This is a brief history of what has happened with SIKA studios leading up till March 2011 when this was written... (please let us know if we have forgotten anything important)
- SIKA studios started at the beginning of 2008 after the founder had previously been investigated, caught and was awaiting punishment for various graffiti related offences. The idea and the SIKA brand name was created after a very heavy new years eve/day/week's celebrations affecting his outlook on life considerably during this period, a combination of this and the run in with the law made it become super apparent that there were too many talented individuals in the underground scene and further a field in similar positions that have real passion and skills but society was not allowing or supporting them in using their skills in a productive/constructive nature so we decided to try and do something about it and create a platform for talented heads to eventually get somewhere by doing what they love. One of the most immediately obvious places we could see this happening was with nearly all aspects of UK Hip Hop and also any underground arts...We quickly realised that this would need some sort of funding to really make things happen on a recognisable scale so the SIKA clothing line was created as a means to fund the whole SIKA movement and allow us to start things popping off properly. Back then the we were printing in less than adequate/legal conditions even getting evicted and banned from one house for turning the place into a factory...
^^This is the first ever SIKA screen printing set up. Located in a 3x2 metre shed, we have come a long way since then ^^
- 2008 was a very busy year behind the scenes, linking with artists and promoting the movement. We reached a lot of free parties/teknivals/festivals/events across the UK and abroad always promoting what we do along the way. We did our first festival work under the SIKA name, consisting of graffiti/juggling shows and workshops for a few smaller festivals across the UK such as AEON with just one very small music set up at a VW festival in Wales called DUBS AT THE CASTLE
^^Here is a video from our area at AEON festival back in 2008^^
- 2009 we definitely saw our fare share of yin and yang...We went in at the deep end (with full wave machine popping off n shit) in our organisation of events career, this was due to the AEON festival crew giving us us a big opportunity to host an area of their festival which snowballed into us hosting the biggest UK hip hop line up at a festival... We would like to thank Niki, AEON festival and all heads that made it possible and who reached the event, especially the artists who performed for free or for minor petrol costs. Without everyone being so safe and on it back in 2009 we would not be where we are now so supermegganufflove to each and every head involved in every way, including the Top Billin' famalam who we collaborated with on various club nights later that year including our SIKA mix tape launch party. We also did graffiti shows/juggling workshops etc at other festivals and events across the UK, all in all making it a live o summer! Below is some media from the AEON event...
^^AEON festival flyer (our flyer design skills have got a lot better over the years)^^
^^Video of our area at AEON festival by EXM^^
^^Part one of the backstage cypher by Top Billin'^^
(a must see for UK Hip Hop heads)
^^Part two of a backstage cypher by Top Billin'^^
(a must see for UK Hip Hop heads)
- A decision was made to increase productiveness and get heads together all under one roof, which is a very good idea and worked well for a while. But... the roof was a squatted abandoned house that was made homely, this is not a bad idea in itself apart from the fact it was in Plymouth where it turns out the babylon are rather militant, not very open minded to squatting and were definitely not feeling us at all... They made this clear when large number of them raided the house in full riot gear which was a shock to say the least especially due to their less than perfect timing for many reasons. Anyway to cut a long story short we lost all our stuff including a large amount of printed SIKA garments and all the equipment used to print them, nearly all event equipment and décor, a hard drive with all website building equipment and SIKA photos and data on it including a lot of exclusive footage that was destined for SIKA TV(coming soon). All in all it left us pretty fucked and to be honest the idea of packing the whole SIKA thing in was thought about... But that was stupid and obvious that it was not a look to do so at all as the need for heads like us in UK Hip Hop and underground scene became apparent through feedback from our first event. Also the fact that we had made SIKA something out of nothing once, it is going to be easy to make something out of very little twice! Amazingly enough there are no pictures to show from these times...
- In 2010 we started building again, this time in the Midlands well away from prang land Plymouth. We started using vinyl to print t-shirts and created the new range of SIKA clothing (soon to be for sale on www.sikastudios.co.uk). This includes the ibun Ts shown in the images below...
^^Howard Marks holding up his ibun cheese T (he was too lean to put it on for us but was feeling the design still)^^
^^Rodney P repping the ibun cheese T on stage at Secret Garden Party in 2010^^
- We continued to put on successful club nights and free parties across the UK always holding down the underground style of music with UK Hip Hop names as standard at every event in part put and held together by the DJ skills of FLASH HARRY (click his name to hear/download his mixes). We started doing (and continue to do) a bi weekly radio show every other Sunday from 8pm till late on URBAN KINGS FM, worth checking out. The SIKA Mobile Gurilla Disco was also born, we rolled up and performed out of the van in nuff locations across the uk! Then came the summer, SIKA festival season was in full affect... We provided a SIKA stage and area including a UK Hip Hop based line up at NASS, Run To The Sun, BOARDMASTERS and AEON festivals. Every festival went down in true SIKA style, smacking the shows properly with nuff sound going out across the festivals getting UK hip hop / other underground music heard properly and getting a load of dedicated SIKA heads following us around from one festival to the next... nuff love to each of them, you know who you are. We also did a load of graffiti shows etc and our first ever carnival float at various events across the summer. Megga biggups goes out to the Rig Smith as due to his hard labour and dedication in designing and building our custom built SRS soundsystem we stepped up our isssh even more, making it the best summer so far! Here are a few pictures and videos from that summer...
^^Video advert for our stage at AEON festival (the footage was taken from our tent at NASS festival that same year) video by Jamie Harris^^
^^This is a big video of DONT FLOP doing a live battle at our stage at NASS festival with FLASH HARRY and MR TEA on the decks (we had more heads at our stage in the day listening to UK hip hop than the main stage). ^^
^^FLASH HARRY and J MAN standardly killing it, this time at Boardmasters festival complimented by some trippy bubbles. Supa safe ones goes out to ZINZI for taking this and virtually any of the high quality pictures you ever see us putting out (click here to check her out)^^
^^MILESTONE145 and BENJAMin ONE performing on the SIKA Mobile Guerilla Disco at St Andrews park, Bristol^^
^^Jekyll on the Sika Mobile Gorilla Disco at stone henge summer solstice^^
- This winter has been very productive for us behind the scenes, with even more designs being created ready for the new website release. We have also been running SIKA stalls selling our shit at club nights across the uk, nuff love to all of those nights and events... too many to remember or list. We will be posting about future ones in due course on here... We have also been confirming various festival areas, and can now announce that we will be attending NASS festival and the line up will be our second biggest ever, the first being the biggest UK hip hop line up at a festival... make sure you add us up on our group and like our page on fassbook to be kept up to date... also we will be updating this blog with info about next SIKA isssh/events/music releases and nuff next stuff... (biggups if ya actually read all this article all the way through) website will be coming sooon!
