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QUINCY TELL EM
WEDNESDAY 9TH JULY 2025
WORDS BY GEMMA IMBRIANO
If you’ve been tapped into UK rap over the past few years, you’ve probably heard the tag “Quincy Tell Em” a sure sign that the beat’s about to go off. Working with heavyweights like M Huncho and helping shape the sound of UK rap, he’s steadily become one of the genre's most crucial architects.
After coming up through ‘wave’, and now watching the genre seemingly losing momentum, Quincy decided to turn that around. Stepping out from behind the scenes he brings us his debut tape ‘Make Wave Great Again’ in a bid to respark the genre’s fire and bring a new generation forward to carry the sound that ruled the industry in the golden days of the early 2020s.
We caught up to talk about how he found his way into music, the unexpected origin of his producer tag, and what it took to pull the project together. This isn’t just about a tape, it’s about creating a movement, giving power to producers and inspiring the next generation.
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How did your journey into music start? Was it something you always saw yourself doing?
Not really, you know, I got into it later. My dad always made music, so I've always had an interest in music. In terms of me making music, college is when it kind of started. I wanted to do music industry management. I knew I wanted to be involved in music somehow, I didn't know that I was going to do production. While I was at uni, that's when I kind of flipped it and I just said, you know what? I don't know if I want to be in management, I’d rather just make music, then I switched roles from there.
We’ve got to talk about your producer tag. It’s easily one of the most iconic and instantly recognisable out there. What’s the story behind it and why did you decide to run with it?
I had a tag at the time, but it was one of the most generic tags. With this one here, it wasn't planned. Huncho used to do a thing back in the day, he kind of still does it now, where before he starts recording his lyrics or that, he’d mumble on a song. He used to do it to get his flow kind of thing, but in that mumble, he said, “Quincy Tell Em”. In the first song that he did it, it wasn't a tag, it was just a part of the mumble. Then because of that, people have taken it and thought it was my tag. Off the back of that I was like, I need to use this as my tag now. So I've literally chopped it out of that song, and I've just used it on every song that I made ever since.
The title ‘Make Wave Great Again’ definitely grabs attention, what inspired the name, and how does it reflect the sound and vision of the tape?
Make Wave Great Again makes it sound like wave isn't great - that's not the concept of the tape. I've been in the wave game since almost the beginning of wave in the UK and there was a period where it was the most prominent genre, probably from 2019 to 2021. That's when DBE were at their heights, Huncho at his heights, Nafe, all these artists were just doing wave. Now that music has hit a bit of a ceiling.
I could see the genre fading out and as a producer, someone that carries the sound, I thought - there's no way I can see this happen. I've been exposed to so many new artists that are still carrying on the sound, but they don't really have the exposure or the platform. So my whole thing was like, we're going to make wave great again by bringing this new generation through and bringing this new energy back into wave, like how it used to be. With this tape I've embraced the current generation, and I've mixed them in with the new generation. It's not a passing of the torch or anything like that, it's more of a: this is the next wave of artists that are going to be carrying the sound for however many years.
The whole thing is to find the next Hunchos, to find the next DBE, to find the next Nafe Smallz, to push the sound and keep it going.
‘Make Wave Great Again’ is your debut tape, was it something that came together quickly, or was it a project that took time to fully shape?
I did the tape in four days. It was four intense days. It wasn't like, a couple hours each day, It was literally 24 hour days, across the clock. At the beginning of March, I put together a camp, and we invited all these artists around to a house that we had in Oxford and we made the tape. From that camp, we started a little community.
There were a lot of artists that hadn't met each other and now these artists have gone on and they've made music together and they've linked up. That's what I wanted this tape to do, bring everyone together and create a movement for this whole scene. So yeah, it took us four days to make the tape. Since then I've had to mix it and I've gone into the songs and done post-production and stuff, but the actual foundation of the music was made in four days.
Out of all the tracks on the tape, is there one that stands out to you? Be it your favourite, the most personal, or just the one you had the most fun making?
I like all of them for separate reasons, but obviously the intro for me. It's a special song because it's the first song that sets the tone for what it is I'm trying to do. I've got Max B on it. For a lot of people that don't know who Max B is, he's like the founder of wave music.
He's from America. If it weren't for him, that sound probably wouldn't exist. He's been in jail for 20 something years and I got him to send me a message, basically hailing up the wave scene and what I'm doing in the UK.
Then it goes into Figs0 and Treez0 who I feel are two of the artists from the new generation that can really take the genre to another level and bring a new energy. The intention behind it was - I'll put them first to be like, yeah, these are the two that are going to be carrying the wave genre on their backs for like the next two years.
Do you approach making music for yourself differently than when you’re producing for other artists?
Yeah, definitely. When I work with other artists, I'm trying to fulfill their vision. If I go to the studio with an artist, they've got a vision for their tape where with this one, it's my vision. Even sonically, I didn't want to sit there and make music that sounds like Huncho’s music, for example. Because I'm his producer, people would expect it to sound like a Huncho tape, just with different artists on it. I purposely didn't do that. I purposely made beats that I feel are going to change the sound of wave.
Wave has sounded the same since it first came out, I wanted to kind of step out of my comfort zone and not create a new genre or new sound, but just give a new energy to the sound. This is my first time going into it as an artist, I had to evolve myself. As a producer I also had to level up and I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to show that.
Looking back at your career so far, what’s been the most defining or surreal moment for you?
There's been a few. When we performed at Rolling Loud, that was one of them. That was in Portugal, obviously I'm Portuguese. It was a festival, but the crowd were all fucking with us, just seeing how the crowd were engaging, that was a surreal moment. Even the Kill Tony thing. I went to a comedy show and it went kind of viral because it was in the middle of Texas.
They were ripping me, then they played Burning. When the clip came out here it was surreal because it was like a win for England in a way. All the blogs and all the socials were on my side saying England got one over the Americans. They were ready to get on to me, then when it did well, it was kind of a slap in the face like, yeah, hold that.
What excites you about this approach to music?
I think it just gives power to producers a little bit now. You've never really seen a producer take charge and really grab the genre and say, yeah cool, this is what we're going to do now. For producers in the UK, it kind of shows them and it should motivate them to take this approach of - we're going to control the sound now. Do you know what I mean? I just want to see the producers get a win for this. It's exciting because I want to see the next DBE come through, I want to see the next Huncho come through, even if it's not me that's behind them, I want to know that my tape or this movement I'm doing kind of motivated it.
I want to know that this is the reason why these lot have decided to come out and do this and make this music.
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