A hip-hop and funk DJ of ten years experience, Natural Self broke into production in 2001 with the furious sample-based batacuda workout The Soul Step. He followed with a string of singles and remixes developing that record's blueprint of raw, densely layered percussion, powerful horn lines, and heavy funk drums. Along the way he's picked up DJ support from the likes of Mr Scruff, John Peel, Giles Peterson, Jon Stapleton, Quantic, and Ninja Tune's Strictly Kev.

On Let Peace be the Ruler he's stayed true to his production ethic while using the freedom offered by an album to chart new ground. There's more than your fair share of dancefloor destroyers on this record, but it is also, at times, slow-burning, challenging, cerebral, and melancholy. The album has also profited from collaborations with a number of live musicians, notably saxophonist John Styles of the Quantic Soul Orchestra, and soul vocalist Alice Russell.

The Natural Self sound is rooted in hip-hop, funk, jazz, Brazilian and African music, but can't be seen a crude cut-and-paste amalgamation of those styles. He says: "I don't want people to be able to listen to a track and think 'that's two parts hip-hop and one part jazz'." If there is a constant that runs through his music, apart from soul power, it's his inventive use of percussion. As he puts it: "In a lot of the tracks the emphasis is on the arrangement of drums and percussion. I'm trying to find out how expressive percussion can be."