Pieces of studio equipment are linked together by an assemblage of thick green wires, each one snaking its way upward until the entire thing settles in a tangled conglomerate near the ceiling. His all-black attire and mad-scientist surroundings give him the distinct image of a menacing kingpin, while his easy voice and boylike grin give credence to a much more modest appeal.
Lil Silva may not call himself an “unsung hero” to his native rap scene, but when he doesn’t feel like bragging, which is often, an expansive track-record of groundwork is well able to suffice. The decade he’s enjoyed in the cockpit of London’s sonic boom has come with a certain sound (one he affectionately calls the “Silva Sound”), curated via years spent helping collaborators find their voices on their own tracks. Now, ages removed from the day he first set out to take on music as a producer, he’s set to release his debut album, Yesterday is Heavy, on the 15th. And if the time that’s passed between his first steps in the music industry and his first project indicate anything, it’s that his yesterday is, indeed, a burdensome one. You can hear it in his voice: it’s mature and weighted, replete with the tonalities of a wise father, but also characterized by the lengthy pauses and stream-of-consciousness self-corrections of someone who isn’t forcing themselves to have it all figured out. Lil Silva comes off as simultaneously young and old, persistently in search of new information, but not to the point where he’s dumping out the decades’ worth of knowledge he’s already garnered. Yesterday is Heavy testifies to a career’s worth of experience-borne lessons — a long-shuttered time capsule of insight, set to give voice to a sound only known up to this point from its work in the shadows.
“It was a lot of getting rid of some past faults and living in the now,” he says. “Getting back to being in the now. Love and hope. It’s so mad how yesterday can carry into today — the heaviness of goals, and everything you’re trying to put the pressure on yourself for… that’s all the shit you’re carrying from yesterday. Yesterday is heavy. The weight of yesterday is heavy. That’s not something you want to be channeling into your today.”