Benwa Interview (2024)

benwa is a grafter. Heads down, elbows up, basking in the glow of his desktop - the fella is always working. Whether sought out or seeking, there’s a constant flow of collaborators coming through his gaff via a metaphorical revolving door. He has a palpable and genuine passion for Music ™. Any genre, any style - just good music. As long as I’ve known him (three years give or take), he’s always been the guy that makes the music. Curious as to where it all comes from, I asked about his gateway into being the beat-making devotee he is now:

“It all started when my Dad showed me Gorillaz, for some reason they were the band that really got me into it. […] he saw I thought it was cool so he took me to see them live. So my first show was Gorillaz on the Plastic Beach Tour. […] I watched Paul Simonon play bass for them, Paul Simonon was the bass player for The Clash, and it was cool because my dad showed me loads of The Clash and loads of Gorillaz and suddenly the guy from The Clash was in the Gorillaz and my brain exploded. But I saw him play bass and I said “Dad I want to do that, I want to play bass” and he was like “Right, sold”

Despite his obsessive personality, he was yet to find a hobby with much longevity, something he expressed that his Dad was keen to rectify. So post-Plastic Beach, benwa’s obsessive personality befriended a bass guitar and he's never looked back since. As soon as he’d learned his first song, he started a band. As soon as the band was half decent, they started to gig.

Although he’d played in several bands from age 11, he predominantly gigged around Leeds and Yorkshire with his band. Eventually, they began recording tracks and he gained a passion for production, going on to study it in college. It's glaringly obvious in our conversation that benwa doesn't realise how impressive this is. To have that degree of conviction as a teenager is an abstract concept to most of us. I'd go as far as to call it brave, benwa would go as far as to disagree. Divulging that no one in his school knew about his band, didn't know that they toured or that they'd played support for a band that’d supported Deftones (a ridiculous flex for a child to neglect to make).

As a mate, he’s stress-inducingly modest. I interrogated him on why that is, curious as to why he doesn’t get lost in the sauce with how busy he is, how many great artists not only work with him but recommend everyone else does the same. Turns out he just has some self-restraint (can't relate 💔):

“Part of that is that I don't know when or what is going to come out. I've released six or seven releases since the start of this year but I've done 4 times as many sessions with 4 times as many people but I don't know what's gonna see the light of day.”

I admire his discipline. I think it's the stumbling block a lot of us have as creatives. Indulging in the Struggling Artist mindset so much, we forget to create anything. benwa’s the opposite, all he does is work and chuffin’ struggle. DJing into the wee hours, back to the day job at 6 am - he puts his money where his mouth is.

I tried to commend him on it but he basically called me a gimp:

“Oh, behave… what it comes down to with that is this is all I can do. I'm sure I can get a job elsewhere but this is all I can do and all I want to do so if I do anything less than put my whole pussy into things what's the point? Why would I half-arse something I care so much about? […] You can't let it kill you off. I've only been trying to do this professionally since I was 22 and I'm 25 now. Since I moved to Manchester I've been hitting my head against the wall trying to get through.”

His unwavering enthusiasm is genuinely fascinating. We all have our passions, our hobbies - even our dreams, but at times they grow so burdensome when they're so consuming. For benwa it seems this consumption is mutual, he feeds the music and the music feeds him. 

“I’m just obsessed with it.”

At the time of the interview, benwa was still working out of his home studio which whilst cosy wasn't the most sustainable set-up. Although music is a huge part of his life, it doesn't necessarily need to take up half his living room. You'll be glad to know that since the interview benwa has secured a studio space which is a huge step in his journey as an artist and is only suitable that such a dedicated creator has a dedicated space to create.

I wondered if having his own studio might spur the producer into creating a large-scale solo project but he had no interest in the idea, emphasising how the back-and-forth he has with his collaborators is one of the most enjoyable parts of creating.

His holistic passion for creating music knows no bounds - genre or otherwise. From experimenting with DnB/Garage at the request of Laeeqa (@laeeqaofficial) to Punk/Alt Rap with DBL A (@dbllllll.a) one day and what he describes as “Pornographic RnB” with Isaac Malibu (@isaacmalibu) the next - benwa is an all-rounder.

He seems to treat his sessions like a problem-solving exercise. When I asked him if he ever sent beats to musicians he expressed a preference for curating something unique for the artists he works with:

“First thing in a session, 9/10 we listen to stuff that they've been listening to. It could be 5 songs that have no relation to each other, sometimes it's five cuts off the same album. But even that informs where they want to go.”

With a lot of creative people, it's easy to feel stagnant when you're doing something that people are responding well to, especially if you're trying to monetise it, because you feel like you have to keep doing more of the same. But there can come a time when it stops serving you, you stop being an artist because you've stopped making art and just started producing sounds and images. benwa seems to thrive in experimenting and seeing where things take him. It’s a quality that creates a space for the people he works with to expand their sound, try new things and ultimately run the risk of fucking up a little bit. He's the best kind of enabler - and the worst recipient of a compliment I've ever interviewed.

“With experimenting, it's probably better if it goes wrong. If it goes wrong, we can laugh about it, we learn and you get on.”