Skill, Tuff Wash Records‘ latest release, dropped last night. For the first time the Verona (Italy)-based label drifts from strictly upbeat music. With the label’s historic producer, Mel, at beat and production and the renown London-based MC Killa P at the vocals, Tuff Wash Records experiments with the environment of UK Drill.
“The first beat I sent Killa was far more hybrid“, tells Mel, “but as soon as I heard his first bars it became clear to me that it had to be as unapologetic as possible – like his message is“.
Message that Killa P states in the video’s intro: “We have a whole heap of supporters who support the music, we have a lot of family all over the world… so why the fuck am I going to care about war and violence? When music makes money, and I have children that need feeding every fucking day, you understand? Ah so mi seh…“
Killa P’s – born 1980 – drops a badman-tune that tells a piece of real life around South London (“nuff a dem a gwaan like dem know we from the beginning / when dem never spent one night at Brixton Mass / never see a shoot-out in a car wash“. But it hides a message of redemption (“Mi nah have no time fi di fuckery / gyal dem outta road love me from the days when mi did ugly / now mi ah put in the work…“) to be achieved thanks to those skills that each and every one of us was born with. In Killa P’s case, thanks to music.
Killa P, Mel – Skill is Tuff Wash Records’ first release of 2023, year of studying and planning, that recently saw a change in logos and graphic works, as well, in sight of this new horizon for the label.
Video shot on February 9-10th between Brixton and Clapham by: Martina Oberti
Cover by Giovanni Bubola
Produced and mixed by: Mel (Andrea Melchiori) in the new Tuff Wash Studio
Mastered by: Federico Grella in the Dirty Sound Studio
Killa P
Mel
Tuff Wash Records
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