"We're about fucking Wild Style. We're about being b-boys, about hip hop, about George Benson, about Parliament. About the funk. 1985, standing in front of Wild Bunch while they were cutting up two copies of 'Impeach The President' or 'Rebel Without A Pause'. Just by naming a few things like that I can show you where I'm coming from straight away". Krust epitomises the true essence of the b-boy - a man of principles, wise yet humble, relentlessly focussed and forever moving forward. He is a domineering figure both in the flesh and on vinyl. His music is passionate, uncompromising and from the heart - never blinkered by fashion or fad - and this is ultimately a reflection of how this man lives his life.

Krust's passion for hip hop is well documented, indeed most drum & bass DJs and producers that have been involved in the music scene since the mid-80s cite old skool hip hop, funk and rare groove artists as inspirational figures. However, despite the unquestionable importance of this era of music, there's a whole generation of drum & bass fanatics out there that hadn't even left the womb by 1980; and for them, the influence of that style pales in comparison to that of the 90s rave scene and the current leading drum & bass artists. "That's what's going on," agrees Krust. "There's nothing wrong in that, but for my generation it's hard to get with - I don't necessarily understand it. It's alright to a certain extent," he considers, "but it lacks in a little bit of depth and just doesn't last very long. It's only because I think they're still searching for their formula. There is something out there for those kids, but you know, the interesting thing isn't what's going on now - it's ten, fifteen years from now, when those same kids who are making the music actually discover their formula. They're getting vibes from what we're doing, but they're still finding their feet, and it's going to be a while before those kids come up with something - and it ain't going to be drum & bass - it's going to be something else."

Krust knows because he's been there. Back in the day, he was one of those kids checking out all the new music, tinkering with the hardware, creating beats, rhymes and melodies - and busting out a brand new UK sound - the something else of the 90s - jungle drum & bass. Now at the end of the decade, Krust is one of the biggest names on the drum & bass scene and with the release of his first solo album he is destined to make his mark in a broader musical dimension. So first of all, what does it mean to the big man to have this kind of opportunity? "To tell a story," he begins, "to have the creative ability to do something like that. To be able to work with artists on another scale, to work with an orchestra, to have the facilities to do that. Full Cycle's great, Dope Dragon's great, V Recordings is great, Philly Blunt's great; but to be able to reach another level is kinda hard to do. But bam! - as soon as you sign to a major you've got more access; and especially since Reprazent did what it did - everybody knows about drum & bass, so the door's a bit more open. Some people might not have heard of Full Cycle, but guaranteed they've heard of Talkin' Loud and Mercury; so already I'm mixing with a different crowd - people who are more music orientated, rather than people who are just drum & bass orientated. All of a sudden this little drum & bass world that you've been working in becomes this whole musical world and so you see everything a little bit differently".

Hand in hand with this expansion of collaborative possibilities comes a naturally steep learning curve and, despite Krust's overwhelming talent and experience, he nevertheless found himself immersed in a world that was somewhat alien to him. "One of the things is actually working with professional people. It's a lot different. For instance, we went to New York to do this thing with Redman, and working in that situation and that environment was very, very different. Working with Redman himself - a predominant hip hop figure, and working with Steve Solar, an engineer whose worked on many hip hop projects - just seeing how they work - seeing how they engineer - seeing what they do and what they don't. Drum & bass is a certain sound, and the sound that we've created is a distorted sound on minimal equipment. We've worked out a way to get the best out of this minimal equipment, to make it sound like it's more than what we've got. So then you take that mentality into a big 48 track studio and it doesn't mean anything. After eight years of working in your environment, you go into another, and you've got to start learning again. Then you think - you're in an album project - should you be doing this? Should you be learning again? Shouldn't you just use what you know, because it's got you this far? All these things are going over and over in your head. Sure, that way's great - you'll get a result, you'll get a sound, you'll get a piece of music - but the thing is to try and get the best of both worlds - try to mix and blend them together to get a result. It is like working in another world. I've learnt so much, and I could go on... it's just an ongoing process. Personally, I consider myself a musician who makes drum & bass - that's where I'm coming from, and that's the approach I'm going to take."

One of the most striking features of the 'Coded Language' album are the vocal contributions. Firstly, from long time collaborator Morgan, whose untouchable sultry tones first appeared back in '97 on the 'Maintain' remix. Here she features on five tracks, and makes her presence felt most notably on the anthemic refrains of 'Rearrange' and 'Soldiers' - delivering strong, conscious lyrics with a power that leaves you quite breathless. "Morgan was vital," admits Krust, "and I didn't realise how much until the end of the project when I was listening back to the tracks, seeing how it all worked together. I met her about six years ago in a London club, and at the time I wasn't really looking for a singer, but I was looking for something else to put into the music. I was doing a remix for Maintain at the time, and I thought to myself - 'I want to do something different, I don't want to just take the same vocal sample... I've got a vocalist here and maybe I can incorporate some kind of song'. So I said to her, 'this thing's called 'Maintain' - it's about being a b-boy, it's about fuckin' maintaining... throughout anything'; and she just sat down and came up with this song. From there I started to get an understanding of how her vocal style works, and I think she's a bit like me in the way she approaches her songs. She doesn't necessarily go for the straightforward, she looks for the angles and so we both complement each other's music."

Alongside Morgan's contributions, two other vocal tracks on 'Coded Language' caught my attention - one from Krust himself, which I'll come to later, and one from Saul Williams, Grand (Poetry) Slam Champion, who delivers maximum freshness on the album's title track. "I did that track, and it was lying around for a bit, but by the time I came back to it, it was like - OK I'm looking for a rapper," explains Krust. "I'd played hip hop acappellas over it and it sounded wicked, so I was trying to get a few different people, but they were either too much money or too busy - nothing was happening. A couple of months later we started to hear about this... well, the first thing that happened was when we were in New York, Roni was walking down the street and this guy comes up to him and starts going off at him - just doing this stuff in his ear. So Roni comes back to the hotel going - 'I've just met this guy, this mad guy and he just rapped to me for about an hour in my ear man - he's fucking nuts, he's great'! The next thing I heard was from a mutual friend that used to work at the record company who had moved to New York to work for this agency over there. She sent a tape over to us, and when we started listening to it Roni goes - 'this is the fucking guy' - and it was like... wicked. The lyrical content of his stuff was what attracted me the most, it was really different - it was like, my man ain't talking about your ordinary fucking Benz and fucking gold chains - my man's talking about some next level shit. My man's talking about things that we haven't done yet - things we're going to do. It was just so far forward. So - boom! - I found out he was coming to London to do Gilles Peterson's show and I shot up with a tape of the track. I met him... and he's... well, it's like... you just know when you know someone - it was like that. We sat down and started to talk, and he had this whole fucking scroll right... of the song - he had already written a fucking song out. So he starts reading off this thing, and I was like... [Krust gives an impression of dumbstruck awe]... and when he'd finished I said 'listen man, you've got to come to Bristol tomorrow and we've got to do this now,' and he was like 'yeah, sure, whatever'. So he came down to Bristol the next day - bam! - just did it - three takes later - done".

The other vocal I mentioned, that comes from Krust himself, features on the album's final track, 'Second Movement'. The vocal is just a snippet, and is only really decipherable towards the end of the track. 'Change is a difficult process' is the quotation, so I asked Krust what he meant by that statement. "Change man. Right now, I think we're all going through some change. There's this theory right now about Saturn's Return - it's about the alignment of the stars being at the same point now as they were when you were born. It's about becoming an adult - about becoming a man or a woman - and right now that's what's happening to me. If you're between 27 and 31 that's what you're going through right now, and I know for a fact that since I turned 28 I've had a difficult time. Emotions and feelings are just crossing over into this next thing... it's like... I can't explain it. It's that same head fuck that you get at 18... 21... 25 a bit, and definitely at 28; but there's one thing you can do - you can put it into music. In one way that's what 'Coded Language' means - it's about something that you can't verbalise, maybe not even visualise, but you can feel. I can't talk to someone in Japan, but I can play them a piece of music and say 'this is how I feel'. That's what it's about. Change is a difficult process. There's a definite something going on that you can't put your finger on, and I've been able to capture some of that in the music. For me, I think that everybody finds change different - I think everybody thinks that they're going through something that other people aren't. Sometimes you need to know, that - fucking hell man - we're all the same. What you're going through - I've been through, what I'm going through - someone else has been through, and it's like that. Everybody needs to talk to somebody because... you'll go fucking mad otherwise."

Talking to Krust is an experience. He's intense, funny, thoughtful, provocative and also makes some of the most dynamic music on the planet. Unfortunately what you have just read is really only a fraction of the ground we covered in our conversation. There's simply no room to mention the Full Cycle documentaries (oh yes - you'd better watch out!), the orchestral experience, his views on celebrity status, living in Bristol, rip-off producers, even glandular fever. However, with this album effectively being "Coded Language" Part 1 - yes, there's another whole album's worth of material to come - perhaps next year, when that second volume is unleashed, we will all have another opportunity to step inside the mind of Krust.

WORDS: Richard Arnell