Last Sunday, DJ Kalinka hosted a special edition of Chris Welch’s popular weekly Sounds Like This show on Sheffield Live dedicated to the story of bleep & bass. I was one of the guests, alongside Steel City legend Solid State – a man with insane musical knowledge and a sizeable record label to match – and together we talked about the roots, evolution and development of the style, while playing tracks that help explain how and why the sound emerged in Yorkshire, and how it spread to other parts of the UK and well beyond. Naturally, I also got a chance to chat about the book, my motivations for doing it, and why this overlooked history (like other hidden histories still to be documented) matters.

I’d like to thank DJ Kalinka for asking me to appear on the show. It marked my first appearance on the airwaves in Sheffield since November 2019, when I appeared on BBC Radio Sheffield very early on a Saturday morning, alongside my publisher Colin Steven, to promote the publication of Join The Future. It was great to catch up with “Solid”, too, a man I’ve DJ’d with and alongside a few times over the last couple of decades.

You can listen to the show now via the embedded Mixcloud Player below.