People Just Do Nothing, BBC Three's mockumentary about the lives of hapless 30-year-old UK garage DJs running a pirate radio station – Kurupt FM – in Brentford, was an incredible spiritual successor to The Office.
The final series saw MC Grindah (Allan Mustafa), DJ Beats (Hugo Chegwin), Steves (Steve Stamp), and their equally awful manager Chabuddy G (Asim Chaudhry) part ways as they closed the radio station for good.
But bizarrely in real life, the group have gone from strength to strength, with smash-hit tours as a hybrid DJ/comedy act at festivals, as well as an award-winning podcast, multiple albums, and now their very own movie – People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan.
Reality is even stranger than fiction it seems, as the group have ironically garnered the kind of massive success and critical acclaim that was constantly out of Kurupt FM's reach in the show's storyline. Digital Spy spoke to MC Grindah and DJ Steves – who stayed in character the whole time, of course – about keeping it Kurupt.
The big thing on the horizon is obviously the film, People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan. How was it out there?
MC Grindah: JAPAN! I sometimes like to shout that, because I did that out there. And Japanese people loved it. We'd go around for hours, going, "JAPAN!"
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DJ Steves: And shouting, "KURUPT FM!" out the window, to see if people knew who we were. And people knew. You'd shout it in the street, and people would literally turn around and look at us.
MC Grindah: Yeah. Literally. That's how many people know who we are.
DJ Steves: Basically, out there, we were on TV, on a gameshow.
MC Grindah: Singing our song.
What do you reckon the coolest thing was that you saw in Japan?
MC Grindah: The robot café. So they've got this café, yeah, where it's all robots inside. Do you know what I mean? We didn't actually go inside, but outside they've got a big robot chair that you can take photos on. And that was pretty sick, wasn't it?
DJ Steves: We just went for the souvenir chair photo. But I said, point blank, I'm not going to go into a place where I don't know where the exits are, and there's just robots. To me, that's suicide.
MC Grindah: We did tell him it's just sort of actors in robot costumes, but he weren't having it.
DJ Steves: Yeah, but that's what they want you to think. They're very clever out there. They're the most advanced robots there are, because it's Japan, innit?
MC Grindah: Exactly. And that's another beauty of Japan. They are such advanced people that they understand garage and my lyrics. Because here, everyone's like, "Oh, garage, it's old. Those lyrics don't mean anything. You're not saying any words."
I don't need to say any words. It's about the rhythm. And that proves it when Japan is literally a country that doesn't even speak our language, and they've gone, "You know what? We love your song so much, we're going to whack it on a game show. Fly out. Come check our country out. See how you feel."
DJ Steves: It's gone full circle.
MC Grindah: Yeah, it's gone full circle.
DJ Steves: And guess what the Japanese flag is? A circle.
MC Grindah: A circle. A red circle.
Everybody loved People Just Do Nothing on the BBC. Obviously, you've gone on to this film now. Will we see any more of that docuseries?
MC Grindah: Do you know what, yeah? I loved my time on People Just Do Nothing and all that, when they filmed us for the BBC. But it was a big miscommunication because when they first approached us, I always thought it was going to be a live feed of me MC-ing for ages at pirate radio. Not when I'd get things wrong, or about my family. Do you know what I mean?
I wanted to be able to edit it all. They wouldn't let me. It was hard to say no, because they were throwing literally hundreds of quid at us, for like a month's work. It was hard to say no at the time.
I just feel like, you know, it's the last time I'm putting on my tap shoes and doing that dance. But with the film, it's like another step up. Do you know what I mean?
DJ Steves: What we sort of thought was, if the screen gets better–
MC Grindah: Then more eyes can see it. If the screen gets bigger, then more eyes can see it.
So you're all about films now? Do you reckon you'll do a trilogy or something like that?
MC Grindah: We are in talks about a five-part trilogy. I mean, when I say "in talks", it's more like me, Beats and Steves blazing a zoot, and saying, "Wouldn't it be mad to do that one day?"
DJ Steves: Beats actually found the contact details for Jason Statham's agent out in LA or wherever. He's been sort of saying to him, "I'm the next Jason Statham." So, we'll see what comes from that. And Chabsy's obviously our agent, and he's sort of in talks with some people – again, they're not necessarily talking back at the moment, but we will be in talks, he says.
MC Grindah: It's good to have all these people alongside. To have Jason Statham just there, waiting. Because there are sort of talks, again, between us, about eventually doing the Grindah life story. And there's a lot of stuff these boys have missed, before the age of 16 and that.
DJ Steves: All of this is really building up to a sort of long-term plan, which is the Grindah five-part trilogy of his life story.
MC Grindah: One of them is just an hour-long stand-up special.
DJ Steves: For Grindah, it's just another chapter in his book, of his life story, that he's literally writing into a script.
MC Grindah: When before the age of 16 you lived in Florida and headed up the Bloods and the Crips, what do the Brit Awards really mean?
If there was a Grindah biopic, would you want Statham to play you? Or would you want someone else to play you?
MC Grindah: He can play Beats. I think I'd get Idris [Elba].
DJ Steves: Who was my one that we got?
MC Grindah: Mackenzie Crook, yeah. And then Mackenzie Crook said no. But we're actually thinking about approaching, you know, the one out of Trainspotting – Spud. No offence, Steves. You don't take any offence to that?
DJ Steves: No, we both have a sort of jacket potato-shaped face.
MC Grindah: And it looks like you're on heroin, even though I know you're not – you draw the line at crack on New Year's.
You’ve got two podcast series in the bag as well, right?
MC Grindah: It's two in the bag, yeah. Two in the can, as we call it in the podcast world. It's two in the can. It's pretty easy.
DJ Steves: "Cans" means headphones.
MC Grindah: Headphones, yeah. So, in a way, it's two in the headphones, really, because most people listen to podcasts on headphones. That's where they listen to it. And it's where salmon comes from, if you know what I mean.
DJ Steves: Headphones look... if you shrink them down, they look like a can. Like a tiny can that goes in your ear.
MC Grindah: And also, if you remember, in the olden days, to communicate with another village or whatever, you would put a piece of long string into a metal can, and that would be the original headphone.
I feel like I'm learning so much.
MC Grindah: Those are the sorts of things we talk about on the podcast.
DJ Steves: Yeah. It's history and sort of technology and all that.
Do you reckon we could get another podcast series?
MC Grindah: Yeah. We're in talks, so you never know. We haven't actually spoken to anyone about it, but we're in talks.
DJ Steves: Yeah. We're in talks. If they reply, then we'll be in talks. At the moment, it's one-way talking.
Finally, what's next for Kurupt? You've got an album and movie on the way. What else do you want to do?
MC Grindah: We've got Amsterdam. A little festival weekender thing in Amsterdam happening in October. And then we'll be doing the tour. You know what I'm saying? World tour.
DJ Steves: The thing is, the world's sort of slowly dying because of capitalism and greed, so we're just making the most of the last 15 to 20 years that there is left of Earth, really. That's the plan.
People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan is out in UK cinemas on August 18.
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Laurence Mozafari (he/him) is a multi-award winning journalist, editor, and presenter. A former Editor-in-Chief of Digital Spy, Laurence previously held roles as the site's Editor, Deputy Editor, and Associate Editor focusing on news, social, and video. Laurence hosted the BBC Sounds podcast Obsessed with Peaky Blinders in 2019. He also hosts his own podcast production, Time of My Life, where he interviews fascinating elders about their life lessons, including Only Fools and Horses' Sir David Jason, Star Trek’s George Takei and Bridgerton’s Adjoa Andoh.
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