Mr. C

Richard West (born 2 January 1966 in London) is an English DJ, musician, actor and rapper, who has used the monikers Mr. C, Sycophant Slags and Indigo Kidz. He is best known as the frontman for The Shamen during their most commercially successful era. West is also a house music DJ and was co-owner/co-founder of London's The End nightclub with Layo from Layo and Bushwacka!. He is considered a leading proponent of tech house, a fusion of house and techno music and has been credited with coming up with the genre. In 1995 his DJing talents came to the attention of UK rave promoter/record company Fantazia who asked him to mix their new album Fantazia DJ Collection 3 – Back to the Old Skool. He also mixed CDs Psycotrance vol 1,^[1] X-Mix 6 on Studio K7, Sunterrain 100% Unreleased on his End recordings imprint and most recently Superfreq Express on his Superfreq label.

Music career

Richard West aka Mr. C was born in London in 1966. He started MCing in the London clubs aged only 16 and soon earned a reputation as a fast-talking, vivacious rapper working with LWR radio's Ron Tom, Jasper the Vinyl Junkie and Jazzy M. Mr.C then joined with Colin Faver and Evil Eddie Richards to become resident rapper at Camden Palace. Mr.C went into the studio to record his first house track with Eddie Richards as Myster-E, which was released in August 1987. This inspired Mr.C to become a DJ to learn more about House and Techno music so in late 1987 Richard became a DJ. Mr.C has since organised, promoted and been resident DJ at: Fantasy (1988), Base (Dungeons 1989), Release (1991), Harmony (1992), Drop (1993), Cyclone (1994), Vapourspace (1994 and 1995), Flavour (The End 1995 and 1996), Subterrain (The End 1995–2002), Superfreq (Worldwide 2002–present) and Super Disco Freq (LA 2010–present).

In December 1995 Mr.C opened the night club The End in London with Partner Layo Paskin and then AKA bar three years later, which had its 13th anniversary in December 2008.

Mr.C is founder and owner of Plink Plonk records, co-founder of End Recordings and co-founder and owner of the Superfreq label. Mr.C has recorded under the names Myster-E, Unity 2, Nu Jacks, Bass Bureau, Mantrac, Somnambulist, Animus Amour, Killer Loop, Mr.C and Tom Parris, Mr.C and 16B and the Sycophant Slags. Mr.C is best known as frontman of The Shamen with whom he achieved a string of top 10 hits including "Move Any Mountain" and the UK number 1 hit "Ebeneezer Goode". The Shamen also won a highly coveted Ivor Novello award for Songwriters of the year UK in 1992. Richard is currently recording solo as Mr.C and is also doing collaborations as the Sycophant Slags with Francis Harris aka Adultnapper, as the Indigo Kidz with Affie Yusuf, with [a]pendics.shuffle and with Omid 16b, and has recent releases on Poker Flat, Wagon Repair Records, Get Physical Music and Adjunct Audio. Mr.C has been doing remixes for Mikael Stavöstrand and David Scuba, Francis Harris, Xo Chic, Joint Custody & Affie Yusuf and also has his solo EP "I'm gonna Give You Some" and his new "Smell The Coffee" album, as well as collaborations with Affie Yusuf, Omid 16b and [a]pendics.shuffle released in 2013.^[2]

Mr.C runs and promotes Superfreq events, which turned 15 years old in March 2017 and ran monthly at Mr.C's club The End until it closed down in January 2009. Superfreq now functions bi-monthly in London including a bi-annual residency at the nightclub Fabric and spends the rest of the time in London’s popup warehouse venues and various clubs including London’s venue The Steelyard after a successful event with Richie Hawtin in December 2015. Superfreq does regular events in Los Angeles as well as bi-monthly events in Calais France and annual events in Brooklyn, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, Denver and Washington DC in the United States and also Vancouver, Playa Del Carmen, Mexico DF, Moscow, Ibiza, Bogota, Montañita and other one off / annual events the world over and has recently completed an Asia tour hitting Manila, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Beijing and Shenzhen. Superfreq has accomplished 7 seasons in Ibiza, 3 at Club Underground, 2 at the DC10, 1 season at Blu, 3 events at Aura and hosts annual events at BPM Festival in Playa Del Carmen. Mr.C finished his album entitled Incidents. His new Soulfuric track has just been released on Alola and has his new Liquid Acid track has just been released on DJ Pierre’s “Acid 88” album on Afro Acid.

Influences

He states his influences as; Ska, Funk, Dub, Disco, House, Electro and Techno,

Guest appearances

In 1999 he was interviewed by Melinda Messenger and he performed the song, "Universal Nation" with the Shamen.

On 23 January 2014 he was interviewed by Sacha on Ideal Clubworld Radio.

Personal life

Mr C (Richard West) is married to Mexican actress and model Xochitl ^[3]

References

External links

• Facebook
• Soundcloud
• Twitter
• Myspace
• Youtube
• Interview with DJ Times, 2000
• Mr. C on IMDb