A NEW DAWN Running up to Christmas 1999 I split with Kate my girlfriend of over ten years, I was pursuing one of the Jungle Dons through the courts for non payment of salary, the bank was threatening to repossess my home and I'd just been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Year 2000 was going to be interesting. Y2K was nothing more than 'why worry?' Just like London's New Years 'River of Fire' - why bother to show up? But All Crew Muss Big Up had done better than I could hope or dream. There'd been a fair few good reviews. All copies sold out making it cultingly impossible to find. I'd even heard that mates had nicked the book from their mates. In spite of all the positive feedback about All Crew reaching me, I found myself withdrawing from the scene. Not going out much, buying tunes or even listening to pirates. I had taken DJ Ron to court for non-payment of salary. The judge found Ron guilty but he skipped the country. I never saw a penny of the thousands of pounds awarded and suffered in debt for years. I needed a break from it all. That's part of the reason why I returned to my day job as an ICU (intensive care unit) nurse. But everywhere I went I'd be hearing voices. Not schizophrenic voices, just talk of Jungle Drum & Bass. I guess producers are always hearing music in their heads. I always wrote sentences in mine. I just wished I could go out without storing a blow-by-blow account of everything in my head. And fuck I just wanted to be a punter again. But I had to understand that I was a London boy who'd always read the city through music. That's the way I'm wired. Driving to work at 7am through empty back streets from Tottenham to central London, I'd see buildings automatically thinking, 'I went to a warehouse rave there, that's where Kool FM had their first studio, Kemi and Storm lived in that flat there or Essential held a wicked festival in that park there and from King's Cross to Tottenham we reclaimed all of the streets.' Sunday morning I'd see people on a balcony with music blaring, basking in fluffy early light. Or I'd get off the tube as clumps of monging ravers from Fabric and Turnmills, eyes like saucers, floated onto the train at Farringdon as I left for St. Bartholomew's ICU. I'd remember the previous Friday night's buzz at Kings Cross Station and the intersection of tribes, glad rags and record boxes criss crossing away on London's Underground. But I took a different escalator and concentrated on different things. More...