Curtis Lynch Junior, also known as The Grynch, is a British record and dancehall producer, reggae and drum’n’bass musician, born in Roehampton, South West London, England. He founded the record label Necessary Mayhem in 2006 and worked with Gorillaz during Phase One.
Work with Gorillaz[]
Curtis Lynch Jr. was the producer of the song "Dracula", a bonus track from the debut album Gorillaz, B-side track to the single "Clint Eastwood" and second or tenth track of the compilation album G-Sides (with the exception of the US version).
According to Curtis on an interview with the Hip Albatross blog,[1] he was first invited to work with Damon Albarn by Chairman of Parlophone Miles Leonard, who asked if he wanted to participate on Damon's new cartoon band project, as he wanted some reggae influence on some of the songs from the debut album, which made him instantly interested on the project. He then had a meeting with Damon at a coffee shop near Middle Row Records, where they both discussed the project and agreed to participate.
The recording sessions at the time were extremely chaotic, with Jamie Hewlett also being there and with people filming it the whole time (footage that was meant to later be featured on the documentary Bananaz, but was cut before its release), with Damon orchestrating everything. Also according to him, they did together three different songs, two of which remain unreleased to this day but which he still has, with the third one being "Dracula" itself.
Curtis also did a remix of the song "Slow Country", titled "Slow Country (Curtis Lynch Jr. Remix)" (or 'Curtis Lynch Jnr Mix'), featuring rapper Spragga Benz, released as a B-side track to the vinyl releases of the Ed Case Refix of "Clint Eastwood", alongside the Middle Row / Carl H. Remix of "Tomorrow Comes Today" and as its own acetate on the 25th of August 2000, before the band's first commercial release, the Tomorrow Comes Today EP even came out. The reason why "Slow Country" was remixed was that, at the time, it was one of the songs for the debut album seriously considered to be singles. He was also asked to do a remix of "Tomorrow Comes Today" itself, but that one was later done by Carl Humphrey, the owner of Middle Row Records.
"Dracula", which had been featured as a B-side track to "Clint Eastwood" shortly before, was initially supposed to be featured on the regular version of the Gorillaz album, but was taken out from its UK release at the last moment without any explanation given to Curtis, surprising him a lot (on a similar situation to hip hop group Phi-Life Cypher being completely removed from the album as well). This made him upset at first, but was later glad to find out it was present on other international releases of the album. On the interview, he revealed he also wasn't aware of the existence of the visual video for the song on the DVD releases of the single, but was very happy to find out about it.
Musical Career[]
Curtis began as a jungle DJ at the age of 15 before becoming a prodigious young producer embracing the reggae-dancehall sounds with which he grew up. One of his main inspirations to be a producer was the song "Pirate’s Anthem" by Shabba Ranks, Home T & Cocoa T, which he listened to onte time at the car, and led him to think "I don’t want to be any of those artists, I want to be the man that made that song".
"I never saw myself as an artist, ever, I always liked the idea of being behind the scenes, making the music, and that song was a huge inspiration for me becoming a producer."
His decision to start Necessary Mayhem was inspired by other reggae producers which had their own labels, with the intention not to be a major label, but just to have one and run it himself. This started as a hobby, after he'd already created other not so successful labels before, but later became his main label after he'd already grown as a producer, focusing with the focus on bridging both older musicians and styles with newer, younger and newcoming artists. This was the label where Curtis produced and developed most of his discography, and which is still active to this day.
He created a new roots based sister label Maroon during the early 2010s. According to him, the label is a tribute to the Maroons, the first slaves that were able to escape their conditions of forced labor, set up their own communities and not be dictated to, and as a place to work with certain artists from Necessary Mayhem but whose music did not fit that label, and required a more serious one to match their music, their 'seriousness', such as Brinsley Forde. Also there, he has reissued some of the works of another reggae producer, Gussie Clarke, who he considered to be his hero and worked with jamaican singer Etana on her second studio album Free Expressions.[2]
Under the name of 'Da Grynch', he released the Release The Hounds LP in 2012, the Grynch Mountain dub EP in 2019 and remixed and produced various reggae and dub songs and singles under 7" and 12" vinyl formats with other musicians.
He produced and released the EPs Love Came With You and Safe Travel (with dancehall singer Cutty Ranks), both in 2014, the album Surreal and the single Somebody's Somebody, both with British singer Shola Ama, in 2015 under Necessary Mayhem. In total, he has produced over 100 different records over his career and has worked and remixed many other famous artists, most of those from on the UK and Jamaican reggae and dancehall scene.
Trivia[]
- Curtis Lynch Jr. is the only musician to have produced songs for the Gorillaz debut album other than Dan the Automator and Gorillaz themselves.
References[]
- ↑ "TOW THE LINE - AN INTERVIEW WITH Curtis Lynch Jr.". Hip Albatross. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
- ↑ "Interview: Curtis Lynch". United Reggae. Retrieved 27 December 2021.