origins

"Wake Up" was created by four young musicians who came together on PUNCH's 2021 G37x residency. Ellisse, J.S and Paranoid JC met in the lyric writing camp and started jamming with DJ Piero from the music production camp. Ellisse is a singer songwriter based in Birmingham, J.S a songwriter and rapper from Handsworth, Paranoid JC is a melodic rapper who moved on from rock and indie bands. The music came together, grew spontaneously and was championed by their peer group. PUNCH supported the development of their idea, enabling them to record the song and shoot the video. "Wake Up" had 120 Apple Music streams, a sale in iTunes and 14k views on YouTube in 7 months. At the time of writing, "Wake Up" has reached 18k listeners over 27k streams on Spotify. Later in the year Ellisse, Paranoid JC, J.S and DJ Piero performed the song alongside their G37x peers DJ Rizmi, Lysha, Isabel Abbott, Rhea, Kay Milli, BA and Myka in a G37x cohort reunion performance at the Hare and Hounds in Birmingham.

Jack Crutchley (Paranoid JC) began playing guitar at the age of 14. Despite attending music college after his GCSEs, he felt he lacked a deep understanding of both the creative and practical sides of the music business. He wanted to learn more about music practice from the artistic process through to booking shows and recording music. Despite Jack’s band managing to organise a small tour - even playing shows outside of Birmingham - he also felt he wasn't really connecting with other musicians. He saw G37x as his opportunity to increase his creative proficiency and build his professional networks. G37x enabled him to connect with and then take inspiration from like-minded musicians; especially those working in different genres. While on the programme he met the producer he is now recording with, and has recently performed his music on RADIO 5 LIVE.