James Hyman

James Hyman (born 18 April 1970) is a DJ, Radio & TV presenter, Music Supervisor, MD of JLH (creative media–marketing company) and founder of The Hyman Archive.

Hyman put aside his place at University of Manchester (he was set to study Latin) to work at MTV Europe in the Press office, despite his parents' misgivings (partly because of his father's glimpse of the music industry through his cousin Brian Epstein).^[1]

Whilst at MTV Europe, Hyman studied "Film & Media" at London Guildhall University, graduating in 1992 with 1st class Honours.

Hyman Archive

For over 25 years, Hyman has been collecting magazines, pamphlets, newsletters, brochures, ephemera and other printed material. The theme of Hyman's collecting is 'popular culture in print'. Originally, he began collecting to assist his research at MTV Europe, where he was a script writer and programme producer. This was in a period where, according to Hyman, "magazines were the internet".

The Hyman Archive contains over 4,500 individual title publications and over 120,000 individual issues as of April 2017, although the collection is still growing at approximately 30% per annum. The collection spans the period 1850 to present day. More than 55% of the title publications are not to be found in the British Library. Independent Publishers represent 75% of the title publications in The Hyman Archive. Condé Nast and Bauer Media are the two largest contributors to the Archive, representing 3% each of the total title publications. The United Kingdom represents approximately 55% of the title publications by territory, followed by the United States at 34%. The Hyman Archive, although curated and focused on popular culture, includes a broad-array of subject matter, including Film, TV, Music, Music video, Art, Fashion, Architecture, Interior design, Trends, Youth, Lifestyle, Women's, Men's, Technology, Sports, Photography, Counter-culture, Graphics, Animation, and Comics.

On 1 August 2012, Guinness World Records verified that, "The largest collection of magazines consists of 50,953 magazines and belongs to James Hyman (UK), in London, UK".^[2] At that time, the collection featured 2,312 unique publications amongst the 50,953 magazines. The process of counting the magazines took approximately 128 days as James and Tory Turk worked their way through 450 crates filled with magazines.

In September 2014, with an investor, Hyman formed The Hyman Archive Ltd. in order to obtain an ECL (a form of collective rights management) with copyright holders contained within the collection, and then to digitise and meta-tag the collection, making it available in a commercial offering. Hyman hopes to have secured an ECL by Spring 2016. The company will then begin the process of digitising the collection's approximate 10 million pages.^[3]

The archive’s activity has included: a unique New Musical Express (NME) loan to the BBC for its Britannia series (Pop Charts Britannia: 60 Years of the Top 10); supplying Amazon's pop-up trainer exhibition; the Victoria and Albert Museum’s 'David Bowie Is'; Northampton Museum and Art Gallery Mods exhibition, "Fashion Galore!" and "The Jam: About The Young Idea", both at Somerset House.

July 2015, David Hepworth's 'Off The Page' column for InPublishing opened with, "We should all support James Hyman’s amazing project to rescue the most ephemeral magazines from oblivion"^[4]

TV

Worked at MTV Europe (1988 to 2000), as a Press Officer then Programmer / Producer / Director, focusing on Acid House and other Dance/Club/Rave cultures & scenes. His MTV shows, including Party Zone were broadcast to a potential 60 million European households, featuring 500+ in-depth interviews with the likes of The Prodigy, Goldie, Moby, David Holmes, The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Paul Oakenfold, and Aphex Twin, many unknown at time of interview and seen first on MTV.

Co-presented MTV's "Up For It" and fronted a spin-off from MTV's Bytesize programme, providing daily reports on Internet news & web sites.^[5]

In 1992 with Coldcut produced a TV Megamix^[6] for Canal+ weekly pop-culture show, pre-empting his MTV Megamix format and shows that began broadcast on MTV Europe in 1998.^[7][8]

In the late '90s / early 2000s, presented new media & web-based Pop-culture shows on Channel 4, Channel 5, produced for BBC's Play UK and produced / presented Headf**k plus a documentary about The Prisoner for the Sci-Fi Channel.

As a pop culture commentator (described as a "pop culturalist" by the BBC) has appeared on BBC News 24,^[9] BBC Three and Nuts TV's weekly music reviewer.^[10]

December 2009 produced a 2-hour Hot Mix - The Noughties for Channel 4 and associated Box Television stations.

Radio

Presented on Atlantic 252 and Xfm London as producer / presenter of The Rinse & co-presenter / producer of The Remix, the latter nominated for 2003 Sony Radio Academy Award.

Like his MTV shows, The Rinse featured in-depth interviews & music from key players at pivotal moments in their careers, including Ice-T, Mark Ronson, Kanye West, Mike Skinner, Dizzee Rascal, Russell Simmons, Pharrell Williams and Nas.^[11]

The Rinse focused on Dance music with Hyman also championing other emerging music trends such as Bastard pop. The Remix focused on mash-up remixes and, according to The Guardian, "led the craze" which caused some controversy when a cease and desist order was issued for playing "A Stroke of Genius" by The Freelance Hellraiser.^[12]

The Xfm shows paved the way for the release of a number of albums:

• The Remix and The Remix 2 (Virgin/EMI)
• Covered (Sony BMG)
• 8 themed mix CDs including: Pulp Mixin' which remixed the work of Quentin Tarantino and Licence To Thrill, an audio homage to James Bond, which featured in The Daily Telegraph's top 5 CDs of 2004 ^[13]

September 2007, Hyman left Xfm to concentrate on his music supervision company JLH and other broadcast projects.^[14]

A one-hour documentary about Paul Anka and his song "My Way" was produced by Hyman and Nick Minter as part of BBC Radio 2's series, "Song Stories", first broadcast 23 February 2011, it was presented by Michael Buble and featured interviews with David Bowie, Donald Trump, Julien Temple and Steve Wynn on BBC Radio 2.^[15]

DJ

Hyman DJ's nationally & internationally at clubs, festivals and celebrity / charity / corporate events

Clients / previous bookings include:

• BMW
• Britney Spears
• Eminem
• Film premieres: The Royal Tenenbaums ^[16] and Suzie Gold^[17]
• Glastonbury
• Guy Ritchie (his wedding to Jacqui Ainsley) ^[18]
• James Brown (his last ever UK date, 7 July 2006 for The Prince's Trust) ^[19]
• Madonna
• Razzmatazz
• The Carphone Warehouse
• Will Smith

Voice

Voice-over credits include:

• The British Army
• BT
• Daily Star
• Hit40uk
• McDonald's "Oriental Menu"^[20]
• PlayStation.^[21]
• Q TV
• Toyota

Music Supervision

Hyman's music supervision (i.e. sourcing / licensing / composing) credits include:

Television:

• Lilyhammer (season 3)

Adverts:

• Disney Channel, for Disneyland Paris's 20th anniversary using Labrinth's "Let the Sun Shine".
• Johnnie Walker ("Dogfight" campaign), with Fernando Alonso ^[22]
• Levi's ("Twisted" campaign), using Pepe Deluxé's "Before You Leave".^[23]
• Morrisons, using "Shine", the first time Take That allowed their music on an advert.^[24]
• National Forest Foundation, using a new recording of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" by PS22 Chorus.
• Orange, using Born Ruffians "Hummingbird".
• Sainsbury's, using "The Bare Necessities" from Disney's The Jungle Book^[24]
• T-Mobile, using Röyksopp's "So Easy".^[25]

Video games:

• Race Driver: Grid, using Queens Of The Stone Age's "No One Knows (Unkle Mix)" and Leftfield "Phat Planet"

Feature films:

• Mean Machine (2001)
• Suzie Gold (2004) in which he also played Phillip, a TV presenter
• Kidulthood (2005)
• Revolver (2005)
• Alpha Male (2006)
• The History Boys (2006)
• Living Neon Dreams (2007)
• In the Hands of the Gods (2007) ^[26]
• Daylight Robbery (2008) ^[27]
• RocknRolla (2008) ^[28]
• Three Days In Dublin (2011)
• Blitz (2011)
• 51 Degrees North (2015) ^[29]
• Bo66y (2016) ^[30]

Music Video

Directed and/or Produced over 200 music videos, credits include:

• Where Love Lives by Alison Limerick (1990)
• Pink Cashmere by Prince (1993)
• Blue Monday '95 by New Order (1995)
• Come on Baby by Moby (1996)
• Higher State of Consciousness by Josh Wink (1996)
• Santa Cruz by Fatboy Slim (1996)
• Plastic Dreams by Jaydee (1997)
• It's A London Thing by Scott Garcia (1997)
• Starfighter Pilot by Snow Patrol (1999)

Films

Hyman expanded his Quentin Tarantino mix tape, Pulp Mixin', to create a feature-length mash-up film, with the provisional title James Hyman/Quentin Tarantino Movie Mash-Up. It blends Tarantino's film footage with music videos, including those of the music used in the films.^[31][32]

Influence

• In 1999 voted #22 in Muzik's 50 Most Powerful People in Dance Music poll.
• Lil Louis claims Hyman tempted him back into making music again:^[33]

So what was it that enticed Louis back into the limelight? Was it money? Was it boredom?
"It was James Hyman at MTV, " says Louis, rather bizarrely. "He said to me, 'Louis, make some fucking music'"

• Mike Skinner, of The Streets, namechecks James Hyman on "Give Me Back My Lighter" (single, released July 2003):

"James Hyman, thanks for the Xbox,
I've been fucking killing that Halo game"

• His MTV Europe work is profiled in both the books All Crews, which looks at drum and bass and jungle ^[34] and My Most Wanted Life, former MTV VJ Ray Cokes' autobiography,^[35]
• Hyman's championing of The Prodigy is mentioned in Martin James' Prodigy book.^[36]

Notes

References

• James Hyman on IMDb
• Pop Videos - Produced/Directed
• Interview with Music Supervisor James Hyman

External links

• Official website
• Xfm Rinse Radio Show
• Music supervision site
• James Hyman on IMDb
• James Hyman at the Curtis Brown Talent Agency