A mainstay since the early 90s, Randall’s riotous d’n’b and jungle sets have been discovered by a whole new generation in 2018...

Can you handle the Randall? It would seem that in 2018 many of us most definitely could. He’s a certified star at any time in the drum ’n’ bass diary, but this year he found himself aligning beyond the genre’s standard solar system.

“The minute I knew they could handle us is when I went to Dekmantel with Goldie,” Randall laughs with his signature smoky cackle. “Three-hour set in the greenhouse. Special Request and Source Direct give them a taste of the drums before me and Goldie went in. And I mean in. The vibes were fucking incredible. And I got to be a bit of a fanboy over Carl Craig. Not a bad night, mate.”

It was better than ‘not bad’; being booked to play at a festival that’s predominantly house and techno was something of a full circle moment for the London-born, Bristol-based DJ. While he’s most famous for being one of the most astute, dubplate-stacked, unapologetic roller merchants in d’n’b, his reference points go back to the very source. Alongside OG luminaries such Carl Cox, Colin Dale and Colin Faver, Randall McNeil was one of London’s earliest acid house DJs. In fact, he even gave Josh Wink his first UK booking when resident at the seminal Orange weeklies at Rocket Club in 1990.

“You go back far enough for some of us and there’s a musical thread that holds us all together, before it all got fractured and we explored our different paths,” Randall reflects. For him, the path was clear; alongside Fabio and Grooverider, Randall was one of the earliest DJs to seek out the dark breakbeat sound that would eventually form jungle, then drum ’n’ bass. One of the residents at genre-defining night AWOL, it was Randall who Andy C would religiously watch and study week-in, week-out. Besides the odd period where forefathers were overlooked a little in favour of fiery freshmen, he’s been in demand, and his distinctive selection has been studied ever since.

“There’s been the odd pocket where things dipped a bit but I’m thick-skinned. There’s always disappointments in life but we are blessed as DJs. A lot of my friends work nine to five – they get two weeks holiday a year,” says the 48-year-old DJ who first trained as a commodities trader, before being sacked for clocking off early every Friday to DJ. “We need to remember that a lot of people out there wanna do what we do.”

No-one will ever do it like Randall, though. In fact, if there’s anything that secures his selector star status more, it’s this. He even gets sent dubplates in other genres beyond d’n’b by the likes of Zed Bias and DieMantle. Just in case of an alternative set emergency.

“I’ll be cracking a few of them open soon,” he grins. “Eats Everything’s booked me for an ‘anything goes’ thing. I love those sets – they gas me!”

With more diverse bookings and co-signs from across the dance music firmament, plus rumours of some long-awaited productions, we reckon 2019 will be another big bang for the star most d’n’b fans know simply as ‘The Daddy’. Dave Jenkins