May day: It's true school

DLT's album The True School (1996) is one of the all-time classic New Zealand albums. The fact it's been out of print and off the record store shelves for around 17 years is downright criminal. I recently heard from DLT that moves to get it back in circulation had led to The True School (and DLT's follow up, Altruism), finally making an appearance for purchase on iTunes, which is fantastic news.

The True School is most famous for giving a kick start to the solo career of one Che Fu, with the chart topper Chains. Then there's the collaborations with reggae singer Mighty Asterix, China Manchu, Billy TK and more. It's a super heavy album sliced and diced with more funk than you will ever know what to do with. You need this album in your life.

Here's a great interview with DLT, by former BFM Freak The Sheep host (and manager of my old band Hallelujah Picassos) Lisa van der Aarde, from 1994 (TV3's music show Frenzy).

DLT says "...What we gotta watch now is the pop charts. That's where hiphop and raggamuffin are ruling. We've been waiting for this since 1987. Back then we thought 'Yes! Now is the time, we rule, goodbye heavy metal', but they're strong, those old rock dogs. They wont give up that easily. I think the taxman will take them out."

DLT tells a great story about when the single Chains went to number one in NZ and to his surprise, stayed there for six weeks. This was just two weeks after Che Fu had been forced out of Supergroove. DLT had hooked up with Che Fu while his group Joint Force (DLT, Otis, Slave) had been out on tour with Supergroove.

DLT says he wasn't seeking out the limelight, going out to clubs going "Yo, I'm here, what's up?", instead he stayed home with his family and giggled his head off. "Every morning I woke up... 'It's still number one! Hee hee hee...' And the song it knocked off the top spot was If I ruled the world by Nas and Lauryn Hill. Now that - that's the power! I knocked off two superdogs! Two local dogs took them off.. I'll never forget that... That was a huge buzz". (Quotes: Hiphop music in Aotearoa, by Gareth Shute).

The other great story about Chains is that his label A & R, Kirk Harding at BMG, kept sending DLT back into the studio until he got the version that satisfied him. Apparently he sent them back to the studio THIRTEEN times. Worked too.

Backgrounder: DLT and Deepgrooves

Now, can we please get KDRU by Dam Native reissued?