Interview - HeavyTrackerz
On November 13th, The HeavyTrackerz are set to release their new album, TRKRZ FM.
Starting in the ‘golden era’ of Grime, the duo have become one of the most in demand producer names in the U.K. With a cutting edge, unique style, they’ve landed themselves a discography and feature list many producers would dream of, working with legends of the scene such as Stormzy, JME and Lethal Bizzle.
2020 has seen them release a number of singles, the most recent being a collaboration with Kojey Radical, Scorcher and Lay-z with 500 Likes. A variety of sounds have radiated from their studio in London, blessing us with drill, trap, garage and everything else in between.
They’re ending the year with TRKRZ FM, a project that celebrates everything British music has to offer. By bringing artists across different genres together, it’s a blending pot of timeless sounds as well as new ones. The variety of the album is what does it for us. Bars from the likes of Wiley and Ghetts create a classic grimey feel, then one interlude later you’re met with a jazzy, afrobeat infused bop. The contrast of genres complement each other down to a tee, creating not only a selection of big tracks, but an awesome listening experience.
We caught up with the guys leading up to the release and had a chat about all things HeavyTrackerz- past, present and future.
What originally inspired your sound when you first started producing?
We were more into the American scene at first if I’m honest, we weren’t really familiar with grime. Me and Tank are from the Ivory coast so loads of what we listened to was French rap. We then discovered Wiley’s ‘Treddin’ on thin ice’ but the thing we thought was missing was structure. So we brought our version of Hip-Hop to grime and fused the two. I think the American sound that influenced our stuff made people think it wasn’t true grime, but that’s just something you have to expect if you’re bringing something new to the table.
It seems like in 2020, whilst we still hear the grime beats, your sound has changed massively, there seems to be a huge variety of vibes now- garage, trap, even alternative in one of the tunes on TRKZ FM. What’s been the main catalyst behind this change?
To us, we never felt there was a change. We’ve always been doing different stuff, but once you get your first big break- that’s the genre you’re labeled with, and we ran with it. If someone says we could get studio time with Stormzy, Ghetts, Kano we’re not gonna say no. After German whip we did a house track, but it never took off because we were told it wouldn’t be what people wanted to hear from us. Releasing Odyssey in 2017 was almost a hint to different styles instead of dropping it all at once.
What can we expect from the upcoming album?
An extension of the previous one (Odyssey). There’s a bit of a story behind the inspiration of TRKZ FM-we had got this two hour slot on a radio show that I’m not gonna name, where we were planning to play loads of music we were rating aswell as chatting about artists and anything we felt like really. They then cut it to one hour and told us we’d have to play some songs we hadn’t necessarily picked - in the end we left the station, because we didn’t have the freedom to do what we wanted. The new album is basically, if we had our own radio show, this is what it would sound like, a melange of different genres and vibes.
Would you agree it’s fair to say your recent track ‘500 likes’ is the perfect showing of how the sound of the U.K. scene in general has developed and progressed?
I would agree. Not a lot of people expect Lazy to sing. We’ve gotten to a point in the Uk where styles have been mixed. It has an American trap feel but the mc’s spit like it’s a grime song. It’s a melting point of all of that- as well as the visuals, there’s loads of competition. It pretty much encapsulated what the uk scene is now.
How was it working with all the features on the ep?
It’s been fun. There’s a few people on it that we’d never worked with before, we actually hit up Lioness on socials. But because it was literally a melting pot of different creative brains, there was that instant trust to just turn up and make something crazy. We didn’t want to force the features either, Matt Wills has played the keys on some of our most famous tunes so with lots of them there was that instant connection. It was cool to mix and match the style of everyone to create the unexpected and fresh sound- Kojey and scorcher instantly became mates on the shoot of ‘500 likes’ and that’s the kind of atmosphere we wanted to create.
It must be crazy to think that accessibility literally didn’t exist when you guys first started out in the industry?
For sure, when we began making beats we were like “oh this person would sound sick on that one” etc, but there was no way we could contact them easily. Now when you wanna speak to someone you just reach out to them on socials! We worked with Fekky in the past and this time we literally hit him up on insta, asked him if he wanted to be on the album and just went from there.
Some big statements have been made about your music. What were your thoughts when Wiley tweeted German Whip ‘brought back grime’?
It’s a debate we tried to stay out of I can’t lie. That whole argument is so subjective, some people were saying Stormzy was reviving it, the dispute is mostly opinion based. I think the reason German Whip did how it did is because of the catchiness of the chorus- grime generally wasn’t radio friendly which is why it sometimes suffered. If you can create something that’s easier to relate to and has a memorable hook, people love it.
What’s the process like with someone such as Kojey compared to Ghetts?
With Kojey, we actually had a different song in mind, but we wanted him to try jump on this; it worked. He’s a happy character, and he told us he’s always wanted to work with us but felt he couldn’t because the songs that have blown up generally didn't fit his style, which was frustrating because it’s that thing again of like, once you have a few big hits, most people naturally put you into that style bracket. Obviously we weren’t frustrated at him, it’s just the way the industry works! WIth Ghetts he’s always just like, ‘play me something’ and he hops on it. Once he gets an idea, he literally doesn’t stop moving until the track is done, the grime guys always come with so much energy.
You’re some of the og’s of the grime scene, what’s your stance on the new sound emerging from the U.K.? What do you think of drill?
We weren’t originally fans, but it’s grown on us- it’s clean! Some of the visuals that come with the tracks are sick, Digga D is definitely someone with that kind of creative eye. We’ve dipped our toe in it, with the track with Fizzler it’s kind of drilly but we also added an r&b element. We’ve had to embrace it. It’s been tough because a lot of these kids are signed, whilst grime doesn’t have that much bureaucracy.
How much would you say visuals alongside a track benefit its release?
Videos are so important. I’ve directed some actually. People we’ve worked with have said how they find it hard to create a strong social media presence, which is understandable considering when we all first started off all that time ago the only thing that was important was the music. Now, the music isn’t enough, you have to amplify the story you’re trying to tell and create a real connection between you and the listener -some good visuals are a perfect way to do that. We can’t just be producers anymore, we have to be content providers- we’re releasing merch for example alongside the album for example.
What up and coming artists are currently on your radar?
Fizzler, V9, OFB, there’s so many. We’re constantly on instagram kind of scouting. It’s so weird, 5 or 6 years ago we were the ones getting scouted! We’ve always wanted that role though, it’s where longevity comes from. Look at Dr Dre for example.
There was that little back and forth with you and Splurge boys a while back. Where do you sit with clashes and beef in the scene today?
I think in the early days, clashes would be how you’d prove yourself against other people so they were important. The only hype you’d be able to get was through radio, and clashes were something that always caught the attention of presenters. Now there’s so many different outputs where you can release music- Spotify, Soundcloud, Youtube even- you don’t need the hype of clashes to build your fanbase. With the industry being so spoken about in the media as well, you could say one thing that, to us isn’t deep, but to a news channel or whatever it sounds bad, so there’s so much more to lose now. With splurge boys, we did it for one purpose pretty much- to bring limelight to the producer. Again it’s that thing of creating hype that gets people talking, which definitely used to benefit you. Nothing ever came of it with us and those guys, it just kind sparked a talking point surrounding us and other engineers in general. I’m really not a fan of clashes where someone says ‘you’ve got 24 hours to reply or you take the L’- no one can make a good, original track as well as visuals in that amount of time!
What are your plans for when lockdown’s over?
We’ve had to push back TRKRZ FM so much, it was supposed to release in May. We were planning to tour with it- obviously we can’t do that currently but soon hopefully! We’ve got three projects we’re sitting on- one whole thing with Big Narstie. So yeah, more music, some shows all being well; lots to look forward to!
Where and when can we cop the new ep?
November 13th, pre order is up now, all streaming platforms. We might do a poll to let the fans decide what song they want us to drop next as the final one before the whole thing releases- that’d be cool.
Pre-order the album below: