Issue 99 / May 2019

SUB BLUE
The long, slow road of
development has suited
Tyler Mensah, an artist
shedding light on the
struggles of suburban life
via deft electronic soul.
When we first heard of SUB BLUE, he was a
teenage voice among an orchestra of pop/RnB
acts emerging at the time. Tyler Mensah came
through around the same time as Chelcee Grimes,
Taylor Fowlis and MiC Lowry, and remains to this day a mind
beyond his years; since then he has also gone on to cement
himself as one of the region’s most exciting voices. Alongside
Eyesore & The Jinx, he’s just been awarded a grant under PRS’
Momentum Accelerator programme, which identifies artists who
are on the cusp of a breakthrough in their careers after exhibiting
impressive talent and progress. Acknowledgement from an
industry mammoth like PRS is no small thing; it’s a nod from
the institution, telling you you’re in favour. And, after we saw
him perform at LIPA as part of the live-broadcast 2ube Xtra, the
recognition feels well deserved.
RnB acts are still rare in Merseyside, and whether he’s
playing the guitar or just singing, the delivery feels incredibly
polished. As on the night, he maintains his characteristically sleek
appearance when we meet him for the interview. But the stories
and emotions woven into his melodies tell a different story; the
emotions appear unadorned and unfiltered. This is an artist who
took the permission artists like Drake, Frank Ocean and The
Weeknd implicitly gave RnB artists to show sensitivity, and ran
with it.
“With my writing, I take a lot of inspiration from those guys.”
Watching him perform, there’s an obvious flavour of Channel
Orange, especially the song Super Rich Kids. “It’s a really
good album, my [favourite] is between that and Blonde to be
honest. Blonde is one of those that I always go back to, and I can
listen to it endlessly on repeat.” The links between Sub Blue’s
music and the world of American RnB are not only melodic and
thematic; he’s worked with producers who are credited on some
of his favourite albums. “When we were writing I was actually in
LA at the time. I was working with AV, who worked on Channel
Orange, and Sir Dylan who worked on [Solange’s] A Seat At
The Table, Logic’s 1-800, The Weeknd’s Starboy album, so he’s
pretty credited. And then I was working with a writer called Jake
Torrey who featured on a Lupe Fiasco track. The whole idea was
we wanted to tell this story of our generation and how addicted
to their phones they are, in the sense of like – if you don’t take a
picture, wherever it is that you go, it’s kind of like it never really
happened. It’s like, what are you even there for? I feel like it
resonated quite well with a lot of my peers and a lot of people
who are similar to me.”
These influences meld to form the core of Sub Blue’s
songwriting process, which explores the pitfalls of modern living.
This has been at the heart of his two works to date, 2018’s
Suburban View mini-album, and the recently released EP, Wilfully
Blind. Despite his buttery, pitch-perfect vocals and spotless
fade, his work is about imperfection. His name is short for the
genre he has created for himself, ‘suburban blues’. “Suburban,
because I come from a suburban neighbourhood, and blues in
relation to blues music. Like, singing songs about teenage angst
and heartbreak; telling stories about the people around me that
people might connect to.”
Mensah was raised in material comfort with his parents
in Runcorn, but he often makes the point that life isn’t easy
for anyone. “There’s always the kind of assumption, [with me]
coming from the suburbs, that life is a lot easier than people
think,” he says. “We definitely go through our troubles and
hardships the same way as everyone else, but we just deal with
them in a different way.” He is candid about his struggles, too:
“Growing up, I was one of the only black kids on my street. And
I was one of the few black kids in my school. It was very tough
for me having to, kind of, fit in, because a lot of the music that the
kids that I was friends with listened to, it wasn’t RnB or hip hop, it
was indie rock. I felt the need to listen to a lot of those bands, like
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The 1975.”
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