Since the Thatcherite cuts of the 1980s, it has become increasingly arduous to establish and develop a sense of community within the arts. Now, in this digital age where personal connection fades ever close to obscurity, a sense of purpose in collectivity is sparse. At times it’s almost impossible to find. And that’s why The Silhouettes Project is so important.

TSP first attracted wider public attention at the beginning of the decade when they unveiled their debut album, a compilation LP that saw an all-star array of featured artists attached to the project, from ENNY to Nix Northwest and Bel Cobain. The story starts years before though, with the forming of the Root 73 label four years prior. Fast forward to 2023 and the movement is unavoidable; from a sensational performance at Glastonbury to the announcement of their highly anticipated second album, set for release in mid February.

The ethos of TSP is rooted in community, and the positive impact it can have on the people involved. It seemed only natural to dig a little deeper into the past, present and future of the project, and its two core members, founder Asher Korner (known by his MC alias Asher Kosher) and his counterpart Jaden Osei-Bonsu (Eerf Evil to most).

Its November and The Silhouettes Project Vol. 2 rollout is gaining momentum, with the full record poised for release early in the new year. Uniquely unveiling a single from the album every week up to its release – a key facet to the rollout of their debut album as well – the project places emphasis on the deconstruction of its concept; it gives ample opportunity to each artist and producer involved to graciously collect their flowers.

I’m invited down to Root 73 Studios, the collective’s studio and HQ, for an exclusive event. TSP members, their friends, family, and a handful of lucky press will hear the forthcoming second album in its entirety ahead of the project being unveiled to the public a few months into the new year. The homely studio space is tucked away in East London amongst town houses, shops and pubs. As well as a more typical recording environment, the location has a large rehearsal-meets-communal room. Draped in vinyls, with couches scattered around and meteoric speakers ready for action – it’s the suitable setting for the celebratory listening party.

As the room fills, I skim the excited faces avidly socialising. It is a who’s who of underground UK rap, soul and jazz, a cacophony of rising talent. There’s probably 50 or 60 people there, all of whom are immersed in London’s creative scene; a dynamic breeding ground of collaboration, respect and recognition. Following a period of catch ups and bottles clinking, the album begins to blare through the speakers and the chatter quiets somewhat.

I listen closely, quickly finding myself captivated in the effortless individuality. To hear the record condensed into a single experience, with many of the artists present, all committed to supporting the process and believing in the vision of The Silhouettes Project, is nay short of inspirational. It’s a collective spirit that is rare to find. Not to mention the fact that it’s a fantastic album, full of standout performances and eclectic production, wrapped up neatly in a cohesive message and tone.

A few weeks later – in search of a firsthand account of the odyssey of TSP – I head back to Root 73’s East London base to meet with Asher Kosher and Eerf Evil. The pair are welcoming, thoughtful and light-hearted; they bounce off each other, amiably bantering, lounging upon a couch in their habitual opus.

The two rappers and community activists first met at an event through a mutual connection in the later years of the last decade. Immediately, they found their own ideologies reflected back at them. “One of the things that I always remember is that we aligned on what we cared about,” Eerf tells me as the three of us settle into the discussion. “Sometimes you have conversations with people and it goes nowhere. But we both cared about community, we cared about music that has a purpose.”

At the point of their introduction, Ash had already conceptualised and founded Root 73 in 2016. “I came back from uni and realised that there was no network of artists,” he says. “When I was in Leeds, there were people putting on nights, artists going to each other’s houses and making music. Then I came back to London and everyone’s just in their bedrooms, competing for plays on SoundCloud. The idea for Root 73 came out of creating a network and a community of artists who could work together and share a common goal of having a career as an artist. It was set up as a non-profit organisation from the start so that our ethos would be super clear; that it’s not just about money. It’s about doing what we’re saying on the tin, which is bringing people together.”

Why are there not more instances of collectives like TSP? Why is building and sustaining community so difficult in modern society, especially in the English capital? “I think that goes mad deep,” Ash says. “I think that in the past 30 years, we as a society have been encouraged to do things as individuals and not as a community. It’s been a concerted effort. If you look at government policy and where funding goes, it’s stopped going to the community and is now going to things like the military.”

“When you’re talking about a community, the point of it is that it’s not a profit-making business,” the rapper continues. “It turns a profit, but only to sustain itself. The key aim is the activity that it’s doing. That is fucking difficult to do when there’s no money for it. Even with Root and with The Silhouettes, it’s not been a breeze. We are eight years in with Root, and only the last year or two have been focusing on the work rather than just surviving.”

Realising that they shared a mutual vision, the pair put their ideas and individual connections together to expand Root 73, augmenting the movement and incepting The Silhouettes Project. “Obviously, Ash had the studio and I was doing a lot of things around music and community at the time as well, running a lot of cyphers,” Eerf remembers. “We both had a big artist network. And we were like, ‘why don’t we bring this all together and create something?’ Which kind of birthed The Silhouettes Project.”

“When Jaden [Eerf] came on board, he was also at that point where he knew a lot of other artists and creatives in the scene and had a whole other pool of people to bring in,” Asher adds. “And there was already the [studio] space here. It aligned very nicely where there was a meeting point, and also a crossover between our two networks.” Following the establishment of their friendship, the pair began looking at ways to make the impact they so craved, adapting to the obstacles that lay before them. “When we first met, we wanted to do a programme for young people because we had a non-profit community recording studio and Eerf was in the youth work sector at the time,” Ash says. “But it felt like we didn’t have the right things in place to do that at the time. So the next thing we looked at was pooling our networks and making an album.”

The effecting of The Silhouettes Project Vol. 1 quickly became actualised, as Ash remembers: “Once the first few tracks had started to take shape and were producing good music, we were like, ‘this has got legs, let’s make the rest of the tracks.’ We had 15 different groups working in the studio.” They approach the project, and the ensuing follow up, tactically; listing the names in their respective networks on a whiteboard, they devised artist and producer combinations to help challenge the creatives and to bring out the best in them. This proved successful more often than not, and resulted in music that was daring, innovative and groundbreaking. Everything was, and continues to be with the follow up record, meticulously thought-through – from the artist selections to the artwork that mirrors the message of the sonics.

The first record was undoubtedly a triumph; the breadth of talent and succinctness of sound and idea an unmatched feat within the UK underground. Inexperienced in a project to that scale, Ash and Eerf learned on the job. “It’s never smooth sailing, do you know what I mean?” says Eerf. “We learned a lot about nurturing a community. One of the things that we started out with was intention. But we didn’t have any contracts in place, nothing to begin with. We didn’t know it was going to do this well. So then we had to think organisationally, structurally, how are we going to make this work? Communication with the artists was a big thing.”

COVID hindered the first album’s splash somewhat, as it meant that they couldn’t take the record on the live circuit. It did mean, however, that they could focus on the release plan and marketing of the album. “For the first album, we released it through a German label called Melting Pot, who helped us with releasing and that process, which was good for us because it alleviated some of the pressure,” Ash offers. The guidance from the record label and process of the release gave the pair the experience necessary to step out as entirely independent for the follow-up: “This time around, we’ve released completely through Root, the non-profit label side.”

The Silhouettes Project Vol.2, due on 16th February, is more highly anticipated with each passing single release. We’ve had quite the assortment of teaser offerings to date: featured names include Ash and Eerf themselves (impressing as ever with their slick introspection), Nix Northwest, Jords, Karl Benjamin, Goya Gumbani, Eliza Imperilee and Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn, amongst many others. It’s more eclectic, more fleshed out than its predecessor, taking the sound and vision to a more complete and compendious form. It’s a decadent celebration of togetherness and collective spirit.

“To be able to do a second album and to do it on our terms and actually through our label is a beautiful thing,” Eerf says. “If there’s a message to anyone, it’s that you can do this and you don’t need these big brands or labels. Communities can do this. Yeah, we’ve had support and we’ve got partnerships in place and whatnot, but it’s come from the community, for the community. If we come together and collaborate and share our skills and our resources, we can actually make an impact. We want The Silhouettes Project to be an inspiration for other communities to say, let’s do this together. Rather than focus on one person, focus on a collaboration of people.”

What Ash and Eerf have achieved in the past eight years is highly commendable, but nourishing a collective community is far from easy. Complications are sparked from the embers of success. “We’re responsible for so many different artists and people,” Ash says. “Normally an artist is responsible for themselves, their manager, and maybe a couple of other people. Whereas when we tour or we’re making payments to artists, there’s 50 people to take into consideration.”

“It means that we can move with less fluidity sometimes. But it’s also the beauty of it all. With a community project, it’s always going to be a challenge. You have to understand that it’s not primarily about profit, which means it’s always going to be challenging because you’re trying to make something work. It’s always going to take a bit of extra impetus and energy from us.”

This impetus may be difficult to ascertain individually, but the two resolute pillars of The Silhouettes Project stand strong, their relationship and shared vision the immovable bricks and mortar on which foundations are laid. “For a long time, it’s been me and Ash going back and forth with each other,” Eerf pinpoints. “We’ve both got really strong values, and it’s good because we challenge each other in so many different ways. We come from different spaces, and we think about things differently. We’ve also got different people in the camp that can help, and that brings a whole other perspective to the space and how we function as a team. I think it’s amazing what we have within our community. But it can always get better. We can always improve.”

So what does the future hold for The Silhouettes Project and Root 73? “I think having a bigger space would be the ultimate goal,” Ash concludes. “That could be a venue, a cafe in the day, rehearsal rooms, workshop spaces, recording studios and other art studios. That’s been the vision for me, a whole building, a hub where more projects like this can come out of.”

Eerf interprets the question more philosophically. “I think it’s so hard as an artist to exist in this current climate, not just because of how hard it is to be discovered as an artist, but also the cost of living. We’ve got creatives that are working full-time jobs and trying to be an artist at the same time. It’s really difficult. Music has such a role in society. Every part of history, music has got us through. If we lose these grassroots artists, we’re only going to get TikTok artists. How do we continue to incubate amazing artists that have something to say? What we’ve been doing here is one of the things that’s doing it. It’s super important. The more communities that are thinking like that, the more we can preserve the artists.”

The Silhouettes Project knows the weighty importance of what it is doing, and what it can achieve. But they are ready to carry that burden. What’s that saying, pressure makes diamonds?

The Silhouettes Project Vol. 2 is out on 16th February via Root 73. Listen to the singles so far here.