I am no Grammys committee member, but the first time I heard a song by WSTRN, I knew they were on the money.
For a good few years, the music beaming out from west London has taken on new energy.
No longer inferior to the bubbling artistic hubs in the south, east and north of the city, the drip goes harder, the sonic boundaries have shifted further and the charisma feels charming and distinctive.
All paths in west London’s musical group lead back to WSTRN - the three-piece crew who thrust their part of the city back into the spotlight, with an ultra-smooth, chart-bothering debut single “In2”.
Released in 2015, the track became a homing beacon for fans and artists searching for a fresher sound. Built around super-sweet melodies and crisp “put-your-white-trainers-on” production, the track drew from west London’s multicultural pots, blending UK rap vibrancy, candied R&B lilts and afro swing heat, long before any other group had thought to do so.
Breaking through on a culture-shifting level, “In2” became the best-selling debut by a new group in 2015 and it climbed to number four on the UK chart, a groundbreaking moment for their genre at the time.
Fast forward to now and the group are cemented into British musical history.
They’re the glue between increasingly diverse sounds and burgeoning scenes, with collaborations ranging from UK drill hotshot Unknown T and road-rapper Skrapz to Nigerian superstars Tiwa Savage and Mr Eazi.
Over a half-decade, they’ve become the leaders of the west London scene they created.
And now they are giving fans a taste of what’s to come with new singles and have confessed to being obsessed with South Africa’s very own amapiano genre.
Consisting of Akelle Charles, Haile, and Louis Rei, the group have released two singles this year, “Be My Guest” and “Professional Love”.
Speaking from London, Haile said the new singles were a product of a writing camp.
“We decided to go on writing camp just outside of London, we got a house and all three of us, our managers and a couple of producers were working on loads of records.
“’Be My Guest’ was one of the records that came out of it, we kept it in the catalogue for a bit and revisited it and thought that it would be sick to get Fireboy on the record. His team actually reached out to us, after a video call we sent him the record, he sent it back to us and the rest was history as they say,” Haile said.
The single features Nigeria’s Fireboy DML. We have been fans of his and when we found out he was a fan of our work as well, the collaboration seemed natural.
Influenced by afro-beat elements and R&B, “Be My Guest” is about a lady who thinks she can change a man for the better but he does not think she can, hence, “be my guest”.
Their second single this year, “Professional Love”, is reminiscent of their 2018 hit, “Love Struck”.
“We were working with our producer and as soon as I heard it, we wanted to get with it.
“It’s a tongue in cheek song about showing love to someone in a professional way but that is entirely open to interpretation and whatever that might mean to you,” he said.
Speaking on how their music has developed over the last six years, Haile said that WSTRN’s music has grown from Afroswing.
Afroswing, also known as Afrobashment, or less commonly Afrobbean or Afro-trap, is a genre of music that developed in the UK during the mid-2010s, derivative of dancehall and afrobeats, with influences from trap, hip hop, R&B, and grime.
“Before anything else, the music we produce is feel-good music because you feel good when you listen to our records.
“While Afroswing is a foundation for us we have become multi-genre in our music but the easiest way to describe it to someone who has not listened to our music would be UK dance hall,” he said.
“When we first started doing this in 2015 we were the only acts who were doing what we were doing genre-wise and in a weird way that put us in our own corner and people separated.
“In 2018 when we released ’Love Struck’, Afroswing had become popular and it has just gone on to develop since then”.
WSTRN, along with many others in the UK were recently introduced to amapiano, a genre he says is taking over the soundwaves in the UK.
“I had a season with Major League DJz when they were in the UK so look out for that.
“Amapiano is huge in the UK at the moment and I love it too, people here are really embracing it,” Haile said.