- Expanding on Elijah's yellow squares, the grime duo make a punchy record full of useful advice for how to navigate the music industry.
- When it comes to the music industry, Butterz head honcho Elijah and Hackney MC Jammz have both done their 10,000 hours. Elijah is a key figure in grime's return to the forefront of UK pop culture, and he changed the blueprint for independent UK labels with Butterz. Jammz lives and breathes grime, too. A poster-boy for the genre's 2015 radio boom, his raw, thought-provoking verses paint vivid pictures of himself, London and the UK's socioeconomic reality.
Both have never strayed far from grime's roots, ducking trends and evolving in natural, innovative ways. Their new record together is intended to inspire aspiring artists to overcome creative obstacles, while laying out a blueprint for success in the industry—essentially a musical version of Elijah's now-signature yellow squares, laid down in verse. Over eighteen minutes of sharp, no-frills motivational rapping with crack production from the likes of Royal-T, DJ Q and Jack Dat, Make The Ting serves as a sort of high-octane pre-workout for creativity.
"Close The App" is a thorough grilling on the senselessness of spending all your time staring into a black mirror instead of creating and living life: "Thinking pattern is a mess at night / 'Cause you're doom scrolling in your bed at night." On "Too Much," Jammz addresses the onslaught of clickbait news, the psychological entrapments that come with dopamine farming technology and the degradation of our attention spans (and artistic integrity) that come with it all. He uses repetition and doubled vocals to really make sure you’re listening, and unpacks common creative blocks with comical levels of simplicity. "Why waste time thinking about doing it / When you could actually get up and do it?" Fair play.
Production-wise, Make The Ting is just as impressive. "Questions" features a creeping string instrument over a relentless snare pattern, while on "Too Much," brass blasts punctuate each punchline, as rolling blocks and reverberating clicks form expertly textured percussive layers. It's a busy 140 BPM sound, and Jammz finds the perfect moments to dip in and out of the pocket to show you just how definitively you could Make The Ting if you just applied yourself. Tracks like "ETA" are examples of him using innovative ways to make the message stick without compromising on the wit. He raps whole verses from the perspective of a satnav with "success" as the destination. Follow the advice and you're more likely than not to get there.
Focusing too much on the message while forgetting to be entertaining and listenable is a surefire way to have your raps classified as preachy. It's an inevitable side effect of verses where the lyricist opts to tell you instead of show you. Despite boasting a concept that, on paper, screams preachy, Jammz and Elijah's Make The Ting delivers its message by both showing and telling. The whole EP hits harder when you realise it was written in a week and recorded in just a single day at Ten87 studios. Delivered with profound clarity, the flows and wordplay are exhilarating and genuinely inspiring, enough to give power to the faint. Make The Ting is a generous endeavour that proves, with the right approach, you can be as on-the-nose as you like about a positive message as long as you're a gifted enough MC.
Tracklist01. Yellow Square feat. Blay Vision
02. Close The Appt
03. Too Much
04. Start With Why
05. Questions
06. It Takes A Village
07. Hard Work
08. ETA