Our image of a music star tends to be one dimensional. With the spotlight often focusing on singers or rappers, it is often forgotten that it can take a team of people behind the scenes to make the magic happen – many of whom we rarely get to see.
Jahrell Bryan, also known as Fumez the Engineer, is an audio engineer who has created his own spotlight, with his signature taglines dropped onto the end of his productions, essentially shouting himself out in some of the biggest UK hip-hop tracks of recent years, including his remix of Ed Sheeran’s Bad Habits with Tion Wayne and Central Cee, which helped propel the track to number one on the UK Singles Chart.
It’s apparent Fumez set his sights on making an impact behind the scenes, rather than behind the mic, from very early on. “I always had an interest in music, for me it was just trying to find the right fit in terms of positions,” he says. “When I grew up, everything was about rapping or performing itself, and I figured that I wanted to be someone behind the scenes, but I wanted to have a heavy influence.”
It was his local youth club, which had a recording studio, where Fumez first became interested in producing and started to hone his skills. “For me, going into this youth club was a thing of just socialising and having fun. Meeting new friends, playing pool, playing table tennis. From there, I discovered the studio embedded in the youth club. And I was like, ‘You know what? I don’t know what any of this stuff does, but for some reason, it’s calling me.’”
It wasn’t exactly Abbey Road though. “The youth club was very underprivileged; the air conditioning wasn’t even working, so it was like a sauna. But at the same time, I just wanted to be in there. The more I sat in there, the more I absorbed, the more I kind of understood. I just started growing.”
Staff at the youth club noticed Fumez’s growing passion for the studio and offered him a work experience placement for three months but a lack fo funding meant they couldn’t pay him – though he saw it as a huge learning curve.
Those three-months turned into two years. Eventually “they said, ‘Look man, you’ve been here for two years, just volunteering at our services – so we want to put you on our payroll and we want to start doing stuff, we want you to take certain tests... I did that, passed those and before I know it, it had been three years and I started getting paid.”
Fumez’s sound began to pick up traction, which was, in some part, down to effective branding, which meant putting the audio tag Fumez The Engineer at the end of tracks. “I noticed I was in crowds where people were speaking on my name, and they didn’t even know who I was. So, then I thought, ‘Do you know what? How do I put a face to the brand?’”
So he created videos of freestyles that “put my face out there, put the music out there”. He continues, “It feels great knowing that something that started from a youth club and that was just a dream – and I was getting the support from my family – and to be able to take it where I’ve taken it, it feels like such an accomplishment.”
The success drove Fumez to push for more, and as he says, his drive sometimes makes it difficult for him to celebrate his own milestones. “Even though it feels good. I’m always like, ‘Cool. That was great. How do we move forward? How do we take it to the level above, how do we stay relevant, stay consistent and stay knocking on the doors?’”
That drive no doubt played a part in securing one of his highest profile projects, working with Ed Sheeran on a remix of the singer/songwriter’s smash hit Bad Habits, with Central Cee and Tion Wayne, two of the UK’s biggest rappers.
Working with such big names gave Fumez an insight into the inner workings of the business, which gave him a different perspective on his own processes. “Everything’s an experience when you get to work with an artist like Ed Sheeran, you can argue is like the biggest in the world. You start to realise, okay, there’s a lot of stuff that I don’t know,” he said.
“A lot of it is business. And there’s ways of dealing with business, handling business, labels, AMRs, investors, brands, all that stuff.” It’s not something he thought a lot about starting out but found it useful experience. “So now, implement what you learned from the situation into the business model that you have now. And then ultimately, again, we take it to the next level.”
Fumez developed and produces his own YouTube series, Plugged In, which regularly showcases emerging and established artists in the UK rap scene is seen as a launch pad for many artists in UK rap.
The work with Irish collective A92 clocked in over 50 million views on YouTube, over 100 million streams on Spotify and hit the the UK Top 40 and Irish Singles Chart. “I always believed that if I put my mind to something I can achieve, achieve, and succeed, and overachieve as well. I can’t sit here and say I expected the A92 Plugged In to do what it did.
Attracting some of the best young talents in UK rap and drill onto his series has come with its own issues in terms of police response – with authorities taking videos down without speaking to artists or providing reasoning.
“Within my work, I’d love to have a better relationship with the police. I’ve tried to open communications regarding that. Specifically, the music videos, I feel like naturally, a lot of these kids, they find a hobby, and something that they are able to afford to.”
Some of those he works with just want to put work out there, and maybe get some sort of recognition from it, and are left confused when the videos are removed without anyone being told. “I feel like, what the police need to understand as well... it’s better to communicate and explain why certain things can and can’t happen, other than just keep tearing kids work down. That doesn’t help support them or motivate, do you get what I’m saying? There’s no direction given.”
He continues, “You’re not helping the community; you’re not helping every individual that’s involved. You’re not even trying to communicate and help us understand, you’re just telling us this ‘Oh, it’s my way or the highway’. Meanwhile, you’re limiting opportunities, I don’t see much that you’re provided.”
One of the core reasons behind Fumez’s Plugged In series is to create opportunities for young people coming from similar backgrounds as his, and he regularly chooses to feature young and emerging talent on his platforms.
A part of this is because youth services have been decimated since Fumez was involved with his local club, with the YMCA reporting cuts of £1.1bn – a real terms fall of 74% since 2010/11, figures which Fumez was already well aware of. This means that the opportunities he benefited from previously are becoming scarcer.
“I’ve had to provide people with opportunities, because I know how it feels when you don’t have opportunities. You’re not allowed to express yourself, and you’re misunderstood. But no one wants to understand, they just want to tell you, you’re wrong. No one wants to show you how to be right and wants to show you how”
Creating opportunities for young people is vital in shaping the prospects of the next generation, he says: “Instead of madness, try and have a good impact on a lot of people’s life and change lives and provide opportunities, structures, business plans, and put people in jobs from the back of our little community.”
Fumez also seeks to bridge the gender gap within the music industry with his Plugged In project, which is releasing an International Women’s Day special, with an all-female curation.
“I’ve got an all female Plugged In coming up that I’m very excited about. I’m working with TikTok on a marketing campaign to try and push that and get the best out of it and try and get some females some opportunities and push that genre in a good light as well.
“I’m excited about doing things like that. When there’s opportunity to do it. I try and get it done.”
