Music
The rise of Steel Banglez, the buzziest producer in UK rap
The Newham beat-maker's ascent takes in grime veterans, adversity, and some of the biggest names in UK rap today.
If you’ve listened to even a cursory amount of UK rap recently, the name Steel Banglez – delivered over an earworm beat – is likely a familiar sound.
The Brit producer, born Pahuldip Singh Sandhu – and nicknamed for the kara bangles of his religion, Sikhism – was key in bringing MoStack and MIST from the fringes to the forefront of UK rap, and is now one of the most in-demand producers around along with the likes of Jae5 and Sevaqk. He’s climbing the charts, too; his track Fashion Week, featuring MoStack and AJ Tracey, recently topped the official Trending Chart in the UK and entered the main chart at number 7, landing him his first UK Top 10 hit. But just who is he, and why is his music so successful in 2019?
Sandhu was born in Newham, East London, one of the epicentres of grime music in the UK and the place that, of course, birthed Newham Generals. This duo of D Double and Footsie were among the veteran grime OGs who didn’t make a crossover to pop the first time around, and who remain “the MCs MCs” to this day. Sandhu was D Double’s neighbour, seven years his junior, and produced a track for him while still in his teens, putting the youngster who had grown up on Indian classical music in close proximity with grime’s first wave. After a difficult stint in prison in his teens – where he focused on his music, making beats on a keyboard from Argos – Sandhu was able to continue with his passion in his 20s, working with the likes of Wiley and Krept + Konan. He was working on music for the newly-signed British-Jamaican rapper Cashtastic in 2014, when the latter found himself deported; once again Sandhu’s career was in jeopardy.
However, this was to prove the making of Steel Banglez as we now know him; at this difficult juncture, he hooked up with then-rising North London MC MoStack, and MIST, the Birmingham rapper who, despite not being Asian, connected with Sandhu over his knowledge of the Punjabi language, and his penchant for dropping Punjabi words into his songs.
Successes led to work with more hotly-tipped acts in the shape of J Hus and Dave, and the past few years have seen Steel Banglez cement his place as the go-to guy for the buzziest names in UK rap. In particular, he's one of the architects of the new and diverse sound of UK rap, pick-and-mixed from afrobeats, dancehall, grime and more.
A super-producer seemingly immune to flops, Steel Banglez is always finding new and creative ways to tell the story of London Town. Of late, he's also struck out as a lead artist with tracks such as Fashion Week, Bad – featuring Yungen, MoStack, Mr Eazi and Not3s – and adopted a more pop sound on Your Lovin’ for MØ and Yxng Bane.
And, at a time when his home city often feels more fractured and divided than ever, his ascent is more pertinent than ever.
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