Not many photographers can claim to have worked with everyone from Biggie, Jay-Z, Aaliyah and Justin Timberlake to underground heroes like Shut Up and Dance or Mala, Irish folk singer Imelda May and acclaimed film director Steve McQueen. But Eddie Otchere has done it all, documenting the stories behind the freshest new acts and cultural icons alike.

In 1988, Otchere inherited a camera and began taking it to raves around London, bugging the promoters to let him shoot. He jump-started his career in the early '90s, as the resident photographer for Goldie's now-mythical drum & bass night, Metalheadz. Then, through connections made with US hip-hop labels, Otchere went on to work with the world's biggest stars, including his dream subjects: the Wu-Tang Clan. He achieved his goal to shoot all nine MCs of the seminal NY hip-hop group, and exhibited his work in 2016, with a show and book called The Icons Of Wu.

In April, as I approached Otchere's studio in central London, three beautifully printed, black-and-white photographs greeted me from the front window: a goat, a lone tree and Wu-Tang member, RZA. Beneath them, on a stand in the corner of the display, sat Otchere's new book, Who Say Reload, which weaves together stories of drum & bass' most important records through Otchere's photos and interviews by fellow jungle aficionado Paul Terzuili.

The studio itself, shared by members of Otchere's crew, Film's Not Dead, is small and chaotic, with a creative, communal energy like that of a dubplate cutting house. The room was stacked to the ceiling with rare cameras and legendary prints. Otchere soon filled the remaining space with insider stories of influential rave moments, the rich and famous, and expert details about analogue photography and printing techniques. "The holy trinity of the camera, the film and the prints," Otchere calls it. "It has to end on paper."

Today, Otchere continues to be a custodian of bass and hip-hop culture, working as an educator, curator and occasional DJ alongside his enviable photography bookings. As you might expect for someone who has devoted his life to documenting and preserving culture, Otchere is also a passionate storyteller. In the following interview, he provides fascinating insight into five photos chosen from his archives.

Grooverider, Metalheadz at Blue Note, 1995.

Let's start with drum & bass. Would you say that's what you're most known for?
During the '90s, I was most known for being a drum & bass photographer. I got into the hardcore scene early, but never went to the raves. I was purely into the concept of the music; you know, taking reggae, flipping it with some hip-hop, mixing it all up and making these twanged-out beats for your own people. For us, by us. It was a beautiful thing. While that was happening, I was going over to America a lot, taking beats with me, hooking up with hip-hop labels over there and exchanging the culture.

It all came together when Goldie asked me to photograph a club night he was doing that was away from the media eye, purely for the producers: Metalheadz. In this particular shot, you've got Grooverider playing and the crowd hailing for the rewind—when a tune's so good, you gotta play it twice. [DJ] Fabio is behind him, Goldie in the red cap, the MC Cleveland Watkiss, and [DJ] J Majik. Everyone there saluting are people from the scene. It was a small club, Blue Note, with the whole scene in there every Sunday from seven o'clock to midnight, being baptised in the latest, greatest drum & bass tracks that had come from the studios the Thursday or Friday before.

With the DJ and crowd within touching distance, you can really feel the energy in the room.

A lot of the best London clubs have been like that. They were producer-led clubs, where the promoter is a producer or DJ, and they book their mates who are DJs. You don't need a stage or security, 'cos it's for the heads.

I was at Blue Note pretty much every Sunday. I'd process the film on the Monday, go see Goldie on Monday night, show him what I've got, then carry on documenting this thing for him.

Where was he putting the shots?

He was just seeding them into the environment. He wanted to control the narrative, how drum & bass was seen. Up until that point you might get a journalist go in there, find someone smoking a spliff and say, "It's full of crack heads."

Was your decision to make the photos very colourful while documenting some pretty dark music part of controlling that narrative?

Yeah. Exactly. It was a vibrant, dynamic, amazing scene where people would shuck out, properly lose their fucking minds to these tearing rhythms. So, the colour had to be just as vibrant. I needed an autofocus camera so I could work in the dark, needed a wide-angle lens and a built-in flash so that everything happened very quickly. Then, I cross-processed the film so the colours were even more punchy.

Were you also looking to capture the outfits? Everyone is looking so fresh.

I wanted to make a point about the jungle and drum & bass scene. We were not bums. We didn't dress hip-hop; we didn't wear baggy jeans and Timberlands. We wore expensive shit. Everyone made an effort: we smoked the best weed, had the best clothes, drove the best cars and had the best tunes. We did not fuck around.

How would you keep the pictures different each week?

I didn't need to. It was a consistent set of documentary, a solid project: same camera, same film, same time every week. We knew it was a moment. Once it goes past a certain point and becomes overground, it can never go back. So, I knew I had to lock it down. I got my formula for the rave scene down and carried it on for ten years. The Who Say Reload book is a decade of this music, reflecting the people involved.

For Goldie, it was Fuji 100 Velvia film, cross-processed, shot on a Canon EOS 10, with the camera programmed so that the flash would fire, but the shutter would stay open for an extra five seconds. That's why you see light trails on a lot of the Metalheadz shots.

You're a very technical photographer.

I'm trying to be. I follow the masters like James Barnor, and they're super technical. They learnt their trade from the Victorians. They would go to villages in Africa where there's no electricity and use matches to expose the negative to the paper. When I think about what those cats had to go through, I feel blessed I could just find a camera that could focus in the dark.

Drum & bass is also known for being focused, even obsessive, about technical details in the music.

It was always an engineer's music. At the club, you have this nexus where the engineer's frequency would meet a human being who is off their face, and they're going to react in ways you could never imagine while making the track. It's a real-world dialogue. Dubstep had the same nexus at Plastic People. Every real British scene had their clubs that allowed the scene to bubble and grow.

Another one of my favourite drum & bass photos of yours is from Andy C at Wembley Arena. It's the polar opposite of the Metalheadz shots, with a sea of blurred faces.

That was 2018. Andy C sold out the Wembley Arena, supposedly the largest drum & bass rave ever. It showed how far we have come, and how much it has changed. He was on a super stadium stage, it's not the same thing as this photo we're discussing. I dunno how the crowd hails for the rewind at Wembley. At Blue Note, Goldie runs across the room screaming at Grooverider. If a tune's fucking good, you have to play it twice.

So Solid Crew, Badric Court, London, 2001.

Let's move on… So Solid Crew.

This was in the early noughties, outside their block, Badric Court in Battersea. Usually, when it comes to building brands, the first thing I do is shoot you on your block because you've got to be big on your block before you can take on the nation. I like to begin from the ground up. They were big on their block. People loved them. They gave Badric Court and those ends something to feel proud of.

This shot says something about where they're from. It's a real brand. Their posse is thick, and they're all talented. Every one of them has gone on to do something great. Whether it's Mega Man, Romeo or Lisa Maffia in pop, Oxide & Neutrino in garage, Asher D is an actor.

I recently did a shoot with an artist and said, "Let me shoot you in your ends," and he was like, "Nah, I'm from Croydon, I don't wanna shoot around Croydon." But, you've got to hail your ends, or you're just a pop star. You're projecting.

As a young man from South London, I was always proud to represent. I remember going to hip-hop studios in New York, and they would be playing me their new shit, and they'd ask, "What have you got, Eddie?" I'd pull out my vinyl from London, and I'm playing tearing drum & bass. They look at me funny, like, "You're fucking wild." But, because we all came from this raw place, we could speak on a level of making the hardest shit.

So Solid getting a #1 record was a pretty groundbreaking moment for UK music.

I was so proud of those kids. I need to tell you this story. That same morning we did the shoot, I was playing them Eric B. & Rakim. There's a lyric I was reciting, Rakim goes: "I take seven MCs put 'em in a line, and add seven more brothers who think they can rhyme / Well, it'll take seven more before I go for mine / Now that's 21 MCs ate up at the same time." I said to Megaman that I loved that 21 thing. I left it hanging in the air, and that night they went on and made "21 Seconds." I'm gonna say, for the record, that I feel that I put it in there, conceptually.

I was at Top of the Pops when "21 Seconds" charted and they were there to perform. The whole ground floor of the BBC studio stank of weed, and the trail of the smell all led to one changing room. They were all in there, bunning it down. I was so proud of them. It was important for a generation to see them on Top of the Pops.

At the time, were you conscious of portraying So Solid Crew in a way that would avoid them being demonised by the media, as later happened?

Absolutely. That's why we got Karen Binns, who was the best high-end stylist in the game, to come in and put them in white suits, so they were seen as being generals in this game. Yes, they got shut down in the end and couldn't tour, but that was the template. Some of the grime boys had the same issues. OK, you can't tour, but now you've got YouTube, now you've got a million hits. You can tell your own story.

Method Man at The Forum, Kentish Town, London, 1993.

This must be one of your most iconic shots.

It's up there. When I took it, I knew it was going to be a big one. From a film point of view, I was new to the game, shooting on [Ilford] HP5 film, which is the same basic film you get given by your school teacher. But, 25 years later, when I started printing this one again, with all the things I've learned about printing, it was special.

25 years ago, I was just a kid who wanted to meet Method Man and take pictures of all the Wu-Tang Clan. My dream was to get all nine MCs, all ten headshots. I wanted a chapel with them all in there, the saints, with ODB as Jesus.

When I came back to these shots for the Icons of Wu exhibition, it was beautiful to revisit, retell the story, and remember how it came about.

It was 1993. I went down to RCA Records in Putney, 'cos I hear they're going to be there. No one in the press department could commit to anything, but we had to get a story. We see them, and we're like "Yo, what's up, can we take some pictures?" Papa Wu invites us on the coach, and we travel to the Forum in Kentish Town. They're bunning it down. I feel like I've been blessed with their company.

A lot of the work with all true photography is off-camera. By this point, we've been together enough time to allow Meth to show me his new trick: the eye. It's just one shot. Snap. Move onto the next guy. I took seven of them that day. They were hungry for camera time. They were all fire. A few years later, I shot the RZA, U God and ODB. Then lastly, Cappadonna.

I read that you promised to destroy all the digital files of those prints.

Yeah. They're gone. This one we're looking at is a version I made by hand. Another edition currently hangs in the Hip-Hop Chip Shop in Brixton. The rest of the work is at Pure Vinyl in Brixton.

I have to ask… if you could photograph anyone, who would it be?

It still has to be Rakim, or Big Daddy Kane. The '80s lords. Also, the new school kids. Their levels of opulence blow me away. Travis Scott on his private aeroplanes, and so on. The Virgil Abloh generation. They seem fantastic to me, like they're living in the future. I imagine they're travelling in spaceships.

Aphex Twin, Elephant & Castle, London, 2002.

What's the story here?

This was shot at Elephant & Castle, which is currently being demolished. We were at an Italian restaurant, and I didn't know what to expect. I remember asking him, "Why do you live around here?" And he said, "I love it 'round here because it's shit." I thought to myself, "Yeah, I get you." It was shit there. Of course, Aphex Twin has to live in Elephant & Castle, near the brutalist, now demolished Heygate Estate.

It's something a bit different for you. A very soft photo.

I wanted to humanise what was, by that time, a super being. He was this incredible character visually because of his iconography. What a genius. The "Didgeridoo" tune. What a fucking tune. He made god-like music, but I just wanted to shoot the human with beautiful hair and a really relaxed manner. He's a mild-mannered man at home, but he can fuck with your mind once he gets into the machines.

You wouldn't guess it from this photo.

That's the thing. 100 years from now, he might still be thought of as a musical genius. But, he is also just an ordinary redhead. I never saw the hype. He lived in Elephant & Castle. You know what I mean? He had this amazing face, though, let's not forget it—Viking overlord.

Who's the most beautiful person you have taken a photo of?

Maybe Aphex Twin, yeah. What a face. The red in the hair, the ridged brow, the chin, the eyes. So human. I'm not saying anyone else isn't human. Obviously, Mary J. Blige is beautiful in comparison, but yeah, it's that character feature, the one that doesn't ascribe to the normal standard of beauty.

Channel One Soundsystem, Notting Hill Carnival, London, 2019.

I think this is my favourite of all your photos I've seen. I love that it says Time Machine in the bottom left corner. It says a lot about the whole message of the photo.

It's a still life piece, just a snap, really just respecting the machine, respecting how that goes into becoming a soundsystem. It's thunder, lightning and bass.

It all comes down to the soundsystem, bass culture and the appropriation of pre-war technology, which we still value to this day. The vinyl, the valve, the amplifier, the filters, the compressors, the boxes, the scoops.

This was taken at [Notting Hill] Carnival. We do it every year. Soundsystems flood West London and for two days straight, it's bass, sound, dancing and crowds. Because it's Channel One, a reggae soundsystem, it's conscious, it's righteous. It's about uplifting humanity and being closer to the spiritual force of Jah. It's about the universe, the galaxy and our place in it. It's not just frivolous, mindless, nihilistic shit. It's pure spiritualism, as told through sonic excellence.

Channel One play with one turntable, so there's gaps and silence. It's a monoistic soundsystem, it's a monotheistic soundsystem.

It's almost like saying, "This record is so good, you need to listen to it all before we will play another."

That's it. It's a religious experience. Vinyl has an important role in preserving culture. You see it in the listening bars in Japan, too.

So would you say your role as a photographer is to preserve culture?

I think so. I really enjoy teaching and bringing analogue photography to life, being able to give others photogenic thinking. My crew Film's Not Dead has been collecting cameras, rare papers and rare developers. When the analogue thing fell apart, we jumped in with our hearts and our cash, fixed up cameras and got them back into the marketplace.

What's going to be left when I'm gone? I can imagine in a million years time someone finding a fossilised negative in the rubble of human civilisation. It could be one of my negatives of a lone tree in Milarrochy. That will explain everything, how we got to where we are. Although I might have taken a Method Man shot, no one is gonna give a fuck about Method Man in a million years time, but that lone tree might say something about why we're fucked.

I wonder what they would think if they found a fossilised negative of Metalheadz in a million years.

The primates! The apes of dancing. Hands in the air, the universal symbol of joy.