exciting verbalists on the local scene. He invited LeftLion to a sneak preview of his new project the Marga Boys.
'Marga' means skinny in Jamaican. Alongside Ramsay the boys are Nick Stez, 31, Pij, 31. The ethos of the group is one where all share responsibility for lyrics, music and production.
Stez is one of the unsung heroes of the OutDaVille era. He was responsible for much of the production for Ramsay, Scorzayzee and the rest of the crew. Pij is a musician who has played in jazz, hiphop and what he describes
as "Paul Weller-type" mod bands.
Sow did you guys all meet?
Ramsay: "I met Nick in the studio. I went with a couple of friends, but after a while I saw that my friends weren?t really taking too much of a shine to it. I kept going and also did a couple of early gigs around that era and caught a group called the Vibes which was those two guys. I was in my early teens back then!"
Stez: "Me and Pij used to play in a band together. We were into the Acid jazz scene back in the day and used to play jazz funk together as well as the hiphop. "
Tell us about this new project?:
Ramsay: "This is a fresh thing for us. At the moment ideas are still developing and we come into the studio and bounce off each other. It's just like the beginning of OutDaVille and it?s refreshing. I was always a rapper, but now I'm learning to express myself through music and build up other skills in playing and production."
Stez: "Everyone from OutDaVille still comes to the studio, but we're trying to do our own things for a bit. That's really how Marga Boys was born. We?ve set up a production unit and work with the rappers that we know. We got some stuff that is more live based and other stuff that is all sampled together. We're just trying to mix it up really."
Ramsay: "Originally it was called 'Crooked old world' and featured me and Big Trev rapping. That slowly progressed and changed into 'Dedicated', which became my first big release and was played by Westwood back in 1996.?"
Stez: "That was when we were known as '95 Records' and then 'Real Deal'. It was the very beggining of Outdaville. Then Lee brought along Scorzayzee and then Instinct, Temper, Cmone and the rest came on board.
"We had freestyle sessions and just thought we could do something with it. I was making the beats and Trev was doing the buisiness and they were rapping. We started releasing the records and getting real good exposure down in London, as well as lots of support in Notts."
So what inspires the Marga Boys musically?
Stez: "Our influences are everything from Reggae to Jazz to UK soul to hiphop and we're just trying to fuse it. For me I'm bringing back the side of me that was in a band when I was in my late teens.
Before I was just doing straight hiphop production, but personally I listen to everything from Miles Davis and John Coltrane to modern day producers like the Neptunes, Primo, JD, Hi-Tech and Jazzy Jeff - and I think that comes out in the new stuff."
Pij: "With all the influences it's like there's loads of distance left for it to run because we haven't even touched on half of what we got in our locker. The stuff we're doing now will come out, but then the next stuff will probably be totally different to that."
Ramsay: "For me now I'm enjoying being a musician. All of us are rapping and trying everything. It's just refreshing to have something new and hopefully by the time we start putting our stuff out people will have seen the progression from what we've done before."
Stez: "We want to work our way round Nottingham. We've done a collaboration with DJ Fever and there are others planned. It's a collective and we want to get the right people in to see what happens.
"It's enjoyable. We were slogging for 10 years with Outdaville, so this is a break to carry the ethos on into something new. Our mentality is about working with talented people and building the Nottingham scene as a whole."
Ramsay: "We're all learning off and inspiring each other. We've all got different skills and they make a good melting pot. The blend works together. Sometimes when I hear Pyj do his rap I think, I like that flow and I?m going to base mine around that. These guys are doing stuff I would probably never even thought of."
Pij, you seem to be the quiet member of the Marga Boys, tell us a bit about you
Pij: "I met Nick in 1988 at High Pavement college. We had a music class together and hit it off straight away because of a mutual love of jazz and started a group. After we went our separate ways I continued to play live with other bands. I was in 'My Family Tree', a live hiphop band and after that I joined a Paul Weller style band.
Then I met up with Nick again and we started building the Marga Boys. In the band I concentrate on guitar and am trying to do a bit of rapping. We've also got a session bass player (Ronan), who we're trying to get more involved. All three of us want to emcee. Lee's already up there with the best and we're just trying to catch up at the moment. But he's learning new stuff musically as well."
Who else do you guys rate in the Notts scene?
Ramsay: "Cappo. I've known the guy for a long time now. We first met on stage at the Old Angel. In Nottingham people don't really want to take me on at rhyming, when I'd walk into a battle the emcees would stop.
Cappo was the only person who came on stage against me and we went for it back to back. Since then we've been cool. He works with the P Brothers and for me it's shocking to see how much they dominate. Their beats are so distinctive, when you hear it in a club it snaps at you."
Pij: "Production wise I rate DJ Fever. He's a wizard. I don't think enough people have heard what he's capable of."
Stez: "I leaned a lot from Fever. I also learned a lot from Black Viking and Joe Buddha. Rappers-wise it goes from Mr 45 to people that I've worked with like Scorzayzee, J Gold, Kamikaze. Styly Cee does some really good stuff."
Ramsay: "We like Styly Cee a lot. The Pitman thing is crazy. I remember going to London and hearing the song in a club. I stood there with a friend and said "That's Styly Cee", but she was adamant "No it's not! It's Pitman!"
What have you got coming up?
Stez: "We're going to get a CD together and pass it round friends in Notts to test the water. We definitely want to take it live, but it's got to be done properly. We'll put stuff on LeftLion as well."
Ramsay: "Wherever we go it's going to be exciting. Whereas before we might not have gone to some of these places, now we want to try everything."
Check out exclusive samples from the Marga Boys tracks,
Marga Boys Theme:Get Hi With Me feat C-Mone:Michelle feat Karizma
Nottingham hiphop on LeftLion
Algie Hunter Interview and Audio
Dealmaker Review and Audio
Marga Boys Interview and Audio
P Brothers Interview
