Next on the blog is veteran producer and DJ, Ruff Diamond, aka Chris Robinson. His producing and Dj’ing has seen him find work both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and Chris has made his home in studios from West End London to Venice Beach.
It’d be easier to introduce the artists Ruff Diamond hasn’t worked with in his century spanning career. Artists such as The ShapeShifters, 80’s Child & TAZ have all worked with, and influenced Chris. A multi-instrumentalist Chris has been playing in funk ensembles from an early age and this deep rooted knowledge of music is evident in his productions today.
He has recently returned to Manchester to build a studio and launch SupaEarth records. It’s first release, ‘Rock the Discotheque’ has been charting in the traxsource top 10 and future release show no sign of changing that trend.
AMF caught up with Ruff Diamond to talk about his career. The highs and lows of studio life and creating a sound that transcends time.
This article is pretty long so here’s a few points you might want to jump too. If you get lost don’t panic just head to a ‘back to the top’ button 🙂
Ruff Diamond, aka Chris Robinson, where do I start? Your career has spanned continents and you’ve worked with some of the biggest in the business. If it’s possible could you sum that journey up for us in a few paragraphs?
Well, I started out playing guitar as a kid. I was very musical at a young age, my mum was a pianist and I could pick things up by ear very easily and just got on with it naturally.
When I left school, I studied sound engineering for a year at SSR Manchester, when it was on Tariff Street, so I learned my way around a studio properly then. I was doing a lot of guitar session work for different people, and playing a lot on the Manchester club scene and beyond, at a time when the whole acid jazz and funk scene was massive.
It was good times. I worked with some incredible musicians who I still keep in touch with today. PJ Bells (later Matt & Phreds), Band on The Wall, Night & Day Café, all those places were dope and the centre of the Manchester music scene – it’s amazing to see it now, how the Northern Quarter has developed, it’s gone from strength to strength, the vibe is amazing, I love DJ’ing there!
I was getting more into production as time went on, I founded a Funk collective called D-Gang whose core members were myself, Drummer Myke Wilson, and Bass Player Steve OJ. When that band played anywhere, the place went crazy! Possibly the biggest regret in my whole career was not keeping that collective going, but I was about to move to London, and Myke & Steve were joining the Dust Junkys, so it was time to start the next chapter.
I was earning a living as a session player in London, but developing my productions skills, and starting to pick up some remixes and working with some good artists and DJs. I’d had some success producing and co-writing with the Vinylizor/ JTQ guys who are longtime close friends, we’d done the music for some Adidas and other commercials, and also released some Funk & House tracks. But I loved producing R&B at that time and was determined to follow my path.
However, it was a competitive world where no one wanted to let you in. So I knew I had to make my own lane and let my music do the talking. Gradually things took off. I’d moved to Ladbroke Grove in West London, and had been working a lot with (UK rapper/producer) Darkman & (UK Soul Artist) Noel McKoy. We started a night at Ion Bar called Soul Medicine, which became the biggest Sunday night residency in West London – the best DJs and artists would roll through there and it became a hub for the music scene.
Many connections and relationships were built through that scene, and I became firmly established as an in-demand producer and musician. I was based at the infamous Canalot Studios in Notting Hill, which was also an amazing epicenter of music people – I met all kinds of people through having a studio in there.
It was one big crazy family and I got to work with people like The Shapeshifters, Maxi Priest etc, and I was literally playing guitar on several records per week for people just in that studio building!
Working with Darkman also led to producing for Mark Morrison. I was also working for a bunch of labels remixing at the time TVT, V2, Sony etc, I’d built a reputation for the sound I was bringing to both club & radio, with successful remixes for artists such as Estelle, Teedra Moses, and Marcos Hernandez.
The only thing was, at that time, ‘R&B’ or ‘Urban’ were, in their true sense, genre’s that were mostly shunned by the British Record Industry (if you were British), and if a track sounded too heavy hitting and didn’t slot into the Brit Pop sound at the time, you couldn’t get it signed for love nor money in the UK.
So, although I had many releases of tracks I’d co-written and produced, and also my own releases as an artist, I really built my rep by remixing artists for the clubs. My sound was American, and it didn’t fit a lot of UK major labels – I can remember sitting in A&R meetings and hearing ‘Chris your stuff is amazing but we only release that kinda thing from the American artists, do you wanna do some remixes?’. So, I knew I had to break into the States.
Enter Myspace. Through my close friend DJ Pugwash, I had connected with Sir Charles ‘Mixing’ Dixon from NYC, a veteran mix DJ who had also been head of DJ Promotions for Tommy Boy Records & Sony Columbia. Charles had just left Sony and was setting up a management company. When he heard my stuff he totally flipped, he wanted to sign me straight away. We began working together, he introduced me to Myspace (I was seriously one of the first UK artists on there) and I started networking hard with all kinds of artists and industry people in the States.
Things were opening up and (although this may sound mad to people who have been on social media all their lives) I actually felt that I was now in some level of control of people discovering me and my music on a way bigger level. Myspace was my shop window, and I could connect with anyone I wanted. Charles then discovered (via Myspace) this incredible artist from Perth, Australia who turned out to be Che’Nelle. She was the real deal, you could send her a track and within a couple of hours or so she’d wing it back with all the parts written and vocalled in Pro Tools, mostly sounding like ready to go hits. So, we went to work, me Charles & Che’Nelle.
Tim Westwood blew up the first track ‘I Fell In Love With The DJ’ on his Radio 1 show. Along with a couple of other producers, we put together an album’s worth of joints, and Charles gets Che’Nelle signed directly to Jason Flom at Virgin US on a huge deal. Next thing we were producing her album in Sony Studios NYC which then became a No1 album in Japan, and she was awarded International Gold Artist of the year. Although Che’Nelle may not be known so well in the UK, she’s iconic in Japan and big in other territories, and has now sold tens of millions of records.
I’m proud to be an integral part of that actually happening. Around the same time, I had been approached by Matthew Knowles and Beyonce’s A&R to remix ‘Irreplaceable’. That remix became the most played remix of Beyonce’s biggest ever single, and my Myspace by this time had gone through the roof, and requests to collab, produce, remix and so on, were rolling in from the States.
Fast forward, I had then decided to base myself in Los Angeles for a while, not only having loved that place on previous visits, but having a bunch of connections there, arguably the best creative spot in the whole music industry, and of course a beautiful hot climate and bloody great ocean. I’d fallen in love with Venice Beach way back as a kid watching the Breakdance movie (about 100 times), and just loved the life out there.
I ended up working with some great people, making some great friends, great records, writing some amazing songs, and having a lot of fun. But eventually London came calling again, and I was drawn back to work on certain projects and ended up just going to and from LA for a while after that. To this day I still work with my people from out there, like Jeff Jones for example (Cali4Nia Jones) who is one of the most in-demand urban topline writers in LA right now, and an incredible rap artist.
I produced a track recently on his mixtape (which featured Snoop, Ray Jay etc) with Mayne Mannish, he’s on a forthcoming release with me on my label SupaEarth, and also we have a crazy single with Jonn Hart coming out. I’m also about to start producing some tracks with Kiki Kyte, a friend from Venice CA, who has since evolved into this mega Disco Queen with an incredibly authentic voice and vibe.
Fast forward a lil’ bit further to this point now, and I can sum it up by saying it has been an eventful journey, full of highs and lows and everything in between. It has been a lot of hard work, and I can guarantee anyone just getting into the industry that if you’re not resilient, you won’t last long. I’m lucky enough to have a certain amount of talent, but I’ve had to go and literally fight and give my all for everything I’ve achieved, and then some.
There are so many things that I can’t fit into this interview. I’ve had a million hurdles to cross and found myself in situations from sleeping on stone floors at friends houses in London and taking on major labels in High Court litigations to hanging out in the Hollywood Roosevelt with Lindsey Lohan. But, at the end of the day, I’ve persevered and that is what has got me through. As far as I’m concerned though, I’ve only just scratched the surface of what I want to achieve.
After several years working in London and LA, you’ve decided to return to Manchester and setup SupaEarth Records. What spurred that decision?
As much as I love it, I’d got to the point of needing a change from London. Times move on, technology and the evolving music industry, the way we make music, kinda made me think I can do a lot of my work remotely, and just catch a train to London, or a plane to wherever when I need to be there. Family being in Cheshire did play a part too, but I had always wanted to build a base back in the area, and started looking for a spot to build a studio.
Eventually, I found an old station house building in Cheshire just outside Manchester. The space was a mess, but the shell was good and I knew I could transform it into something cool that sounded good. That has now become SupaEarth Studios. The next thing I wanted to do was to start a label. I did have a label in the mid/late 2000s, but at the time I had become so busy producing, I was moving out to LA, and my label partner was kinda wrapped up in his other business so we decided to shelve it at that time.
But I had held onto my plan, and felt that this was the right time to do it. So, after a lot of research into how things had changed, and how to go about it, plus with the help and valuable advice from other friends who run labels, SupaEarth Records was born.
You’ve spent many years producing and writing for other artists, both major and indie, you seem to be putting more emphasis on yourself nowadays as an artist & DJ?
That’s a great point Liam. The short answer to that is ‘it’s all about the music’. I had a massive turning point a couple of years back which was a total game changer for me. I’d been through a difficult period in my life which included going through a fierce legal battle to protect my brand and my career in music.
This inevitably meant I lost a fair amount of momentum, and also made me less popular with certain labels and people in the music industry because of whom I was claiming against. As shit as that period was at times, it actually made me stronger, more experienced and let me re-evaluate myself and figure out where I was going.
My first love was Funk and Disco. I had grown up with it as a kid and was obsessed with it. It felt natural to me, it’s where my feel is at, and although I did have my minute in a school rock band playing AC/DC and Pink Floyd covers, I wanted to be more like Nile Rodgers and George Benson than Eddy Van Halen (tho Eddy Van Halen is dope!).
I had produced so much R&B and more commercial music over the years, which I’m proud of, but I wanted to find my way again. Get back on my own path and not be a disposable cog in that whole bullshit music industry wheel, which can happen to the best of us over the years. The thing that a lot of people don’t know is that, although I had DJ’d on and off at parties over the years for fun, and always been around DJs, I only really started taking DJ’ing seriously in the last couple of years or so!
It actually made me re-connect to the music I love again, it humbled me, and made me realise why I got into music in the first place and followed this career. The Funk has always been in me and has always been part of my sound. There was a big moment playing at a gig in the Northern Quarter a couple of years ago where the boss of the bar had asked me to play a load of Disco, it was that night I decided f**k it, I love rocking the house, I love getting the party started, I’m f*****g good at it, and I can make this music all day long.
It was a no brainer from there, I knew this was what I was gonna do in the next chapter of my career, and here we are today. Although I still love producing for other people, the emphasis is on me as an artist holistically – as a DJ, producer, songwriter, collaborator, remixer, musician and label boss.
I’m actually really excited about how far I can take my career when I have independent control over it, and I have total belief in what I’m capable of. When I say this to people, some of them think I’m mad, but if the music industry was how it is today when I started out, I would have 99.9% sure, just done my own thing.
The fact that you can produce a record with a beat on a computer, master it economically, and release it on all major digital worldwide stores the next day for a few bucks is insane. Back in the day, you needed a £20k bond to give a distributor (for returns) if you wanted your record in major stores! Plus you can market your record to a decent level with just a bit of know-how, using free and cheap resources available on the internet – that’s a huge help from where it was at even 5 or 10 years ago.
Is nurturing and building your own roster of talent around SupaEarth records a big motivator for you.
Yes, of course, it’s massively important. Up until recent years, the way that producers often worked was to find an artist, sign them to a production deal and develop them. Spend a year or so working with them, then try and sign them to a major label, taking a fair old percentage of the deal if it comes off.
The sad fact about that business model nowadays, is that it’s massively expensive to do and you’re obligated to pay for everything for the artist: legal contracts, studios, engineers, producers, travel, food, drink, vocal lessons, hairdo’s, photo shoots etc etc.
It can all stack up very fast, I’ve had my ass kicked in the past on this, and the advances off majors (if you get to that point) are way smaller nowadays, so it’s too high risk.
Apart from in exceptional circumstances if you discover Adele or Chris Brown or whatever. What does work though, is straightforward single and EP deals, 50/50 with costs off the top kinda thing, that don’t tie either side in too much in the early days, and that way you can progress together.
Where I am able to put my knowledge and experience to good use is to guide those artists and help them improve and make better records. We have the facilities in the studio if they need it to finish a record to a high standard, or maybe track vocals whatever – the support is there.
It is true that many labels don’t really develop artists these days, especially majors who often sign them based on Instagram followers etc. That is the unfortunate side of the way the business is set up these days.
However, there are so many college courses in music technology, music software is generally very reasonable and there are so many industry resources available online. This means that any artist who is able and determined can develop themselves to a certain level even before working with an experienced producer.
At SupaEarth I am building a family of producers, DJs, and artists so we have the network to help each other. Help each other push our tracks, remix each other’s records, repost each other’s socials, play on each other’s tracks, learn from each other and sometimes hang out and party together. I am also constantly connecting with new people as well as having a great network already,
so I’m always hearing new stuff, hearing producers coming through. I will say, that in all my years in music, out of all the genres, Disco has the biggest ‘family’ community feel. I have found literally 99 out of 100 people I have connected within this scene to be super cool and so down to earth, it’s refreshing.
You produce a lot of nu-disco with added lashings of classic Ibiza house, is this your go-to sound? As a producer how do you go about developing that sound? Is it a case of trial and error and searching for influences in your record bag?
Ha, you’ve sussed me, to a certain extent anyway! Classic Ibiza House I would say is more occasional in my records, but everyone loves a Classic Ibiza House anthem and sometimes you just can’t get away from it!
I love Nu-Disco. I love how so many great records, whether classic or obscure, have been re-worked, shown new energy and love, making them modern, cool and more DJ friendly and accessible.
It’s feel good, it’s fresh, and people can dance and enjoy themselves to the max listening to it. I love making it because of how it makes people feel, how it moves you, emotionally and physically, each record is a journey – it should take you somewhere, disco does that to you.
In my sound, I massively incorporate the funk, I’m a funk guy first. But I love the extravagance of disco, and the trippy cosmic hedonistic side too. I love the fact that in a club, it’s about everyone being themselves. In the words of Simon Dunmore ‘in our house, everyone is equal’, everyone is welcome, you can feel the love. Too much music nowadays promotes negativity and personal competitiveness, disco is uplifting and free from all that crap.
My ‘go to’ sound, to be honest, happens quite naturally. I really have to feel what I’m doing, I don’t have anyone set formula on how I’m gonna make a record.
I do get influences and ideas sometimes from digging in a crate, I DJ regularly anyway so there’s always inspiration at hand. I generally think of ideas at any given time, often when I’m driving or at home wherever, I tend to sing them into the voice recorder on my phone, or pick up a guitar and get the idea down.
Then I can replay it when I’m in the studio, and I know exactly what I was banging on about on the voice recorder, and can turn it into a track. Also, when I hear an idea, I can normally picture the whole track and arrangement within a couple of minutes – beat, bassline, chord progression, maybe a vocal melody or string pattern too.
Sometimes I am inspired by a sample, and love doing edits/reworks, but whereas a lot of disco and house guys build their tracks around samples, a lot of the time I actually create everything musical in there. I’m also a longtime MPC guy, and these days use the Push a lot with Ableton for beats, so I tend to play everything in and use limited loops.
I’m very particular about feel, and I use a bunch of different Ableton Grooves, and generally record unquantized, except when using note repeat. For synths and plugins, I use a bunch of different things, and I have some hardware synths, I particularly love the Moog SubPhatty which I use a lot for basses, and also for Talkbox.
I could talk forever about studio tech lol, but the core of my setup is Ableton Live (& Akai MPC) to build tracks, and I mix and track in Presonus Studio One. I also have a Softube Console One for mixing.
Can you talk us through the mix? How did you put it together? Was it planned out or did you just rock up to the turntable with a bag of records and feel it out from there.
The mix is generally put together with tracks I’m feeling at the moment. There’s some Masterworks Vol 3 in there, some Birdee who is a producer I love, also Moonrocket, a Natasha Kitty Kat remix I love, new Chic – Dimitri From Paris remix, a few party starters near the end!
It’s mid-season beginning of August right now, so there’s always a bunch of great releases this time of year – most of these are fairly recent releases or promos. I had an idea with the Voodoo Ray vs Medlar edit, and thought I’d throw that one in for you, a nice slice of Manchester!
Sometimes I dig into obscure records, sometimes I might play a set made up mainly of recent promos or whatever, kinda depends. The main thing for me is that it flows, has dynamics, and builds in energy, which I feel this mix does.
On this occasion I put together a playlist for the mix in Rekordbox and went from that, mixing in key on most tracks, which I think is important on a mixtape or podcast, especially with disco. Sometimes I literally will just have a couple of playlists and folders open with the kinda vibe and tempo I’m going for, hit play and go from there, let the journey evolve, searching along the way for the tunes to drop.
Especially live, I never plan a set from start to finish, I generally will have some key tunes which I intend to play at some point in the set for that event or venue, feel the crowd and mix as I go. It’s important to also be aware of who is playing before and after you so that the changeover is cool and you don’t trespass on the next guy’s set!
I recently played before Judge Jules, and knew I had to ramp it up a bit leading up to when he went on, as he always goes in banging. I also can literally switch a track on a CDJ as late as 16 bars from the end of the track playing, or loop it, if I have an idea that’s gonna rock the party to bounce in with. Sometimes it doesn’t work but there’s nothing special about playing safe and keeping a set perfectly seamless, gotta take a chance and make something happen.
Are there any particular tracks in the mix that you really think sums up your ethos and music?
I’m gonna be biased here, but my new single ‘Rock The Discotheque’ which I start with, kinda sums me up in many ways. It’s got the funk, it’s got the disco, it’s got classic MC vibes, it’s got the cosmics, vocoder, and 80s sounding vocals, plus it’s about a DJ rocking the party!
I wanted the record to pay homage to the retro disco and funk I grew up on whilst making a modern-day boogie jam that anyone of any age can relate to, and shake their ass too.
I see you’re working closely with Masterwork music do you have any other label collaborations you could tell us about or any events in the pipeline?
Danny Worrall aka 80s Child, who owns Masterworks music is a good friend of mine. We connected last year when we both played a charity disco event at the Whiskey Jar in Manchester.
Both of us knew of each other but had never met until that night! We clicked straight away and musically we are right on the same wavelength. He lives close to me, so we have worked in the studio together and we’ll have something in the pipeline in the near future, no doubt!
I’ve got so much respect for Danny, how he has built Masterworks up. He’s the most down to earth bloke, and his ear for a tune is exceptional. His production is dope too, his remix on ‘Rock The Discotheque’ has been getting mad love from a lot of DJs. Danny is really popular in the disco scene, and deservedly so.
He has been good enough to help me with all sorts of questions I had when I was setting SupaEarth up, he’s top class. I’m actually just producing some tracks for Masterworks right now, I, unfortunately, missed the boat for getting on Masterworks Volume 3, but I have some bangers cooking for Masterworks, so stay tuned!
What’s on the horizon for SupaEarth Records?
On SupaEarth, ‘Rock The Discotheque’ which you know about, is released 8th August on all stores, both the main mix and Lempo remix have been charting on Traxsource and all mixes have received massive DJ support.
so it’s a great start I would say, but I like to keep on pushing, make sure the DJs have the mixes, hit up blogs, submit for Spotify playlists etc, it’s relentless but there is always an opportunity for people to hear your music.
Next up is a single by an artist called Electric Diplomat aka Tim Vine. I’ve signed 2 singles from Tim, he’s actually a good mate of mine and is a premium musician who’s worked with Groove Armada, The Noisettes, US3, Incognito, Simply Red etc.
He’s very funk driven, analog synth-heavy, you’ll love it! I’ve actually remixed the first single and the second single features Funk legend Kid Creole and Shingai from the Noisettes, it’s a banger! After that, I have a record with Lempo & Cali4Nia Jones, and also one with Taz (from Mousse T –‘Rock The Mic’) featuring an amazing singer from Berlin called WanjaJaneva.
On other labels, I have been working closely with Manchester House DJ and producer Lempo. We have a release together on Big Mix Up Records, which is a remix of Dawn Penn – ‘You Don’t Love Me’. A record on Strictly Rhythm with Roland Clark which I did the remix, additional production, guitars, synths, and mix on.
Also another banger of a track with TAZ, which is an Ibiza biggie ready to be unleashed. Lempo is a genius, I have a lot of time for him, and also help on stuff for his label Applique. I have various other collabs and releases going on, I’m also working with Cali Disco Queen Kiki Kyte, and have a single with US R&B singer Jonn Hart which is on Priority Records, that record is massive, I can’t wait for it to drop!
If you want to stay with that Nu-Disco sound listen to Downunder Disco‘s guest mix. More of the same music with the likes of Masterwork music and Midnight riot.
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