The Nextmen (VIP AREA ONLY)

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Cambridge is mainly known for its famous university, an inordinate amount of cyclists, a terrible football team, a river made for punting, a folk festival and being the home of Stephen Hawking, Clive James and Jeffrey Archer. It is not, one must admit, the first place one would look for producers of dancefloor-hardened beats. It is nevertheless, the city that gave birth to The Nextmen, also known as Brad Baloo and Dom Search.

You may have heard of The Nextmen. In fact, unless you’ve been captive in Guantanamo Bay for the most of the Noughties, we’d wager you’d definitely heard of them and more than likely witnessed them at one of their many festival-stopping summer performances or heard their incendiary mixtapes on the neighbourhood ghetto blaster.

Dom (real name: Dominic Betmead) and Brad (real name: Brad Ellis) joined forces when Brad blagged a remix for London Posse and realised he didn’t have any kit with which to do it. In stepped Dom with his Roland S10 and not much else. “The track was called Style,” chips in Dom, “But it put us on the map. Everybody loved it. Radio 1 got hold of it.” “It was 75 bpm and really pedestrian,” deadpans Brad. “Fucking terrible.” Terrible or not, London Posse’s Style had something about it, not least the MCing skills of the posse’s Rodney P, with whom The Nextmen have subsequently enjoyed a long working relationship.