Not only does Paul Oakenfold produce records, but he also mixes them. In 1987 he spent several months in Ibiza with a few friends and fell in love with dance club music. Oakenfold produced "Happy Mondays' Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches" before producing for U2, Massive Attack, Simply Red and New Order (to name a few).
In 1999 after building an American fanbase he released "Tranceport" which was widely accepted by American trance fans.
After "Tranceport" came "Perfecto Presents Another World" which was arguably his most successful album, as it introduced millions more to his style.
His popularity grew as many of his works were inclulded in movie soundtracks such as Swordfish, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Die Another Day (where he remixed the James Bond theme before later going to work on the videogame Goldeneye: Rogue Agent in 2004) and Collateral.
In 2002 he released Bunkka, which featured the hit single 'Starry-Eyed Surprise'. In the same year, Oakenfold was listed in Q's "50 Bands to see Before you Die" compilition.
2004 brought about the double album 'Creamfields', but it was in 2005 that he released the Perfecto Album entitled 'Perfecto Presents The Club'.
He also released the album Great Wall, recorded live at the Great Wall of China.
2006 saw the release of 'A Lively Mind' where he colloborated with, amongst others, Brittany Murphy (for the single Faster Kill Pussycat) and Pharrell Williams. 'A Lively Mind' is an edgier, more club-based album, as opposed to his calmer album Bunkka.
Paul Oakenfold's musical career started from admirably humble beginnings, playing soul and rare groove cuts in a Covent Garden wine bar in the late 'seventies with mate Trevor Fung. By the early 'eighties, having decided that NYC was the place, Paul decamped there armed only with the chutzpah to blag his way into a courier's job in West Harlem. At that time, more than any other, New York was bursting with musical invention: hip-hop was the freshest street sound around, and Larry Levan - arguably the first ever superstar DJ, inspiring a frenzy in the crowd that some guy playing records had never inspired before - was packing out the Paradise Garage every week with the revolutionary, hypnotic mixing style that would become the acid house DJ's stock in trade.
Returning to London, Paul became one of the UK's leading authorities on hip-hop. During his stint as an A&R man for Champion he signed the as-then unknowns Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and Salt N'Pepa. Oh yeah, and he appeared on Blue Peter with a breakdancing crew who he was looking after at the time.
In 1985 young Paul spent the summer on a beautiful Balearic island called Ibiza. Ever heard of it? Oakey is as much responsible as anyone for making it the clubber's paradise it is today, as two years after that first trip he, alongside mates Trevor Fung, Nicky Holloway, Ian St Paul, Danny Rampling and Johnny Walker, went there for a week to celebrate his birthday. If the first visit had been good, this one changed their lives forever. Dancing in the warm night air beneath stars at the then open-air Amnesia to the oddest mix of music any of them had ever heard, courtesy of island legend Alfredo, Paul's urge to import this incredible experience - and the Balearic sound - back to England became too great to resist.
Prior to his Ibiza trip, Paul had been running a successful soul/jazz night at The Project in Streatham. On his return from the white island he persuaded the owner to let him run an after-hours 'Ibiza reunion' party. An attempt at a Balearic music policy had failed Paul one year earlier: the crowd just hadn't been ready to hear so many musical styles mixed together in one night, let alone in one DJ's set, but by 1987, and coupled with Paul's sheer enthusiasm and showman's talent for setting a musical mood, attitudes were changing. The night was a complete success, and led to what was to be - alongside Danny Rampling's Shoom - one of London's, and England's, first major acid house nights: Spectrum at Heaven in Charing Cross.
Spectrum grew out of Future, a night held in The Sanctuary, which annexed the much bigger Heaven club. Many never thought Spectrum (suitably subtitled 'Theatre Of Madness') would succeed: a 1500+ capacity club on a Monday night? Forget about it. And at first they looked to be right. For the first few weeks, attendance was low, leaving Paul and co-promoter Ian St Paul in dire financial straits. Then, suddenly, the vibe was out and the queues were literally going around the block. And a new phase in club culture had begun.
Spectrum continued for a couple of years, changing its name along the way to Land Of Oz. New initiates to the scene (as almost everybody was) marvelled at the full-on atmosphere of the place: hands reaching up into the sweat hazed air, laser lights pulsing and washing over the smiling crowd. Alex Paterson (later of The Orb) DJed in the VIP chillout area (the White Room), while Paul created his now trademark fervour in the cavernous main room.
Alongside running a seminal club night, Paul's production career had also begun by 1988 under the name Electra, working with long-time collaborator Steve Osborne. By 1990, with his work on The Happy Mondays' frugadelic Wrote For Luck and then Hallelujah (on the Madchester Rave On EP), Paul had created two of the cornerstone records of the indie-dance scene, a hybrid that demystified acid house for kids who'd been raised on a musical diet of guitar, bass, and drums. Paul was one of the guest DJs at The Stone Roses' legendary Spike Island gig, and his work with Osborne on The Happy Mondays' classic Pills, Thrills And Bellyaches LP (NME's 1990 Album Of The Year) won the pair the 1991 Brit Award for Best Producer.
Remix galore followed, for Mondays labelmates New Order; Massive Attack; The Shamen, and Arrested Development among others, as Paul and Steve began trading under the name Perfecto. If the name was little known at first that soon changed with the 1992 Perfecto mix of U2's Even Better Than The Real Thing. The track, with delicious irony, attained a higher chart position on release than the original song, thus signalling a watershed in the history and growth of dance music.
1993 saw Paul hired to provide the warm-up sonics on U2's Zoo TV world tour, and as a result the de facto arrival of the superstar DJ. The past decade has seen Paul rack up a dizzying blur of firsts and foremosts, including, not least, his being voted the number one DJ in the world by the readers of DJ magazine, and has heard the name "Oakey!" yelled hoarsely from clubs, fields (including an epoch-making set on the main stage at Glastonbury Festival, no less) and arenas in every corner of the globe.
On the production front Paul began to release his own tracks as well as continuing to turn in remixes, while Perfecto expanded into a fully-fledged label. Its offshoot, Perfecto Fluoro, became the label of choice in the mid-'nineties for the harder, trippier Goa trance sound. Today Perfecto boasts artists as diverse as Arthur Baker, Harry 'Choo Choo' Romero, and Timo Maas on its roster, and has gone from strength to strength by refusing to pander to only one style of dance music. Alongside the building of the Perfecto brand, Paul released a string of superlative mix CD's, amongst them his awesome New York set for Global Underground - still the series' biggest seller to date. And who else would have been commissioned to write the theme for what was certain to be the biggest TV show of all time? How did you guess? Paul wrote and produced the Big Brother theme, as Element 4, with Andy Gray.
On the club front, well, time for a deep breath...Ready? OK, here we go: Paul undertook a legendary two-year residence at Liverpool's Cream that took residencies in general to another level, from the personally designed DJ booth to die-hard fans (dubbed 'the Oakenfolk' in the press) who would travel the length and breadth of the country week in, week out to hear him whip up a magical musical storm, that would still be ringing in the ears and exciting the mind in the office or the lecture hall on Monday morning. Ever keen to push himself further and harder, Paul decamped in 1999 to become Director of Music at home, the multi-million pound superclub built defiantly - and, as it turned out, problematically - in Leicester Square, the heart of London's West End. That club's immediate downturn in popularity after Paul's departure goes to show the extent of his impact and following. There are but a handful of DJ's in the world who attract the fervour and create the excitement that he is capable of provoking in a crowd. You only have to be there when he plays to feel the electric charge in the atmosphere, more akin to the devotional than the merely appreciative.
Leaving home was a difficult decision for Paul, but he risked his UK and European profile, not to mention turning down the certainty of serious amounts of cash, to decamp to America, one of the few places in the world - ironically, given that it all started there - where dance music is yet to be championed and grasped in the way in which it is elsewhere around the globe. But this was a move typical of the man: where others would sit on their laurels and bathe in their hard-won glory, he has always taken the tougher option, sustained by his belief that greater effort means greater rewards. It's this attitude that saw him leave a huge fanbase in Britain to start all over again in the U.S.; that has seen him play to crowds in the low hundreds in isolated Alaska; and that led him to take a pair of Technics with him when he went on holiday to Cuba, and organise a free, unpromoted and not strictly legal party, purely to spread the word of great, life-affirming music and good, good times. This man lives, breathes and eats his art.
So what now for a man at the pinnacle of his profession, the world's premiere DJ? Why, upward, ever upward of course. 2001 has seen Paul score the Joel Silver-produced and John Travolta-starring Swordfish, remix the theme to Tim Burton's Planet Of The Apes, DJ on Moby's Arena:One U.S. tour, and make a triumphal return to his home shores with a free gig that left tens of thousands sweat-soaked and grinning like Cheshire Cats on London's Clapham Common. We can only expect that the best is yet to come, so stay tuned and prepare to be amazed.
Got Em Up
Paul Oakenfold Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
This right here is payback from way back, I don't play that
This right here is payback from way back, I don't play that
This right here is payback from way back, I don't play that
Recognize a real dime when you see one
And don't try and be one, ya fuckin' peon
I been like Dion for eons
Messed around and let me re-up
I come back through and tear the street up
Ice Cube, nigga, you better D up
And when I come by bitch, you better be up
Ass up, face in the pillow
I don't give a fizzle
Got ta do my bizzle
The only nizzle that will never ever fizzle
Original, you niggas know
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up
I got ta get wit cha
Hit you with these things that I'm holdin'
Who wanna squab with the frozen
Now who wanna battle with the chosen?
You niggas lotion
I'm no emotion
I'm shrapnel from the explosion
Hit you in the face while you posin'
High as Jimi Hendrix
I lined up ten dicks
And took out appendix
So go get forensics
Let em know I'm Geronimo
Till it's my time to go
You better find your ho
Get your babies and your mama
And move to Guantonimo
Doubt my skills
I'm payin' my bills
I'm up in the hills
You niggas are kills
Even though I'm on a fucked up label
You bitches know what I can bring to the table
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up
This right here is payback from way back, I don't play that
This right here is payback from way back, I don't play that
This right here is payback from way back, I don't play that
This right here is payback from way back, I don't play that
I like bitches like you
Five Two, wearin' light blue
The freak get high too
With a fly do
Not a Erykah Badu
That's lookin' for an "I Do."
Now what can I buy you
Just to try you
Need another bitch to lie to
Need another bitch in my coupe
Oh please can I trouble you
For a double scoop
A nigga needs some T 'n A
Now you can dick but you can't get no DNA
I heard you was a big freak
(Can I hang?) Bitch look down I got some big feet
I like Mike and Ikes
I like watchin' dikes
I like goin' to fights
I like earnin' my stripes
In the book of life
There's only two women
Big ol' good ones and good ol big ones
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
You better get 'em up
The lyrics to Paul Oakenfold's song Get Em Up are a boastful declaration of payback and superiority over his rivals. He warns them to recognize his status as a "real dime" and not try to compete with him. He compares himself to the Greek god Dionysus, suggesting his immortality and dominant position, while belittling his opponents as "biaatch" and "peon." Oakenfold then challenges them to confront him, daring them to squabble and tussle as he boasts of his combat-ready stance. He describes himself as being high as Jimi Hendrix, a possible reference to being under the influence of psychedelics, and implies the readiness to use violence by threatening to deplete and take out people's appendices. Overall, the song's lyrics are macho, aggressive, and full of bravado, showcasing Oakenfold's self-confidence and dominance.
Line by Line Meaning
This right here is payback from way back, I don't play that
The singer is seeking retribution from old grievances and will not tolerate any games.
Recognize a real dime when you see one
Don't mistake a valuable woman for anything less than what she's worth.
And don't try and be one, ya fuckin' peon
Don't attempt to imitate greatness, you lowly person.
I been like Dion for eons
The artist has been like a legendary performer for a very long time.
You ain't nothin but a biatch
You are nothing but a coward.
Messed around and let me re-up
You made a mistake and let the singer reload.
I come back through and tear the street up
The singer will return and cause destruction.
Ice Cube, nigga, you better D up
Be ready to defend yourself against the artist, Ice Cube.
And when I come by bitch, you better be up
Prepare yourself for the artist's arrival.
Ass up, face in the pillow
Get ready for the artist to dominate and take control.
I don't give a fizzle
The singer does not care about anything else.
Got ta do my bizzle
The artist has to handle their business.
The only nizzle that will never ever fizzle
The singer is the only one who will always be successful.
Original, you niggas know
The singer is authentic and you all recognize it.
I got ta get wit cha
The singer must get with you.
Hit you with these things that I'm holdin'
The artist will attack you with their weapons.
Who wanna squab with the frozen
Who wants to fight with the artist?
Now who wanna battle with the chosen?
Who wants to challenge the singer who was born to do this?
You niggas lotion
You are soft and weak.
I'm no emotion
The artist has no emotions and is unfeeling.
I'm shrapnel from the explosion
The artist is dangerous and destructive.
Hit you in the face while you posin'
The artist will catch you off guard while you are posing.
High as Jimi Hendrix
The singer is very intoxicated.
I lined up ten dicks
The artist has many weapons, specifically knives.
And took out appendix
The singer is very skilled at using their weapons.
So go get forensics
The singer is daring their opponent to try and track them down.
Let em know I'm Geronimo
The singer is invoking the name of a famous Native American warrior, signaling their fierceness.
Till it's my time to go
The artist will never give up.
You better find your ho
You better find your woman.
Get your babies and your mama
Get your children and mother.
And move to Guantonimo
Move to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and hide.
Doubt my skills
Do not doubt the artist's abilities.
I'm payin' my bills
The artist is paying their debts and succeeding in life.
I'm up in the hills
The artist has achieved success and lives in luxury.
You niggas are kills
The singer's opponents are no match for them and will be defeated.
Even though I'm on a fucked up label
Despite the artist being on a bad record label,
You bitches know what I can bring to the table
You all know what the singer is capable of.
I like bitches like you
The singer likes women like you.
Five Two, wearin' light blue
The singer likes petite women wearing light blue clothing.
The freak get high too
The artist also likes women who enjoy being high.
With a fly do
The artist likes women who have a stylish hairdo.
Not an Erykah Badu
The singer doesn't want a woman like neo soul musician Erykah Badu - who is spiritual and not materialistic.
That's lookin' for an "I Do."
The singer doesn't want a woman who is looking for a long-term commitment.
Now what can I buy you
What material item can the artist give you?
Just to try you
The artist is testing you.
Need another bitch to lie to
The artist needs another woman to deceive.
Need another bitch in my coupe
The singer needs another woman to ride in their car.
Oh please can I trouble you
Can the artist bother you for something?
For a double scoop
Can the singer pay for a double serving of ice cream?
A nigga needs some T 'n A
The singer desires some T & A (referring to the slang term for female buttocks and breasts).
Now you can dick but you can't get no DNA
You can have sex with the singer, but you can't produce offspring with them.
I heard you was a big freak
The artist has heard that you are quite sexually adventurous.
(Can I hang?) Bitch look down I got some big feet
The artist is asking if they can hangout, but then makes a crude joke about their large penis size.
I like Mike and Ikes
The singer enjoys eating candy called Mike and Ikes.
I like watchin' dikes
The singer enjoys watching lesbian pornographic videos.
I like goin' to fights
The artist enjoys attending violent events.
I like earnin' my stripes
The artist enjoys working hard and proving their worth.
In the book of life
In the grand scheme of things,
There's only two women
There are two types of women.
Big ol' good ones and good ol big ones
They are either big and good-looking, or just plain big.
Gotta get 'em up (who wants some)
The singer is calling out to anyone who wants to fight.
You better get 'em up (come get some)
Prepare yourself to fight the singer.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: ERIK DE KONING, ANDREW GRAY, O'SHEA JACKSON, PAUL MARK OAKENFOLD, STEVEN JOHN OSBORNE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Juan Carlos Dunick
on Galactic Mantra (Liquid Soul Remix)
Many small errors in these lyrics. A few big ones.