Steel Banglez on His New Album ‘The Playlist’ and Working with Sidhu Moose Wala

On U.K. producer Steel Banglez’s new album The Playlist, there are 27 tracks all injected with the beatsmith’s voice coming in from time to time, almost like you were listening to a DJ cuing up and introducing tracks by heavy-hitters that range from Giggs to Aitch to the unmissable Sidhu Moose Wala and Burna Boy. Over a call from the U.K., Banglez says his voice coming in was his way to represent old-school hip-hop and natural hip-hop.

The producer, born Pahuldip Singh Sandhu, taps into the beating heart of hip-hop, drill and trap from London and beyond on The Playlist, delivering only bangers. Familiar friends like MIST, Yungen, Mo Stack and D Double E feature on different tracks, as do powerful rappers like Tion Wayne, Tiggs Da Author, Maverick Sabre and several others. Ever the prolific producer, Banglez says he actually had an additional 60 songs for the album. “I’ve got at least 22 solid songs that have been kept back. Majority of the songs on the album are from ranging from 2019 to 2021,” he says.

Yet, Banglez says The Playlist is made to represent the current streaming era. He likens it to putting together a playlist featuring “the highest from England.” He adds, “It’s like, ‘This is what I would do if I was to create a playlist in the current era of loads of different music, but all originally produced.” In an interview with Rolling Stone India, Banglez talks about putting together the album, working with Sidhu Moose Wala and Burna Boy for the key track “Mera Na” and future releases with AP Dhillon and another posthumous record with Moose Wala and Fredo. Excerpts:

What did you feel like you wanted to cover sonically in terms of the record?

I wanted to just showcase where I come from, and what’s popular from where I’m from, but also be one of the first producers to actually be able to put an album together of this magnitude in England and say that I’m here.

Could you tell me a bit about what it was like bringing so many people together?

I feel like my relationship with artists in the country and the UK is really solidified. They consider me as family. So getting them on the album was pretty easy, to be honest, out of respect for my art. I’d say clearances were slightly a problem because some people assigned to a major label but I think people believed in my vision so much that it was pretty easy for me.

The moods and styles the album goes through seem to have a thought behind it. What was the sequencing part of it like for you?

I wanted to start with where I come from, which is street rap in the U.K., so when you hear it, you hear Giggs then you hear like Blade Brown and Asco. Then you have the Chip freestyle. And then you have Squeeks on ‘Multi-Mill Plans,’ which kind of identifies who I am from the streets. We grew up in the streets in East London, doing road rap, is what they call it. It goes into more of a live record, and then some nice drill, some heavy, some conceptual female lyrics and then into a nice, current trap record with like people Nines and MIST. There’s Afrobeats and U.K. Afro-swing, which was a representation of what’s popular on the radio, or what people are partying to. And then it goes to old-school garage, which is where I’m from as a kid, which was a popular genre when I was younger.

Then you obviously have ‘Mera Na,’ which is a tribute to Sidhu with Burna Boy. He’s like one of the biggest artists in the world today. And then it goes into more conscious [hip-hop] with Berwyn in ‘Things Change,’ Maverick Sabre on ‘Essence’ with Ghetts, and then ‘On My Way,’ which is with a lot of verses from Tiggs Da Author. They are really more vocal in the expression of musical concepts, so I just kind of wanted to create that journey and just give doses where I come from.

What was it like working with Sidhu Moose Wala on “Mera Na” and what did you have in mind when you were first making it together?

We made this track during Moosetape. I asked Sidhu to do a track for my album and we did ‘Mera Na,’ we’d actually done two songs because I’ve produced a lot on Moosetape. But this song I wasn’t too sure with because of the concept, but I remember Sidhu telling me in the studio at the time that I’d remember this song, and I didn’t understand what he meant by it. But I do now.

The meaning of the song that his name will live forever and stuff like that was very deep for me. So we had Burna on the song prior to Sidhu passing away, god bless him. We had that verse that you initially hear Burna come in, which was recorded in L.A., and then the ending part I redid and recreated for a dedication to Sidhu.

I never knew it’d end up being a tribute record to him, and him passing away, but that’s how god wanted it. So I had to finish it off in that way, I guess with the choir and Burna. There were two different ways we could have gone with this record, but god chose it to be this way.

The song really cements his legacy in a strong way. You had the blessings of Sidhu’s parents, so what was it like taking the call to release it? What was going on in your mind, being entrusted with a song like “Mera Na”?

I feel honored that this is the first major release since our brother’s passed away. I can’t imagine what the parents are going through. They’ve been flung into the limelight since his death, since the moment it was announced. I just pray that they get some sort of privacy and peace soon, because, it’s a very hard thing for two older parents to be dealing with and then on the same side, me talking about releasing a record and them wanting it to come out. And it just being an emotional process, even with the video. I kinda was blacked out and in tunnel vision at the time.

What kind of changes have you seen in music culture and movements in the U.K. in the last few years, where things like Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have occurred?

I feel like since COVID, the consumption of music has changed globally, I’d say. It’s also birthed a lot of stars in COVID. The normal routine for me to get people in the studio and be out there in the scene and mix with these new generation children wasn’t as easy. But I still do, because I have my studios and stuff. But I felt like TikTok and Reels have changed the way people consume songs. That’s identifying what’s popular in music today. It’ll be here for a while, but I feel like that’s just a passing phase. Still, these social media apps have dictated the way people find songs that are popular, and maybe it’s changed the narrative about record labels, who once were doing this standard marketing blueprint that’s been happening for years. I feel like the fans and the people are in control of what songs are popular to them.

Has it been a shift for you then, in terms of finding people to work with? A lot of it is online now?

Yeah, I feel like that. But it’s getting back to normal now, now that the world is functioning again. People are about their shows, there are sessions and stuff like that. But for that period, during COVID, it was very different.

In the promotion of this album, are you going to be performing a few shows? Is there a tour in the works?

Yeah, we’ve got a tour in the works. I’ve also released this independently, so it’s not on a major label. So the growth of this album is getting bigger, compared to week one. Now, week two is even bigger, in terms of the push and my spend, which I personally have injected my own money into, kicked in this week. And it won’t finish until mid-June. And that’ll be like YouTube ads, social media ads, just linking up with artists releasing some videos off the album, couple of songs, and just keep pushing it as an independent artist. And that’s something I’m trying to be proud of. As you can tell, and you can see the numbers are not as strong as it would be on a major release. But it takes time to build your independent fan base and build a core fan base that would literally support your music until it goes mainstream, again, without the major. So that’s basically what I’m doing. I’m just building up.

What kind of talents of come up on your radar from India? What do you look out for?

I have a record with AP Dhillon. That’s coming soon. I’m speaking to Shubh for the last few months. I speak to DIVINE as well. They’re the kind of people I’ve been speaking to at the moment. But yeah, that’s just about it. I try not to do too much. Yeah, I try to keep our Indian culture in what I do, but I try to keep it not too much, because I’m obviously in the West and people sometimes get confused.

It’s quite a balancing act, isn’t it?

Yeah, yeah. But we still push the boundaries, you know? We still need to push our culture as Indians, you know, Pakistani, Sri Lankans… wherever you want to call it, that whole South Asian thing [that] I kind of represent. I am in the mainstream and there are a lot of us in the West as well, so I don’t want to lose that.

What clicks in your mind as a producer when you hear an Indian rapper you’d want to work with?

I think for me, being a producer, it’d always be the voice and the sound and the delivery and the flow, and how they sit and what’s their sound. Everything to me is to do with sound. And then when I meet them, their personality and the way they are, expressing themselves creatively. That’s important too. I look for that in every artist that I work with, so it’s no different, you know – lyrical, content flow… vocal tone is so important; if someone having a unique tone, like AP, like Sidhu, like DIVINE. These are core fundamentals that I look for.

What else is coming up through 2023?

The next record I will release is targeted towards, I would say, the Asian-Indian, South Asian market, would be a song called ‘Attached’ with Sidhu Moose Wala and Fredo, which is a record of mine.

I shot this video while Sidhu was alive and I have that video, which I’m really treating dearly to my heart, but at the same time, it’s important that it comes out and it represents Sidhu’s legacy and keeps it going on.

I have a record with AP Dhillon as well, featuring some other artists too, which I can’t say at the moment but they’re big artists as well, in the West.

I have joint EPs with street artists in the U.K. and artist who are blowing up called Tunde and then I have a joint EP with Ms Banks as well. I’m just happy that my album’s out and I’m able to get back in the studio and create because having the pressure of the album to put out was really destructive to my creative process. I’m happy that I’m just in the studio making music again.