Meet ROYOS an all round creative from South London with passion in music and film. Known for his wide plethora of sound, he is also the founder of underground creative community ‘NESW’.
ROYOS is the stage name, and it stands for ‘Reflect On Your Old Self’. Leroy Da Silva is the creator with all the things I do.
Why reflect on your old self?
It’s a whole mantra, a way to live well for me at least anyway. I like to hold myself accountable, I like to improve on myself. I think it’s quite fitting but that’s not how the name came about in the first place. It was more of a dumb nickname that my friends and I came up with. The name stuck and then I later added on the meaning because it represented me.
I’m pretty excited about this conversation, I get to pick the brains behind the artist who crafted one of my favourite songs ‘Can’t Go Outside’.
When I initially heard the song I thought you had only produced the beat it’s only when I watched the music video I then realised you were also on the vocals.
Yeah yeah yeah, hands on everything man! Since the beginning there hasn’t been a time that my songs weren’t somehow manipulated by me. It’s the only reason why ‘Can’t Go Outside’ can sound like that from Stardust because it’s all from music I’ve been influenced by.
Had you always known you wanted to be a musician?
Nah, you know what? I like to learn. That’s my real talent, my curiosity. I did write raps back in the day but at the time I’d hear a song for example it might be 50 Cent and G-Unit and there’d be a space at the end of the song, and I’ll start rapping. You don’t know how many issues I had with YouTube trying to use different beats. So, with producing, I kinda just learnt through experimenting my friend’s MacBook, using it to create beats. I bought a PC for Uni but luckily, they gave me a MacBook so then I thought instead of using my friend’s to make beats let me bust open my own!
The recent single ‘Come Around’ tell me how that came about?
I can’t speak about that song individually without talking about the project that I’m about to release. Each of the songs made on the project were made around the same time of ‘Can’t Go Outside’ about 3 years of 1-2 songs being made per year. I wanted to release each song as a single but never did, then at some point this year I listened to them back-to-back and it kinda had a theme of time. The reason why I hadn’t released these songs when they were created was due to ‘Can’t Go Outside’ doing so well. I was thinking do I follow up with something that sounds like that or do I continue doing with what I’m doing? A different sound.
Yeah, ‘Come Around’ is a very different sound to ‘Can’t Go Outside’
Yeah 100%. ‘Can’t Go Outside’ was different to anything I had ever made before that. I guess I stuck to the theme of I’m a wildcard.
It’s interesting because you don’t tend to see a lot of artists experiment with their sound. It’s so easy to get comfortable with the sound that does sell, it’s just easier to create similar music.
Yeah, the advantage I have is that I know no one really wants the same thing again. No one really does, as much as maybe people may think they do they want to feel like ‘oh, didn’t expect that!’ and that’s more of the dopamine rush that I think listeners get. At least for me because I use myself as the subject of the experimentation because I am a fan of music. So, I base it on what would I like to hear.
What drives your passion for music, what is your biggest inspiration?
The wanting to learn but even now with this project it felt like there was nothing left to learn. I mean of course there is never nothing to learn but I think I need to learn an instrument next.
What instrument would you like to learn?
I think naturally, I’ve been around keyboards and piano and I’ve been learning by ear but it’s more so when I’m around a pianist I don’t know the theory and terminology. I’d like to learn that. I don’t think I’m a beginner, I have an understanding of the basics, but I just don’t know what they’re called.
Let’s speak on genres because when I listen to your music, it’s a wide spectrum of genres. You can hear that the creator (you) is an avid lover of music
It goes with my identity; I’m born here around the way Lewisham my parents are from Angola. I wouldn’t say they are music people but when it came to them picking up the music when they came over here, it was Linkin Park, it was Jamiroquai. All of that had an influence on me. You’d never expect my parents to listen to music like that, they didn’t stick to the “typical” genres. I found Rap and Hip Hop almost by myself. I remember my dad gave me an Eminem CD ‘Slim Shady’, that was the first CD he gave me. I’d definitely say that my sound which isn’t rap comes from my parents.
You hear the funk in your sound and if your inspiration is from the music your parents listened to whilst you were growing up, it doesn’t surprise me.
Yeah, literally even when I’m sampling I try to relay the feels of the certain time/decade of where I’m sampling from. I think with sampling nowadays there isn’t that much of a homage to the usage or like, it doesn’t sound like they took anything from the sample but the sample if that makes sense.
Would you say you feel like maybe some of the modern sampling doesn’t feel cleverly made?
Yeah, it’s like they’d take the biggest recognisable sample part. They’re repackaging the bit that everybody likes and reselling it as nostalgia, but it doesn’t sound nostalgic to me. Not to point fingers at anyone but an observation.
I have a beat I made not too long ago where I sampled Tinie Tempah ‘Wifey Riddim’, it’s a song from my time you know the Channel U and Channel AKA days. When sampling I had that feel in mind, if it gets done or it’s already been I think it won’t be done the way I’ve done it.
Would you say ‘Wifey Riddim’ is your favourite grime love song?
I don’t want to say yes straight away and remember something else although DJ Ironik’s ‘Stay With Me’ I wouldn’t say it’s a love song more so a sad song but yeah. Mmm…I think ‘Wifey Riddim’ might actually be it. Let’s see what else… I mean there’s Kano.
Yeah, Kano – Brown Eyes that’s my favourite
Hmm, yeah Wifey is up there. I mean we have to respect Tinie Tempah for being the ASAP Rocky he is of our region. He’s really forward thinking, it put him in all of the right places. He deserves it for just being forward thinking.
With UK Artists, who do you currently indulge in?
It’s all pretty lowkey people I like listening to people I can easily reach out to and let them know I enjoy their music.
I’m going to put this on record. I discovered Pink Pantheress before she was Pink Pantheress. I was on Soundcloud, found this song from this artist who was not Pink Pantheress then. I flipped her beat and sent it to her; she had heard my stuff as well, so we were going back and forth. Yeah, flipped her beat she messed with the beat and then she became Pink Pantheress.
I like her, I like her vibe.
It’s not a new sound but currently it’s refreshing
Yeah she does it well, she’s someone who does sampling tastefully. The texture of the music sounds like 2000’s sound just hits you right there.
Something I would like to know more about is ‘NESW’
Why the name? What does it consist of? What do you do? Let’s give the fans something to talk about
So NESW it’s the way I kinda figured out branding and it stands for ‘Never Eat Shredded Wheat’
I took offence, because I actually enjoy Shredded Wheat!
It tastes like hay! But I never had anything against shredded wheat out loud. The name didn’t come from any hate for shredded wheat but actually from remembering North East South and West in primary school. I started it because I wanted to do events in these areas, find artists from these places and hold events. Instead of it being just music I broadened to creativity in general, so videography, photography.
Do you know AWGE – ASAP Rocky’s creative house?
So AWGE is essentially what we’re doing, but if you see ASAP Rocky’s videos it’s cohesive because he’s always working with his mates with videography. So I made ‘NESW’ for here you know ‘clean girl aesthetic’ but for underground creatives.
What’s 2023 looking like for you?
It’s looking like a good year! Everyone’s coming out their shell. I’ve come out my shell a lot. I’m really trying to be inspired and just take in life. In March we’re doing a hiking trip at Lake District, a school trip kinda vibe so 30 of us. A big NESW show at some point in the summer is in the plans. I’d like to do it at Flippers the roller-skating venue, but we’ll see.
My personal plan is to travel more, I got the taste of travelling abroad when I performed last year in Paris. There’s a group called ‘Cozy Sound System’ who are out in Berlin, we were both in Paris last year and decided to link up this year. Also Portugal but that’s mainly because I’m Angolan and can speak Portuguese fluently. I released a song in Portuguese, which is going to be on the project.
So when is this project dropping? Can you say?
Yeah I can say, March/April just based on my workload but yeah everything is in the plans currently. It does become hard being ROYOS and doing NESW stuff, last year I spent a lot of my time on NESW but now I want to spend more time developing as an artist.
Catch more of ROYOS and NESW:
Instagram @leroydasilva
Instagram @nesw.club
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