Initially gaining exposure for his work as a graffiti artist, Goldie became well known for his pioneering role as a musician in the 1990s UK jungle, drum and bass and breakbeat hardcore scenes. He released a variety of singles under the pseudonym Rufige Kru and co-founded the label Metalheadz. He later released several albums under his own name, including the 1995 album Timeless, which entered the UK charts at number 7.
Born in Walsall, England, but raised in Wolverhampton,[1] Price is of Jamaican and Scottish heritage.[1][2] He was put up for adoption at the age of three, and raised in childcare homes and by several foster parents.[2] According to his 2002 autobiography, he was physically and sexually abused during this time.[3] Price was a member of the breakdance crew Westside, based in the Whitmore Reans and Heath Town areas of Wolverhampton, in the 1980s. He later joined a breakdance crew called the Birmingham Bboys, and made his name as a graffiti artist in the West Midlands.
He moved to the United States owing to graffiti projects, and also started selling grills (gold teeth jewellery) in New York and Miami; he continued this business after his return to the UK in 1988.[2] His nickname stems from "Goldielocks", an earlier nickname given to him during his Bboys days and subsequently shortened when he no longer wore dreadlocks.[2]
Career
Music
By 1991, Price had become fascinated by the British breakbeat music scene when his girlfriend, DJ Kemistry, introduced him to the pioneering jungle and drum and bassproducers Dennis "Dego" McFarlane and Mark "Marc Mac" Clair, known as 4hero.[2] He went on to execute some design and A&R work for 4hero's Reinforced Records label.
In 1992, Price made his first record appearance by contributing to an EP by Icelandic group Ajax Project that included the track Ruffige.[4]
His releases Killa Muffin b/w Krisp Biscuit and the Dark RiderEP were released under the alias "Rufige Cru"[note 1] His track "Terminator", released under the name "Metalheads" in 1992,[7] was a hit in the jungle scene and is noted for pioneering the use of time stretching.[8] In 1993, he released Angel, another 12" on the Synthetic Hardcore Phonography label. 1994 saw him setting up his own record label, Metalheadz.[6]
Goldie next to a "Metalheadz" tattoo, 2001
His first studio album, Timeless, followed in 1995. Timeless entered the UK Albums Chart at number seven.[9] The album fused the breakbeats and basslines common in jungle with orchestral textures and soul vocals by Diane Charlemagne. The album's title track was a 21-minute symphonic piece. "Inner City Life", a track from the album, reached number 39 in the UK Singles Chart.[9]Timeless helped to popularise drum and bass as a form of musical expression.[10] The music critic Simon Reynolds noted that Price's credentials as a musical innovator—and particularly as one of the key driving forces of innovation in the jungle/breakbeat scene—were exceptional. "Goldie revolutionised jungle not once but thrice", he noted in The Wire magazine, continuing, "First there was 'Terminator' (pioneering the use of time stretching), then 'Angel' (fusing Diane Charlemagne's live vocal with David Byrne/Brian Eno samples to prove that hardcore could be more 'conventionally' musical), now there's 'Timeless', a 22-minute hardcore symphony."[8]
In 1996, he released the Toasted Both Sides Please remix of the Bush song "Swallowed", which topped charts in the US and Canada.[11][12][13]
Price released his second album, Saturnz Return, in 1998. The album's opening track, "Mother", is an hour-long orchestral drum and bass piece. The album featured appearances by David Bowie, Noel Gallagher and KRS-One. The album met with mixed reviews. David Brown of Entertainment Weekly called the album "ambitious but monotonous and overlong—Pink Floyd with a gold tooth".[14]
In 2002, Price said that he had been working for three years on a film called Sine Tempus,[15] described as a coming-of-age story of a young paintbrush artist. In 2006, he announced the soundtrack as his new album.[16] The album was released via the Metalheadz website in 2008, but the film has not been released.
Price is known for his work as the leader of Rufige Kru. The group has no fixed members and has included drum and bass producers such as Technical Itch, Heist, Cujo, Agzilla Da Ice, Danny J, Doc Scott and Rob Playford.[17][18]
March 2013 saw the release of The Alchemist: The Best of Goldie 1992–2012, featuring prominent tracks from throughout Price's musical career.[19] A subsequent compilation, the three-CD Masterpiece set released by Ministry of Sound in 2014, brought together tracks that influenced him (Soul II Soul's "Back To Life", Roy Ayers' "Everybody Loves The Sunshine") with cuts that soundtracked his entry into the rave scene and key moments from the drum'n'bass scene.[20]
In 2017, the Goldie album The Journey Man was released, which Price described as his "magnum opus" and "the most important thing that I've ever made."[3]
In 2020, Goldie launched his new record label, Fallen Tree 1Hundred.[21]
A 25th anniversary edition of Timeless was released by London Records the following year. The new release included a triple gold vinyl version and a compact disc version. The release brought the number of versions of the iconic drum'n'bass album (including reissues and global pressings) to 44.
Price appeared on BBC1's Daytime Live in October 1987 to discuss the rise of urban art across the United Kingdom.[22] Price also appeared on Central Weekend, a Friday evening topical debate show on Central TV, promoting graffiti as an art form. He had a small documentary made about his own art on Central TV's Here and Now programme featuring Pogus Caesar's photographs of New York. He has appeared on various young people's TV shows as part of a breakdance crew, the Bboys from Wolverhampton. In 1995, he appeared on Passengers, and in a Channel 4 documentary about himself in 1998.
His next TV appearance was hosting Crime Business on the digital TV channels Bravo and Ftn. He presented the documentary series The World's Deadliest Gangs on Bravo in 2002.
Price appeared on the second series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2002. He was the first celebrity to be "evicted". In 2006, he was scheduled to appear in The Games, a UK reality TV show on Channel 4, but during training for the water-ski jump event he fractured his femur and was unable to take part in the show. He was replaced by Adam Rickitt. In 2009, he was reported to be suing the producers of the show for damages as a result of the injury.[23]
During August and September 2008, the BBC broadcast Maestro, a reality television show in which eight celebrities, including Price, learned to conduct a concert orchestra.[3] Price was placed second, behind Sue Perkins.
On 31 July 2009, the first of a two-part television programme Classic Goldie was broadcast, showing how in the wake of his success in the Maestro programme he learns to write a score for a large orchestra and choir. The resulting composition, commissioned by the BBC and entitled Sine Tempore (Timeless), was performed at two children's Promenade concerts in the Royal Albert Hall on 1 and 2 August 2009, which featured music connected with Charles Darwin and the creation and evolution of the world.[24]
On 26 March 2011, he appeared in a three-part reality television series, Goldie's Band: By Royal Appointment in which he led a group of music experts as they conducted a nationwide search for young talented musicians and then selected and coached 12 of them, who collaborated to create some musical pieces for a performance at Buckingham Palace.[26]
In 2007, Price returned to the art world with an art exhibition, "Love Over Gold", which was held at the Leonard Street Gallery, London.[27] In 2008, he teamed up with Pete Tong to provide much of the artwork for Tong's new Wonderland club night at Eden nightclub in San Antonio, Ibiza.[28]
There was an exhibition of Price's art in Berlin from 13 to 26 June 2008.[29] In April 2009, a retrospective exhibition titled "Kids Are All Riot" took place in Shoreditch, London, coinciding with the release of his screenprint "Apocalypse Angel".
In 2021, he modeled for Louis Vuitton Menswear Spring / Summer collection and contributed a song.
Books
The innovative nature of Goldie's art (both sonic and visual) was a consistent theme in Kodwo Eshun's acclaimed book 'More Brilliant Than The Sun' (published in 1998) which has long been seen as a landmark text on Afro-futurism. Among the works that Eshun referenced were Goldie's 1986 graffiti piece Future World Machine and his 1992 single 'Terminator' single. Noting the links between the multi-dimensionality in both painting and sound, Eshun noted: "There's a big interface between graffiti and the break."[31]
In 2002, Goldie's autobiography 'Nine Lives' was published by Hodder & Stoughton. Written with London-based writer Paul Gorman, the book traced his life story from childhood in care and foster homes through to the first flush of his success as a groundbreaking musical artist.
A second autobiography 'All Things Remembered' was published in November 2017 by Faber & Faber. Written when Goldie was 52, it covers a more comprehensive span than the earlier book but is more philosophic in tone. While incidents from his extraordinary childhood are recounted, it also includes his ruminations on musical heroes such as Pat Metheny and a conversation with "my left-hand man" Doc Scott as well as memories of his work in TV and film. The book includes pictures of Goldie on set with David Bowie. Co-written with Ben Thompson, 'All Things Remembered' was chosen by Nicola Barker as one of The Guardian's Books Of The Year. She described it as "a fabulous, whirling kaleidoscope of music, memory and trauma . . . magical and cautionary."[32]
Personal life
In the early 1990s, Price had a relationship with drum and bass artist Kemistry, who died in a car accident in 1999.[33]
He was romantically involved with Icelandic singer Björk in 1996.[6] His relationship with Björk, and her previous relationship that year with Massive Attack member Tricky, upset Ricardo Lopez, an obsessed Björk fan, who was angered by the fact that Björk was in a relationship with a black man (in both Price’s and Tricky’s case) and, on September 12, 1996, sent an explosive device to Björk, disguised as a book, which was designed to spray sulfuric acid on her face, disfiguring her or killing her. Lopez then went back to his apartment, shaved off all the hair on his head, and painted his face and head red and green, before shooting himself, all of which he filmed. The device failed to reach Björk because Lopez’s body, and his plans, were discovered before the package was delivered, and the device was defused by Scotland Yard.[34]
In 1998, Price bought a country house in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire.[16][35]
Price married model Sonjia Ashby in 2002.[36] They divorced in 2005.[16] As of 2003, he had five children, including social content creator Danny Price, who has appeared on Channel 4 reality show Make Me Prime Minister.[35][37]
In 2007, Goldie began a relationship with Mika Wassenaar, a Canadian. The couple appeared in the 20 June 2009 episode of ITV's All Star Mr & Mrs with Phillip Schofield and Fern Britton. Mika and Price married in 2010.[38]
On 29 April 2010, Price opened the William Tyndale Primary School Sports Pitch in Islington, London.[39]
In July 2010, Price received an honorary doctorate in Social Sciences from Brunel University, Uxbridge.[40] On 3 September 2010, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Design from the University of Wolverhampton.[41]
On 7 September 2010, Price's 23-year-old son Jamie Price was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum sentence of 21 years, for murder. He was convicted of stabbing a rival gang member to death in Wolverhampton town centre on 24 August 2008.[42]
As of 2017, Price and his wife were living in Thailand, having moved there in 2015.[3]
Price was accused of assaulting a security guard at the 2017 Glastonbury festival after the guard had refused to let Price's daughter, Chance, backstage; Price later emailed a response which read, "Yep, guilty as charged", but in March 2018, district judge Lynn Matthews at Bristol Magistrates' Court rejected Price's emailed response and in a video call Price later admitted to assault by beating.[44] On 30 May Bristol Magistrates' Court ordered Goldie to pay almost £2,500 as a fine.[45]
In 2017, Price appeared to reveal the first name of pseudonymous graffiti artist Banksy as "Rob" on Scroobius Pip's weekly Distraction Pieces Podcast (Episode #156). When discussing the rise of commercialism in street art, Price said, "Give me a bubble letter and put it on a T-shirt and write Banksy on it and we're sorted. We can sell it now... No disrespect to Rob, I think he is a brilliant artist. I think he has flipped the world of art over."[46]
↑ Talking about how he used various sounds—"throwing nu-skool samples against old-skool stuff and then pull[ing] other things in"—Goldie explained the word "rufige" was "the way you describe things that were left lying around on the surface—more or less scum", and said what he was doing was "collect[ing rufige] together and turn[ing it] into something new".[5][6]
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References
1 2 Goldie; Gorman, Paul (2002). Nine Lives. Hodder & Stoughton: 2002. ISBN0-340-82478-6.
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