If the mad line outside Manhattan’s Centro-Fly club is any indication, the sound of U.K. garage has arrived Stateside—at least as an object of serious curiosity. DJs, journos, promoters—they’re all queuing, further clogging the velvet-rope mall of clubs that 21st Street has become, waiting to hear Mark Hill of Artful Dodger spin the weekly GBH party.

As Artful Dodger, Hill and fellow Southampton, England, native Pete Devereux have become recognized as leaders in the U.K. garage (or 2-step) genre, a mutant strain of club sounds that can be described as jungle-meets-R&B. The group’s signature track “Re-Rewind,” featuring the scat singing of fellow 2-stepper Craig David, became an international hit and Artful Dodger’s debut It’s All About The Stragglers is pushing a million units sold worldwide.

Back inside the club, Hill works the crowd with a slew of choice cuts from the album (now available Stateside on London/Sire), with “Re-Rewind” and “What You Gonna Do”—another Craig David-fronted tune—earning the best dancefloor results. The vibe is sweet. The crowd is drinking, dancing and singing. After stepping from the DJ booth, Hill stands aglow at the reaction. So will 2-step make further inroads on U.S. club culture and eventually cross over? DJ Times caught up with Artful Dodger’s Hill and Devereux to get their thoughts.

DJ Times: The sound you’re producing was originally known as speed garage. How did Artful Dodger evolve from that time?

Devereux: [It was] a London sound, something that was being supported by lots of clubs and pirate radio stations in London. It was good, us not being from London. Being in Southampton, an hour from London, we’d get records, mix tapes. We’d get our own thing. We weren’t caught up in the whole garage scene. We were kind of looking in from the outside.

Hill: Speed garage was so hit-and-fail, that it went back underground. The radio stations, the magazines weren’t paying attention. It’s exciting getting your white labels played on a pirate radio stations so people were really into creating the new music. It’s the whole forbidden fruit thing. Everyone likes to say that they first heard it on Lush FM. It just created this organic beginning for the whole thing.

DJ Times: How did you find yourself pursuing this sound?

Devereux: We were doing real house music, stuff that people in the old Paradise Garage would have been into, inspired by the American people like Masters At Work and Erick Morillo. We went with the U.K. garage sound because it was new and fresh. We’re great lovers of music and we’re always looking to do something different.

Hill: A lot of people stumbled upon [U.K. garage]. The kind of people that were making it weren’t house producers; they weren’t house fans. I got into [it] because I was a drummer. I was really bored producing house beats. It didn’t do anything for me.

DJ Times: How did “Re-Rewind” come about?

Hill: Since Craig [David] was even less of a house fan than I was, When we started writing, it was very difficult for him to get into a house track writing a melody because he wasn’t really feeling an instrumental house track to begin with. I had to produce a remix which was much more funky, much more bass-driven for him to get used to. When he finished the vocals on that track, I just lifted them off. That’s when we first knew we’d stumbled upon something with public demand.

DJ Times: When you spin, what gear do you prefer and how do you approach your sets?

Hill: [DJing UK garage], that’s what I enjoy and I do better than anything else because I understand the music. If I played a house set, I wouldn’t be that into it. I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much. [I prefer mixers with] the most amount of stuff, all dials.

Devereux: I prefer little mixers with two channels, a bass, a midrange and a treble control—something by Numark or Vestax, nice and simple so you’re not looking at buttons and 50 flashing lights, nothing too complicated. I mix it up, try and entertain people. It’s not about playing the 20 newest, best records. We play anything. Anything we think people are going to know or might be interested in getting into. There’s no point trying to get clever and play underground dance music. We’ve got such wide appeal and your role is that of an entertainer. We play at parties with happy tunes for happy people.

– Lily Moayeri