One Day It Will All Make Sense - Steel Banglez on Legacy, Blending Culture, and his Production Process

Renowned British record producer Steel Banglez caught up with New Wave Magazine in the leadup to the release of his EP One Day It Will All Make Sense, releasing March 7th. Having produced some of the UK’s most iconic rap hits and shaped some of the most defining eras within the UK's music scene, he has worked with and elevated the sounds of a plethora of artists including Giggs, J Hus, Nines, and Stormzy. With tracks such as the Platinum-certified ‘Fashion Week’ featuring AJ Tracey and MoStack garnering over 99M streams, Banglez ability to consistently create hits hasn’t changed during his almost 20 years in the industry. ‘Attach’, released last August, has surpassed 27M streams, displaying the true longevity that continues to define Banglez' technical approach to his creation process. His latest offering, One Day It Will All Make Sense, is a reflection of the synergy between Balnglez and his surroundings, that has been tested, tried, and proved successful over countless years filled with relentless dedication to a craft few can execute.

Seamlessly blending two worlds that don’t often get this close to one another in music, One Day It Will All Make Sense is a six track EP that sees Banglez fuse Nigerian and Punjabi influence, collaborating with artists who are respective in their own cultures and own rights alone, making their impact together more poignant. Recently released single ‘Mohabbat (Love) featuring Lojay and Afsana Khan was the first taste of this eclectic bend offered to listeners, and the remaining five tracks encapsulate the spirit of collaboration that lies at the heart of this project. Banglez approach of embracing individuality has resulted in a harmonious blend of sweet melodies and hard-hitting lyricism, artists such as Omah Ley and AP Dylan, and Stefflon Don and Ikka Singh combining their talents to create colourful soical explosions that celebrate the East and West meeting each other in the middle.

Born to Punjabi Sikh parents in East London, Steel Banglez was raised within a melting pot of culture that tuned his ears and his perspectives to become open to the stories of others around him. His upbringing is sonically reflected in his musical influences which include Afro Swing, Hip-Hop, Dancehall, and Grime, amongst other genres.

Channelling this early exposure into his DJ-ing career during the heyday of the UK Garage and Grime scene, he has since become one of the shaping engineers behind Grime, Drill, and Rap music in the UK.

It’s only expected that after such a long run in the industry, Banglez knows that it is far from a simple thing to make your way as a producer. Shining a light on the trials that come with achieving greatness, while being overlooked for his talent, Banglez relentless desire to keep creating music is a testament tothe beauty of individuality when it is embraced. Continuing to push boundaries, Banglez legacy surrounds his dedication to making music that resonates with the heart.

Growing up, your Father was a poet, and your Mother taught classical music - with these creative influences from your parents, would the type of music you'd make as a singer be different from what you make as a producer?

I would most probably do what's popular today, at a good level - at a great level actually. Because I grew up in England, I don't think I would have done Punjabi music. I wasn't really a fan of it when I was younger - I wasnt a fan of that industry, because it was a back-home mentality, and sort of cut throat - whereas western music was more structured. But, I think I’d probably be an R&B singer. 

You grew up in a massive melting pot of culture in East London. We have Nigerian and Punjabi influences on this project too - As a producer, did this melting pot enable your ear to more sounds, enhancing what you're able to create? 

100%. I grew up in Forest Gate with Jamaican, Ghanaian, and Nigerian neighbours. My whole life, they've been my best friends, and to this day, they're still family. I'd go to their houses and they’d spend time at mine, and it was an exchange of culture each time, but we didn't know it at the time.

You don't realise that you’re being conditioned to their world - what you're hearing on the radio in their house, the food you eat with them, or even when you go to their parties. Growing up that way is one of those things that definitely inspired my ears naturally. 

I know that D Double E was also your neighbour. As a sixteen year old, how valuable of an experience was it to live and learn alongside someone so influential in the Grime scene of music? 

It's crazy. To be honest that's what kind of got me into DJ-ing. The times I was listening to early Garage and Grime like my brothers, that was around the time that D Double E started taking me to raves. I started imagining this dream of being a producer because of the things I was seeing and hearing. 

So without that being in my life, I don't think I would've been able to gain the knowledge and grasp the infrastructure of where the industry was going to go. Even though it was so early, I always knew UK music would go somewhere. 

I applied it to what was happening in America, because it's also an English speaking country, and concluded that a movement like the one happening in the States would also happen here.  

I thought, ‘Let me try and get in early,’ With Double, he was the main way for me to see stars early, for me to hear songs performed early, for me to be in buildings and in places and around the people that I was only hearing about on the radio - because social media wasn’t the main thing yet. It was through the radio that you’d find out about artists, or people would tell you. It was more elusive. I felt like there was more of a hype around meeting  someone who you listen to as well. 

As a producer, you live in a sound orchestrated world. (Steel says this, the same moment that the noise of sirens blares from behind him, and laughs), there you go, you can hear that I'm in Forest Gate right now.

Ever since I’ve been young, when I hear a song, it’s not just the lyrics that would stand out to me. I’ve always just cared about the beat. My ears have always been tuned to hear the beat, and always tuned into the sound behind the words. Most times with music, people appreciate the lyricality first, and they place beats second. But they don't know that the beats are doing the work for the track. For me, it's always been beats first.

As a producer, do you ever get inspiration from everyday sounds that you hear - sirens, the clock ticking - and bring those everyday sounds into the studio?  

Anything can spark my creation process as a producer -  anything.

It can be sampling, or an old record and its chords. It can be the sounds I hear on the streets, or it could just be a vision.

Anything can be an inspiration. I try to make the most of everything, because when I imagine a life without any sound - my world would be so different - I don’t want to know what that would be like.

Have you had any experiences with synesthesia and seeing colours whilst making music?

It's funny you mention that, because I always like my studios with a white wall.

White is blank, and in comparison to art that fills a canvas or a space, white is where you can start with a blank space, and fill it with ideas. 

Most of my studios have been white, just so that they can  inspire new thought processes, I always felt like other colours weren't it for me. I don't really see colours though, so no, not really any experiences with synesthesia. 

I love how layered the production is on ‘Only One’, featuring Stefflon Don and Ikka.  For someone who knows nothing about production machinery at all, can you break down the production on that song into layers? 

My core fundamentals and layers for a track are often drums, base, melody, and a catchy hook. The rhythm is what the drums bring, the base is often because of the style and genre i'm going for, which for this track was more of a Caribbean-influenced, and Jamaican inspired sound, and then a catchy hook is sort of self explanatory.

That's kind of how I approach a record, and then I structure it as intro, verse, pre chorus, hook, post chorus and so on. That's a long structured song - I made that song with Fred Again, and Fred is actually singing the hook after Steph, which no one knows about. 

My main process always starts with base, drum, and then melody. That's how I go for it, and then everything after that is arranged. 

It's hard to explain to someone that doesn't make music what I’m talking about. It's similar to when I enter into someone else's world, maybe an architect, or somebody that paints - they may say some things to me, and I’ll think ‘I hear you’, but I don't understand. But people are a little more informed today about production, so maybe they might get a little bit more of it. 

Is there a particular moment in your career where you felt your production style really clicked or evolved in a new direction?

I've been in the game for a long time. I was originally going to do grime, but then I chose to do rap when it started emerging from South London.

I've been involved within the UK rap scene since 2007, so nearly 20 years coming up to being in the game as a producer - but most people probably know me from my work with Mist and my work moving forward from then.

2016/17 is when I got my break, even though I had done work with Cashtastic and Krept & Konan. 

I've been in this game  since UK rap was in its infancy. It was still CDs, it was still me outside radios trying to get DJs to play my song, it was me turning up to raves. I've done a lot, a lot of work. But I'd say my connection to Mist and the sound we created together was where I started  to understand how to craft for an artist.

When I made tracks like 'Karlas Back', ‘Aint The Same’,(Mist) 'Madness', (Mist) 'Game Changer', (Mist) 'Fsherman,' (J Hus) - creating all these records happened during a great time for me.

I’d say that is when Steel  Banglez - his sound, his identity, and the famous tag - and me applying my logo came to a recognised moment. Even with 'No Words' with Dave and Mo Stack, you kind of hear that consistency in my production style and sound. 

I know you didn't apply your tag to your work for a while for a very long time for various reasons - talk to me about that.

I had applied a tag on a Krept and Konan's ‘Go Down South’, featuring Chip, but it got taken off.

I feel like I was too ahead of my time those days, with trying to brand myself and people not getting it - they’d ask questions like, “Why does it say that in the beginning?” 

I had been looking at producers from the States for a long time. If you look into the late 90's and 2000's era of music, producers like Irv Gotti on ‘What's Love’, and Darkchild on ‘Say My Name’ applied their tags. 

You don't really get rewarded for what your dues are as a producer. Most producers don't come out of the studio. I felt like I had no choice but to brand myself but also to stand out.

From more of a technical angle, what is one sound you find yourself coming back to recreate over and over again? 

I'm a big fan of the M1 Korg which is a VST.

There's an organ bass sound on there that was popular in the late 80s, and early 90s that I really love. There's a baseline that I like to use which was used a lot in Garage, and I used that a lot in Mist’s sound.

I just love the sound that I made with Mist, and even when I make music like what you're hearing now, there'll be times when I'll load that sound up and make that classic beat, just because it makes me happy, and not for any other reason. I love that sound, and I can never get bored of it. It's like a record you love and can always play because you genuinely love it. So for me that's one of those sounds that I will always gravitate towards. 

Most of these tracks have more than one voice - On ‘Times’, Sid Sriram and Nas really compliment one another. 

Have you experienced times where two artists on your production didn't compliment each other sonically? 

Do you know what's crazy - early in my production stages, during the 10,000 hours as they call it - there were times where I collaborated with people and it didn't work, and we all knew that things weren’t working, so the track just didn’t come out. 

We grew up with everyone in the music space hyping each other, and in those situations, you get times where not everyone tells the truth. Because I was on the come up, I never wanted to seem rude, so that was neglect on my part, because I was trying to get a cut, get recognised. I've worked with so many people that some music critics might say aren't great, but at the time I was just trying to do my thing. 

In the early days, a lot of people didn't let me produce the record properly. To them, back then, around 2012 and before, I felt like the response to being in the room was, “You’re just a studio engineer and a producer, what do you know?” In my head there were many times where I wanted to say, “This is how we should structure it,” or, “Maybe tweak your verse a little,” but it was only after I got older and earnt my stripes, after everything that happened with Mist, when I always made things work with artists because I'd completed those 10,000 hours. But prior to that, 50% were easily all horrible collabs. 

Things would sound mismatched, the singer might have not sounded good on the hook, but the rap was great, or the rap was terrible but the hook was great, or one rapper had an argument with the other, and now he doesn't want to finish the song - situations that arise like that are all part of what I call practice hours. 

One day It Will All Make Sense -  could you break down the meaning behind this title? 

Is this something you’d say to your younger self, or a message you’re sending out to the world? 

Firstly, I feel like we’re in a place where real art is on the backfoot. If you try to be too complex or too artsy, it's not the in thing. I've always believed in just being honest in who you are, or what you feel like in the time that you're making what you're making. I'm not chasing a current trend, I’m just doing my thing, and then one day it will all make sense to the real people who come after me and study my work and the work of other musicians and producers and artists. 

I want to be an inspiration in the future to the next wave of producers. Hopefully they can look at my work and say , ‘This guy was ahead of his time - collaborations like Nas with Sid Sriram, or Omah Ley with AP Dylan, Stefflon Don with Ikka Singh, who is one of the biggest rappers in India coming forward - these aren’t collaborations we see happen everyday.  

I want them to see that although at the time, these artists were big in their own cultures, I was the one to put them on songs together. 

I also feel like as a creative, you're always creating in the future. 

One day it will all make sense is about making sense of what's going on in music today - because it's all over the place.  

It’s also about people looking back at my work and catalogue and making sense of what I was trying to say. I want to pride myself in not chasing money and materialistic things. I've accomplished so much and I know how these things feel, and in spite of it all, I just want to make art and just make quirky sh*t at this point.

It’s no longer about anything I had to do in the times between 2016 and now. I'm not going to  rebrand myself as Steel Banglez every time music drops, do another fashion week, another collaboration, or drop a playlist album with the top artists from England.

I'm comfortable saying that I'm doing what I want to, and one day it will make sense to you people that I got to a point in my career where I was established, and it no longer mattered about anything but about being a true artist.

Collaboration is at the heart of this project. Can you walk us through a memorable moment in your career when a collaboration really brought out something unexpected in a track?

With this project - I’d say it was the way ‘Times’ with Sid was made. 

I had seen him live, and his live performance was so different from his audio. I told him that -  “Your live  performances are insane, and I need you to sing on this  how you sing live’

He lost a notepad on the way to the studio in an uber, so we had to rewrite the record that has become what you hear now.  We weren’t actually stressed about it, we just went into the studio, and wrote ‘Times’ there and then, and it was incredible. I felt that feeling inside of me that I get when I know that it is an honest record. I just knew it was a 

banger. The lyrics and everything meant a lot to me even though it was what I wasn't expecting to make, it was still something I wanted to have on that album - to make a track that was pain orientated and about overcoming pain. So that was a surprise for me. 

There have been so many moments of surprise to be honest - ‘Fisherman’ (J Hus) was crazy. I remember turning up to the studio and that record got made when J Hus was experiencing a bit of a creative block.

I came in with JAE5 and we made that song. Mist helped unlock that, which then helped him go on to finish Common Sense, which not a lot of people know, but it was a hard time for Hus at that time, trying to get that album ready. I feel like that moment helped me in priding myself in helping others unlock their creativity. 

Also ‘No Words’ (Dave)  was a magical moment. I remember someone told me that the record was too slow, and then I even started believing that. It was actually my record first, my single with Dave and MoStack, but then people convinced me that it wasn't. In turn I  kind of convinced myself  that it wasn't the song for me. Dave put it on his EP, and I thought nothing of it -  then it came out to be one of my biggest songs ever. 

This whole game is full of surprises. I'll make beats and believe they’re amazing, and then the rapper will pick another beat I’ve made, and that ends up being the bigger hit. 

I’ve found in my career that  it's always been the production I’ve done that others like and that I like less that goes. Or a lot of the time, it’s whatever people pass up on that gets big once it’s released. Even the way that Steel Banglez the brand came in, the records ‘Bad’ or ‘Your Lovin’ ’ or ‘Fashion Week’- all these records were beats that people initially passed on. 

It’s happened with some of the songs on this record, like the Omah Ley and AP Dylan record - originally that was a Davido record, then it got scrapped, so I came back and did AP and Omah. 

There's always surprises in this game, and it keeps you on your feet.

“It’ll all make sense one day, as long as you’re there”, are the final words spoken by Idris Elba on this project. What does this mean to you in terms of your legacy as a producer? 

I think Idris was speaking from a perspective of him chasing to become something, becoming that something, having been in some of the biggest films in the world ever, and still saying that no one will care unless you do yourself. 

Essentially he's saying it's a lonely road and often a struggle to reach success. He's trying to end his monologue by saying ‘Make sure you survive’ - it’s telling people to not let others defeat them - and then it will make sense because you won. 

His idea of it making sense one day is becoming something, after having  endured the trials and tribulations of getting there and not losing. Win and it will all make sense. Stay alive in your career, in your life, with your inspiration.  

It's his poetic journey and it's very similar to how I was feeling surrounding this record. 

I’ve always done things from a place of honesty, and I've always done things to help people. We’re in England, but it's still hard. You’re still an ethnic minority and your parents have come from back home, so you’ve grown up with this feeling where you know you've got to do something. But we still come from level zero. We're all just coming from a place of trying to better ourselves. 

My main thing is just to collaborate and leave legacy so that people see that i wasn't a selfish person, and that I always tried to do things as a producer who had the power to influence and put records out that you never might have ever heard of otherwise.

I think leaving legacy requires to do what isn't popular as well.  Indians and Africans collaborating in music - who has done that before? AP Dylan and Omah Ley is a sick collaboration. I'm combining two different languages and I'm trying to do things that are leaving a legacy behind -  and not what's popular. It's more about the real art form. 

African and asian culture - we’re very similar. Our food. The way the men dress, our family values. The way we have faith and spirituality is similar. It's something to do, and an American couldn't do it. I grew up in a multicultural East London with so many cultures surrounding me - so I understand how I could approach something like this . I think it's important for me to leave that type legacy. There's loads in the works, but i always want to just express myself in the present. 

There's always so much music in the works, but I always want to just be able express myself in the present. 

Listen to One Day It Will All Make Sense, out now on all platforms :