Are you into electronic music? you probably know your drum ’n’ bass, garage, and house.
Maybe you’re drawn to the left field – hyperpop, disco, experimental?
Put it all together, crank the tempo, and you land on a genre that’s been shaking dancefloors for more than two decades: Grime.
Born in East London’s underground rave scene at the turn of the millennium, Grime: once called Eskibeat or Simply Urban, carved out its own identity thanks to pioneers like Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Kano.
The artist’s raw, rapid-fire sound split grime from its garage and jungle roots and stamped it into a movement of it’s own.
After fading from the mainstream spotlight, grime roared back in 2015 with artists such as Skepta, Jme, Bugzy Malone and P Money pushed the sound global, making it the pulse of a new generation.
Also riding the wave was The Square, a Lewisham collective featuring Faultsz, Streema, Syder, Elf, DeeJillz and led by firebrand MC Novelist, with Lolingo steering production behind the decks.
Now juggling music, animation and management, Lolingo took a break to chat about grime’s past, present and future.
You grew up in London, what part of the city are you from and what kind of culture did you grow up around?
I grew up in a borough called Lewisham, and in that borough there’s a district called New Cross Gate, and I live around there.
As far as the culture, my community was very diverse. Playing outside, there was around 5-7 kids on my road, all from different genders and backgrounds. There were Indians, Jamaicans, Chinese, lots of people there. I remember my neighbours would always have parties during the summer and play lots of garage music from around 2003.
Did you ever want to go on the mic, or did you know you were strictly a decks/producer guy?
You know what, I started writing bars as a joke around year 6 when I was around 12 years old, but it was very basic.
I was just doing it for fun with some friends, then it was only when I got to around year 8 they started writing bars a lot more seriously, but it was still for fun.
I was writing here and there, but I was still kind of shit, then in year 9 or 10 is when I really met up with The Square guys, and just over the years watching them in the studio, watching the manager, him giving them tips on how to write better, how to project their voice, different techniques, I picked them all up.
When I produce my own beats now, sometimes I get the urge just to write some bars. It’s not something I want to do seriously, though. Here and there I might write a tune, and if I think it’s really good then I’ll push it out seriously, but it’s not a focus of mine.
Where does the name Lolingo come from?
Haha, I like this question! My first name is actually Lucky, and my surname is my producer name – Lolingo.
In secondary school, when I first started producing, I called myself “Lolingo Kid.”
It was only up until around year 9, year 10, starting GCSE’s that I was like, you know what, I don’t really like the ‘kid’ anymore, I need to remove it.
How did you fall into making music?
I’ve got an older half-brother who’s a singer-songwriter and one day after school, I think I was in year 7 at the time, he downloaded FruityLoops 8, and I just remember watching him use it while I was on my PlayStation.
I remember him calling me over asking me for help for something, because these times in the house I was such a computer wizard! My dad was into computers a lot, so I basically grew up around them, from when I was around 5 years old.
Anyway, he called me over and was like, “How can I do this, how can I do that?” bearing in mind I’d never used the program before, but it looked a bit intuitive, so I saw things and was like “try this, try that”, and it worked.
Straight after, I was like, “Yeah I’ll give it a try”, and the rest is history, i think I properly started in year 8, or the end of year 7.
Who are some of the main influences on your style?
Growing up, there was a lot of African music playing in the house, so lots of Nigerian music, lots of Congolese music.
My mum would be playing artists like Fela Kuti, my dad would be playing artists like Koffi Olomidé, so there was lots of rhythm and vibe growing up in my house.
Over the years, when I started getting into Grime, my main inspirations were Dot Rotten, Maniac, HeavyTrackerz, Teddy/Silencer and Jme.
I actually found out about Skepta pretty late because I was very tunnel-visioned in what I liked and as a producer, I was literally just listening to instrumentals for quite a long time, there was basically no vocals on my phone.
Do you have a favourite track/project?
You can’t ask these questions, man this is difficult!
I’ll give you a favourite instrumental track and vocal track, then a favourite instrumental project and vocal project.
For my favourite vocal track, I would say Under the Sun – Jesse James Solomon.
My favourite instrumental track is an instrumental called Butter Smooth – BR3, this track is just so soulful, I love it.
As for my favourite vocal project, I’ll say The Life of Pi’erre 4 – Pi’erre Bourne, it has taken me through a lot of memories- being out with my guys, partying, really, it was just a party phase! ,I still listen to it to this day though, I know all the lyrics from start to finish.
My favourite instrumental project, I’d have to say, White Label Classics – Ruff Sqwad.
There are so many timeless Grime instrumentals on there, such well-produced beats, although they might not sonically sound good today, they’re mixed to the best of their ability, and the production structure, drum patterns and all that are amazing. It was way ahead of its time.
What is your opinion on the state of Grime music at the moment?
I think it’s very healthy, you know.
In my opinion, I do wish that the new guys that are coming in would pay less attention to going to radio, and pay more attention to just releasing tracks, putting songs on DSP’s: Spotify, iTunes, stuff like that, because then when people look back, they’ll be like “Oh, you were this young and you made this sort of music.”
But radio sets, you can’t really create art when you’re doing one of those.
Well, you can, but it’s going to be very improvised, when you’re in the studio, you can really put things together and think about it, plus, no one’s going to put a radio set on their phone.
Do you still keep in touch with any of The Square boys or is that a thing of the past?
Yeah, I’m still in contact with them, every now and then I’ll see Nov around his area. I live in New Cross, Novelist lives in Brockley, which is about a ten minute walk. So every now and then I’ll see him in New Cross going to the shop or something and I’ll be like “Yo what you saying!”, give him a hug and that.
Faultsz, I see him every now and then, he lives in Peckham, which is about another ten minutes. A lot of us lived around ten minutes away from each other, except for DeeJillz, Syder, DeeCee, they probably lived like 20 minutes away in places like Sydenham, Catford, very local, but we’re all good.
I think me personally because I’m the producer and DJ, there’s no hate towards me, I always try to keep the peace, I like to think everything’s cool with us all.
You’ve shown off a lot of your animation and 3D work recently, is that a lifelong passion or something you’ve begun recently?
It’s lowkey been a lifelong passion.
Growing up, there was always a computer in my house, I think when I was five I started using the computer. Around age nine or ten I downloaded a program called Pivot Animator, so I think I was in year 5 at the time, maybe even earlier than that! I was animating from then all the way until the end of year 7. I did it here and there, but I loved producing so much that I kind of forgot about it.
It wasn’t until lockdown that I was like “You know what, I want to get into 3D animation now”, and then it started from there. The way animation caught my attention was that I always used to listen to Gorillaz, and seeing them on MTV, they were the only band at the time using animations in their music and I always thought that was interesting.
Little did I know I would get into making music but at the time that’s not what I was interested in, nor did I know how it was made.
What is your role with Skeen, and how do you want people to view it?
With Skeen, I started it in 2015 literally just as a record label, it was just somewhere I could put my music out. To put out my first instrumental EP, I was like “I need a record label.”
During these times, there was a lot of producers and DJ’s that had their own record label, like Coyote Records, Terra Firma, there was loads at the time that I was coming up. So I was like “I need to give it a good name as well”; it was between “Skeen Records” or “Truss Me Records”.
The whole idea behind the names was picking a slang term that was commonly used, something just told me to go with Skeen instead of Truss Me, because Skeen was that slang term that was used a lot when I was in year seven even though it came and went very quickly.
All Skeen really means is “Ok”, like a sarcastic “Yeah, right”, “Okay, Skeen”. But Skeen was basically just a record label from 2015 to 2022. That’s when I thought to myself that I wanted to get more bookings as a DJ, so I asked a lot of DJ’s, producers and people in the industry. Then I got to Sir Spyro, and he said “The only way you can get bookings is if you put your own shows on.” He said that’s what he had to do for people to take him seriously.
So I took his advice and linked up with some DJ and producer friends, like DNDY and Charisma. We eventually all chipped in for a venue to have our first show, then as things started to build and progress, things got more serious, like we were meeting lots of young artists.
So it started turning into a platform, record label, club night, so right now I’m the founder of Skeen, but I’ve given a lot of power to DNDY because he’s got a great mind, and he can take Skeen to an even bigger place. So nowadays I just focus on making the graphics for it and still overlook it all.
What’s coming in the future?
In the future I want to focus more on putting myself out there as a DJ.
Not that I don’t already, but I’m trying to be very unique in being a DJ. Plus, I just need to get myself my own pair of decks. I had a pair, but they were very outdated, and I needed the money so I sold them!
I’m saving up for a new pair, when I get a new pair, I’m going to start recording in my room, I’ve got a green screen, I’m going to do so many sick things.
As well as Dj’ing, I do want to focus on putting out vocals, not my own vocals, but from other people, getting more production credits on my instrumentals.
Frankly, I’m kind of tired of putting out instrumentals for the sake of it. Maybe if there’s hype built around it, then I’ll release more, but if not, I’ll save it.
Xander Vinci
Xander Vinci is a second-year student studying a Bachelor of Journalism and Broadcast Media at Edith Cowan University. He entered the writing, reporting and presenting field after falling in love with storytelling from a primary school age. Born and raised in Perth, his work covers a range of local topics, namely sports and politics. He was featured as one of the first writers for inaugural edition of "The Debrief", a collaboration between The West Australian and ECU students.
