OXJAM BRIXTON LINEUP
EXAMPLE
Elliot Gleave has made a pop record. The raps are still razorwire sharp, of course – they’re warm and funny and perceptive snatches of life from a 26-year-old music brain that’s already won thousands of fans with its laddish, shoutalong charm. While his recent, frenetic club track ‘Hooligans’ tells us that the blokey spirit he made his name with is still there, another song, the Calvin Harris-produced ‘Time Machine’, sounds a bit like Wham.
So you say to Example, ‘that sounds a bit like Wham, you know’. And he looks at you and says, ‘well, the sound I was going for was sort of Wham meets Five Star…’ And that’s where Example’s head is these days. As he says himself, he’s still a rapper – “just one who happens to make huge, catchy choruses”. Then he’ll start listing his influences: Kanye, Madness, George Clinton, Daft Punk, The Rolling Stones, and suddenly his wildly eclectic, sometimes eccentric but defiantly tuneful second album begins to make a lot of sense.
Having previously worked with the likes of Herve, Don Diablo, Pascal Gabriel, Chase & Status and MJ Cole, this time Example has chosen the god like talents of Scotland’s finest Calvin Harris and the mighty Metrophonic – the multi-person production team headed up by pop superproducer Brian Rawling – who more than knows a thing or two about global hitmaking having worked with the likes of superstars Britney and Kylie.
