dope ammo

The imprint Dope Ammo was founded by a collective known as The Drunken Masters just over four years ago. The trio behind the label are also known as Coco, Bally and Pornchai and as you can probably guess by their production moniker are into martial arts flicks in a big way. Based in the Banbury area, near Oxford, the guys have released a total of eight releases so far (soon to be nine) and are amassing more recruits to help build up the roster of talent for their label.

If you’ve listened to their current release ‘Liftin Love’ & ‘Deep In The Underground’ it will be clear to see that they take a huge influence from the old school scene, it was time for front man Coco to tell us more: “I suppose it was all of the ’92 old school stuff, influences including Ellis D, Swan-E, the Ratpack days, all that sort of stuff that first got me into it.” Driving around in his brother’s car with retro rave recordings pumping out full blast sparked Coco’s imagination and drove him into setting his sights on acquiring a pair of turntables and the natural move into production would take place a few years later.

I was intrigued to how they had thought up the name Dope Ammo, did it mean heavy artillery? Did it mean simply good gear? Or something else… “I used to do a lot of BMXing when I was younger, skating and stuff like that. There were some great films made in America to do with it, really twisted and one of them was called Dope Ammo 665.5. I just liked the name, it grabbed me and I just thought that’s what I’d like to call the label,” explains Coco.

“We started in 1998 making a couple of tunes as a bit of a laugh really but we liked them, got one pressed up and it just developed from there. We got some good feedback off DJs like Swan-E and that’s what really triggered it into action and we thought well perhaps we could make a go of this. Dope Ammo was started purely as an outlet for our own material.”

Coco together with Stephen Herriot (who will be featuring under the artist name of Flatline) take care of the running of the label, with Coco concentrating on the management side of things and Stephen with the business and administration. So with The Drunken Masters and Flatline now introduced, the rest of the family also includes DJ Rhyme, Tempa, DJ Daley, MCs Bozz & Source, Astra, Fosta & Hypersonix who all contribute if not to production to the parties that they have been promoting in their local vicinity.

The guys seem to be attracting good attention from well known faces in the scene all round. They have signed one of their tracks called ‘Dusk Till Dawn’ to Swan-E’s Maximum Boost label and DJ Phantasy is currently working on a remix for their own label, after that DJ Hazard from Radius Records will be twisting up ‘Deep In The Underground’ for their tenth release. A CD is currently being compiled, due out summer, featuring some re-rubs of their back catalogue and also bringing tracks of some of the newer artists to the surface.

“Next up we’ve got a track that we did with a vocalist called ‘Hypnotized’, it’s quite an up-beat track, sort of Kosheen style, on the double a-side to that we have a track by a new artist called Hypersonix and it’s more on the liquid funk tip. We’re trying to hit each twelve inch with one side being a bit more four-to-the-floor and the other side catering for different tastes.”

Putting on events are very much loved by the guys who enthused about being one of the early promoters to book Kosheen (on the same bill as Jason Kaye and SL2) and are looking forward to finalising plans for further local parties as well as further-a-field tours. The guys have a slick website which you can see at www.dopeammo.co.uk featuring audio clips of the latest DA dubs, biographies on the artists and the freshest news about their tours and parties.

Dope Ammo would like to sound shouts to:

Letitia @ Makeda Promotions (helped them get airplay on Steve Lamacq show three times), Swan-E, Dazee, Gary & all @ New Vision Crew, Rob & Stian @ Protean Productions (for a great website), Mark & Clayton @ TOV, Harry & everyone @ Bigsmoke Mag, Hazard & Escape, Phantasy, Nicky Blackmarket, Martin @ Emotif, Poison & Patience, Gary K & DJ D, MC Willis, Klone, T-Junglists & Texas DnB headz, Filthy Rich @ Pyrotechnic Radio, DJ Habit @ Lush FM, DJ KG @ Worldwide FM, J-Stats, Gaz @ Proper Records, Mike @ Hats Off Studios, Neil @ Masterpiece, Lurch, Alex C, Trixta, Phil P, Phil Wells & everyone at Nu Urban Music and anyone we’ve forgotten. Also all the people who buy our tunes and all the worldwide dnb headz.