As a British teenager in 1992, James Lavelle launched the Mo’Wax label with a £1000 loan from his boss at the West London record store, Honest Jon’s. Over the next decade, Mo’Wax created the blueprint for a pre-internet youth culture where England’s electronic and hip-hop movement collided with New York and Tokyo’s. Where music, art, fashion and film collaborations were curated by Lavelle outside the tyranny of genre; from DJ Shadow to Futura 2000, Alexander McQueen to Jonathan Glazer respectively. The rich heritage of the now defunct, seminal label has been compiled in a monograph published by Rizzoli, edited by Lavelle (who is currently leading this year’s Meltdown Festival in London) and designed by Mo’Wax art director Ben Drury. In an interview with writer Paul Bradshaw, Lavelle and DJ Shadow AKA Josh Davis discuss Psyence Fiction, the debut UNKLE album and epic collaboration with Thom Yorke, Richard Ashcroft, Mike D of the Beastie Boys and Ian Brown. 

James Lavelle: When we started working with Richard and Thom, Urban Hymns and OK Computer hadn’t come out yet, so they weren’t these uber stars that they became. Right in the moment that we’re trying to get them into a studio, lo and behold, the Verve sells whatever ridiculous amount of records it was, and OK Computer comes out to become what many think is the best British record ever made. So suddenly we went from these quite relaxed conversations about being in the studio with people to dealing with managers. And from beginning to end that was a two-year process. 

Josh Davis: To offer a bit of perspective: certainly we were not the first people to mix different worlds. But at that time in the mid-1990s, rock was one world, electronica was one world, hip-hop was one world—they did not really mix, frequently or easily.

JL: Psyence Fiction came out when I was 24. We were the only band that had a Channel 4 news special other than Oasis and the Spice Girls that year. There was a lot of expectation and there was a lot of chaos.

Urban Archaeology: Twenty-One Years of Mo’Wax by James Lavelle with contributions from DJ Shadow, Futura, Ben Drury and more is published by Rizzoli and Meltdown Festival curated by James Lavelle runs until June 22 at Southbank Centre, London.