The HeavyTrackerz don't hold back.
The production duo – Tee and Tank – have a style all of their own, it's bold, it's brash, and it's a uniquely London sound.
Rooted in grime, new album 'Odyssey: A Musical Journey' features an array of guest MCs across its 18 tracks, ranging from Big Narstie to President T, all operating within the duo's own sound.
Clash sat down with The HeavyTrackerz to pinpoint key stops on their journey…
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'The Intro' was 2015 in Walthamstow, Black Horse Mews and it was ourselves, Ghetts and I think Big Tobz was in the room as well. (Tee)
'Hands Up', that was in our new studio, at some point last year in 2016. It started off with Teddy Bruckshot who came in for a project of his own, I played that tune and had a plan for it but I didn’t know what it was. So then I asked him to just say a repetitive line and we took it from there. After that we thought of Big Narstie and he came a day later and laid it down. (Tank)
'Days Like This' feat Tizzy, this song travelled a lot, as we shot the video in Ibiza and we played a rough version of it at Leeds Festivals. Then it moved around three of four different studios, so this tune has travelled the most out of all the songs on the album – between Walthamstow, Leeds and Ibiza. (Tee)
'Black Widow', it was in our old studio in Walthamstow, it was originally for the 'Blittz and Tobz' EP. They were working on a project but they weren’t really sure about it so then we took it for our album. We added President T, Ghetts and the rest of the verses this year. (Tank)
'Rudeboy Flex', this was the last tune of the album and it was kind of like fan service. I kept bugging Tank because I felt like we didn’t have a 1Xtra song – we had tunes that we liked but we didn’t have a song for radio to go crazy about. Then he made a beat for Face, three months prior to me hearing it. We were coming back from either Leeds or Sheffield, I was going through my emails and heard the beat and chorus. It was the exact same chorus that you hear on the track, we didn’t change anything.
I called Face on the way back from Sheffield to London and asked him if we could please have the track, because we’d given him four or five tunes. He was a bit upset but he gave it to us. We waited for Bizzle for a whole six months after we had done ‘Round Here’ for him, and he came back from the Stormzy tour. We sent him the tune while he was out there, and he said ‘Yeah I’ll record it tomorrow bro’ (he never recorded it).
So we pushed the album release for another month because we were waiting (it was the last song). We originally had Ghetts on the intro but then Ghetts moved to another song as he owed us a favour. So yeah – 'Rudeboy Flex' was the last song but the first single. (Tee)
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'Odyssey: A Musical Journey' is out now.
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