Tim Westwood-wood-wood-woooood....

Roshman

Well-known member
I'm sure you've all heard the news by now.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jul/26/radio-1-tim-westwood-leave-bbc

Westwood will depart the station as part of a shake-up of its Saturday night schedule that will see new shows for presenters including MistaJam, Charlie Sloth and DJ Target, the BBC announced on Friday.

Obviously nothing lasts forever, but it's still disappointing to see him go.

I'll miss his excessive audio bomb drops and "Hot minute!" patter.

He's delivered cracking content across the "urban" board.

A few classic moments.

The Chase & Status Interview.

Wiley freestyle.

UK Funky showcase. Some great quotes at the beginning.

Okay, I didn't listen to his show that often, but it was always a pleasant surprise to catch him flicking through the dial.

Either way, there's no one quite like Westwood.
 

Secundus

Active member
Does westwood have a kind of nardwuar-esque charming dorkiness about him? I cringe really hard whenever he speaks but lots of people love(d) being on his show.
 

philblackpool

gamelanstep
His silly accent used to rub me up the wrong way a bit but when he started getting on telly you could tell a bit easier that it was all in good humour. He's been around a long time - you can spot him on really ancient breaking vids from the early eighties before many people over here were into hip hop, he was on radio a long time before he went national, & before the internet got popular & the really big upward global increase in popularity for hip hop he was one of the few conduits for American rappers to get their stuff heard nationally over here - arguably sometimes at the expense of homegrown stuff at that time, but he seems to have rebalanced that in recent years, when I must admit I'm long lost touch with his shows.
 
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CrowleyHead

Well-known member
The guy's obviously a hero.

I was watching the RBMA interview with him, and all these kids keep trying to get him to talk about his responsibility to educate the youth on 'true hip-hop', and how he should hate the culture, and he's like "People who used to be living on a 12 inch to 12 inch basis are now business tycoons, why the fuck would I be upset by that?"

He's single and no kids, right? Maybe he gets a chance to settle down a bit. Unless Kiss takes him, or Rinse. GOD Rinse could use a rap DJ who isn't a fucking dunce.
 
He produced London Posse in the 80's, but that's his only foray into the studio that I know of. I think it was Logan who was on here years ago saying that while Westwood booked loads of Grime MCs on his show he didn't have a clue who half of them were- whether that be true or not it has to be said that it was a bold move for someone like him and Radio 1 to do. I can't see there was any real incentive to boost such an underground and marginalised scene, so respect to them for doing it.

And of course with all the seasoned DJs being kicked off Radio 1 you have to wonder what sort of leverage Pete Tong has over the BBC. Other than Danny Rampling's corpse that's buried in the blue peter garden.
 
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blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
Enjoyed his show around 96 or so, although hardly listened this century TBH. Good run on that notoriously fickle and fashion-dominated station though to be fair.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
What's not to love? He was there pretty much from the start, has passion and a ridiculous persona and doesn't understand dubstep :cool:
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
A moving tribute: http://themartorialist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/rip-to-westwoods-bbc-career_28.html

I fucking loved Westwood's show back when I used to listen to it, except for that unfortunate couple of years when I was a self-styled guardian of hip-hop culture and wanted him to play dreary UK hip-hop and slightly-less-dreary but still utterly pedestrian US underground hip-hop. I wanted him to basically play stuff like Prime Cuts (of Scratch Perverts) did, but actually in retrospect the best part of Prime Cuts being on his show ever was when Westwood rinsed him for leaving a floater in the toilet.

Even when I didn't like his selection I still recognised him as a comic genius. Listen to any Radio 1 show next to his and they will sound as bland as a blank wall next to his bomb-dropping, record-reloading, outrageous accent-yelling presentational style.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Westwood was the first DJ i ever listened to. I was 11 or 12 and I'm fucking {censored} now! He did LWR's (London Weekend Radio) hip hop show which was on 4-6 Mond-Friday, and Sunday 1-3. Clearly aimed at the after school crowd, I have fond memories of going round my mate Sukh's house and practising our breaking (on a 6' by 6' square of lino his mum bought him) while listening to Westwood.

Tunes like this:


I remember him totally confusing tiny me by playing Jimmy Castor's "It's Just Begun" - and me thinking WTF is this shit!? This isn't hip hop!

He moved to Kiss FM at some point and used to play things like James Brown "It's a Man's World" alongside the new rap gear. I've probably still got some tapes somewhere, and I'm pretty sure the ridiculous persona was much less in evidence. I haven't listened to his show in years but I have to give him MAJOR props. I can genuinely say my taste in music - and all subsequent experiences that spun off of that - would be very different without him. I saw him in cafe in Soho - with a really hot woman - a few years back and I regret not giving him some love.

Dude is an absolute comic genius as well. I still remember the Metro interview when he was doing Pimp My Ride a while back: "We put a beach in a car. It's a strong look". Gotta love him.
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
As an American, it's my duty to say I once laughed openly at that fucking buffoon Alexander Nut saying he used to study Flex live mixes on how to DJ, when it is a known fact that Flex is a TERRIBLE DJ, but an amazing radio persona. Meanwhile, I don't know shit about Westwood beyond his personality, which is equal to Flex's, but I assume his technique has to be really good also if he became such a driving force.
 

philblackpool

gamelanstep
I wouldn't say Funkmaster Flex is a perfect DJ technically, but he knocks Westwood (who I think I've only ever heard fade between things) into a cocked hat - Westwood gets people in if he wants mixes, he's purely about tune selection, exclusives, interviews etc.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
8. Back in that dark, dark era of the late nineties when every other British rap DJ was playing terrible records by Mos Def, Jurassic 5, Ugly Ducking, and godawful U.K characters like Dave The Ruf & his crew, Westwood was spinning Superthug and 357 next to Ha and It Ain't My Fault, closing out his shows with half an hour of the best underground N.Y cuts like Spit and M.I.A, and, thankfully, never ever playing anything from the UK.

lol

westwood is a total legend. not just for pissing off people who dont like the idea of someone taking on another culture but also for confusing various grime mcs as they didnt understand him or how he came to be how he is. hes gotten a bit odder in recent years from occasionally listening to his drivetime show (and pervier) but hes also gotten 100 times funnier (not that old radio 1 shows like when he had wu tang etc on werent funny). but really, and not just cos he had such a big status, so many american rappers love him and 'get' him or at least dont mind him so you know hes doing something right. so odd that so many people hate westwood but dont mind rodigan (who more or less did the same thing with JA culture). why is that?

and funkmaster flex isnt a bad dj - not the most artful, but he gets the job done. i dont know what hes like these days, but he wasnt bad with basic doubling up and so on in the 90s (i have various tapes of the show him and westwood used to do from capital fm). hes like westwood though, he just has a ridiculous persona that people either hate/love.

i reckon westwood might end on at 6 music but then i cant see westwood being happy to be an old school dj, though stranger things have happened.

hes still better (as a personality at least, if not selector) than semtex, charlie sloth etc. id be interested to see what a westwood show on rinse would be like.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
On tracing a reply this week to a comment in defence of Tim Westwood I'd made on youtube about three years ago (I set them to go to the spam filter of my email, so occasionally I catch them), I was delighted to find that said comment was by far best-rated comment on the video. There's a lot of love for Tim out there.

The Guardian interview from after the drive-by shooting where he pretends to be 27 is priceless.
 
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