CLUB REVIEW: BUTTERZ 3RD BIRTHDAY

The story of Butterz is one of new age rags to riches. Starting life as a blog, way back in 2007 Elijah’s posts included of a culled assortment of Tim Westwood shows, suggestions for older family members of ‘in touch’ musical gifts and interviews with grime artists copy and pasted from that good old, archaic form of communication; MSN. In 2010, Elijah laid to rest his blog and gave birth to Butterz the label.

Branded solely in the cautioning colours of black and yellow, Butterz had always forewarned of their future dominance of the grime scene. And dominate they have, label bosses Elijah and Skilliam preach of making money and then retaining it to nurture they’re beloved growing grime scene, and thanks to their dedication they have helped the fluctuating popularity of grime cement itself as on of the indispensable sub-genres of British bass music.        

Now three years deep the brand has extended to include the Swindle, Terror Danjah and Royal-T as partners. To celebrate their birthday Cable once again open their doors to Butterz HQ. The lineup consists of the usual suspects plus the promise of special guests, and with Licked Beatz hosting room three tonight is shaping up to be one hell of a party.    

We walk around the venue listening to ‘Murder She Wrote’, Terror Danjah dropping the old dancehall vibe classics, until he delivering new tune ‘Champion’, Bruza on the mic telling us being a champion is about how you walk and how you talk: “get me!”. As we reach the end of the set we get into some jungle sounds with Shy FX’s ‘Nutta VIP Bambaata Mix' dropped causing Bruza to take his hat off, “and show my barnet!”.

The 45 minute sets are keeping the energy at maximum output, and now we hear from Lil Silva mixing up a lively blend of funky house instrumentals infused with slices of hip hop and dub and of corse rinsing the future sound of garage while still paying homage to the old skool. He spins his own remix of SBTRKT’s ‘Living Like We Do’ and we watch a group of girls, singing, winding and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

We turn and moodily leaning on the wall and generally looking cool are a group young men, dressed in box fresh trainers and immaculate black jackets. We look to the front and squished right up close to the metal barrier between the crowd and the decks are a group of friends that could have all been posted their first IDs this morning, gunfingers a' blazing, shouting along with the MCs. Now in front of us is a pair of of girls jackets and handbags still hanging from their limbs, just chatting among themselves, it’s made us realise that Butterz have reached a very special time in their lives as a label.

At three years Butterz is not so unknown that they are putting on raves which cater for 50 or a hundred people, nor are they so old that the club is jammed pack with people that are just there because they heard somewhere down the line that this was the place to be. Everybody there was there to celebrate along side Butterz, to rejoice in their success, to enjoy the music. No ulterior motive, just the music.

Elijah’s set is going off, this man knows how to set off a party, just as we thought the rave couldn’t get anymore heated, we see a black wooly hat with a little white bobble wobbling around behind the decks. The special guest has arrived and it was none other then Skepta. As soon as he opens his mouth the crowd go mad.  

Joker and Swindle take the stage for there back to back set and Skepta is still on hand to crowd hype, but now he is joined by special guest number two, serious. Yep, JME, b2b with Skepta, we are treated to continuous live PAs of the pair's grime classics. Of course, the tune of the night is 'I Spy', which sends the crowd into a frenzy. The party is really getting started – the crowd proving it with a round of 'Happy Birthday'