Eerf Evil is a key player in independent music platform Root 73, and a leading founder of the celebrated Silhouettes Project: a super-collective of talented, soulful artists that has become synonymous with local jazz, rap and soul music in the UK since its inception in 2019. After using their spiritual home, Total Refreshment Centre in Hackney, as a base for creation and alchemy, its members have filled playlists on streaming platforms and radio airwaves with soothing stories of love, hope, poetry and urban realism. 

The momentous onward march of UK jazz music in recent years, led by artists like Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia and Alfa Mist, has formed a foundational inspiration for Silhouettes. Their aim is to build from this grounding to create new pockets and styles, embracing established UK hip hop and grime traditions whilst paying homage to improvisation and purist live performance, stripping it right back to the fundamentals, disturbing the modern musical landscape’s tendency to favour speed over patience, digital over analog.

“It’s about the re-emergence of a sound. Jazz historically comes from working-class Black culture, but over time it became a middle-class thing and lost its way—and the same has happened to hip hop and R&B. But through Silhouettes we are taking back the sound of jazz and its influence—what it can teach us”

@eerf.evil