It’s been quite the year for Sheffield’s Silva Bumpa. A sold-out headline show at London’s Roundhouse, 87 million streams for his hit single ‘On 2nite’, a UK top 10 and a Best Breakthrough DJ award are just a few of the milestones in a rapid rise that’s taken the 25-year-old from the Steel City’s underground scene to festival stages at Coachella, Parklife and beyond.
Now, he’s bringing it all back home. On 7–8 November, the DJ and producer will host his Sterling Weekender, featuring a sold-out headline show at Electric Studios, a pop-up at Sidney & Matilda and a Sunday session at Peddler Warehouse alongside fellow homegrown favourite Big Ang and special guest Mella Dee.
Exposed caught up with Silva over a coffee at Hygge, tucked among the shiny new surroundings of the city’s flourishing Heart of the City redevelopment, to talk about the Sheffield sounds that shaped him, his journey from making tunes to impress pals to international recognition and what the future holds for the next generation of Steel City electronic music talent.
This is good timing, actually, as Niche held its relaunch night at Network at the weekend. How important has the club been to Sheffield’s music scene, and what influence has it had on your own sound?
I feel like you earn that importance over time. The older sounds of Niche definitely inspired me more, sort of around 1998, when the DJs were Andy Spoff, Shaun Banger Scott and Nev Wright. The OG sounds of Niche. Before the warpy, wobbly bassline came in, it was very much organ house, with a lot of records coming from Amsterdam and London, even from Italy. Just super cool stuff.
Would you say Sheffield is the standout city in the North for artists in the bassline scene?
I think the fact that Sheffield has niche adds a layer to the entire thing because anyone who likes that sound is going to be inspired by it and have that extra inspo they can apply to their own music. But other places are also thriving. Leeds has that jackin house, Tom Zanetti vibe; Manchester’s got the Haçienda and Warehouse Project; and Liverpool’s got loads going on as well.
So, all across the North, you have it, but Sheffield specifically has that sound which has inspired me. I’m one of the artists who have come from it and turned that into something inspired by the original sounds.
I think we will see a lot more things unfold in the next couple of years. House and garage are the biggest underground genres in the UK, bigger than drum and bass now. All these artists who play house and garage, 130bpm music, like Interplanetary Criminal and Sammy Virji, have just brought in so many new fans and increased the scale of the music.
Where did your love of making music first come from?
My mates were going to lots of free parties in town and in the Peaks that I didn’t really go to. I was sort of the nerdy indie kid playing guitar at home. My mates came back and told me about the parties, and I thought, I’ll have a go at making a few of these tunes for some credit.
To be honest, there ended up being a summer where everyone was coming to me to make tunes for them. I was showing people how to make jackin house at, like, 16. I was self-taught originally. I saw on YouTube about Ableton, and I was like, maybe I can make some cool songs.
I kind of came into it from a more questioning aspect: ‘How does it work?’ My scene was bassline, so every weekend I was going to places like Tank, Hope Works and Tekkers instead of these free parties where my mates went every weekend.
What artist or producer would you love to collaborate with right now?
For producing, I’d say Prospa would be really cool. I’ve already done a collaboration with them, but actually releasing a track with them would be awesome. Other than that, I would be down for whatever, really.
What is your creative process like?
I think it’s just about being surrounded by things that put you in the right mood. I try to be alone for a while and listen to really good old-school music. It’s that combination of being bored and not listening to anything contemporary – just listening to acid house EPs from the 80s for a week, then creating a tune.
You need to come from a place of pure creativity and not be overly influenced by a scene. I’m a big fan of new artists now, and there’s a great scene, but with my sound, I try not to let that influence me as much.
I go in the other direction and see how I can be inspired by an old bassline record. I just move the chords around and the sound of the chords instead of being like, let me just make a track that sounds like the person who’s just had a Beatport No 1.
Bassline crowds up north are very passionate. How has this experience readied you compared to DJs from elsewhere?
I think the thing about being from Sheffield is I feel I have nothing to prove. I remember when I was 18, and all I wanted to do was to make the sickest tune to impress my mates on a Friday night, and it was like that for a couple of years.
It’s also because people are humble here; it allows you time to experiment. There’s no deadline, as you don’t have to prove yourself. With anything creative, you just need time. All you need is five or six years to just lock in and try new stuff out, and by then you will come out with something proper and fresh that people haven’t heard before.
Do you feel any pressure to carry the torch or continue the city’s history of electronic music?
Originally, Silva Bumpa almost had an archival aspect to it, as I was trying to carry on tradition. But I’ve definitely evolved from that now.
For me, I love the process of getting some speed garage samples and then making a tech house tune out of only speed garage drums or whatever.
I’ve come to this creative process of: how can I make a track that makes me feel like an old bassline track would? But it’s not just that; it’s also something new.
On that note, how important is it to look beyond nostalgia and make room for the next generation of talent?
I think with places like Niche specifically, you’re always gonna have these spots built on nostalgia. It’s gonna be there either way, whether you like it or not. I think it’s important for people to have that little throwback.
As far as new talent developing out of the North, it will happen; I just don’t think it happens very often. I’ve been in this scene for ten years now, and in places like Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield, you always get one or two artists who break through.
From Sheffield this year, we’ve had people like TeeDee. He’s really connected, and there’ve been some cool people from Sheffield doing stuff, but it doesn’t happen very often. But it will. There is a kid in Sheffield right now who will be listening a little bit harder than everyone else, waiting for their turn.
The thing about being from Sheffield is I feel I have nothing to prove … people are humble here.
Was there a particular gig, track or experience that changed things for you?
I remember going to see Sammy Virji play Tank when I was 17. It was really cool, and it stuck with me. He was really ahead of his time, and in that era, he was still a relatively small artist, but everyone knew he was different and just awesome.
Things have blown up for you this year. What felt like the turning point?
I think it was around this time last year when I released ‘Wanna Party’. I think that track really nailed it for me. It was getting played in Ibiza, but it was also getting played by all the UK garage DJs. It was the first record I had that crossed over into multiple different scenes, and everyone was playing that specific track.
It happened at the same time as a few of my other tracks were going viral online, so I had three or four of my songs being played by everyone. After that, the next three tracks I released all reached either No 1 or No 2 on Beatport. It was just a crazy six months where I was lucky that every track I released performed well.
Which track gave you the biggest headache in the studio before it finally clicked?
A lot of my songs have been a battle to finish, release and get out. ‘On 2nite’ – the vocal from it, I tried to remix it three or four times before getting that remix right.
‘Doin’ it’ had a different vocal on it. It didn’t even used to say “shake your bumpa”; it was another lyric there. I just take so long to finish tracks. I never like the mix and the way it sounds, and the structure is always changing.
I’m definitely a perfectionist. I think a lot of artists will relate. I think the best ideas are the ones that come quickly. But then again, I’m all for sitting on a song and letting it do its thing. I ask myself, when is the world ready for this song? When does it make sense?
I take about a year to know what’s next and how it should sound. I have a couple of releases coming out between now and the end of the year. One is a collaboration with Rossi, which is a garagey sort of track. I have also got a track with an Akon sample in it, which is kind of like an R&B thing, so hopefully a couple of tracks out before the end of the year.
What can people expect from this two-day event coming up in Sheffield?
It was inspired by something which I see in America quite often, which is the idea of a Sunday celebration after a night out. So, when everyone wakes up from the Saturday night hungover, the perfect solution is to go to a rave on the Sunday.
You wake up eight hours after you go to bed, and you go straight back out. There’s gonna be a pop-up shop selling exclusive vinyl and T-shirts.
I have my show at Electric Studios, and then I wake up and I’m converting Peddler’s Night Market into a Sunday session place, just rolling house and garage all day.
I’ve put a lot of care into ensuring that it’s fresh but also classic Sheffield as well. I want to see if it’s possible to make this a yearly thing as well, with an exclusive Sunday party and loads of Northern legends.
Tickets are still available for Sterling Presents: Day & Night with Big Ang, Mella Dee & Silva Bumpa. Follow @silvabumpa for updates.
