ORANGE TOUR/THE WISEGUYS

"Ooh La La," the hit single from The Wiseguys' album The Antidote, blasts out of every car stereo and shoe store in Touche's native London (strangely, a Budweiser commercial served as the song's springboard to success). The humble turntable marauder simply tries to make sense of the innate craziness of it all. "It's still a little bit unreal that I've got this big smash tune," Touché says. "It's a bit wild."

As people who have the number two single in the British charts go, Touché is very down to earth. The 27-year-old mastermind behind The Wiseguys doesn't walk around proclaiming his apparent greatness or make his handlers sit on the phone all day arranging coke and hooker binges. He doesn't even throw a tantrum at the airport when customs agents half-wittedly refer to him by his legal name, Theo Keating.

Originally released in Britain last fall, The Antidote has enjoyed a leisurely stroll to the top. One only suspects it's taken this long for audiences to uncover and digest the endless layers of funk, booty bumping soul and old school bounce the disc has to offer. Over the course of 15 tracks, Touché pays tribute to all the seminal musical influences in his life, from the thundering dance grooves of "Start The Commotion" to the classical undercurrents of "Face The Flames." His main concern, however, is keeping the tunes firmly rooted in his one true love -- hip-hop.

"I'm just part of that generation where hip-hop came out of America and hit Europe and captured the imagination of kids around the world," Touché says. "I took it onboard wholesale. It was almost like I had found my own home. It was where I fit. It was so different from everything else that had come before it. It was so different from band culture. It was much more creative. It gave me a chance to express myself without having loads of training and expensive equipment and instruments."

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