It’s with great sadness that I Am Hip Hop Magazine announces the passing of musician, promoter, DJ and activist Dave Watts of Fun-Da-Mental.
I first met Dave in 2017 in a bar in East Ham. It was the day that the blue plaques for Sam Zaman AKA State of Bengal (RIEP) and Haroon Shamsher of Joi (RIEP) were unveiled. Many figures of the Asian Underground scene were in attendance. I told Dave that I was a massive fan of Fun-Da-Mental and he responded that he was a fan of Fun-Da-Mentaltoo and then he joined the band.
Fun-Da-Mental were formed in 1991 by Aki Nawaz and were often labelled as the Asian Public Enemy. Their music was described as Hip Hop, World Fusion, Asian Underground and Ethno-techno and would feature samples of Malcom Xspeeches blasting over tablas and Qawwali music.
British born Dave Watts of Barbadian origin, lived in London where according to his bio he “…toyed with crystal radio sets and caught early transmissions of BBC Radio 1 & the sounds of the Sixties”. His early childhood influences included Jimi Hendrix (Especially the song She went to bed with my guitar)and Funkadelic. In a record selection video for the Hey Boy Hey Girl record store, Dave would say “As black artists, they transcended what they were supposed to play, there’s this thinking where black artists are supposed to play a certain type of music like R&B, Soul…they broke that kind of thinking.”
He also cited Public Enemy as a key influence;
“Hip Hop was very important to me…the Rap scene was more like party music and Public Enemy brought black consciousness to what was happening all around the world, they were very much influenced by the teachings of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam and on the production side there was that ethos of sampling and their music was like a clash.”
He moved to Toronto and then Morocco before coming back to London in 1988. He started his career as a promoter for Virgin Records, representing artists such as Ice‑T, Iggy Pop, Bad Brains, Snoop Dog, Guru and Herbie Hancock. He would mention the repeated playing of Massive Attack in the Virgin Records Office in 1991 and in a Facebook post last month he wrote about visiting Neneh Cherry’s house around that timeand the musical creativity that came from there.
Facebook tributes are pouring in as I write this, many mentioning Dave’s energetic and formidable stage presence and also his kindness and humour. DJ Dani Cameronmentioned Dave’s intense dancing as a fan right in the front atearly ON‑U Sound gigs before he ended up collaborating with Adrian Sherwood.
Dave Watts joined Fun-Da-Mental in 1993, the story goes that Aki Nawaz went up to Dave who was DJing and handed himsome Fun-Da-Mental vinyl. Dave brought this to Virgin Records’ attention and then became a member of the band initially serving as the DJ, where “Years of recording samples from films, documentaries, live radio broadcasts, telephone conversations etc, making loops on cassette, came to use beyond mixtapes.”
He then took up vocal, instrument and production duties on Fun-Da-Mental’s debut album Seize the Time and live shows.Seize the Time was released in 1994 and was named after the book by Black Panthers co-founder Bobby Seale. The album is a spit fire collage of samples mixing breakbeats with African and Caribbean music and tabla and Bollywood films with rapping by MC Mushtaq. It’s a key text in not only the Asian Underground but British Asian Music and UK Hip Hop. The album famously includes the track Dog Tribe which had its video banned by MTV and featured an actual recording of an answering machine message left by the far-right group Combat 18 threatening violence.
Dave would continue working with Fun-Da-Mental and collaborating with members of On‑U Sound, System 7 and the Drum Club as part of the Retribution project in 1994. He would also continue DJing under his alias D.WattsRiot.
On his DJing, Fari Bradley would state; “In all my life, in all my travels I have never seen anyone DJ like that, with every fibre and sinew, impishly, provocatively dancing, listening, in essence Watts was “presenting” the music rather than just playing it out on a sound system. He was more alive than the wires carrying the sound to the speakers, or the waves of sound coming at us from them. He WAS the music. And that made us dance all the more.”
A collaboration with DJ Overhaul led to the Nation Records World Service project and the track Skanking for Jullander in 2000; “We took like 70 samples and put them into the machine and then we came up with this little 6 minute ditty that in a way harks back to Fatboy Slim Big Beat, a dance floor frenzy kind of thing.”
After a Fun-Da-Mental performance at WOMAD in Las Palmas. Dave resided in Tenerife where he hosted radio shows and took up DJ residencies. He was the co-curator of the Clandestino Festival in Gothenborg, Sweden for nine years (2007–2016). He also co-curated the Keroxen Festival in Tenerife.
The ethos of collaboration that started with Fun-Da-Mentalwas carried over into Dave’s alias KingL Man.
To quote the KingL Man bio in full – “KingL Man is a vehicle of one that is nailed to a wall of wonderment and disgust. Messages propelled by the kick drum fused with sounds sampled from cracked vinyl or found in abandoned buildings liberate a torched soul.
KingL Man is not a claim to royalty, it’s where history’s presence forms a letter of appreciation for having witnessed goodness and greatness. We don’t do silence.”
The first release under this alias appeared in September 2015 trough Watt’s own label and promotion Ear Conditioning. The track Vultures’ Bazaar featured reggae artist Earl 16 whose Motown-esque vocals provided a link to Dave’s formative influences of 60s music and Dub. Another early release was Ossie Speaks For Malcolm X. It featured the eulogy that was delivered by Ossie Davis at the funeral of Malcolm X.
2007 saw the online release of The Guevara Convention, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the death of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. A compilation album featuring tracks by his friends and musical collaborators that was released online after a label couldn’t be found. “Our small team has tried to get record company interest in this but it has not materialized, which in reality is how it´s supposed to be.”
Questions on the nature of reality and the material pepper Dave’s work and writings as well as his lifelong advocacy for global struggles particularly the cause of Palestinians. Dave had a Fanonian outlook with regards to militant action “There has to be some understanding of where those who have tried to discuss have ended up – ready to do violence and blow upbuildings…We have to fight for peace.”
I saw Dave again in 2018 at the inaugural Mishti Dance, the first ever club night I had organised. He insisted on buying a ticket despite my offer of comping him. We would subsequently correspond online about music and politics.
A compilation of his earlier KingL Man work entitled — Hard Drive Massacre 2006-2008 followed in 2020 and the first full length KingL Man album titled Headonix was released in 2022. The album was widely praised, with The Wire magazine calling it “...an album that upends ideas about global music, bringing in a stunningly wide array of voices and collaborators to create an album simultaneously placeless yet crammed with dissidence and resistance.”
Dave Watts was prolific in his activism and youth education.Dhangsha aka Dr Das from Asian Dub Foundation who was a friend, collaborator and one time label mate in Nation Recordsrecalled that; “Three years ago, he invited me to lead a workshop with migrant youth… he was committed to doing something positive for the youths who lived in dreary conditions in one location in Tenerife, which was a stopping point for migrants before being re-allocated elsewhere in Spain. The workshop was organised in conjunction with Keroxen Festival.”
Another founding member of Asian Dub Foundation, DeedarZaman stated — “Dave Watts was a huge inspiration to me and the best friend. I will miss you and I wish you all the best.”
Dave’s recent Facebook posts outlined his battle with cancer, his phrase “F*ck Cancer.” trended amongst our mutual friends. Dave continued to be fiercely political to the very end, calling out the war crimes of Israel and the US. There were also anecdotes from his time in the music industry and he would share some of his favourite records.
The whole of Ossie Davis’ obituary to Malcom X can easily apply to Dave Watts and it’s worth quoting the closing lines in full.
“Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man but a seed which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is. A prince. Our own black shining prince who didn’t hesitate to die because he loved us so.”
Dave Watts is survived by his wife Beatriz López who posted a moving tribute on social media.
Rest in Eternal Power Dave Kenmore Watts AKA Blacka‑D AKA Impi‑D AKA KingL Man!
DJ ISURU
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