Twenty years on he's DJd all over, worked with orchestras and the BBC, created soundtracks and symphonies, appeared in documentaries and reality TV shows, as well as movies including Snatch and The World Is Not Enough. He's also maintained his place as one of Britain's foremost street-style artists, having painted the Queen for her Golden Jubilee and the British Olympic team for the London Olympics in 2012.
And he never seems to stop - at the moment he's putting the finishing touches on an app he's developed with street-art photographer Henry Chalfant called ARTA, and buzzing on the anticipation of coming to New Zealand for New Year's Eve.
"New Zealand is very close to my heart," he says. "I've had a lot of growing time there, in Queenstown and places like that. It's very special to me. The country has been through some tough stuff too, like with the earthquakes in Christchurch, but you're very resilient people, and where else can you go, that's as far away from my home country of England, and find people that really understand the music and bring it as close to their heart as we do?
"New Zealand will always be a foothold, or a stronghold of drum 'n' bass.
"We used to call it the Alamo, a place where you could go and play for four, five, six hours, and there's a generation who grew up on this who will take nothing less than this staple diet."
Having celebrated 20 years of Metalheadz last year, Goldie is enjoying the "golden patch" of reflecting on how much the label has grown as well as the reinvention ahead.
"It's been a fantastic couple of years really because there's been a revival, and drum 'n' bass is no longer the underdog, it now seems to be like a naughty kid under the stairs who just won't go away.
"You look at the No1 hits we've had in the UK, albeit from the more commercial aspects of drum 'n' bass music, but it has been a staple diet for a couple of decades, and in the same way that hip-hop has been gentrified in the US, we've had the same thing with d'n'b. But the great thing is that with every pro-action there's another action going on in the underground."
That doesn't mean he's happy with the direction of the genre - he thinks many DJs are resting on the abilities of the technology they're using rather than educating and inspiring audiences.
"A lot of DJs are copping out, and just feeding them [the aural equivalent of] McDonald's.
"If you listen to all the drum 'n' bass tracks in the top 20 right now, they're all using the same break.
"I mean come on guys, it's a no-brainer. You've got such massive technological access, use your head, go against what everyone else is doing, go against the machine, go against the technology. Have some balls. It's about getting the best out of technology while still applying the soul to the music.
"That's what Metalheadz has always tried to do, apply the soul to the music."
He's very happy to be an advocate of reinvention and education though, frequently getting involved in workshops and lectures throughout the world, as well as projects such as TedX.
"I'm at that age where I'm very keen and glad to pass on this information and knowledge and experience to more people, and that goes way beyond standing behind a pair of decks and smiling.
"It's about having new ways to work within ourselves."
Who: Goldie, aka Clifford Joseph Price
Where and when: Northern Bass festival in Mangawhai on December 31, with Hudson Mohawke, Fat Freddy's Drop, Noisia, Andy C, Ghostface Killah, Krafty Kuts, Dynamite MC, Pharoahe Monch and many others. Festival gates open at 9am on December 30. Details at northernbass.co.nz.
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