Champion

Motherboard EP Champion

The fourth release from Terror Danjahs young Hardrive lable brings “The Prince Of Funky” DJ Champion to the attention of the masses. The 20-year-old Hackney producer has been praised by Tom Lea in Fact and Martin Clark in Pitchfork for introducing an edgy element to funky house that has been missing since Lil Silva first came out with tracks like ‘Seasons’ and ‘Flex’, and his 'Motherboard' tune was the ubiquitous 2010 summer anthem in all the commercial holiday resorts. That renowned cut finally sees an official release here after a limited white label run last year which sold out quicker than Peter Crouch can collect two yellow cards. Since then Champion has gone from strength to strength, with his music breaking out of the tight-knit London Funky scene thanks to regular plays from Kode9, Sinden, Ikonika, and Roska, to name just a few of his heavy-hitting supporters. Also included is ‘Lose Control’, one of the cross-genre club essentials of the year so far, a six-minute eski / soca / kwaito-influenced roller which has even been adopted into grime sets by Butterz mainmen Elijah & Skilliam, who have gone as far as adding Champ as a resident DJ to their traditionally strict 100% grime nights at their London club residencies, including a prestige set at Fabric. Finally, ‘Tribal Affair VIP’ is the third bullet in the EP’s clip, defining the raw and minimal funky style for which Champion is already the figurehead. Closely following this release, Champion is launching his own imprint Formulaudio to give the clubs a constant flow of his tribal grime hybrids, in addition to a slew of high profile new remixes enforcing his signature 'Champion Sound' throughout 2011.