Ready to pierce the myths of being a creative in the digital age? Paul sits down with Elijah, Grime and DIY pioneer, who, with over 15 years of industry experience, unpacks "Close The App, Make The Ting", a phrase that has helped him steer his diverse roles - which range from DJ and label owner to teacher and producer - in an ever-evolving, noisy industry.
Through using Instagram as a canvas with short captions on yellow squares, with the principles he's gathered from his extensive music career, Elijah thoughtfully addresses the critical role of community, creativity and the music industry in this digital era. We dive deep into what defines success in this digital age and how to strike that delicate balance between personal creativity and industry constraints.
Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica
Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Subscribe to the Lost and Sound Substack for fresh updates and writing here.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins
Lost and Sound is live in Berlin, Oct 15th, 7.15pm at PodFest Berlin, buy tickets here.
Ready to pierce the myths of being a creative in the digital age? Paul sits down with Elijah, Grime and DIY pioneer, who, with over 15 years of industry experience, unpacks "Close The App, Make The Ting", a phrase that has helped him steer his diverse roles - which range from DJ and label owner to teacher and producer - in an ever-evolving, noisy industry.
Through using Instagram as a canvas with short captions on yellow squares, with the principles he's gathered from his extensive music career, Elijah thoughtfully addresses the critical role of community, creativity and the music industry in this digital era. We dive deep into what defines success in this digital age and how to strike that delicate balance between personal creativity and industry constraints.
Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica
Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Subscribe to the Lost and Sound Substack for fresh updates and writing here.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins
Lost and Sound is live in Berlin, Oct 15th, 7.15pm at PodFest Berlin, buy tickets here.
Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica. Audio Technica are a global but still family run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones, studio quality yet affordable products, because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to all. And I'm speaking to you right now wearing the M50X headphones. They're for the studio, they're for every day. I speak to all my guests wearing these headphones and that's how I like to use them. But whatever way you like to use them, head on over to AudioTechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Lost and Sound. I'm Paul Hamford. I'm your host. I'm a writer, an author, a university lecturer, based in Berlin, where I'm speaking to you now from. And this is the show where, each episode, I have conversations with the musical innovators, the outsiders, the mavericks, the artists that do their own unique thing, and we talk about music, creativity, life, basically the things that inspire us to make the things that we make. Previous guests have included peaches, suzanne Cianni, jim O'Rourke, chilly Gonzalez, sleaford Mods, mickey Blanco and first and more. And today on the show, I have a chat with Elijah.
Speaker 1:My book Coming to Berlin is available in all good bookshops or via the publisher's website, velocity Press. I do know I have a big box of them on their way over via airmail or whatever kind of courier type services taken. So if you haven't got a copy and you're in Berlin, for example, where I am, just send me an Instagram message and I have some myself for sale as well, we can chat. Yes, yes, also, if you're in Berlin this Sunday, I'll be doing a special live in front of an audience episode of Lost and Sound at Berlin's Podfest Festival, which is happening this weekend all weekend. Friday, saturday, sunday. I'll be on stage on Sunday, the 15th of October, at I think it's 7.15pm. I mean, I'm putting a hyperlink in the podcast description so you can check that out. Come and see me do a live show with two incredibly special guests, which I'll be announcing over the next day or so. But I'm really, really excited about that and thanks so much, podfest, for putting a little bit of Lost and Sound live on, and I'll have copies of the book with me too, if airmail gets them there on time, so they'll be books for sale. Yes, so today. I mean this is a really, really, really like. I had this chat yesterday and I'm still sort of processing the information that was revealed to me by my guest.
Speaker 1:The insights, the thoughts I spoke with Elijah East London Grime and DIY pioneer, his legendary Butters Knights, in the early 2010s were a big factor in helping establish the second wave of Grime music. But in the last year or so, as well as being a DJ, a label owner, a club promoter, a teacher, a producer, he's taken the 15 years plus of industry experience, of DIY experience, into creating advice that cuts really, really genuinely cuts through the noise. Using the simplicity of an iPad and an Apple Pen to give handwritten thoughts on yellow squares posted on Instagram with what seems to be the central mantra of close the app, make the thing. I personally find these posts massively inspiring Elijah's hot takes on music, the industry, social media and kind of creativity in general. They never feel preachy. They're massively authentic, ahead of the curve, sideways of the curve, avoiding the curve, making their own curves that just feel so authentic in a world that when I say in a world of, I mean in the creative world in general that feels more and more run and governed and dictated to by marketing. And Elijah's yellow notes over the last year or so have found a real, real resonance with me and a lot of other people as well.
Speaker 1:So I was super excited to have this chat. We had this chat yesterday, which was October the 9th 2023. And this is what happened when I met Elijah. Elijah, thanks so much for speaking with me today. How are you doing? How is Monday working out for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you never know you're going to wake up to a few hours working in different time zones, so Monday started probably earlier than most people's Mondays.
Speaker 1:You could in the mornings.
Speaker 2:It depends on the demands. I guess Monday is probably more like what Sunday would look like for normal people, because I work across the weekends as well, so I generally have sort of slower Mondays than most people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think also sort of being a DJ as well. It's easy to sort of lead these sort of semi-nocturnal lives, but also because you do so many other things, you know label owner, club promoter and now obviously with the yellow squares. They're such different disciplines but they all connect up. How do you navigate? You know your own head. You're so good at giving other people advice, but how do you navigate your own headspace with this?
Speaker 2:Well, those things are like an accumulation of skills. Most of the time you're not doing them all at once. So on a DJ day it's less likely that I would be doing a lecture or less likely that I'd be doing any label or artist kind of business. And even like the job of artist management and working on projects, there's spikes, I guess, where it can be demanded every day, but not every day so, and I just slot just my own little personal project, the yellow squares, and stuff in between doing other stuff. So it's not like mentally demanding in any meaningful way, not more so than like reading to our Instagram. It may be. If everyone just had half an hour less or loads, then whatever the project would be out of. The having half an hour more time would be your version of the other square.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, do you have devices yourself for kind of keeping yourself offline or restricting your online, or how do you navigate that yourself?
Speaker 2:No, I don't, and I maybe the. I guess the effect of being on it so much is like well, if I'm on it, I might as well make something rather than be a consumer. That's probably the okay. I'm going to spend an hour, or I need to use this for work or trying to get something out of it. I might as well put something in it. So, instead of having this, let me try and, like you know, close the app, or it's open, so I might as well make something while I'm there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so did it sort of start off, partly for yourself as well as the kind of way of checking in with yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. It was originally like a response to a DM, but it was also for myself. I sent it to someone on a Sunday afternoon asking me about you know. Yeah, asking for advice, and I don't think any of the stuff I really put out there is advice. It's more like ideas and ways of thinking about stuff that are not the, I guess, most common rhetoric around those ideas or most common kind of threads. So most of the time people will come up with all of this like science and all the things you got to do to prepare your mind. I'm like, yeah, I guess, so you could just like not come on here and I think you need to be studying neuroscience to work that one out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love it. I think that's one of the dangers with social media as well, as it kind of projects this idea that everyone's an expert, and I think that can be quite dangerous sometimes. You know, do you? How do you feel about that? Do you feel that sort of there are too many? You know the dangers. Do you feel like the dangers of when people project like ultimate truths is like science and people make out their experts when basically they could be just influences?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess I'm mostly will just don't even know what science is or the practice of science and what the scientific method is and all of this kind of stuff. So we, the way we learn, is like OK, this person is an expert and I should listen to them because they have studied this, but without being able to like really interrogate their motivations and what they're incentivized by, I can take that on. So if someone is saying oh you need to.
Speaker 2:I guess the good following of close that make the thing is not close that make the thing and buy my product.
Speaker 2:I get nothing out of you closing out, making the thing right. So, whereas I think a lot of people in that I could, my work could be compared to is like Close that, make the thing, book a session, buy a product you know whereas I only make in this regard, I only make art, so I don't really I don't really do a hard sell with anything. It's more like a buy products from all of this learning. So I'm very mindful of that, because there's a lot of ways I could monetize this thing better. That would be against my ethics and my personal kind of beliefs and what artists or people that have a voice and a platform should be doing with it.
Speaker 1:No, I love what you're saying about that, and it kind of goes into comments that I've seen you post about how using social media as a creative tool rather than a marketing Tool as well yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:So like, yeah, the thing I say a lot is like social media is a canvas, so it's like an extension of art form as an artist or as a manager or whatever I'm doing. And let's say we judge these artists by that. This discography is in their performances and the films they appear in or you know, ways that we document them. But I think another layer is judging the way an artist tells a story about themselves and how they want to be seen by the world, and that could be very interesting and I don't think a lot of artists are using that in a clever way and otherwise I complain about how they represented the media or how they help people think of them, but the actual law they put out about themselves is very limited. So I'm like, what is the problem? Is it the problem of what you tell people or the effort you put into what you tell people, rather than what people think? That is like an interesting push and pull. Maybe some artists don't feel like it's their job, but then you can't complain about the outcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and with the whole concept of Yellow Scouts you sort of mentioned that, it kind of started out as a kind of response. But when was this? What could you talk me through sort of how this came about and what the time surroundings were at the time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a few things happening at the same time. So I guess the actual genesis of the project is before I started it. So June 2020 is locked down to George Floyd. Kind of things happened Then. There was kind of explosion in a certain type of speak on social media and we want it to happen, but we all live in separately. We weren't seeing each other or having the conversations in our life.
Speaker 2:People wanted to make change and I just found it like a bit I don't like using the word overwhelming, but there was just too much, maybe groupthink and just like, ok, projection of emotions and, I guess, using money to talk about solving problems, like a problem like race. Oh, we're going to commit 200 million pounds. When did money ever end racism? But hey. So I deleted my social media at that time. So I was offline. Really, I deleted my Twitter in particular. That was my main vessel, and then when I went to use it again a couple of months later, my Twitter had been deleted, because if you delete it, then it deletes your account within 30 days, which I didn't know. So I just got back to handle. So I had to start from zero followers again and then I just carried on with life, didn't use it, and then in the following year, 2021, thought let me just start going again. But what do you say when you've got no followers? Like, what is the first thing you're going to try and do? It's like you know, going to maybe. In my head it was like post my lunch or talk about the football score. It's like post something useful. So I began with like things that I'd learned over the past whatever 15 years of working in music and just the observations of what I felt, maybe in the time I was away from socials.
Speaker 2:And then in July 2021, the lockdowns lifted and events started again and I thought someone messaged and said, oh, you should put your tweets on Instagram. And I didn't really want to just screenshot the tweet and put it on Instagram, so I just wrote it on a piece of paper and just kind of designed it in a way that would be Instagram native Makes sense there and then I just started doing them. I didn't really use Instagram before. I didn't really like the platform. I thought, okay, let me just put it there, and a whole collection of them built up and then I took the kind of principles or the core ideas that will come in coming up, deleted all of them, scrapped the whole Instagram and started again at the beginning of 2022 and just made it like a thing and just developed all the like.
Speaker 2:You know the things I've been learning over the past 10, 15 years into like bite-sized ideas or provocations or questions or responses to what I've been seeing in real life post everything opening up, meeting people for the first time, visiting cities I hadn't been to for years, visiting cities for the first time and this maybe the explosion of an expectation of the creative industry and seeing from people that weren't part of it, I was like, okay, well, this is what it's like from the inside, from my point of view. This might be helpful to you. Things that you can't Google.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And now, I guess now we're here in 2023, a year, and some change will be from that. I've done a lot of lectures in places and events based around this, and now the second or third loop of this is the work about the work.
Speaker 1:Right, and I mean I mean because I've been, I think, like many people, kind of using the notes as a sort of way of checking in with myself and ideas, and one of the themes that kind of comes through a lot is about community, and one of the one of the posts I really love is it takes a village to raise an artist and I was wanted to know, like what you mean, I have an idea but you never know. But I was wanting to know what that means to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like with a lot of them I'm not trying to be overly prescriptive I like it in the place where it needs to land. So how someone receives it and processes it and makes it useful for themselves is interesting to me more than it just being a point of view or just my experience or something. So my, I guess my entry into music in the first place and into the creative world is through Graham, the Graham scene, the location of being based where Graham is from, the practice of going to a pirate radio station where that music was incubated, the practice of going to a club where the people that made it were in there at the same time. So that is the village of that music. You know the talking about online on the Graham forum. It was on Twitter or Instagram or one of these things that are based in Silicon Valley. It was based here, like in the UK. I was a moderator on a forum, I was writing a blog, I was DJing, I was buying records, I started a label, I started in like so there's all of these things that made a real, tangible ecosystem that I felt ownership over, that I felt like a pride over and that maybe 10 years later.
Speaker 2:People don't see, they just like, oh, that's just, graham, that's just how it was Right, oh, that's just what it is. And I'm like, no, I know the humans that made that thing and it's not something that was just, would have just been there without people making an effort to make something happen. So, yes, maybe be introducing that in that way. It's like a flip on this takes a village to raise a child, or whatever. The saying is yeah, but realizing that these people don't come out of vacuums Usually they come out of, you know, 40, 50, 100 people, lifting up an idea or one person or a few people or a bunch of people, and then that next layer, lifting up the 10 that apply to millions of people, and then the one that gets to headline grassland, but it started with, probably you know whatever 100 people. Then you get down to, maybe your career I started at 40 people and then the people that crack it out like a pop level, which maybe like 10. And then you get to Stormzy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So it's a set of illusion. And, going back to the start as well, what are your kind of memories? So was this in? You grew up in Hackney, so yeah.
Speaker 2:I was born in Hackney, I grew up in Wolfham, forest, slater, so in East London. My whole life I still live there now Never lived in a rocks, even though I've got to travel, and I grew up in a, I guess in a juncture of having broadband and listening to power radio, like I was probably like one of the first people I know with broadband internet on my road or in my community or whatever, and that kind of digital analog crossover was like super important because I was like, okay, I knew records and tangible things and power radio, but then I also was like an internet kid, thinking about how to use it differently to, or how, just how to use it. I mean I've got I think I've, I think I don't think I've been, I think I've got the first grand video uploaded onto YouTube, for example. And if we had any inkling of what YouTube would have been in 2006, I would have committed a bit more content to YouTube, but we had no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember the days of just endless buffering as well on YouTube and it was like it was like a maximum amount of 10 minutes or something as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was like 15 minutes and same as SoundCloud. The first, like five years or something, was like 15 minute limit and that's why there was no mixes on there. So the first waves of the power radio shows I did, they're hosted on media fire. The media fire like canceled my account, so all of those things are just like like dust in the wind.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess because at that time as well. So we're talking about like the early early 2000s, early the first decade of the millennium, across that spread and also it's all good impression. You're kind of navigating musical landscape as well in terms of the industry that is at the time perhaps still is kind of collapsing in on itself and figuring out how to survive. And you know, I kind of get the sense that you kind of like finding the tools because they weren't kind of prescribed to you. You know, and I think a lot of creators in the early 2000s were kind of figuring these things out. Did it feel like the old model of the industry at that time had anything to say to you, or was it always about sort of moving forward?
Speaker 2:No, like I mean, I guess what my impression of the industry was. It was like it was crumbling. Yeah, it was in the yeah, I guess Napster, kazaar, downloading time. So music becoming free and people are finding the model to like, take it to the next level way before streaming, way before I guess MP3 is being purchased, was like a thing. So just for context, if we're doing years here, I was 16 in 2003 when Disney World School Boy in the corner came out and I probably downloaded that before I had the CD or the record. So imagine, like, whatever the records of that time that went as big, they were probably all getting downloaded for free, so the people didn't make money. So there's a whole generation of people that did make similar records but then they weren't able to monetize at the level that, say, like a young rapper coming through. Now every bit of their essence is monetized Every stream, every YouTube play, every TikTok, you're getting some sort of kickback. But at that time people were literally just putting the stuff on the internet or on record and, yeah, you'd sell a few hundred records, sure, but it wasn't anything to build an ecosystem of, really.
Speaker 2:And I guess you know my impression of the industry back to that point is the music that I grew up on. The whole backbone of it was screwed by the major labels. So I didn't want to be part of that ever. I've never worked for any music company and I wanted to create something, even if it was small, to be the antithesis of that. So the music that grew up on Reggae, dancehall, jungle, gavage, rap music every story ends with oh, we got screwed by the label, we got screwed by our manager, we got screwed by this thing, and a lot of my heroes ended up poor, more dead. So you know the backdrop was loving music but not wanting to participate in the industry. And now I think the industry is a more transparent place than it was 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even 15 years ago. But the thing is still set up knowing that 95% of it is going to fail. So if you signed, if you signed to a label, you you're like the collateral damage of that investment.
Speaker 2:It's like whatever it might fail, like you're more likely to fail, which is not a problem, like necessarily, but most people don't go in thinking that they're going to be part of the 95%. Yeah, so yeah, and it comes out in the music.
Speaker 1:Hmm, do you still feel like a lot of people are still looking at the old model, you know, because I think people put their kind of music as something that we all have our dreams in, you know in some way or another, and kind of we can kind of create like our stories for our music, but there's so much narrative that is fixed like in good and bad, on the old model and on going through the record companies and and this kind of sort of I don't know. I guess kind of still like a kind of a hierarchical thing rather than a kind of sort of like a village structure where everyone's helping each other. I mean, do you feel like this is something that is still prevalent when you're speaking to people, that people kind of preset back to this, or do you see it changing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so, but I think that's like a bigger backdrop over society more than, like for young people, like things felt unstable, so they're like well, I don't have any choice but to become rich so I can survive. So it's not just, you know, inherently wanting to be rich and famous and popular and have a million followers on Instagram. That just seems like the only way to participate.
Speaker 2:And I think when, maybe when I started, they've felt like this middle ground of all these people where we didn't. You know they wouldn't be famous necessarily, but they still made a respectable income and were able to take care of the rent or family or mortgage or whatever it was, without being high profile. But today, because we're all on the same Instagram, we're all on the same Twitter, scale just means something completely different and monetizing audience is something completely different. So you'll see behaviors from, maybe, diys that look the same as the biggest pop stars and it's so bizarre, but it feels like the only way I can see how it feels like the only way to participate.
Speaker 2:If you want to make some money. I want to have, like make a living. Like the question I always put I feel like people are asking me is like how can I get paid to make whatever I like without having to market it, living in one of the most expensive cities until I retire? And it's like impossible, like the question is impossible. Yeah, the task is impossible, but I feel like that's what the people are trying to challenge themselves with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, do you see, sort of I mean again, do you feel like the idea of community kind of comes into play here?
Speaker 2:I think the word I tried to like be super specific. So when we talk about community, like who are those people like really being dialing down into, like not thinking of it in the broader sense, thinking of it in the most minute sense? So for mine it was like there was Elijah and Scalia. So there was me, who I had a partner, or have a partner to the state. Then we had bars. You know me, scalia, roti, flavidy, swindle, okay, it's another layer. Then you had the grime scene. There was one of these participants. Then there was radio. There's a platform owned by a person I could speak to. You know what I'm saying. Whereas sometimes, when we talk about community, it's like who they broadcast to an Instagram, which is, and you can't name the people you can't like. You know, if you had to grab them, you couldn't.
Speaker 2:If you had to phone them, you wouldn't feel comfortable having a conversation with them directly, and that that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people that you can engage with directly, or they will come to something and you can speak to them face to face, and so the closer you're able to name them and identify them, then I believe that is like a community. Maybe the other thing is like an audience or, you know, a spectator, and sometimes what we dial into like what is a community and what isn't is, to me, is not the same.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like yeah, it's just, I think you know, obviously community gets used and quite an abstract becomes an abstract, doesn't it? It's like a sort of all in one kind of term for something. But I like what you're saying is sort of breaking it down into specifics of who you know and what the reaches and things like that.
Speaker 2:And what people do, like what they have. You know, it's not ecosystem if everyone is doing the same thing. So what they do, what they bring to the table, why that person's ideas or voices valued, you know. I'll give you an example. I went to a cafe a couple of years ago now like a suit, yeah, we made it in 2019. And I bought a bagel and then they said welcome to the community. I was like, oh, I'm not part of this community, I just wanted the food, I just wanted lunch.
Speaker 2:I don't like because I've, because I listened to I'm a piano or part of the community. No, I just sometimes I just want to be a customer, I just want to enjoy something and consume it. I don't think you participate in something necessarily injects you into the community of it, and maybe that, you know, social media made people feel more involved than they actually are or, you know, claim to be, and I, trying to have that balance of like yeah, I might have a point of view on something right, also doesn't mean that I'm part of the community or I can mean or meaningful participant.
Speaker 1:I think so. Yeah, I'm getting an impression of what you mean anyway in terms of, yeah, I mean again, I think with with like things like social media and the industry. At the moment, there is like just so much noise, and I think you know, also think some of the things you touched on that creators feel that their careers are made or broken based on algorithms as well. And how do you feel like sort of you know, in terms of someone's like well being and in terms of how they feel about their work? I mean, what, what? What do you feel like? How do people I mean, I have my ways of doing it and I don't always succeed and but, like you know, few how do you feel like the best way is to sort of navigate just this noise when, ultimately, the end of the day, like, aside from money and making a career, it's like it's up decided to do something and you need to also have the space to make work? That you feel as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess like the decision of what outcomes you really want. Like do you, are you trying to make a career? Are you trying to like be liked by the highest amount of people? Are you trying to get the most plays on Spotify, like what is actual success to you here? And if you optimize on one bit, I mean even if you get it, it might not be what you think. So if you optimize for a million plays on Spotify and get it, so what you know, you have maybe, like, I think it's like $4,000 or something.
Speaker 2:Still, you're still going to be rooted to the same place and it might not bring you the joys and things that you think. So trying to get into a mindset of like the, you know, success upon creation, that's like Princess thing, right? Okay, I've made something. Whether it's successful in the wider world, it is successful to me. I'm happy with it. You know, or having a few different parts of work, you know, work for me, work for you. Sometimes that leads you know, just one and the same.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you know I'm going to just make because I just enjoy it and if someone else enjoys it, cool. And that seems like the healthiest relationship to have. When I see artists and get worried about the outcomes of stuff that's sitting in their Ableton thing, I'm like, well, there's nothing here to win. And yeah, again, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a life coach or anything, but I guess the way people are consuming I don't know how people scroll their apps and what they see and what else is going on in their lives but that's probably what's most helpful for me. Like I did, I would write these things or think these things anyway, and I'm just sharing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think to me that I resonate with that in the sense that it's sort of that's how I kind of relate to, at least in terms of my own work and stuff with authenticity as well, and that you know you can't sort of second guess. It really is sort of and maybe I kind of find it casually in like things like kind of working in a flow state or just being present and not really kind of thinking about the next stage. But I was wanting to know what like authenticity, because a lot of also a lot of the notes and a lot of your work seems to be sort of it does come from such an authentic place and it does feel that you know, there is a sort of thing about encouraging people to think in an authentic way about themselves. You know, and I was wondering if you could explain a little bit about, like, what authenticity means to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you can tell when someone is doing something that someone has told them these are the things to do that are going to work. And maybe I'm trying to take the opposite side of that bet. Like a lot of the projects I do, I'm like, well, this is not likely to work at any meaningful scale, or it's not. You know, it's not going to get me the most followers, or it's not going to make get to a festival thing, but it's going to open up something different and that is probably where it's interesting. And then you still might end up getting there anyway and it's hard for you know.
Speaker 2:Again, if you, if you're in a, you know, tricky place in life, you want to guarantee your success, you're. What you're doing is hard enough already. So of course, you're going to, if they say, post your Instagram posts at 6pm with a hashtag that says this and with a selfie that says that. You know, I mean you're going to do those things to try and optimize for a thousand likes or whatever the target is. But again, if you take that, I'm trying to take the opposite side of that. I'm like, well, everyone is being told to do that, so I'm going to scroll and then see all selfies.
Speaker 2:But then if you scroll, and see one thing that's like what the hell is that then I might not even get the same amount of likes, but I'm going to get a different reaction or different feeling from people.
Speaker 2:And that's what seems to have happened, and a lot of like. I guess common logic that I see in music education or in creative careers and all this kind of stuff is that there's the commodification of every part of what makes an artist your social media, the way you talk, the way you DJ, the way you capture content, the way you make the music, the way you know. Okay, this is how you make liquid drum and bass, this is how you get a press shot, this is how you market, this is when you announce okay, well, if everyone is doing it that way, what have we created? Created, like you know, 10,000 bots? Hey, there's a human just writing notes and thinking about stuff as an individual, not going to get everything right. Maybe I'm rung more than I'm right, but when I'm right, I'm right bigger than every time. All of these kind of things are just chipping away.
Speaker 1:I think that also, thinking like music production as well like I think things like Ableton can be a great tool, but they're so such universalized as a thing that people use that you know you can kind of like. You know like sort of like having everything on the grid unless you turn it off the grid, things like that Do you see like there are kind of like disadvantages to platforms like Ableton, or like, are there ways that you feel like people can navigate this to find, you know, to sort of not do the same thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's weird. Like that is just what being an artist is. Obviously it's easy enough to put together a techno song that sounds like it was made in Detroit in 1995, because you can just watch a tutorial to do that. But then if we're talking about that, that is like maybe like sketching or tracing or coloring in, but usually that's not what we're talking about. Like, we're talking about making art, making something new, making something authentic, making something that we're not sure what it is, even if it does fit into techno or does fit into grime or whatever.
Speaker 2:And I don't want to say, I don't want to say what people should do, like what. I guess what you're getting at is like I'm trying to say just do your thing. Like, do it in a way that makes sense to you, don't worry about the tutorials too much. But then that becomes a tutorial in itself. I know that I'm really of this, but the only I guess the leadership that I'm taking is my example of making stuff while I'm telling you to make stuff. So this doesn't work if I'm also not putting out albums and not doing the lectures and not making art among the art, if that makes sense. If I was just telling you to do something. I wasn't doing it myself, I wasn't working on projects with other artists that exhibit these qualities and I think, yeah, you could interrogate more, but it's hard to be to say, oh, just be original.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's like the same as like the kind of community thing as well. Isn't it Just like become an abstract concept? Don't like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like only you, the kind of person that is more likely to crack it at some meaningful level, would probably maybe take a few bits from the writing I've put out so far but then also think this person is a dickhead. Bro, I can just you know what I'm saying and have a completely different point of view and do it their way, and you know what I mean, and just, and I respect that too. You know what I'm saying, I respect that. Like nah, bro, like that's wrong, like this guy's an idiot. I don't listen to him, that's good. I like you know when I think scenes and communities are the most healthy is that you know they're not. There's not a lot of convergent for and I see scenes die when they get too boxed in full of squares. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's sort of like the roadmap has been created and the work has done, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah. When I see this, all you like, all you need to do is this you can release on this label and you can play. This thing is yeah. And today, like people have like whole corporations of people that are trying to fight for these small spots Like the things that I do, you know, just by myself, I'm kind of just playing around with these there are people trying to get this level of attention with a corporation, with a marketing department, with a you know 10 meetings to think about what to write on the words and the slides and stuff.
Speaker 2:And I find it like I find it fascinating and it makes it does make you question again, like resource allocation in our you know, seeing the world and music industry, and just maybe like a lot of the work that we do. Like the seatbelt is on. I mean I was just thinking, well, we're making art here, we're not making a, not making rockets or something. There is no reason to have a safety thing on this. Yeah, in the world, like I don't understand why it's so restrained or people are so fearful.
Speaker 1:I think we, you know, I think feeling boxed in can be a tendency that can kind of creep us over all of us as well. You know, I don't know like there's got to be ways that we all have to kind of keep expanding. We have comfort zone, for a reason, and it kind of keeps us cozy or feels like it keeps us safe and stuff. And it can be quite intimidating going out and just trying random stuff or just connecting with yourself and putting things out. You know, and like you know how I mean, how do you feel like sort of have there been times where you felt like yourself that you've, with organizing nights and sort of, particularly in the kind of areas that you were doing it? You know, like between, sort of like after grime initially had its sort of moment, before I had a kind of resurgence and a creative resurgence, did you sort of feel like hang on a minute, am I just, you know, am I going out on my own on this? Really?
Speaker 2:No, I definitely think there was enough. I wouldn't have said that I chose this challenge more than anything else infrastructure to make this happen. There were clubs there. I did have, like, I guess, the media platform of rinse. I did have like enough of a artist around and people that were interested to have the grand forum and like there was enough data points to be like, okay, I can get, I can get 200 people in a room.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like it wasn't shooting in the dark and I had the thing with grime. It always had dubstep as this like cousin. That was like okay, one for BPM instrument music. Right there People were making money touring around the world. If I didn't see that then maybe I would have thought as a viable kind of way of participating that was really helpful. So, seeing what code nine was doing with hyperdog Mal was doing a deep medi I was like I can just do that, I can do a grand version of hyperdog and obviously I didn't crack it to that level, but it was good enough to still have a point of view and participate.
Speaker 1:Just finally, what would you tell your younger self, like if you were kind of going back to say like the early 2000s, you know what would you, you know what would you think was the most important thing that you would tell yourself?
Speaker 2:I think just try to add this faster Everything that I've done. I could have done pretty tears before and actually had that idea and the procrastinated, or had like the doubt, or fail, or maybe signals to tell me not to do something. And now that there are a lot of this, I feel I feel like I see young people going through this. There are a lot of signals telling you not to do something, maybe more than to do something, and actually that in itself is a signal of what to do. There is like a oh, everyone is doing this is a signal to do that. Or they're telling you whatever. What's a good signal or bad signal? All the arts funding is being cut.
Speaker 2:Okay where, okay, what does that mean for you? Or what does that mean for opportunity here? Or London is getting expensive in terms of rent, okay, what's the second most viable place that can be and still participate? Or now we're not in the European Union. Where do I have to? Like, look further?
Speaker 2:I feel like there's all these things that you know. One door closes, one door opens, and even just knowing that you know the obviously the pandemic happened like this can all be taken away very quickly, is useful, because then you know like I don't have time on my side, so I have to assume next year will be completely different to this year. There will be like there might be no symmetry at all. You know, I might go to a few of the same venues and see a few of the same people. Maybe do some of the people adult this year, but the year could be completely different. I have to accept that as part of the journey that I'm on now, whereas before, and maybe in our land, to work careers, is that you're looking for a trajectory or kind of you know yeah rhythm.
Speaker 2:This is not that anymore and you just have to be accepting of that and it. Maybe there will be a point in life where I don't want to participate or be, like you know last hour, where there is no rhythm, and when that is, then I will do something else. But today I'm maybe not comfortable with that, but I'm willing to, like, ride that wave and you know, 234567, 10 years down the line, when the rhythms don't align with my, like last hour, what I want to do or what I think is interesting, and I'll just stop or do something else because you can. And that realization for my youngest off, knowing that I don't know how long life could be or short life could be. So I'm 36.
Speaker 2:I could have another 15 years doing something completely different, and then another 15 years doing something completely different, and then another and then another before I get put into the ground. And that last by to my great uncle yesterday who's 91. I'm 36. So I'm like, okay, if I can get to that with some, with with a in reasonable health, if I'm lucky enough to have good health, then I have to do music or like creative industry stuff, whatever Like that. I don't think that's the goal here, but I didn't realize this until super recently.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that was me, Paul Hanford, talking with Elijah for Lost and Sound podcast, and we had that chat on October, the 9th 2023, which, if you're listening to this podcast the day it comes out, was yesterday. Yeah, thank you so much, elijah for for for having a chat with me there. Yeah, there's so many, so much out of that. Like I kind of it's like I want to just process so much of that and use it myself and not forget about it as life goes on. You know what I mean. And, yes, there's an album make the thing album, which is out now. There's a link in the podcast description, of course. There is a link to his Instagram in the podcast description as well. Check it out, get inspired, see what you think. If you don't know it already, I'm sure most of you do.
Speaker 1:Yes, so Lost and Sound sponsored by Audio Technica. Audio Technica are a global but still family run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones, studio quality yet affordable products. I genuinely, genuinely use their stuff. I always have done, ever since I first started making music. There was an Audio Technica mic right in front of me, yeah, and so go and check out the stuff. Audio Technicacom, tom Giddens, makes the music that you hear at the beginning, the end of every episode of Lost and Sound.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, if you're in Berlin, if you're a Berlin listener and you are coming to Podfest, come and see me play, do a live Lost and Sound on Sunday, the 15th of October, which is this coming Sunday If you haven't got tickets yet, there's a link in the description. Just basically, lots and lots and lots of podcasts live in front of an audience. I have two incredibly special guests which I'll be announcing over the next day or so. Yeah, I hope you're good, I hope you're really well. I've probably forgotten to say anything, but that's okay. I think I'm due for another flat white. Have a good one, have a fucking great one, actually and chat to you next week. Thank you, thank you.