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EJ Smartt

HRVY

I’ve been playing drums for over ten years, I started playing in church from a young age. Playing in a diverse modern church each Sunday didn’t necessary mean it was strictly Gospel music being played every week, in terms of genre and musicality some songs were Rock, Reggae, Funk, Latin, Rap, Jazz, Trap, R&B and Pop. Of course from a lyrical stand point all the songs falls into the same Christianity bracket and has a similar message but the genres and forms of music aren’t always the same. Which keeps me and the other musicians on our toes... it’s also what helped shaped me into the well-rounded musician and man I am today. We play at various churches and venues, we’ve travelled to different areas in the UK such as Birmingham, Oxford and even to different countries such as Poland and India. I program and provide click tracks for the choir.

In December 2011 I entered the national drum competition ‘Young Drummer of the Year’. I made the top 40 out of 500 entrants. On March 5th 2012 my band Airbourne entered national competition ‘The Next Brit Thing’, we came 2nd in front of British pop group McFly, who were one of the judges of the final. It was held at the O2, 2,500 acts entered the competition. From July to December of 2013 I was the bass player and then later drummer for Karen Gibson, a full-time gospel choir conductor and workshop leader. You may know her for being the conductor for ‘Kingdom Choir’ they sang at the recent Royal Wedding of (Prince Harry and Princess Meghan) The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. I played bass

for a youth choir that supported international Gospel artist Donnie McClurkin, at the Dominion Centre on August 9th, 2013. I supported rappers Plan B and Skepta in 2014, playing with Airbourne on both occasions. My grandfather is the High Commissioner of Jamaica Heart Foundation and I’ve been honoured to play before him for his annual charity events from 2012 to 2016. I was co-arranger and drummer of a band that played for upcoming R&B singer Malunga at Roundhouse (London) on August 6th, 2016 and at Jamie Oliver’s Festival ‘The Big Festival’ in Oxfordshire on August 26th, 2016. I was hand selected along with four others to represent England to take part in a music camp. The camp was a week long and it was based in Hammelburg, Germany. We had seminars and clinics that featured international drummer Benny Greb, we also got put into bands to perform at the end of the week. We had musicians from America, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Sweden and South Africa, this was in February 2017. From the age of 19 I started to put on small music events. My college really pushed me to take it more seriously when they could see it was a passion of mine, I was organised, and I was making some profit from it. In University my friends and I put on a few shows in our final year, we had some good reviews good turn outs and made decent money from it also. This is something I would love to get back into for the future.

I play for the rap artist Fred Fredas, he supported one of the UK’s biggest and best rappers of this generation in ‘Chip’ at Roundhouse earlier this year. Fred then had his own headline show at Roundhouse and I was his MD and drummer, on June 7th, 2018. I’m in a function band called ‘Turn It Up’ I’ve been with them for over a year and I’ve done roughly ten gigs with them. We will be in Singapore from late December 2018 to early January 2019.

Currently playing for international pop-artist HRVY, who is signed to Universal. I’ve been his drummer for well over a year now. I was on his headline tour in the summer, called 'Personal Tour'. Some of the venues we played in... The Garage Glasgow (600 in attendance) The Academy Dublin (750 in attendance) and O2 Shepherds Bush Empire (2,000 in attendance). All tour dates were sold out. When gigging with HRVY my set ups vary from cajon and percussion, electronic approach with my Yamaha DTX multi-12 drum pad to full drum kit. 


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Contact Us

PO Box 180
Launceston
Cornwall
PL15 0BX

  (+44)844 811 1115

 info@protectionracket.com


Protection Racket Brochure

Download our latest brochure


Follow Us


UK Distribution

Yamaha Music Europe GmbH (UK)


Privacy Policy