Scrufizzer[ @SCRUFIZZER] & Stimpy [@stimpyfs] on playing festivals and tropical grime by [@shanldn]

Any old school grime heads probably had 10+ ‘Stimpy and Scruface’ beats on their computer back in the day. I’m talking Channel U days, MSN, Limewire, seeing that blue screen when your PC crashed days. They’ve been making music for a long time and have consistently put out banger after banger, so naturally I got gassed when I saw ‘Scrufizzer and Stimpy’ on the line-up for Wildlife festival this year.

Wildlife will be the first festival they play together. Flying the flag for West London, Producer/MC duo Stimpy and Scrufizzer describe their sound as “tropical grime,” and if you listen to tunes like ‘Remember Me’ and ‘Vibe on This’ you’ll hear how their sound differs to your archetypal grime track. I grabbed them both for a quick chat.

You’ve been making music together for as long as I can remember – how special is Wildlife going to be for you?  

Stimpy – It’s the first time we’ve been booked together for a festival so yeah it’s quite exciting. It’s definitely good to work with Scrufizzer, every time we work together we’ve got that natural chemistry, we’ve been working together for years and we get each other musically.

Scrufizzer – I feel like it’s a relief man, ’cause I feel like sometimes when you’re just working away you don’t really see how powerful your music can be. When you’re in the studio just working on ideas, you don’t really see the effect it has on other people – I think to be on a line up like this is an achievement. It makes you realise that there’s a result at the end for all the work you’ve done.

Where’d you get the tropical influence in your guys’ music??

Scrufizzer – We’ve always kind of had that tropical sound in our beats literally from back in the day init. I feel like with me in particular, I kind of got that from listening to bashment, calypso and just weird other genres of music and I just thought you know what, it would be good to blend it in. But obviously the main influence would be garage init. Like it’s heavily influenced by garage with like a grimier darker bass line. I think people like JME and Skepta, Todd Edwards, MJ Cole; they’re like an inspiration for myself.

Stimpy – We have made authentic grime but I feel like we’ve always made tropical grime too. For example, listen to ‘Nutty Violins’. If that riddim was made today you’d class it as tropical grime. I would say I was influenced by UK garage and the likes of Todd Edwards and JME, who released Tropical EPs a few years back. I liked that tropical sound still grimey riddims but more melodic with vocal chops in them.

So you’re playing the ‘Tropical’ stage at Wildlife, which is also known as ‘Sounds of The Future’, mad fitting. How do you feel about playing on this stage?

Stimpy – Yeah it’s a great feeling to know that we’re going to be playing on the Tropical stage. Tropical grime is exactly the sound that I’m producing at this current moment so for us to be playing there, it’s a big thing. There are a lot of other big names that are performing and playing on that stage so yeah, we’re happy. It’s the sound of the future as they said and I do believe tropical grime is a sound of the future.

Scrufizzer – Yeah like I feel like that’s the best feeling man. Like, there’s a stage for that particular genre of music cause it’s a niche. Being on the same stage as people like JME and J Hus, like I’m a fan of their music and I just feel like it’s a blessing man.

Which other acts from the line-up are you looking forward to seeing/If you could do a joint set with another act from the Wild Life line up, who would it be?

Stimpy – I would say all the acts on the tropical stage, Giggs and Clean Bandit.

Scrufizzer – I want to see J Hus a lot. I’ve been vibing to him proper in the car and that. Want to see President T as well. You know what, there’s quite a lot of people at Wildlife I want to see. I don’t know if I’ll get to see everyone but J Hus is someone I definitely want to see… I want to see Dizzee as well.

So what other projects have you got coming up? 

Stimpy – At the moment, me and Scru are working on singles for this year and next year. Also got a couple tunes with other artists that are coming out soon. I’ll also be working on my EP, which will be a 6 track tropical grime EP, just 6 instrumentals. We’re also trying to get hold of all our own productions from years ago. I just feel like people need that, it’s historical and people need to have that old Stimpy and Scruface catalogue of the old riddims so we’re just trying to get that together at the moment.

Scrufizzer – With my own projects, I’ve got my EP coming out, I think it’s coming out in April and that’s gonna be like fizzy flow, a fizzy flow EP. I’ve got a song with Eyez that’s just come out as well called ‘3210’.

Words: Shannon Graham