April 9, 2012
The Beats
Wales; home to Dame Shirley, Giggsy, Pobol Y Cwm and now Elro. Elro is a 23 year old rapper from Chepstow, who describes himself as "a pretentious white boy whose main influence is getting rejected by women" - not your typical rapper's personal-statement. After trying his hand at stand-up-comedy and writing rhymes about his dislike for Boris Johnson, Elro gained notoriety when his F64 for SBTV quickly became one on the highest viewed videos in channel's history - 1.5 million and counting. Whilst Elro was perfecting his rhymes in his Mum's backroom, down the M4 a small but noisy label called The Beats was stirring from a slumber. Iconic, shambolic and ahead of it's time The Beats was the record label founded by Mike Skinner and Ted Mayhem in 2004 that kick-started a revolution in the UK rap scene. Building on the success of Mike's own musical persona The Streets, The Beats record label gave birth to some major recording artists such as Example and Professor Green. Although short lived, it's energy and attitude lived on in much of the UK rap music that today rules the airwaves. It wasn't always like this ,and before Mike Skinner and The Beats lit the touch paper, you couldn't find your way past a guitar in the UK charts. As well as former signings to The Beats artists such as Tinchy Strider, Plan B, Wretch 32 and Giggs have all been involved in their earliest days with Beats/Streets releases and Mike's own productions. With such pedigree any new artists on The Beats is bound to be met with some anticipation and Elro is no exception. Having seen the very SBTV performance that broke Elro to the unsuspecting public, Mike felt finally there was a rapper who could live up to the standards of The Beats. As part of their new project The D.O.T. , Mike was in the studio with Rob Harvey, formerly of The Music, and after reaching out to Elro a studio session was swiftly booked in. It soon became clear that "Bad News" was a track finally worthy of The Beats seal of approval, and the label was re-born.