Two episodes ago on A DJ's Journey, Lee from Plump DJs told me how he and Andy landed on their name.
Back then, everything in dance culture was "fat" or "phat." They wanted to nod to that, without claiming it for themselves. So the joke became: we're not fat, we're plump. And underneath that joke was the real engine: their obsession with what Fatboy Slim was doing.
That was nearly thirty years ago. It turned into the origin story. Lee tells it. Andy tells it. Their fans know it. Half the breakbeat world knows it.
But Norman Cook didn't.
I didn't realize that until I sat down with him for Episode 17.
We were near the end of the conversation. Norman had just finished telling me how Damien Harris went from almost getting fired at Loaded Records to helping invent Fatboy Slim instead. (Damien's on the show next week to tell his side of that story.)
There was one more thing Norman needed to hear.
I told him: Lee from Plump DJs named the group after you.
He paused. Then he admitted he'd never heard that before. Another weird notch on a very long bedpost.
For me, that moment is the whole show in one beat.
Two recordings. Two DJs. A connection that has been sitting there for almost three decades. And the person at the center of it had no idea until someone finally said it out loud.
That's what A DJ's Journey is for: the stories DJs tell each other across years and continents, never realizing they're telling different sides of the same story.
Episode 17 with Norman Cook is out today.
Episode 15 with Lee from Plump DJs is already in the feed.
Queue them both up. Hear the story from both ends.
— Deckard