“Neither of us like the term UK hip hop”: Sonnyjim and The Purist on carving their own lane

Sonny Jim and The Purist have long held a friendship within music and outside of it, and in 2018, they began recording their first collaborative project, now known as White Girl Wasted. Following a debauchery-filled excursion to Croatia’s Outlook Festival, the pair returned home with an unignorable creative spark. The first track they produced, ‘Barz Simpson’, features a woozy, lo-fi flute sample, and saw Sonny Jim lay down a killer, one-take verse. The duo knew they struck gold, but deliberated over who else could contribute to the cut and do it justice, and, in the end, there was only one real contender – MF DOOM. Eventually, Jay Electronica also hopped on the track — a telling sign of how well respected Sonny Jim and The Purist are in the world of hip hop. The result? A modern-day rap classic.

Four years later, the project finally arrived, and of course, it was more than worth the wait. At just eight tracks long, both Sonny Jim and The Purist’s mantra was truly quality over quantity – a stark contrast to the 20-something long track lists most rappers haphazardly throw out nowadays. The Purist’s production is as captivating as ever, providing luxurious soundscapes for Sonny Jim to wax lyrical over. The producer has worked with everyone from Griselda to Danny Brown, and it’s easy to see why after his efforts on White Girl Wasted. Whether it’s the grimy and woozy Madlib assisted ‘Does Mushrooms Once’ or the ethereal ‘999,’ the producer’s star shines brighter with each listen. Equally, Sonny Jim’s laidback delivery and raps about consuming drugs, dealing and cooking make for the perfect companion to The Purist’s beats. His bars strike up a perfect balance between being cartoonish yet off-putting, leaving you questioning whether you should be laughing or wincing at the unnerving detail of it all. The punchlines, metaphors and entendres are all executed with precision, providing quotables like, “I’m Rick James rockin’ Slick Rick chains,” on ‘Doc Ellis.’

In its essence, White Girl Wasted, is the culmination of two friends at their artistic peak who refuse to conform to mainstream modern rap tropes. The result of that is one of 2022’s most quintessential albums that will leave even the most devoted of hip-hop heads dropping their jaws. Here, HUNGER catches up with the dynamic duo to discuss the process behind the album, their love for fine dining and how they managed to secure that MF DOOM feature.

How long have you both known each other?

Sonnyjim: ​Ages. Maybe seven years.

What sparked the idea to do a collab album?

Sonnyjim: ​We did a few sessions, and the Purist was like “I really believe in what you’re doing, I’m gonna put x amount in and we can make an album.” I said I’ll put in the same, so boom, we got double the budget. After that, we just spiralled into one uncontrollable monster. 

What was the creative process like for the project? Was there anything you both did differently compared to your previous work?

The Purist: It was a true collaboration in that we made almost the whole thing in the studio together from scratch. It’s not always possible to work this way, but it yields better results for me. 

Sonnyjim: We would link up in Central, go to eat a boujee lunch, spend some stupid money, have drinks and get on it. We would call a bunch of the gang, go studio, not sleep for two days and make bare music. In the studio, one thing about The Purist is that he always makes it a comfortable situation where everyone can share knowledge. “There are no bad ideas” is a term we would throw around a lot. But there are bad ideas, loads of them. You’ve just got to wade through the water.

Obviously, you’ve got some massive names on the project. Are there any names you would have loved to get on there? 

Sonnyjim: Jay Z.

Do you feel pressured when working with some of these legends?

Sonnyjim: ​No. Never. One day people will look at us in the same vein, hopefully.

One thing that really impressed me was the sample choices throughout. How do you usually go about finding a track to sample?

The Purist: My sound is completely based on sampling so I spend a lot of time digging all over the world. Many of the records sampled for this project I actually picked up in my last trip to Tokyo. Then all of the vocal clips/interludes we slowly compiled through the process of making the album; some were off records, and some were off Instagram. 

Sonnyjim: ​Yeah, with the clips, over the course of making the project, we would just stumble on bits mostly on the gram and put them to one side knowing when the time is right, we can tap into the folder. As far as finding samples, The Purist has got shit that you will NEVER hear. Crazy records. I get sent a lot of beats and even when it’s a great producer, they may have flipped something that’s been rinsed. It’s cool and all, but when you’re tryna do some special cult shit, you want samples that no one else really has.

You both complement each other brilliantly throughout the album. What would you say the secret behind your chemistry is?

Sonnyjim: ​A love of five-star Michelin eateries. And wine, lots of wine.

Do you feel as though it makes for a more cohesive project locking in with one particular producer?

Sonnyjim: ​I think so, yes. I mean, I can’t say for sure because I only really make projects with one producer each time. If the album has loads of different producers, then it’s really the rapper producing the whole thing, and even though we’ve got Madlib and Premo on our album, and they did their own beats, there was still an element of production on those records from The Purist.

How do you feel about the direction UK hip hop is going at the moment? Are you happy to see it become so successful?

Sonnyjim: Neither of us like the term UK hip hop. And I don’t think we care where it goes or how successful it becomes because we just make good music and it is what it is. You don’t hear people calling Madlib American hip hop innit.