Various - The Silhouettes Project

Here is the story of the Silhouettes Project as told by its founders Jaden and Asher: "We started The Silhouettes Project in February 2019, to shine a light on the new generation of underground Hip-Hop, Jazz, and Soul music in the UK. Community is everything to us, and we wanted to show that with a proper support network, access to professional facilities, and the encouragement of a family of artists, our community could produce something incredible. We felt a joint frustration that the current music scene in the UK only had structures in place to support talent of a certain genre whilst overlooking a buzzing alternative Hip-Hop culture.We wanted to unify artists who are making ground-breaking music but who are in need of a solid structure to work within - artists who we felt deserved more recognition. This led us to the name 'The Silhouettes Project', as we wanted to shine a light on those artists in the shadows. The journey started by embarking on a collaborative album project which allowed us to bring together more than 30 artists on a single tape and to create a network of incredibly talented artists of the same calibre. The album took more than a year, working almost every day at the Root 73 studio, a community space in Hackney. We knew from the first few sessions that we were on to something, and the energy around the project kept it moving. As artists ourselves we understood that the creative process can be challenging and sometimes isolating, especially when there is no clear support network to fall back on. This led us to bring our efforts into the physical realm by organising a series of free live music events for all of these artists to come to, showcase their work alongside our house band, and connect with each other. These events take place at The Total Refreshment Centre in Dalston, an underground studio complex and warehouse space, which gave the events an intimate community feeling and the people a sense of belonging. There is a desperate need for spaces in which people can come together and develop their creative potential, especially with the consistent withdrawal of funding from the arts sector in the UK and with the constant threat of gentrification which has seen the closure of countless community and grassroots creative organisations. As we grew as a brand and organisation, we began to fully understand the importance of what we were doing. From the studio sessions to the events, we saw the impact on people's outlooks on their own careers, we saw them grow in confidence in performing and collaborating and even taking their own initiative to utilise the network provided for them. We heard their feedback, we felt the excitement in the atmospheres at our events and studio sessions, and we saw the community grow every time we brought it together."