In the hazy air of ’95-’96, when pubs reeked of ciggie smoke and the telly served up bowls of Scouse kitchen sink drama on Brookside, Defo Duz knocked about in Runcorn with a pocketful of Valproate and rhymes. He’d done his stretch in the loony bin, put in shifts at the pallet factory, and one day crossed paths with DJ Soap Bar, a London lad stuck up north since school. They clicked over weed, rap records and the right kind of clobber. Soap Bar’s flat was a tip, but buried under the dust was everything needed to make the demo tape Defo Duz had in his head: a microphone, a multitrack cassette recorder, battered beat machines, and records piled to the ceiling. After a few months tinkering, Defo had somehow managed to bang together the beats he wanted to rap on. The Woz Ere ’96 Demo Tape sat unheard for nearly three decades until now, dragged from the attic and cleaned up (slightly), a rough little time capsule from the days before Defo Duz disappeared for good into the system.
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