BENNI MURKS NAMES A TRACK AFTER THE BEST GOAL SCOTLAND’S SCORED IN A GENERATION
Back in April I stumbled into this video being filmed in Sighthill. Didn’t know that’s what it was. Camera on roller skates outside the chippy on a Thursday night, me getting food. Handed my spare chips round, dapped a couple folk up, wrote about it after.
The video’s out now. It’s called “Scott McTominay.” It opens with Allaster McAllaster, the unbiased commentator, doing his bit over McTominay’s overhead kick against Denmark. The third minute. Hampden. The goal that ended twenty-eight years of waiting and sent Scotland to a World Cup.
Then Benni comes in. “Double n, double n.” “Uhh, I’m making noise.” And the video cuts back to that chippy.
The track takes the goal every Scot’s got burned into them by now, the McTominay bicycle kick against Denmark, and turns it into a line about putting records up. McTominay in the game, putting records up. Benni in his game, doing the same.
The beat sits in that Scottish drill / Scottish grime pocket, steady, the same figure running under the whole thing. A swipe across the transitions, like a light getting flicked off. He says “wake it up.” Another voice answers him back, “a wake it, a wake it.”
Because that’s what’s actually going on here, under the bars. The video puts him in places a Sighthill name isn’t meant to end up. Marble. A chandelier the size of a car. The West End. And he doesn’t plead his case for being there. Doesn’t explain himself. He stands in it and tells you he’s him. “Sighthill where I live. Still here right now, was here as a kid.” Not where we apparently belong, not where we apparently don’t. Just: still here. Make of it what you want.
You could read the politics in that if you wanted to. I do. But Benni’s not handing you an essay. He’s handing you bars. “Verbal warlord, watch your manners.” “My pens my sword.” He’s not asking the fancy building if he can come in.
It’s his debut solo single, produced by OCINO, and he’s not arriving cold. Shows across the UK and Europe, a known face before this even dropped.
You can catch him next at Form 696 at The Bongo Club on the 25th of June, the night bringing grime back to the venue, Benni on a bill with Jurnalist, Cowboy Erp and the rest. Back outside. You know the time.
Wake it up.
