Hometown Glory
Is there anything Reggie Yates can’t do? The actor, DJ, TV host and documentary maker is now setting his sights on the world of cinema with his blistering, brilliantly fun debut Pirates. Here, the filmmaker tells Sam Moore about how his love of movies began and his commitment to energising young talent.
“This is a film that speaks to a very different version of the inner city experience. It doesn’t have to mean trauma, it can be joy as well.” Reggie Yates’ feature film debut is trying to do something distinct. Pirates is not a grimy or violent hood movie in the vein of Kidulthood or Bullet Boy, or Channel 4’s seminal yet nihilistic Top Boy. Instead, it’s Superbad in ‘90s London by way of an Inbetweeners awkwardness. It’s a celebration of working-class Blackness, soundtracked by pulsing garage and clothed in Avirex jackets. It’s affectionate, nostalgic without being saccharine, celebrating the joys and discovery of making your way in the adult world.
The actor/DJ/TV host/documentary maker turned feature film director keeps things fairly close to home for his debut. Set on New Year’s Eve 1999, Pirates follows three friends trying to force their way into the music industry through pirate radio and their garage sets. They’re also trying to nab tickets to the hottest new millennium party in town, with much of the three main characters drawn from Yates himself. “There’s a bit of me in all of them,” he tells MASSIVE. “I was the quiet, studious type, then I was obsessed with music, then I’d be the guy who just wanted to have a good time.”
The idea to set the film in 1999 also came from personal experience. There’s no memorable party story or great musical revelation – it was simply the year Yates fell in love with film. “I've always loved films, but 1999 is a crazy year when you look at the movies,” he says. “The Matrix was the movie that blew my mind.”
Pirates reflects the culmination of Yates’ lifelong love of music: “When I was nine or 10, I got a ghetto blaster for my birthday. It was super skinny and long, and it was just the coolest thing to go through all the different stations.” It was around the same time Yates, who lived in North then South London discovered the underground craze of pirate radio (which, to the uninitiated, is an unlicensed form of radio broadcasting often done from tower blocks usually playing Black music).
Pirate radio reached a zenith in the 1990s, helping push genres such as jungle and garage to the forefront of an increasingly diverse UK music scene. Yates, too, got his start on pirate radio (as did other notable DJs including Tim Westwood, Trevor Nelson and Judge Jules). “I started out on Freek FM before being hired by BBC 1Xtra,” Yates recalls. “When I moved to South London I made friends with a lot of boys who were pirates. There was this station called Taste FM that I used to go on with the boys..”
The music in Pirates transports anybody that was of a certain age in the late ‘90s right back to a gloriously sweaty house party where basslines wobble and vocal samples vibe with a Red Stripe. There’s So Solid Crew, Wookie and DJ Luck & MC Neat; as well as unexpected appearances from Simply Red and Backstreet Boys too – the latter of which make an appearance in one of the funniest scenes you’ll see onscreen this year, and only because they couldn’t get the rights to a Destiny’s Child classic: “That sequence has been in my head for years. It’s changed from what it was originally as it was written with a Destiny’s Child song in mind but we couldn’t clear it so I went to find another song that clicked and came up with ‘I Want it That Way’ by Backstreet Boys.”
UK garage – despite the success of artists including Craig David, So Solid Crew and Artful Dodger, leading to the formation of grime and a recent revival spearheaded by the likes of AJ Tracey, Aitch and Naughty Boy – has never quite got the appreciation it deserves by music critics. “Garage has spawned some incredible moments in British music,” Yates says. “It keeps coming back, and I think that’s because of how it makes you feel. It’s quite joyful music, and it was a joyful era. These records are about partying and having a good time. It was about guys dancing with girls. It was about being able to sing along. It was about having the guts to go over and dance with a girl you fancied. It was the soundtrack to my teens. I’ve played these records for 20 years and they don’t get their due.”
Long before production began, Yates already knew which tracks he wanted to use. As he was writing the screenplay in a Los Angeles hotel room, he made note of which track could go where, such as Sia’s ‘Little Man’: “I was thinking what song would work for what sequence. These songs have been at the front of my mind for 20 years. The songs were always going to be what they ended up being. They’re what was massive at the time.”
At the behest of his friends, Yates also had to include one particular garage classic that he admits to still hating today. Monsta Boy’s ‘Sorry’ is a defining anthem of the era, encapsulating the sound of UKG as much as any other – yet Yates could not have less time for it. “I have friends who read what I write,” he says. “They tell me when things are rubbish, and they reluctantly tell me when things are good. One of the notes they gave me was, ‘Where’s Monsta Boy’s ‘Sorry’?’ Probably the biggest garage record that wasn’t in the script. I flippin’ hate that song! But they were like, ‘It’s gotta be in there’ and so it’s in there. It’s not being played because I can’t stand it, but I put it in.”
Pirates also sees a fictionalised version of garage legend Megaman turn up for a few scenes, most notably one where he gets set on fire (the incident isn’t based on anything real, Yates reassures us). Played by Aaron Shosanya, bearing an eerie likeness to the man he’s portraying, Yates is keen for the two of them to meet. The real life Mega, a founding member of So Solid Crew once put on trial for murder, is a friend of Yates’. He remembers the pioneer from his teens: “He was a huge character around London. He was one of our first superstars. When he started wearing the bowler hat, he was like a superhero. You’d see him about and be like ‘Oh my God.’”
To people of a certain generation, Yates is the guy from CBBC sitcom The Crust, or his stint on Grange Hill – acting gigs that would quickly see him transition into hosting Smile and Top of the Pops with Fearne Cotton. To another generation, he’s the face of serious documentaries such as Reggie Yates’ Extreme Russia, which investigated racism and homophobia in the former Soviet Union.
And to another, perhaps much younger generation, he’s the voice of the crime-solving Rastamouse, which aired between 2011 and 2015. An eclectic 20-year career in the entertainment business has led to this point with Pirates, and Yates has put every lesson he’s learnt into directing his feature debut – particularly those learnt as a young actor in an industry that often gives little thought to the welfare of its youngest and most vulnerable.
“I had a lot of frustrations as a young actor, which told me who I needed to be with these young actors,” he says. “These guys are like my brothers. When you’re working with young talent, there’s a certain level of investment that’s necessary because they have so much hope and that shouldn’t be neglected. I wanted these young men to come out of this experience energised about the business as opposed to never wanting to do anything ever again.”
The film has a similar effect on the viewer: it’s light, and at 80 minutes it’s snappy. Yates also has a natural musicality to his directing, and enviable comic timing. Pirates isn’t even out yet but he’s already deep into writing his next movie – and based on his energetic debut, Britain has another talented, young Black filmmaker on its hands. And more importantly, one who cares about the people he works with.
Pirates will be released in cinemas November 26 – catch a preview with Massive from November 17.