Gilles Peterson interview: No sign of slowing down for the hardworking DJ and record label owner

Peterson has his Brownswood label to look after, a new radio station to run, business relationships to foster and a dream of opening his own club

Peterson’s new radio station, WorldwideFM, is a place where he is able to curate his favourite DJs (Rex)

Gilles Peterson has been a club DJ for three decades but he's still hard at work. He may be starting new residencies at XOYO and Phonox but he still has his BBC 6Music radio show, his Brownswood label to look after, the release of his new Brazilian record Tam Tam Tam Reimagined, a new business relationship with WeTransfer to foster, and now, a new radio station to run.

First things first, Peterson has been made the creative director of file sharing site WeTransfer. At first glance, it seems like an unusual partnership, but when speaking to The Independent he calls it a “match made in heaven” because the brand is open to ideas when it comes to creative projects. The first one he is working on involves making a series of short films about business owners in Cuba, from graphic designers to dancers and producers, and how they've been building their presence despite the poor internet access afforded in the country.

It throws the spotlight once more onto the role of online businesses and brands within the music industry, and how much value they can bring to artists, considering the problems the likes of Spotify and Tidal have had in the past, but Peterson believes if a partnership works for your own personal brand – and your fans – everything should be OK. “The kiss of death is to work with a brand that doesn't get you,” he said at a talk hosted by content agency Somethin' Else at the Cannes Lions advertising festival last month, because “your audience will suss you out”. But he hopes his relationship with WeTransfer will be a long term one, working in a similar way to his relationship with Havana Club. He and the Cuban brand have worked together for a number of years, which has led to recordings, music releases and a film about rumba music and Cuban culture, called La Clave.

One of the artists who features in the film, Daymé Arocena, is on Peterson's Brownswood label, and is working on a new album that he's also producing. “Record label-wise, against the grain, we're very active,” he says. “Don't know how to make money out of it yet, but we're just making the records.” Despite this issue, Peterson says the label is getting more clued up on how to market and promote music so that it's beneficial to everybody. “We don't do deals at the label where we own artists gigs and all that sort of stuff, but we're making it work.” As for the involvement of brands, streaming sites and being featured in adverts, Brownswood is “getting better at that so we can be self-sufficient as a record label, which is always the idea,” he says.

“We've got loads of jazz on the label at the moment,” Peterson offers, after I spend an embarrassing amount of time raving about the recent Miles Davis film by Don Cheadle, Miles Ahead, and the trumpeter himself. He explains that he's just signed London-based saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings and there's the new Zara McFarlane album being produced by the MOBO award-winning jazz drummer Moses Boyd.

It's artists like Boyd, Hutchings and saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch who are giving jazz a new lease of life in the UK, Peterson says. “What I think is amazing about this generation is they've studied the masters, someone like Moses knows his jazz history, he's done his work and his training, but he's also having to master electronic music and grime and all the music he grew up with.” As for reaching even younger audiences, Kendrick Lamar's highly-acclaimed To Pimp a Butterfly featuring the likes of jazz artists Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper is playing its own role in opening people's ears to the genre. “My kids are suddenly going, ‘We like jazz because we heard it on Kendrick Lamar’,” he says, “these are key things”.

But despite the brand work, his own new releases and the news from his label, Peterson's biggest upcoming project is his own radio station, WorldwideFM.

It's a far cry from his very first radio station. Inspired by pirate station Radio Invicta, which played “Soul over London,” and the underground world music station Radio Nova based in Paris, a teenage Peterson and his next door neighbour recorded their own shows in his garden shed. They were then driven by Peterson's dad to a good spot where they could set up their gear and transmit it to the masses: “We'd go to Epsom Downs and connect the cassette player to a transmitter to a car battery to an aerial on a tree,” he explained. Then all they had to do was press play.

That said, the pirate and overseas stations that Peterson started tuning into at the age of 11 are still an inspiration today. “In a way, WorldwideFM is a combination of Radio Invicta, Radio Nova, John Peel's attitude and my mixtapes,” he says.

Most importantly however, the 24-hour station is a place where Peterson is able to curate his favourite DJs and artists from around the world, hosted from different locations in Europe and the US throughout the day. The first five-week test run of the station saw the likes of Saul Williams, Ghostpoet and Louie Vega hosting or featuring on shows, while sessions from the Worldwide Festival – now in its 11th year – played out across the digital airwaves for those that weren't in Séte.

So is there any sign of slowing down? In a word, no. He’s still got a residency at Paris’ La Bellevilloise to keep up, new places to travel to and fresh ideas to iron out. “New Orleans – I’ve never been but I’m fascinated by everything from the 79ers Gang and the whole Creole French connection to the jazz connection and the brass bands there.” He’s also trying to do something around Gamelan music in Bali, and has a couple of book ideas up his sleeve. But there’s one more thing: “I’d love to open my own club, that’s one of my dreams, a cross between Café Oto and Plastic People,” he adds. “As long as I don’t have to DJ every night and can hang out.” Look out for it – at the rate he's going, we'll all be able to party there in a few years.