Deep Tempo is a podcast dedicated to the 140 scene, showcasing and reviewing brand new tunes every two weeks. Hosted by Cuttah and C-BO, aka “The Roving Dread”, the show brings a fresh format that covers discussions about artists, production aspects and the scene in general. Without further ado, we’re excited to find out more about this unique project straight from the people behind it.
Dirty Beats: Hello guys! Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences with us. As we’re sure that a lot of people are eager to find out – how did Deep Tempo come to be? What was the main idea and drive behind this project?
Deep Tempo: Hey, thank you for getting us involved. Originally, the idea for Deep Tempo was a small music event in our local town of Rugby, Warwickshire where Cuttah used to play. From that event we wanted to do our own which we named Deep Tempo, however those events didn’t happen.
Following that, C-BO mentioned the idea of a podcast solely dedicated to Dubstep “slaaash” 140. Since we were always talking about Dubstep in the pub anyway and no one in the scene was really doing this type of shows we jumped on the idea straight away.The main push was just to have fun with it, we never expected to grow very fast at all and we were skeptical how the scene would take us. Luckily, it’s all been love from the beginning which motivates us to keep pushing with the idea to see what it can become. The love and support we get from our listeners 100% is the reason we maintain the consistency. We just love the scene and are grateful to be a part of it.
Dirty Beats: Most of our readers are familiar with the podcasts itself but maybe not so much with the people behind it. Tell us a bit about yourselves and any side projects you might have that we definitely should keep our eyes on.
C-BO: Charlie Barrington-Osborne is my name, hench C-BO. I took on the Roving Dread alias around 2015 after my Grandad passed away. He was a pretty well known chef around Jamaica and in the UK for a period in the late 80’s early 90’s, he went by The Roving Chef.
I was really lucky to have a very rich musical upbringing. My dad was really into his Garage, Jungle, Drum and Bass, all of which massively influenced me growing up.I first heard the term dubstep around 2006, and I truly fell in love with Dubstep and the 140 scene in 2009 while attending Bournemouth University. We had a regular monthly night called Dubnium which was renamed to Dub Optic at some point where a whole bunch of Dubstep Dons passed through and I just couldn’t get enough. Have a giggle at some of the shenanigans in this throwback.
Also a course mate of mine was from Croydon and he told me I had to experience Croydub, it did not disappoint and my love grew even stronger when we went to our first Outlook Festival.My other side project is The Roving Dread and yeah I’d love for us to play more shows, just be another way for us to shine a light on the tunes we love. Also a Dirty beats exclusive here as I’ve not put it out in public yet but I’ve been dabbling with production myself. Early days yet so whether anything I’m playing with sees the light of day is another question. But I’m having fun with it and just seeing where it goes.
Cuttah: My actual name is Todd Jones-Cutter, from Rugby, which also is the town where the game was invented. I have been hooked on Dubstep since the early days, back in 2006/2007, listening to those early DMZ, Skream and Hatcha mixes.
My side project is “Cuttah” which started off after seeing a “Shiverz” live video of him chopping around 2012. At the time I had never seen anyone DJ like that before and it inspired me to give it a go. I attended various nights in London for years such as the ERGH events and I always wondered how incredible it would be to play live, but I never had the confidence to really go for it, so I continued to DJ just at home for fun. However after witnessing Outlook Festival in 2017 and experiencing the soundsystem culture first hand I decided to get more serious with DJ-ing. Over the years I was putting up mixes on my SoundCloud and got the opportunity to play at ERGH’s Xmas Spesh!. Here is a little sneak peak for you guys!
My goals for Cuttah are to continue to play bigger and more frequent shows and hopefully be able to go overseas.
We do have more side projects forthcoming in the future related to Deep Tempo that we were supposed to get going last month, but unfortunately due to the global situation right now, we have had to hold back, one thing I will say though in merchandise is coming soon.![]()
Dirty Beats: What’s the dynamic between the podcast and your side projects? Are they influencing each other in any way?
Cuttah: For me Deep Tempo and DJing come hand in hand due to both projects revolving around Dubstep. Deep Tempo has helped us both connect with a lot more people around the world forming relationships we most likely would not have had if it wasn’t for Deep Tempo. Certainly the fact that we have access now to alot more tunes helps with being able to perform a more exclusive DJ sets. Deep Tempo has allowed us to think more outside the box and be confident in our upcoming projects that we will have coming later on in the year, but that’s all I can say about that right now.
C-BO: Think Cuttah has covered the Deep Tempo side of things there but with myself and from the production side of things, Deep Tempo is definitely influencing how and what I’m trying to learn and play with. We receive tunes all the time that inspires me to make stuff and have me trying to figure out some of the sound design.
Dirty Beats: You guys definitely have a special kind of vibe going on in your podcasts and it is pretty clear that the two of you go way back. Would you like to shed some light on how this iconic duo came to be?
Deep Tempo: Not as way back as people might think actually but we met through a mutual friend at one of their birthday pre-sesh’s before a night out. Cuttah was at the house first playing some funtcase crazy vibes and C-BO came in and obviously recognized the music and we got chatting about Dubstep and bass music in general. Out of our friends, we were the only ones at the time that were really interested in the music and soundsystem culture. It was actually surprising to us both that someone else in our small town liked this kind of thing. It wasn’t until much later on, around 2017, where we actually attended events together and properly got to know each other. I think the first one we went to together was MALA in Birmingham, and from then on we went to as many as we could, including Outlook Festival
![]()
Dirty Beats: As we all know, C-BO was away traveling for a while but that didn’t stop you from continuing your podcasts and maintaining that special Deep Tempo vibe. Honestly, how did you do it?
C-BO: It was difficult for sure but like we said, we never expected to get the love and response from the scene that we have. It’s created a certain level of expectation from our audience that we’ll be here with a new podcast every other week and that drives us on. There were some crazy scenarios with my setup and internet troubles for both of us that we just somehow managed to get through. The most wild it got from me, was sneaking in a spare hotel room to record 3-5am, packing my bag straight after to get in a taxi at 5:30 for the airport. Massive shout to my misses for putting up with it all, she’ll enjoy reading this bit haha.
Cuttah: As C-BO said the motivation comes from the love we receive from everyone in the scene. At first it was very difficult to get used to as we could only hear each other and there was a very slight delay on the stream, so sometimes it would be hard not to talk over each other, but in time we got used to it and were surprised how well they turned out. We were just so committed at that point and wanted to continue pleasing the people supporting us. On one occasion I came in from a mates birthday day sesh and was going to record at 1am (drunk), turns out C-BO was locked out of where he needed to record so we managed to reschedule, looking back it was probably for the best.
Dirty Beats: Every project comes with its unique set of challenges. What were some hurdles you had to pass along the way?
Deep Tempo: There have actually been quite a few along the way. Although it may seem that doing a podcast is easy, especially about the thing you love, it does take a lot of practice becoming camera confident and allowing the podcast to flow properly. If you watch our earliest shows you can definitely tell that we are nowhere near as confident behind the camera as we are today.
The admin tasks have been quite a challenge too. We had to set up a system to make sure all music is heard and messages are seen. Without this a lot of music could’ve been missed. We aren’t complaining though, we love receiving new music and discover incredible producers along the way.
The biggest and one of the most important we faced was working out how to do the podcast over the internet whilst C-BO was away. Due to our podcast involving music, we needed to figure out how C-BO could hear what Cuttah was playing on the decks in good audio quality and manage to record both our voices. After hours of trying various methods we finally figured out the secret ingredient and went with it.
Dirty Beats: Is there any selection process for the tracks that you end up reviewing in your podcasts and how do you guys manage listening to every tune from your inbox?Deep Tempo: There’s no strict process but we just talk it out. We have a shared notes folder in which we note down everything that has come in and the release dates for the tunes. We then both listen and whatever we feel we put in the podcast. It’s gotten harder selecting as we’ve received more but we try our best to fit in as many as the ones we really feel. One thing we’re both quite proud of is creating a platform that up and comers can shine on. We definitely didn’t anticipate the amount of ‘admin’ running this would take.
Dirty Beats: Having an early access to so many releases and dubs, how would you describe the current state of the scene compared to 2-3 years ago?
C-BO: I think the scene is just going from strength to strength. I only see it getting healthier and even more exciting, there are so many new producers coming through. I’m particularly excited by the growth of the deep scene in the US, it seems like we discover new producers over there every week. Dubstep has always been a meeting point for different sounds and influences and the more diverse that is the better I believe.
Cuttah: Here in the UK I’ve definitely seen a major decline in the heavier side of dubstep with a resurgence of the “deep” scene. Events are popping up over here thanks to brands like HVYWGHT, CNCPT. DEEP MEDi & more. Also new and exciting producers are being found every day. It’s no secret that the EDM/riddim scene is thriving right now in the US and Canada, producing massive festivals such as Lost Lands among others, they have definitely adopted that style much more than the Deep scene. I will agree with C-BO that we are seeing more and more exciting “Deep” producers coming from the US and the popularity of the scene does seem to be growing vastly.
Dirty Beats: Deep Tempo has been spanning for over 9 months, with its fanbase growing by the day. How does the support from the scene feel like to you?
Deep Tempo: The support has been incredible, we never expected so many people to enjoy the podcast like they do. Especially now with YouTube culture a lot of people want the content they watch to be small and concise down to 10 mins then move on to the next. Due to our content being 2 hours or more we didn’t think people would be that interested. The love from just normal Dubstep and 140 fans has been really heartwarming on some occasions which we both never expected. We’ve received a few messages over the months from people just wanting to say big up and thanks us for what we’re doing.
Not only that but the support from the producers and labels has been mind blowing and we are so thankful to everyone for supporting and/or sending us music, because if it wasn’t for them it wouldn’t be possible to do this.
Dirty Beats: Apart from keeping up the stellar work, are there any specific plans or future trajectories for the podcast?
Deep Tempo: We are always looking at improving the quality of the podcast in some way, whether it will be better sound quality or just the content in which we deliver, we are constantly working on becoming better podcasters with time.
Recently we registered as an official business “Deep Tempo Ltd”, so as you can tell we are definitely not stopping anytime soon and feel like we have so much more to offer the scene.
Also on hold is our DT Tapes series on YouTube, where we film the nights we attend. The idea here was to capture more raw footage from nights up and down the country and abroad when possible. With C-BO being back we were really hoping to hit the ground running with these but obviously events aren’t happening at the moment. Finally, we promise that merch is coming soon so look out for that, we are in the process of getting samples and hope to have it ready for pre-order over the next couple months.
Dirty Beats: Finally, let’s get down to the absolute question, please direct all your attention towards it. Would you rather fight 1 horse-sized duck, or 100 duck-sized horses? And what song would play in the background?
Cuttah: I would fight one horse sized duck because I’d give it a sweet chin music to it’s beak and drop it in one, whilst playing Bukez Finezt – Duck Trumpet in the background of course.
C-BO: Haha I’d have to go 100 duck-sized horses and I’d have Redman – Can’t wait playing in the background. Doesn’t get more gangsta than that right?
Concluding our insightful interview with the Deep Tempo duo, it is safe to say that the well-being of the scene is in good hands. With many new talents rising and well known artists setting the bar higher and higher, it is vital for projects like this one to serve as hubs for curating and showcasing the constant evolution of the dubstep culture.