Preditah Knows Why There are Too Many Men on the Dancefloor

Preditah sounds very collected. His soon-to-be released track "Selecta" has had people bouncing off the walls during DJ sets since last year. Unusually from a name largely associated with grime, the track is full of light touches and imbued with a dance philosophy. "When I first made it last year, I just dropped it in the set and people were loving it," says the Birmingham based producer. "So I finished it off. Now people have heard it outside of the sets, it goes off more and more."

Preditah is currently in the process of discovering his own potential as a dance music producer. Having risen with the likes of his brother C4 and a host of major grime luminaries like Skepta and JME, his journey as a musician has begun to take on a life of its own. Already well versed in grime, he is reversing the genre to its garage roots while injecting thick layers of house into the mix.

Still, Preditah is resolute in how he feels about grime. "I haven't stopped playing grime in my sets. Even if it is largely a house set I'm still going to put grime tracks in there because it works so well live." His passion for the genre remains unquestionable. "I'm still producing for the big grime names - Skepta, Wiley, Kano, JME - so while I'm not releasing straight grime I'm going to carry on producing it. Anyway everything I do is still keeping it dark-side and bassy, just with a different tempo." It's this powerful new vision that has seen his sets go off and with dates lined up with Tropical at both London's Fabric and Bristol's Motion, Preditah looks set to continue a run of original and explosive shows. As a DJ he's proven himself able to please others by pleasing himself - as demonstrated in his recent Dummy mix that traversed the terrain between Mis Teeq and Caribou with confidence. "What I make, I make for myself," he tells me, "but it is good to see that my journey is bringing all these people on board."

This innovative ethos is present on "Selecta" but it also comes through on his remixes for Jessie Ware and Disclosure. Despite those acts positioning as pop and house, respectively, Preditah reworks them with a method that colours the originals with a darker substance that is still dance-centric. "Most of the remixes were people reaching out to me. Everyone who is on my catalogue has at some point heard my sound and asked me to remix something for an album release or whatever. The process has always been really natural which is all good."

A Birmingham boy, his success stems from his homegrown self-awareness. "I come to London every single week but I still live in Brum, it's where all my inspiration comes from. I like to feel comfortable when I'm making music." Beyond comfort Birmingham also provides the environment that keeps Preditah and his music focused on personality, not profit. "It has a real mix of people. You've got high class people but you've also got loads of middle class and lower class people. It keeps you grounded and focused on making music for the love of it rather than making it to be cool or whatever it is."

Grime's cross-channel appeal is something that clearly interests Preditah. The scene's acceptance of other sounds is something he sees as a positive force. Especially when it comes to the girls. "As I've progressed genre-wise I've seen more and more girls. I think girls do love grime but, and I don't want to sound sexist, girls generally don't want to get pushed around. I'm not saying the guys are pushing them around on purpose but obviously grime is a very exciting genre of music so we tend to get mosh pits. It's less violent than it used to be anyway, back in the day it used to get really bad, but now it's good now, girls and guys. A lot of that's just down to me deciding I'm going to make some more dance-friendly stuff."

As our talk turns to the future, Preditah remains very level-headed about his own progress. "I'm going to keep putting out singles. I hate saying the word singles cos it sounds really forced but obviously I'm sitting on a few tracks so I'm excited to keep pushing out music for people." It's not just his own stuff either, he is also working tirelessly with other major names, stamping his growing but incendiary identity on their work. "Look out for some more collaborations and remixes. There's loads of production I've done on people's albums, like Skepta and Kano so look out for those. Then Feed em to the Lions which I produced is going to be released and is the biggest tune. Sounds big headed so sorry, but it is. The reaction to that in the clubs is crazy right now."

For all the high profile remixes and hyped single releases, throughout our chat he remains steadfast in how important the names around him are. Despite stretching grime into the realm of dance music, and broadening his own capabilities and horizons, he understands the most important thing is keeping himself as real as possible. "I just want the fans and the underground people to know I'm still close to them. I haven't gone away." Judging by his current work rate and ambition, going away is the last thing he needs to worry about.

Preditah's "Selecta" is out on 3 Beat on the 8th of March.

You can follow him on Facebook // Twitter // Soundcloud

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