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Welcome to the best years of your life (posted by Ben W)

OK here's the story.... I'm Ben Westbeech and i like music. I like food too. I arrived in Bristol in 2002 and this is were i have made my album "Welcome to the best years of your life". It has been an extraordinary experience, emotional and enlightening and i cant wait for everyone to hear it. It started about April 2002 when i made my first tune, So Good Today. I remember the day i wrote it was grey and i was feeling down. I was real frustrated with my situation at that time, i think being on the dole for so many years was getting to me, life was tough. It wasn't all bad though, i started going out and meeting a few people who i'd then go on to work with in Bristol. These included sirplus and kelz, local mcs, and Clipz who i had known before i moved, as the same engineer taught us to produce a few years before. I also used to warm up for him in London when he was on Emcee recordings so we'd met a few times and he really helped me settle into Bristol. I started making hip hop with sirplus and we got a tune called 'Big ras crew' into a few peoples hands and it got picked up on by Die and Roni who put it out. I ended up producing half of sirplus' album which sadly never came out and was back making my album within days.  At this time i'd started working with die after a chance meeting at a classic Bristol 3 day bender and a days skating st george park. We clicked and started makin tunes, a bit of drum and bass, hip hop and anything else we vibsed off. I then went to London with Die to play boujis in South Kensington (not the sort of place i'd usually go) where i met Becky (legs) who had previously worked at Full Cycle. We were a little bored in the club so becky and i went to the car to listen some tunes. I played her a couple of my beats and she was into it so i gave her the cd.  A few months later i got a phone call from her saying she'd played them to Gilles at Creamfields and he wanted to talk about a single deal for So Good Today. I was well excited as you can imagine, and started taking the album (and myself) a bit more seriously. I then sent a few more tracks down and had a meeting with Gilles in Bristol when he came up for a gig. He was up for doing something with the record, which was wonderful news and i went away feeling inspired to finish the album. It was recorded all over the shop, i moved house five times that year, so each room i was in produced a couple of tunes, i also did some with Die and some with Clipz. Its all a reflection of what was going on in my life at the time, and the cards that i had been dealt when i was younger. I think music is a great diary of your life and these are my first experiences and are therefore called the best years. Get it?... to be continued...

  • Posted by Ben Weestbeech
  • Aug 28, 03:41 AM

Yes Yes Son! Great story and even better music. respect! JJ

Posted by Jose' James
Oct 23, 03:59 PM

So Good Today is fantastic. The Yoruba Suite Mix is killer. Good work

Posted by Jackamoto
Oct 23, 06:22 PM

good work, you should come show paris what you’r about. I just love this track so good today! make many many more ! flo de paris

Posted by florent
Oct 26, 05:55 PM

Can’t wait for the LP to drop. Loving So Good Today, loving Nothing Else, I’d say the chances of me loving the LP are pretty, pretty, pretty damn good! (Sorry, been watching too much Curb Your Enthusiasm…..

Posted by Ciarán
Nov 2, 04:43 PM

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