On a Friday evening in June 2021, saxophonist Alabaster dePlume heard the silky vocals of Karl Benjamin and Elisa Imperilee seeping through the walls of Root73’s recording studio in the Total Refreshment Centre in Dalston, London. Inspired, he grabbed his instrument and improvised a spectacular melody for their new track in one take. “He added magic and then fucked off,” says Jaden Osei-Bonsu (AKA Eerf Evil), who co-founded the Silhouettes Project with Asher Korner (AKA Kosher) for moments like these.
With live events and a debut album in 2020 that united more than 30 rappers, singers and producers, the Silhouettes Project is acting as a loudhailer for hip-hop, jazz, soul and R&B artists who might be ignored by streaming services and arts funding bodies. Some of them, such as the witty and conversational rapper Enny, have broken into the mainstream.
The excitement for the Silhouettes Project was palpable at a sold-out show at Camden’s Jazz Cafe in April: adoring fans had learned all the lyrics during lockdown, and after performers took turns on stage backed by a jazz-inflected six-person band, the night culminated in a boisterous singalong. “No one was coming for one person, they were coming for the whole sound,” says Eerf Evil now, grinning as he sprawls his long limbs out on a studio sofa. “These artists might not make it into a playlist by themselves but with the collective energy around the project, people are making it.”
Kieron Boothe, an east London rapper who has been making music professionally since 2014, sees the Silhouettes Project as a turning point in his career. After releasing No Peace, his introspective rap about self-love with soulful vocals by Morgan Lorelle, his monthly listeners on Spotify have more than tripled; the track has reached over 2.4m streams. “With the right push, the attention has picked up,” he says.
“You’re a lot stronger in any musical movement when there’s people doing it together,” adds Nix Northwest, a classically trained multi-instrumentalist, who produced Enny’s song For South. He first met the shy vocalist at a regular Silhouettes jam in the Total Refreshment Centre. “It was like a little update of where everyone was at,” he says. “It felt like a proper family vibe. Even the first one, when I didn’t know anyone there, I felt welcome and appreciated.”
“It was a really welcoming environment,” agrees south London singer Elisa Imperilee. Filled with friendly competitiveness, rappers would spit livewire rhymes and musicians improvised for an audience of like-minded people. These jams took place every six weeks before the pandemic halted live music. “The pandemic made me really appreciate what performing live does for your music,” says Imperilee, adding that being able to continue the work collaboratively in the Root73 studio “makes you fall in love again with why you do what you do”.
Kosher launched Root73 as a non-profit recording space in 2016, before setting up the Silhouettes Project with Eerf Evil in 2019. “We’re not maximising and squeezing every penny” out of the artists, he says.
He became disillusioned with the music industry when he saw how artists were treated on the basis of race, class and gender, while working at some of the UK’s largest record labels. Last year, a study found that 63% of Black music creators in the UK have experienced racism; misogyny and sexual misconduct remain pervasive; and exploitative label deals and low streaming revenues don’t offer enough remuneration.
“Music is unlike any other saleable product,” Kosher says. “It’s [the artist’s] voice, their heart, their feelings,” and conflict can be created when those feelings are packaged and sold. At the core of the Silhouettes Project, though, is an egalitarian ethos, where proceeds of any live show or album are split equally between creatives involved. “We’re not there to abuse, we’re there to do something [for artists].”
Streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify accounted for 80% of the UK industry’s £1.7bn total income in 2021, and have become tastemakers you have to please. “I feel like the more people at the ground level feel it and push it, the platforms have no option [but to play us],” says Kieron Boothe. “Because you’re making so much noise, you’re gaining so much traction.” Kosher compares his work to Rinse FM, the once-pirate radio station that broadcast the UK’s most uncompromising grime MCs. “That’s kind of what the Silhouettes Project is in a way,” he says. “A place you can find new artists and engage with a community.”
On a new album, due to come out in September, the artists have levelled up after seeing the runaway success of the Silhouettes Project’s first tracks: everyone sounds more confident. “It’s challenging the industry,” says Eerf Evil, “and shows what happens if communities had the resources to create.”
