When you mention the genre of Grime, it would be impossible not to speak of Elijah & Skilliam and the Butterz label. Although both are East Londoners, Elijah and Skilliam became good friends while studying at university in Hertfordshire. Their passion for grime and hard work has literally transformed the landscape of the scene. The two have not only brought raving to a new generation of grime fans but have also released some of the best records on the Butterz label from acts such as Terror Danjah, P Money, S-X, Trim, Royal-T, Swindle & Silkie, Champion and more. They are on Rinse FM every week, took on the job of mixing the station’s 17th compilation series and you can find numbers of people proudly wearing the ‘Black and Yellow’ Butterz branded t-shirts. Elijah & Skilliam have played throughout Europe and have recently brought their sound to the U.S. Indeed Butterz IS the label and is quickly becoming an empire.
Words-Art Jefferson
Images-Elijah & Skilliam
AJ-The Butterz label is now at the forefront of grime. You all began releasing records at a time when things slowed down a bit in the scene. Did you feel there was a gap that needed to be filled?
Elijah-There was definitely a gap that needed to be filled. We worked out that we wanted to do a label in the summer of 2009. There weren’t many grime records out at the time, but Dubstep was popular and we figured if it was presented in the same way people could understand it on that level. The mixtape and free download culture alienated a lot of people from it around that time so we just focused on putting together tracks people could play in the clubs. Not too long after the label got going, the main shops for Grime, Uptown Records and Rhythm Division closed so people thought an exclusive Grime label would eventually go down too, but we have kept going.
AJ-For people who may not know, explain the whole concept of ‘open source grime’?
Elijah-It originally came about because we allowed the stems to our first release with Terror Danjah to be downloaded and remixed and shared, which in our area was an alien concept at the time, but now it is a standard procedure with releases. You commonly have the artists giving away the acapella to generate more hype for the songs they do. It just came about because of the lack of remixes in Grime at the time when it had been really important a few years before. I was reading Matt Mason’s ‘Pirates Dilemma’ book and it gave me loads of ideas of how we could have some fun with the label, find new producers and really just make the scene in general a bit more creative and exciting again. With a two hour show on Rinse FM every week we have a lot of time to give loads of different ideas air time, especially as we are on late, we have the freedom to just play some crazy stuff that we may not have got used to doing if we had a prime time slot. But back to your main point in short ‘open source grime’ is enabling our tracks to be remixed by our audience and given them a platform to be heard. It’s been fun.
AJ-One of the people who you are affiliated with is Terror Danjah, who is responsible for some of the biggest grime tracks in the history of the scene. How did you initially come into contact with Terror?
Elijah-We met him before Twitter and before I had joined Facebook, in person, the old fashioned way. People need to do that more often. It is the easiest way to communicate with people still. I always think we communicate online too much and dont meet up enough and it kind of effects our ideas. Anyway, we were introduced by a mutual friend Loudmouth when I was trying to take DJing seriously, and he gave us a break by giving us a load of tracks, connecting us with Swindle & D.O.K and appearing as our first guest on Rinse FM and as our first artist on the label. So without him it would either not exist or be totally different.
AJ-One of the things that everyone knows Butterz for is the raves that you all put on. Would you agree that you helped to re-ignite the spark in raving for this new age of grime scene? I ask that because even raves like Wiley’s Eskimo Dance is back but you guys seem to have open the path again.
Elijah-Yeah that was one of the main aims with the label to begin with. We definitely got it cracking for the producer side of things. Nowadays in London at a lot of the ‘Bass’ nights you will see a grime producer or DJ on the line ups and that wasn’t happening two years ago. It is usually someone from the Butterz, Hardrive, Formula trinity too so that kind of makes me proud. Im glad Eskimo Dance has come back too so we aren’t under too much pressure to accomodate the MC side into our raves which generally I’m not so fond of at the moment. It’s integral to have really great nights to accompany the music, because in my opinion that’s what makes you love certain tracks more plus having the best nights of your life to your favourite music is what makes the Butterz parties what they are. It’s not just about hearing all the new music for the first time, it’s really about having a good time. People come from all over the country to check the party and we recognise that effort and try and place it all back in making sure the raving experience is next level for everyone.
AJ-What I have personally thought that Butterz has done so well is the branding aspect of grime which I felt was missing in the past. From the creative designs to the t-shirts down to the blogs, its a perfect match to the quality of artists on the roster. Talk about Butterz as a brand.
Elijah-We have been brought up on music being heavily branded, from looking at my big brother’s World Dance record bags and flyers, to all the great Hip-Hop labels like Bad Boy, Dipset and Rocafella then seeing what Boy Better Know did early on, we have it programmed into us to make it more than music. I did a marketing degree and I’m still reading a lot about branding all the time, but I’m not sure how much of that I’m pushing onto the label as all of the moves we have done with the brand have been natural. Like the black and yellow thing just started off because it is cheaper to print two colour artwork and when we started that’s all that we could afford. Now it is how most people recognise the label. We did t-shirts originally because people were asking on twitter so we got some basic ones printed up, but this year I wanted to take it up to the next level so I collaborated with Mishka on the latest design and it went way better then I expected. I just thought it would be a cool thing for a few people that are into both brands to pick up, but it went a lot further and we are looking at doing more collaborations. The name and logo for ‘Butterz’ has been used since 2007 when we were doing the blog, so to develop the meaning of that with our audience has been cool, and I’m looking to continue doing that. Now people are used to having us as a record label, a club night and a clothing brand. I think we could continue expanding things into other areas we think works for us personally and for the brand.
AJ-You have put out releases for big artists such as Trim, Swindle, Terror, Royal-T, P Money and more. You’re on radio, still putting on quality raves…what’s next for Butterz?
Elijah-Everything has been gradual. We aren’t going anywhere and we are not in a race with anyone so we can ease in new ideas bit by bit so by the time things come around it doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Our next release is Champion who is known as a funky producer, but he has made a belter of a Grime tune for us called ‘Crystal Meth’ which is getting a really strong reaction. That is out 25th June. Club wise we have a mini summer Butterz club takeover as a prelude to a larger winter Butterz club tour later on in the year. We bring the parties to Bristol, Sheffield and of course our home ground Cable throughout July. The larger tour for the winter is a lot of hard work but it is coming together for Oct/Nov which is a new challenge for the whole team. We haven’t had much time since Rinse:17 to put into developing Elijah & Skilliam projects because we have been so busy with the label, but not playing any festivals this year is going to give us a bit of time in August to do some cool stuff together. It is really important for pure DJs to have product too. People don’t see the value of them anymore so you really have to go the extra mile to show people what angle you bring to the game.
Catch Elijah & Skilliam on Rinse FM