The story of The Prodigy and the sad end of Keith Flint ...

The Prodigy are an electronic dance music band formed in Braintree, Essex in 1990. The band made their mark on the world with the singles "Firestarter", "Smack My Bitch Up" and "Breathe"! They have been credited with all sorts of titles - like "Godfathers of rave" and the like! And it's really true! Their albums have sold 25 million copies in total... Dozens of prestigious awards, success! And... loss. The complete story of a cult band!

Composition

Liam Paris Howlett is the driving force behind the band's sound. The founder of the world electronic project was born in 1971 in Braintree, UK. He was trained as a classical pianist, and his passion for music started to grow at school... At that time Liam loved Ska and Two Tone. In high school, hip-hop culture caught his attention. So, it wasn't long before Howlett found himself wanting to perform his own material.

After earning the necessary amount of money, Liam bought two cheap turntables. Soon he joined the local hip-hop band Cut 2 Kill as a second DJ. Soon the band signed a contract, but without Liam. And this despite the fact that the guy managed to create a cool track, which, in fact, drew the attention of Tam Tam Records to the work of the band... Yes, life is often cruel. And having realised it, Liam became disappointed in the music business, and in particular - in hip-hop culture... So, in the summer of 1988 Howlett experienced betrayal from his "colleagues" for the first time.

Luckily, within a few months Liam had already established himself as a DJ at rave parties! He soon became a well-known face of the Essex scene! And - he met Keith Fleet....

Keith Flint left school without passing his exams. He worked part-time as a driller for a while, then travelled around the Middle East and Africa! Flint was a James Brown fanatic. He was also influenced by bands such as Led Zeppelin and Floyd. Back in the UK, Keith found himself on the streets: he was kicked out of his house. One night the lad slept by the pyramids in Cairo and the next on the riverbank in Braintree. One of Keith's mates, an avid raver, offered his friend a place to stay. So, one night they set out to party in the high-style house....

It was through a coincidence of all circumstances that Keith and Liam met. The latter's music impressed Flint. Soon a band was formed, including Flint's friend Sharky.

The beginning of the journey...

Shortly afterwards they booked their first PA at the Maze in Dalston, East London, where the promoter told them, "I've only had two PAs before and they were both snapped up after five minutes". Liam felt an MC was needed for the gig and contacted Maxim Reality: a reggae MC who had spent the last few years in Nottingham. Maxim got into MC when he was 14, inspired by his brother (MC Starkey). Once in Nottingham, Maxim started a musical collaboration with a friend of his who, after three fruitless years of collaboration, broke up with him... Maxim then went on a little trip to relax and think about his future... After realising that music was his first passion, back in England Maxim moved to London. Soon a mutual friend introduced him to Prodigy:

"I just remember being put in the middle of a dance stage with four people I had just met, and I was just standing at the back with a microphone and chatting a couple of times... And then I realised I wanted to do it again!".

Maxim soon joined the band for good!

With this line-up, Prodigy began to perform extensively. Their early gigs were sometimes poorly attended, such as their fifth gig at Hatfield College, where only nine people attended, including 5 members of staff. Conversely, their twelfth gig was at Raindance, a massive rave attended by 12,000 people! What made the band exceptional was that their show was live, unlike most of their contemporaries...

Career, success...

The musicians moved along a tightrope, balancing artistic merit and mainstream popularity with more flair than any electronic band of the 1990s. In doing so, they leaned towards arena rock spectacle and punk theatre... Despite the diversity of electronic music and rapid development during the 90s, Howlett changed the sound only moderately: replacing rave whistle effects and raggy samples with metallic chords and chanted vocals proved the only significant difference in the band's evolution from their debut to worldwide breakthrough with third album The Fat of the Land in 1997! Prodigy proved a steady presence in the UK charts, with over a dozen consecutive Top 20 singles...

In the early 90s, The Prodigy released the single "Charly", based on an excerpt from a public service announcement for children. It reached number one on the UK dance charts, then moved to the pop charts, stopping only at number three. It was followed by "Everybody in the Place" and "Fire / Jericho".

The Prodigy showed they were no one-hit wonder in late 1992 with the release of The Prodigy Experience, one of the rave band's first records. Combining short breakbeats with vocal samples of Lee "Scratch" Perry's legendary dub break and Arthur Brown's Mad World, it made it into the top ten and went gold. Already with Maxim Reality the single "Earthbound" was released, which made it clear: the DJs who had written off Prodigy were wrong... At the end of 1993 the commercial release "One Love" entered the top 20 singles for the seventh time in a row (in the band's history).

After months of working on tracks, Howlett released the next single, "No Good (Start the Dance)." Although the lead single was sped-up vocals (one of the staples of early rave), the following album Music for the Jilted Generation provided the band with a shift from piano pieces and rave-signature tracks to more (singles with integrated guitar, such as "Voodoo People"). The album also continued the band's commitment to breakbeat drum 'n' bass: although this style had only recently become commercially viable (after a long period of maturation in the dance underground), Howlett had utilised it from the beginning of his career. Music for the Jilted Generation topped the UK charts and went gold in its first week of release! The album was also nominated for the Mercury Music Prize as one of the best albums of the year.

The Prodigy spent much of 1994 and 1995 travelling the world and performed brilliantly at the Glastonbury Festival in 1995, proving that electronica could be a concert stage extravaganza. The band had already moved on from club/rave to more traditional rock venues, and the Glastonbury show confirmed the fact that they were no longer just a dance band. Flint's newly emerged persona - consummate punk showman and master of ceremonies for the digital age crowd - was the starting point for rock critics who had been reluctant to shine the spotlight on Howlett (in whom they saw a glorified keyboardist).

In March 1996, the single "Firestarter" was released. The track topped the charts in Britain, but its music video was effectively banned due to complaints about arson fixation... Some Top of the Pops viewers also complained that Keith Flint had scared their children!

Flint's can't-miss guitar hook and vocal antics - his first recordings - made it a quick worldwide hit, and while "Firestarter" wasn't a huge success in the U.S., its high-profile spot on MTV's Buzz Bin introduced the band to many Americans and helped fuel major label aspirations for electronica over the next year (though the Prodigy turned down collaboration offers from David Bowie, U2 and Madonna).

In early 2015, the band announced their sixth studio album The Day Is My Enemy. Shortly afterwards, Howlett announced his intention to stop releasing albums and only release EPs, promising that new music would appear the following year. However, no EP ever materialised. Instead, years passed until 2018, when the band announced that they had signed with BMG Rights Management and would eventually release another album. The set was announced with the singles "Need Some1" and "Light Up the Sky." No Tourists appeared in November that year and marked a return to a more synthesised, less "rock" but no less aggressive sound. Their sixth consecutive UK chart topper, No Tourists were supported by a short international tour, which included plans to go to the US in 2019! However, on 4 March, Flint was found dead: he was 49 years old ...

Flint's loss...

Keith Flint last performed with the band in early 2019 at Trusts Arena in Auckland. In March of the same year, the musician was gone... The cause of death was... hanging. And the musician did it purposefully... All planned concerts were cancelled. And although the investigation had no solid grounds for such a conclusion, Flint's relatives repeatedly said that Keith liked to play with fate... It became known that Flint had a hard time parting with his wife Mayumi Kai - a Japanese model and DJ.

Keith Flint was a great guy, very kind and sensitive... And that was said by absolutely everyone, right down to his neighbours. JK, the leader of Jamiroquai, said:

"That's terrible, bloody terrible news... He was a great bloke! I hope there's a fast motorbike for him up there in heaven! Keith loved speed..."

Already after the musician's tragic passing, performing at Glastonbury Festival in the summer of 2019, Liam Gallagher dedicated "Champagne Supernova" to Flint's...