Mensah (Dubstep)

Visit Bristol and mention the name Mensah, the chances are that someone’s going to know the man we’re talking about. Having become involved in the Bristol music scene at an early age, there’s no surprise that he epitomizes the great things associated with the city’s music – positive, progressive and different.

Growing up listening to his Mum’s dub and reggae collection, his first taste of UK underground music was when he started going to the under-18 nights called Jungle Book at the tender age of 11 - here he witnessed the late and great Steve ‘Hyper’ D MCing for Nicky Blackmarket. But it was the garage scene that really kindled Mensah’s first love of electronic music when he heard stalwarts such as Wookie and the Heartless Crew's DJ Fonti at the age of 13.

DJing at various nights in Bristol, and getting tired of spinning other people’s tunes, the natural progression for Mensah was to start creating the music that he had such a passion for. Starting a production course at a local Music College, he was taught by none other than Danny Byrd and was classmates with other Bristol producers, Chasing Shadows, Gemmy, Forsaken and Superisk.

Subsequently he landed a job in a Bristol music specialist store and in time he was able to build a studio. Having the likes of Roni Size, Portishead and Massive Attack passing by the shop only fuelled the desire to up his game in the production suite. This all paid off when his collaboration with dnb producer, Mutt, featured on Mutt’s album ‘Treading Water’ in 2008, followed up with Mensah’s first solo release, ‘Sahara / Not A Shy Gyal‘, on Lo Dubs in 2009.

With aspirations of never wanting to make the same tune twice or wanting to be typecast into one genre, Mensah looks set to push whatever sound he decides to take forward. Sometimes dubstep, sometimes purple, sometimes rave – the idea is to evolve his sound naturally. And with his debut EP on Hench gettng rocked by the dubstep scene's biggest players, he is definitely a name to earmark for big things in the future.