London rapper Rodney Smith, better known as MOBO award-winning grime pioneer Roots Manuva, sounds so laid back, he's virtually horizontal.

"Call me what you want!" he cheerily responds when I ask which name he prefers, before adding: "Don't call me plonker!"

Thanks to Only Fools and Horses, the young Rodney clearly attracted that epithet often. But no one's calling him a plonker now since his groundbreaking debut album, Brand New Second Hand, won the 1999 MOBO Award for Best Hip Hop Act and his second, Run Come Save Me, was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Music Prize.

Today, he's at the offices of Big Dada, the record label that took a chance on him when no one else would, doing interviews on his UK tour to promote his latest offering, the rootsy Slime and Reason.

Slime And Reason delves back into his deepest roots, drawing inspiration from the legendary Studio One sound, the Kingston record label that produced everyone from Bob Marley and the Wailers to Toots and the Maytals.

He muses: "I don't know if I'm misleading people by saying the Studio One sound because it's not a direct replication, just that whole vibe, making this Jamaican thing, the reggae, just the mad wobble.

"I recently worked with Lee Scratch Perry and Fun Loving Criminals which is two totally different styles of artist but it works.

"He was such the consummate professional, man. He switches on with an immaculate ease. He just bounces into the character that everybody knows and then bounces back into being your wise granddad. He's a massive influence.

"And it's just the whole stories that you read about him. He gave music to session bands and the bands are telling him it's not possible to make music like that and he just forced them to try it."

As a child, reggae music was frowned upon by his strictly Pentecostal parents. He says: "Dad would hear me playing bits of reggae sound tapes and make snide remarks, like, 'Ooh, you know you're not really supposed to listen to that stuff on Sunday'."

His strict upbringing on a tough Stockwell council estate imbued his lyrics with titles like Sinny Sin Sins and Colossal Insight. Even the name Brand New Second Hand is a phrase used by his mother to describe the "pre-owned" toys he often got for Christmas.

And his earliest musical memories are in church. He recalls: "I think it would be sitting on the lap of the organ player and trying to play organ and getting my hand slapped by the organ player. No, don't play that!

"My dad said he would buy me a drum kit as long as I played in church. I was like, 'What? I don't want to go to church. That's like a trap to make me go to church every Sunday!' 'I bought de drum kit, get out!' So that was the end of my drumming career."

They weren't thrilled to have a musician in the family. He grins: "It wasn't encouraged but my mum's always been quite easy. My dad's a bit like, oooh.

"I think they are much more accepting that I do have a career. It's hard for them not to accept when the last show my dad came to was like 5,000 people at Brixton Academy.

"I think eight years ago when my dad saw my first platinum award - because he looks at the figures - he's like, 'Oh, 300,000? This is good, son!' And it wasn't even for my record, it was for a Leftfield record! Dad's still throwing down the gauntlet. He said to me a few years ago, '100,000 isn't enough, you need to sell a million!'"

Becoming a parent himself changed him. He says: "There's no room for me to be a kid anymore!'

"They constantly amaze me and surprise me and have pure insights that I wonder where they come from. They seem to be in touch with something."
He runs his own record label, Banana Clan, and says: "I do well enough from the Roots Manuva thing to be in a position to fund a bit more creative risk taking."

Although he's never played Preston, he's oddly familiar with the place. He says: "I've got cousins up there, I used to come there when I was younger. I was about seven or nine. My memories of it is being cold!

"And the last time I was in Preston was on the way to Chorley when I was working with a hip hop group called Crispy, they live in Chorley. I think it was 1997. I get around!"

* Roots Manuva plays 53 Degrees next Wednesday, October 15. Tickets from Student Union on 01772 893000

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