Although Orbison hasn’t produced anything with Doldrums Recordings since 2010, his second startup, Hingefinger, has seen more activity. Hingefinger, was a joint venture between O’Grady and DJ/designer Will Bankhead. Under Hingefinger, Joy Orbison released ‘Ellipsis’ in 2012. Since Orbison’s early days, Hingefinger has turned dormant, with Bankhead focusing on his music and fashion label Trilogy Tapes, and Joy Orbison focusing on his making, rather than publishing, music.

Orbison kept a relatively low profile online, often dropping some of his tracks on exclusively physical formats. However, over the last few years, the producer has released a steady stream of work online. Last year, he released ‘Freedom 2’ with Peckham rapper Kwengface and electronic music duo Overmono. This was part of a continued collaboration between Overmono’s Tom and Ed Russell and Joy Orbison. The three artists have been collaborating since 2019 on dance tracks, predominantly, under the label XL Recordings.

Making a return to XL Recordings, Orbison took to Instagram to announce the release of ‘Flight FM’. The track marks a divergence from Orbison’s usual upbeat dance tracks, moving in a more subdued and droning direction. Speaking on Instagram, Orbison said: “I’m always wary of playing new ideas cos you run the risk of completely losing faith in it before you really make sense of it. But luckily it went down well which spurred me on to finish it”. The track’s name is in reference to a pirate radio station that Orbison tuned into as a child. Established in 1998, Flight FM permeated south London’s airwaves with underground dance music until 2008. Since its physical end, Flight FM has moved with the times and has found a space online. However, the station’s twitter hasn’t seen activity since February of 2018, making Orbison’s track a call back to a now-dead age in music.

As of today, ‘Flight FM’ can be found on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.

The 12 track project will have 6 features and 6 solo tracks, including the already released ‘Tetley’ and ‘Chef’

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Kwengface is from Peckham and raps alongside his group Zone 2. The Peckham rapper always shows love and makes reference to his area, with his project title ‘YPB’ standing for young Peckham boss and 4 of his 6 features being artists from Peckham.

The features on Kwengs upcoming project are; Big Ryde who is a DJ from Giggs infamous SN1 clique, Q2T a rapper from church road in north-west London who made his rise in 2018 when the then balaclava-wearing rapper released his hit ‘Andy Murray’, B Goddy, who is the self-proclaimed ‘Peckham rockstar’ who has gained a strong following after only a year of rapping, PS Hitswuad who has been rapping alongside Kwengface and Zone 2 for over 4 years the duo have released multiple tracks together with charged chemistry, Berna who has worked alongside Kwnegface on their tracks ‘Bait’ and ‘No way’, and Zone 2s Karma who has been rapping for 3 years but has never seemed to find consistency.

The project has been released for preorder but is yet to be given a public release date.

Kwengfaces has been putting out tracks after tacks in the build-up to this project having released 5 tracks in the last 6 months, including a ‘plugged in with fumez’ which currently sit on 8 million views.

Fans will be disappointed not to have seen an Ed Sheeran feature following the images of the pair that flooded the social media timelines in early July.

Kwengfaces debut project ‘YPB:Tha come up’ has not yet been given a title will is available to pre-order here.

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 Drill rapper Kwengface and pop sensation Ed Sheeran is a collaboration no one would have expected, the 30-year-old pop star has just released his chart-topping single ‘Bad Habits’ following a 7-month absence and is now linking up with drill veteran Kwengface. The rapper from Peckham has been a prevalent name in the drill scene for over 3 years and has been releasing consistent music in 2021 including a ‘plugged in w/fumez’ which currently sits on 7.4 million views.

The link-up may have come as a shock to both drill and pop fan bases but in a recent interview on capital Xtra with Yinka Bokinni and Shayna Marie, Ed Sheeran shared that he was a fan of Kwengface after being put on by longtime friend Jamal Edwards. The 4-time brit awards winner said in the interview that “He (Jamal Edwards) loves Kwengface as well, have you heard the Backroad Gee and Kwengface tune it came out last week, Jamal put me on, it’s good”

 

 

 

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 Ed Sheeran is no stranger to working with UK rappers having made his come up via channels like SBTV working alongside UK grime legends such as Devlin, P Money, Jme, Ghetts and Wretch 32, who all featured on his ‘No.5 collaborations project’ in 2011.

 While there was no confirmation of a song coming between the two, the photos sent social media into a frenzy as fans excitement grew in anticipation of what a track between the two would sound like.