Krafty Kuts
Breaks // Against the Grain // Finger Lickin – UK

Krafty Kuts is one of the worlds most sort after and respected dj / producers in dance music, he recently picked up the trophy for Best DJ at the Breakspoll 2005 awards for the second year running and will be releasing his debut solo artist album Freakshow on our Against The Grain label in Spring. The album features collaborations with a host of hot talent including Dynamite MC, Tim Deluxe, Ashley Slater, Dr Luke, Theo, Bespoke, Ed Solo and Chris Sargent. In typical Krafty Kuts style the music touches on hip hop and breaks with all the juicy bits in between. From fun loving funk to outrageous bassline breaks Krafty Kuts years of experience has served him well, it really is a corking album!

Krafty Kuts aka Martin Reeves started his career in the music industry from humble roots running his Brighton record store where he gained his encyclopedia knowledge of hip hop and funk supplying records to the likes of Fat Boy Slim amongst others. In 1996 , Krafty Kuts was DJing all over the south coast making a name for him self and soon started dabbling in the studio making beats. His first big break happened when Norman Cook aka Fat Boy Slim heard a dubplate of Krafty’s Gimme The Funk track and immediately signed it to his Southern Fried label, the tune was massive! As a result of this success a hook up with Ministry of Sound's offshoot label FSUK followed, unleashing the singles 'Funky Elements'; 'Wild In the Aisles' (inspired from Martin's appearance on Supermarket sweep!) and 'Return of the Elements'. Soon afterwards in 1998 he released his first Krafty Kuts' compilation 'Slam the Breaks On' which went on to sell well into the five figure mark.

It was at this point Krafty Kuts met Skool Of Thought, the pair hit it off and decided to launch a weekly breaks night in Brighton and SuperCharged was born. With the dynamic duo as residents and pulling in all their DJ mates the night soon become a hit and was rammed every week. Today the club is world-renowned and you can still find Krafty Kuts playing most weeks.

By 1999 Krafty’s sound had been defined with his unique party rocking style hitting the spot with clubbers across the globe. Martin was remixing everything from Eric B and Rakim to Moloko and took to the studio with Ed Solo, Freddy Fresh, New York's Dr Luke to produce a collection of party beats that would later become the influential creative elements for Finger Lickin' Funk.

2001 proved to be an eventful period for Krafty Kuts producing music for a Coca Cola advert, PlayStation 2, Guy Richies ‘Mean Machine’ movie and a cover mount CD for Mixmag. With so much music being made, the DJ bookings flooding in and the club full, Krafty decided to call it a day at the record store and instead launched two record labels with business partner Skool Of Thought. Following the success of the club nights they named one label SuperCharged and the other Against The Grain. A string of killer releases followed with Krafty Kuts Lost Plates EP, Lock The Hype and Sound Check making big waves on the breaks scene. Could it get any better?! Well it did and in 2001 and 2002 Krafty Kuts was voted in the top 100 DJ’s in the world by DJ magazine and then best International DJ in Australia beating of stiff competition from the likes of Sasha, Digweed and Adam Freeland. Krafty Kuts found himself in true superstar DJ territory!

Come 2003 he had an urge to revisit his hip hop roots and followed up a contact he made earlier in his record store years. A-Skillz, a young super talented DJ and producer was starting to make waves and Krafty Kuts organised a project for them to join forces and embark on a hip hop \ party breaks album. With the aid of Finger Lickin records the Trickatechnology album was soon under way and A-Skillz and Krafty Kuts were recording with legends such as Kurtis Blow, Dr Luke and Ashley Slater.

Since then Krafty Kuts has released a string of 12 records and mix CDs and DJs nonstop around the world, from playing to 25,000 people at Field Day in Australia to the Grand Prix in China, Krafty Kuts fans span the world over. In between the parties he has been hard at work on his solo artist album Freakshow which is now finished and due for release in Spring 2006 on Against The Grain. WATCH THIS SPACE!