Here at RWD we brought you the news late last month that Bless Beats would soon be dropping the summery track Let It Go from his forthcoming album. Liam Tootill attended the video shoot and managed to speak with the four featured artists on the track that include Bless, Remi Nicole, Wiley and Plug One of De La Soul fame.

Bless Beats is the brains behind the operation and here is what he had to say about the track, the featured artists and the state of the UK game right about now.

What was the idea behind the Let It Go track?

I was just trying to do something different that appealed to a mass audience, trying to capture people from all different ages, and people who are into different stuff. Like, Remi’s from her Motowny kinda sound, and then De La Soul with the old school hip hop, and Wiley’s obviously nu school grime, and there’s some dance sounds on there as well. The idea is that we’ll get people that are into those kinds of music to pay attention to this record. It’s a track that I’ve put together that will be going on the album, which I’m still working on, that’ll be dropping later this year.

So did you have to link all the artists to see if they wanted to jump on board?

Yeah, yeah. I met Remi at YoYos and said we should work on a tune together and then we got in the studio and put down an idea, which were the stems of Let It Go. And then, me and Wiley were running around, so Wiley jumped on it. And then through a mutual friend managed to link Plug Won from De La Soul, we got the tune to him, and he was all over jumping on it. That’s how it really came about you know.

What’s the concept behind the video?

[Laughs] It’s about troubled teenagers with the artists acting as guardian angels, there to guide them through, telling them that it’s alright.

Who produces this video?

Luti Fagbenle and Ben Peters(Luti Media) form the production team. I really like the treatment they gave me, still.

And when is this single dropping?

I think it’ll be May 31^st or the week later. We’re still not totally sure.

Check out the video to the tune:

Remi Nicole is the co-writer on the track. Having been approached by Bless she put her creative talents and multi-instrumental skills together, and between the two young artists they created funky loops and samples that give the song its carefree vibes and summery feel. Here is Remi’s take on the song’s creation, her views on grime, hip hop, and her own brand of ‘soulful indie pop’.

What was it that made you want to collaborate on this track with the high profile artists that are involved?

It wasn’t really something I set out to do – it was more like a natural progression. Bless at a club started talking and I thought it might be quite interesting to mix the two worlds, my world and his world. So we had a day in the studio, and within ten minutes we’d come up with the concept, and we’d written the song in the day, it was just a lot of fun.

So did you have a say in the creation process of the composition?

Yeah, yeah. We started with the guitar part and then got the hook, and then we built the beat around it. Because I was bringing in a Doo-wop sort of thing and I was asking him to make the beat based around The Ronettes Be My Baby drumbeat, so he was building that into the grime beat, which was really interesting.

What are your views on grime?

I think it’s really exciting. I don’t really like the ones that are all about guns and ‘wetting people up’ and all this, I just think that’s a bit non-productive. I just don’t think it’s necessary. The people that do grime are obviously very intelligent people, because you’ve got to be extremely intelligent to sustain yourself in this industry and put words across so quickly, and a lot of them are very clever and I think they should put it to better use, than, ‘I could kill you’, or ‘life’s so hard’. Because, I’m not saying ‘life isn’t so hard’ but there’s better ways to say it.

What are your views on hip hop?

To do something with Plug One from De La Soul, I feel really privileged to do it, like, really blessed, because they’re like the origins of a movement, which is really exciting. I was only a kid when they came out but, you know, I remember learning about them as I got older. What I like about De La Soul as well, which is why they’re perfect for this track is that they were very positive and they are all about love and peace, which is nice.

What would you describe your own personal style as?

I’d like to think of it as something more than indie, something with more soul than indie. Maybe it’s something like ‘soulful indie pop’, how about that?

You are a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, how and when did all this come about?

Well I wanna be a multi-instrumentalist because I think it’s just such a wonderful gift to be able to play music but I got a bit lazy and I could be a lot better than I am now. But because I could write enough songs, I wrote two albums worth of songs with the knowledge I’ve got, I suppose part of me got complacent and I didn’t have much time but now I’m definitely going back in to putting all my efforts into being the musician that I want to be [which includes playing piano, guitar and drums!!]. I play drums on my album but I’m not a great drummer, so luckily with the computers we can correct my mistakes. Playing drums is really fun, I’m just still learning and getting better as well. I play guitar on my album and I played keys on my album, but not really the main piano parts, but I wrote a lot of my album on piano.

The album’s called Cupid Shoot Me, what can we expect from this record?

More of my soulful indie pop. A lot of doo-wop, and a lot of shoop-shoop-bop-bop [laughs]

Something that really shocked us here at RWD was that Wiley, yes that’s right, Eskiboy himself, turned up for the video shoot, on time, yes that’s right, turned up, on time. [Gasp] Here is what the Take That star had to say about his inclusion on the record, and his other projects he’s been working on lately.

What made you want to be on the Let It Go track?

Errr, Bless Beats. He had already done it without me and then he hollered at me and obviously, I’ll do anything for him. I just got the tune. Wrote my bars for it, and then just done it. Obviously De La Soul was on there as well so it was a clever move for me to do and also it was good looking for him to holla at me.

What’s your take on the contrasting mix of sounds found on the track?

On this tune, no one was told what to do, so therefore Bless Beats just done what he wanted to do. No one said, ‘you have to do it that way’, he just made a song and it came together as a song and then that’s why now wherever it charts, however it goes in, I will even learn something from this tune.

Tell us a little bit about solo projects you have coming up or that you’ve been working on recently.

I’ve got a solo album that’ll be coming out May or June, Wiley’s Elusive. There’s a Wiley album coming out, an A-list album coming out, a Roll Deep album coming out. Obviously I’ve gone round and done all their individual albums, I’ve just done everything bro right now, playing catch up, because obviously I’m thirty one and everyone else is early twenties, I’m just playing catch up with myself.

Lastly, and by no means least, we managed to catch up with Plug One from De La Soul to ask him how he came to be involved in this collaborative effort, his general opinions on the state of the UK urban movement in its present state, and what he’s got lined up over the coming months with hip hop giants De La.

How did you get involved with the link up to do this track with Bless Beats?

Well, my man Trenton had brought me the track and asked did I want to be involved. So he played it and I was like ‘it’s cool’, I definitely wanted to be involved so told them to let me know when it was going on. Then I just waited to get the go-ahead and once that happened, I jumped on it, no problems.

What’s your take on the track?

I mean, the track felt good. I mean to me, and I mentioned this to Trenton a while back, it feels, ear-wise, like a successful tune for everyone to feel good about, but for me it doesn’t feel like it’s corny, it just feels like ‘yo’, it’s kinda uplifting, happy, but everyone involved from myself, to Remi, to Wiley, helps bring it all together soulfully as well.

What is your view on the state of the UK music scene right at this moment of time?

I’ve always been a big supporter, of the style, of the music. I’ve been coming over since ’89. The biggest thing from all my friends that I’ve made here, whether it be Rodney P on up to TY, I’ve always just been concerned about them making sure that their identity and their soul didn’t get lost in the music . To me it’s always been like a machine, the entertainment world, they was chasing what America was doing, and I was like ‘Yo in America we so ignorant in certain ways about what we understand and know, we really tend to respect when we see something done in your way’. That’s the thing I like to see and it seems like artists like Wiley they have to revert to doin’ what they need to do, and that’s how it was like back in the States. So it’s all about believing and knowing who you are and be true to yourself.

Do you have any projects in the pipeline with De La Soul?

Yeah, we’re working on our album right now, we’ve been working on it for a minute, but you know the stuff we got for that, it’s coming along well. Myself and Plug Two of the group, we have a project coming out, that we did with our French producer, a whole album, and that actually came out really good, and of course we got involved with The Gorillaz, we on their new album, and just a whole bunch of different projects that are coming out all over. A couple of things in Japan, but mainly, we’re putting out two albums, for De La, the third instalment of AOI which is a DJ album with Maceo, and our other one, so that’s a lot of stuff we’re trying to get out

Tags: Bless Beats, De La Soul, Grime, Hip Hop, Plug One, Pop, Rap, Remi Nicole, Soul, Wiley