History[edit]

The shop was opened in November 1992 on Surrey Street in Croydon, a large fruit & veg market. This led to the shop being named 'Apple Records', shortly changed to 'Big Apple Records' after the Beatle's record label of the same name threatened to sue.^[4]


It was founded by Gary Hughes, Steve Robertson, and John-Paul Kennedy. Hughes and Robertson were friends who brought on Kennedy only a few weeks before the shop opened as they required further investment. In 1996 Hughes and Robertson were bought out of the business to leave only Kennedy, as pressure from nearby record shops meant they could no longer sustain three partners.


The shop initially stocked Progressive House and Techno on the ground floor and Jungle on the first floor. After Hughes and Robertson had left. Artwork^[7] was invited by Kennedy to turn the second floor into his studio, and the first floor (which now stocked Drum & Bass) was replaced with listening booths.^[8]


The ground floor would transition into garage leading to a boost in sales when garage became mainstream in the late 90s^[9] because of the popularity of garage crews such as So Solid.^[10] This led to Kennedy hiring DJ Hatcha to help run the shop. Hatcha, combined with many of Artwork's releases being available only from the shop, led to Big Apple's popularity with Jungle and Garage producers and DJs. Skream's older brother Hijack worked in the shop, and so brought Skream into the shop at a young age.^[8]


The shop closed in November 2004, 12 years to the day after it opened. This was caused in part to a decline in vinyl sales caused by the rise of the internet.^[8]


As well as the artists like Skream and Hatcha that worked in the shop, and others including Digital Mystikz were frequent visitors.^[11] El-B, Zed Bias, Horsepower Productions, Plastician, N Type, Walsh and Loefah regularly visited the shop as well.^[12]