How We Met: Target & Danny Weed

Danny Weed, 25, is a producer for the Mobo award-nominated UK grime music collective Roll Deep, whose first album included two top 20 hits. He lives in east London

Target met me before I met him, if you see what I mean: he’s three years older than me and grew up in the house next door to us in Poplar, east London. My nan knew his nan, my mum knew his mum, and by the time I was born Target was friends with my older brother. That’s what it’s like on the estate we grew up on – everyone knows each other and all the families have lived there for years – it’s nice.

My brother didn’t like me hanging out with them back then. Whenever he wasn’t around I’d be able to chill with Target and the rest of their gang, no problem, but as soon as he turned up I’d have to run along and find some kids my own age. Back then they were the coolest thing around. They were famous at school and around the area because they DJed at parties and on local pirate-radio stations. Nowadays, because I’m a little bit younger than them, I take the mick and tell them they’re too old and they don’t know what’s cool or how to dress.

I’m not sure when our relationship changed and they started thinking I was old enough to be cool myself. I guess it was when I started getting into music too. I was DJing and began sharing my record box with Wiley, another friend of Target and my brother, who brought me on board for Roll Deep. Target was part of the Pay As U Go garage crew back then, but he was always around the studio when we recorded the first Roll Deep album and so one day we made him official.

These days, me and Target spend way too much time together. We’re together working in the studio all the time and I reckon we argue every single day. Our fights never mean anything; it’s just because we go through all kinds of daily stress together. We know each other inside out because of it, though. He can always tell when I’m not telling him the truth – even if it’s something small like when I tell him I’ll be at the studio in 10 and I know I probably won’t, he’ll just instantly be like, “Why are you lying to me?”

Target is probably one of the grumpiest people I know, but I just find it funny when he’s in one of his moods – I wind him up even more. He’s a bit of a brainiac too. He knows everything about everything. I find working with him inspiring because he’s always coming up with good stuff and I know I have to match that. It’s not competitive, but it keeps you motivated. I think that’s probably why, as a group of people, we’ve got this far – if you hang out with people who do nothing, that’s exactly what you end up doing yourself.

Target, 28, is a producer for Roll Deep. He also hosts his own radio show on BBC 1Xtra. He lives in east London

Growing up where we did has definitely shaped me and Danny as people. A lot of us have gone on to do quite well – Dizzee Rascal lived just around the corner – and I think we must have all got that drive to succeed from the same place.

I’ve known Danny since he was a baby. His brother, Dominic, and I were born in the same hospital two days apart and were friends from when we were really little, so I was always around their house. In those days Danny was just a mate’s typical kid brother, trying to hang around with us and getting told to get lost by Dominic, though those weren’t quite the words he used back then.

We knew Danny would probably get into music properly like us as he got older. My friend Wiley, who founded Roll Deep, spotted that the young ones were into it too and he set up a little muck-about rap group for them to do.

Danny started doing his own thing as a DJ really young, and by the time he was 17 he was officially one of us rather than just Dominic’s little brother.

Danny and I are very similar in the way we look at music. As producers we both listen to music in a different way to most people. We drive around listening to tracks and analysing them, picking up on stuff that other people can’t even hear with the naked ear. Neither of us are trained musicians; we always say it’s just something that you are born with.

Working together, we see each other day in and day out and to be honest we argue about everything – work stuff, petty everyday stuff, whether I owe him a fiver for petrol, whose fault it is we’re late… We’re beyond ever actually falling out, though. We just both like to win an argument.

We share lots of interests outside music, too – our tastes are pretty much the same in everything from girls to football teams and movies. I’ll often call him up while we’re watching the same film on TV and know we’re going to find the same jokes hilarious. We like comedies like Superbad and Anchorman – pathetic stuff that maybe we shouldn’t find quite as funny as we do. We spend half the day arguing and the other half laughing, I reckon.

Roll Deep’s new double A-side single “Movin’ In Circles”, featuring Kivanc, and “Club 7” is out on 9 March on Roll Deep Recordings. To view the videos for the singles, including a cameo from Goldie, go to www.myspace.com/rolldeepofficial. Target’s radio show is on BBC 1Xtra every Saturday at 10pm