Lil Silva Finds His Voice
Pieces of studio equipment are linked together by an assemblage of thick green wires, each one snaking its way upward until the entire thing settles in a tangled conglomerate near the ceiling. His all-black attire and mad-scientist surroundings give him the distinct image of a menacing kingpin, while his easy voice and boylike grin give credence to a much more modest appeal.
Lil Silva may not call himself an “unsung hero” to his native rap scene, but when he doesn’t feel like bragging, which is often, an expansive track-record of groundwork is well able to suffice. The decade he’s enjoyed in the cockpit of London’s sonic boom has come with a certain sound (one he affectionately calls the “Silva Sound”), curated via years spent helping collaborators find their voices on their own tracks. Now, ages removed from the day he first set out to take on music as a producer, he’s set to release his debut album, Yesterday is Heavy, on the 15th. And if the time that’s passed between his first steps in the music industry and his first project indicate anything, it’s that his yesterday is, indeed, a burdensome one. You can hear it in his voice: it’s mature and weighted, replete with the tonalities of a wise father, but also characterized by the lengthy pauses and stream-of-consciousness self-corrections of someone who isn’t forcing themselves to have it all figured out. Lil Silva comes off as simultaneously young and old, persistently in search of new information, but not to the point where he’s dumping out the decades’ worth of knowledge he’s already garnered. Yesterday is Heavy testifies to a career’s worth of experience-borne lessons — a long-shuttered time capsule of insight, set to give voice to a sound only known up to this point from its work in the shadows.
“It was a lot of getting rid of some past faults and living in the now,” he says. “Getting back to being in the now. Love and hope. It’s so mad how yesterday can carry into today — the heaviness of goals, and everything you’re trying to put the pressure on yourself for… that’s all the shit you’re carrying from yesterday. Yesterday is heavy. The weight of yesterday is heavy. That’s not something you want to be channeling into your today.”
The music is just as timeless as its ethos. Opening track “Another Sketch” boasts a glistening sonic makeup, rife with jumpy synths that sound like what sunlight on undulating river water looks like. The vocals are steeped in a certain knowing bliss, heavy, but with the wistful airiness of a friendly clairvoyant in a dystopian coming-of-age film. “Who isn’t to blame?” he flits lightly over the beat, his voice in equal part commanding and modest. The question, one especially pertinent following a heavy cultural yesterday continually seeping into the present, is a fitting marker of Silva’s detached vision — why go into tomorrow still worrying about who’s at fault for the mishaps of a day ago? Lil Silva is lurching towards whatever's next. And both for his career, and the many characters, experiences, and lessons that informed its decade-long ascent, the slate is freshly wiped.
“No regret man,” he tells me of the project’s making. “Ten years of influences… ten years in the making… what is time, anyway?”
Time isn’t much of a factor for Lil Silva in general, and it’s a rule that doesn’t hesitate to carry over when he’s in the studio. A few years ago, Mick Ronson consulted him for a session with Lady Gaga. Upon being told to play the best thing he was working on, Silva got something going, and when Gaga entered the room, she was in hysterics over how much she enjoyed it. “Oh my God, you made this?” he says, doing his best impression of the singer. “The next six, seven hours into the morning, we were working on that song.” He lets off the same sheepishly-humble chuckle from before. “Yeah man, I don’t really boast that,” he says, with a laugh that screams you got me. “I don’t talk about it. But yes, there’s a lot of cool people I’ve worked with.”
But as much as the cast of “cool people” he’s worked with over the years — Adele, Serpentwithfeet, Banks, etc — may appeal to the clout-chasing brand of hip-hop networking the internet increasingly champions, collaboration for him is more about getting the sound he wants out, and less about basking in the fame that comes with it. “I don’t think music needs to be focused on that,” he says. “You’re just making the best music possible. I feel that having a collaborator on any of this is just a blessing. Like, I want to make this sound the best it can sound, and I fuck with your shit.”
Yesterday is Heavy features collaborations with Little Dragon, Charlotte Day Wilson, BADBADNOTGOOD, Sampha, Skiifall, and more. Whether he’s curating their voices, crooning with his own, hiding in the crevices, or gracing center-stage, every voice included is singing from the future — and it's a future we're all invited to.
