Yoav's been making some waves with his catchy blend of acoustic indie and hip-hop beats. I spoke to him about making music and why England's the hardest place in the world for a musician.

Three's A Crowd - You were raised in South Africa in household where pop music was banned. Why was it banned? What was that like?

Yoav - Well my Mum was an opera singer and my Dad was into classical. I think they had aspirations for me to be a classical performer and they thought that exposure to pop music wouldn't be that good for me, that it might corrupt me somehow. I had piano lessons when I was kid and I think they saw punk music to be a threat to that.

TAC - How did you make the transition from that into pop music?

Yoav - Slowly and steadily. My first real exposure to popular music was Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles as they were seen to be a bit more artistic. There was a period where I was obsessed with Simon and Garfunkel. I used to sneak to the end of the house where there was my brother's guitar and creep outside to play it. My brother was under no such mandate not to listen to pop because he was older and an engineer. I think my parents thought that he didn't have any musical ability, so he wouldn't be corrupted by other kinds of music.

I went through various stages in Rock music in the early 90s. Started listening to Nirvana and then Rage Against the Machine. RATM really helped me get into hip hop actually. From Rage I got in to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and that opened the way to the Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill and A Tribe Called Quest. From there, I started listening to trip hop and then more electronic music.

TAC - How did your demo get to the hands of a US record exec? Was it a case of just getting lucky?

Yoav - Total luck. I had a load of demos that I'd recorded when I was fresh out of school. I had a cousin in New York that I gave them to and her uncle was having dinner with a record exec.