Tim Westwood chats to I Like Music

ILM: Wycleff says that you "take an artist before anybody knows who they are and blows them up. He had my back even before The Fugees…" So you're kind of like a John Peel of hip hop…

TIM: I think the role of the DJ is about future hits. You should be able to identify music that, right now, people might not get. When we first started playing 50 off the mixtapes, before he had an album out, we played his mix tape freestyles, we knew 50 Cent was going to change hip hop, and we embraced it. With Eminem, I had an early demo tape of his before he'd got his deal with Dre when he was still on an independent, we were playing that every week for nearly a year. That gives you a relationship with the artist that they respect, it's not like you joined them late in the day when everyone else is coming to the party. I think the role of the DJ is to play hits, but the emphasis I have is on future hits. So we're playing a lot of Dirty South records which you aren't really hearing much elsewhere, but are very significant records.
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