The Taste & Change Report™: Elijah

A conversation with the creative thinker on navigating this moment of hyper-commercialization and hyper-polarization.

Welcome to The Taste Report™, an interview series exploring and explaining taste from people who have supremely good taste. But this is also a Change Report™, an interview series exploring and explaining change from people who are making a difference in the world. Support The Trend Report™ by upgrading to a paid subscription 💚

There are few people like Elijah in the world but there need to be more people like Elijah in the world.

Elijah is a London-based consultant, lecturer, and artist who has done everything from run a label and club night called Butterz to making music as a DJ to working as a college lecturer to being a social media star to writing a book. Elijah exists somewhere between a working artist and a culture critic, someone who is forming culture while critiquing it at the same time. He is one of the very few working artists who straddle the space of real world (music) culture and big brained, high art interrogations of said spaces. He is a man who does both — and then some.

I’ve known about Elijah for years but it wasn’t until I attended one of his “Close The App, Make The Thing” lectures where everything clicked for me: this is a singular person, a creative that everyone needs to know. It’s less about the specific music (Electronic!) that he speaks to or the specific place (London!) that he speaks of but that he is addressing wider politi-cultural matters that affect so many of us in the modern world. For the hour and a half that I was able to encounter his chat, I felt as if he were offering a constant pouring of sunshine and water to the parched, dying plant that was of me. Why aren’t we investing in more in-person community in our cities? Who does hold the power within cities and within companies? Where does culture emerge from in these heavily commercialized times? His thinking and his thoughts on culture make your head spin in the best way possible — and you should have your head spun in such a way.

And now you have a the chance to, as I reached out to Elijah about doing a crossover conversation about both his taste and culture at large, how such work and thinking is in ways changing the cultural landscape. A morning a few weeks back, within a very full hour, Elijah and I met over video to map out culture now. Joining me with a giant microphone in hand, offering the effect as if I were seated within his mind, we discussed everything from the need to unplug from commercial reverence, how to create more with less, on the co-opting of artistic gestures by the state, social media in the year 2025, and who really holds the power in this economy, which may not be the people that you think.

Take your time with this one, chewing very, very slowly — and savoring every detail.

KRF: How do you define taste? And how would you define your approach to life? This can be everything from music to clothing to food and home and an aesthetic: all the things that make a life. How do you navigate these things and how do you define your approach?

E: I tweeted a few years ago that now, at the moment, I feel like taste is what I'm deciding outside of algorithms. If I can't point to what specifically made me like “that thing” or discover “that thing” or seek “that” out, or even just the feeling like I found something myself: that feels like taste to me. Being able to identify something outside of a trend or trend pressure, that’s a good basis for taste, a good basis for building taste.

In terms of aesthetic, I feel like I have two distinct ways of thinking about it. When I do work things, it’s just like all black just to bounce off the yellow, to not lay into consumerism so much. I do make aesthetic choices in rejecting most logos and things that people could easily identify where I got things from. I come from a corner of the world where people put so much value on logos and brands and them having a power over people that you don't even have the resources to enjoy them or to acquire them without damage. I’ve tried to filter that out of my life.

I live in a relatively small space so I support artists and I keep things for a while — but then I try and give them away. Books, records: there’s still a purchase but then, just by nature of where I live, it's not practical to keep everything. That’s been my solution over the last like five, six years: buy, enjoy, then find it a home or another place, eventually.

KRF: It's funny you say that because that, to me, is unsurprising given your work and your ethos of placing a priority not only on supporting the arts and artists and creatives but also in community and really fostering community. To the point of what you said about logos and commercialization, all these things that enable a consumer culture of buying and amassing, your giving things away and being circular about what you take in, of sharing and swapping, creates an economy of freedom outside the system — and really goes against that system. Whether that is sort of the intention behind that decision or not is beside the point: it’s amazing. I think a lot of people forget that, if they do want to change their aesthetic or apartment, that that requires dumping everything out instead of giving things away. Someone might love your stuff even more than you! Keep the love going.

E: Exactly. I live in London and people always come into the city and need stuff. I replaced my desk recently so I’ve got another desk that's just sitting here and there's going to be a day where someone's going to put on Instagram Stories, asking “Has anyone got a desk?” and I can be like, “Hey, take this.”

I also don't feel like I'm living in some sort of “forever home” situation, which would likely change that feeling. A lot of us…we’re not feeling settled so we don’t want to acquire loads of things. People are moving around so much.

KRF: That’s a fair point. That’s a very modern sensation, whether it happens by your own circumstance or is a product of your industry or work, those are contributing factors in your relationship to things.

Something I really admire about your work is that you’re so specific, meaning — to zoom out — your Yellow Squares project is so identifiable and reflective of a point of view, of an idea. What are your thoughts on what we call, say, branding or having a stamp on something? It’s a counterbalance to a commercialized logo but they function in a similar way in that it creates a language. One is for a sales tactic, the other is to create a connection. Why is that specificity important for creatives?

E: How it's played out for me is, on top of making aesthetic decisions or these kind of design decisions that have taken the project away from being hyper-commercial, of not making loads of t-shirts because that would a waste of a product to put out into the world: I’m making decisions on what not to put the logo on, what not to produce. A lot of artists and artist production ends up creating other kinds of slop to make money, to make work viable. You make a concert t-shirt that’s not decent quality: you’re just making it to add a markup. I don’t want to do that for this project. If I’m going to make something I want it to be less but better.

When I work with companies, I make them sit with my aesthetic — not the other way around. I also avoid things like thanking them because, not that I’m ungrateful, but I don’t think Nike needs to be thanked. There’s this language that artists have taken on that feels very submissive to corporations, which I’ve never really enjoyed. It’ll be like “Thank you Spotify for putting me in the playlist!” or “Thank you Apple for this!” and it’s like you’re breaking character, showing that they are the powerful ones. You’re showing them that and your audience that, that you are beholden to these things.

I try to be present, so that we’re all on an equal playing field. Even if that’s “not true,” that approach feels more comfortable to me. That’s a creative decision itself, to believe the Nike and the yellow square are the same — at least in my creative universe.

KRF: That makes sense. That idea of giving thanks to the machine, especially as a creative, is so profound. I’m going to think about that for a long time.

E: You see these things, where people will say, “Thank you to my brand family.” You know what they mean, that those are the people who worked on the project — but why not thank the people? Why not say Lucy, Alice, John, Tom, so they feel seen as well? A lot of people don’t want their work and creative energy lost in the headline of a brand. It might look cool to say thank you to “the thing” but it’s not cool. The only time you see people given proper credit is for music videos. That’s the only time you see credit. You don’t really see that with songs, to understand who worked on it.

KRF: That’s true. I think you also get that with fashion and red carpet looks, to know who did the glam and the garment. Ironically, that seems to be because “creative” items like red carpets and music videos are an event whereas the song or a garment is a product instead of a creative expression. These things take a village — and the village should be celebrated. Just because someone needs to make a living doesn’t mean they aren’t a part of the art or aren’t an artist.

It speaks to the idea of Generation NDA, of the people and creatives who can’t talk about the things that they’ve made because it’s all under lock and key. To your point, that’s maybe why people “thank the brand” because, as an employee or worker, they’re barred from being tied to a project. But…what does that make them? What does that make us? Is that not a waste of one’s time if and when something you made is so divorced from the human?

E: You work on something for a brand or for an artist and then it gets used by the brand or artist — and is credited to the artist. You see this where a designer makes something cool for a dance act and then it becomes a political design and, because of that flow, it becomes “normal” for everyone, that anyone can use. I remember the artwork of Jacques Greene, who had a style that the BBC used in the UK, which then the conservative government used — and it was all over the place. The original design of the artwork was —

KRF: Oh my god. [LAUGHS]

E: Yeah. The artwork wasn’t a part of that conversation. The context was gone, completely removed from where it came from. Now his artwork, that thing looks like it copied the mainstream. There’s a certain kind of great design that hits with such an escape velocity that it creates more problems for the original artist. Sometimes when I see people use similar aesthetics to me, you can still tell because it’s a font — and I use my hand. That’s reasonably consistent so, if they use a font or their own hand, you can tell it’s not me. Having that identification privilege has accidentally been useful.

KRF: That’s something I really admire about your work, that there is something really human at the center of it. This relates to larger ideas of people and community being a big part of your work too, be it the specific East London neighborhood or the larger city of London around you. That interaction and dialoguing with the city, almost as if it’s a person, is so big — and it really resonates with me. A lot of people desire that but struggle with “what” community is and I wonder why it’s important for creatives to be a part of something? How does community relate to point of view? How do other people put gas in the engine of artistry?

E: In 2020 and even 2021, during lockdown, a lot of artists were encouraged to start a community, to set up a Discord or some corner of the internet for themselves for people who enjoyed their work. It created internet silos. With this project, I’m not starting a community because I am already part of many communities — and let me contribute to those, collectively, a part of London, the grime scene, Rinse, electronic music. It would be a limitation for me to try to own these people who follow my work, boxing them into a conversation. People can stay where they are and I’ll come to you — or I’m already there and we can have a conversation. That’s a better way of engaging. I’m doing what I always did: I was always DJing, I was always writing, I was always having conversations with people about music and culture — so let me just meet people where they are. I probably left some money on the table but I produced work because of that. I love Substack, as a reader and a person interested in music writing, but the project that I was doing was the right dynamic to have, to participate versus being — yeah, sometimes I have these battles with being seen as a leader. Leadership happens by putting yourself out there and a lot of people are doing that but there’s a difference when you’re a commercially driven artist who is leading people somewhere to sell something. I didn’t have an upsell. There’s no course, no festival, no conference: nothing. Because I’ve taken away the big headline sell, it’s softened the approach.

KRF: I think that’s all really useful. The idea of “already being a part of a community” and participating in said community is so huge. Being a part of something is a huge missing piece in all these conversations of “building community” because, sure, you can create a community — but you’re not a royal. Do you want people to worship you? What’s the point? That’s very different from being a part of something, something that you can share in. That’s really lost, especially online, as community is becoming synonymous with “buyers” — and that’s not a community. It says more about the speaker than anything else.

This relates to another thing about your work that I love, that you’re a big proponent of taking action, to “make the thing.” It’s about not talking about something but doing it. It’s hard, because we worry we’ll look dumb and wonder what people will think, doing all this thinking that defeats what we’re creating. Do you think our inability to “make the thing” speak to these being really passive times? Scrolling — on Instagram, on Netflix, wherever the fuck — is the defining action of this era. How is that in conflict with action? How is scrolling just a simulation of being a king of a kingdom of media, of nothing?

E: [HEAVY SIGH] What I meant by “close the app, make the ting” in the first place, originally, someone asked for creative advice, of what they should do next. It was a Sunday afternoon and I didn’t really have an answer. It was less like “Oh, just close that out — make the thing!” and more “Come one, man. There’s nothing I can advise you on. Just get at it!” That was my point because, even for me, I was sitting on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon. I shouldn’t have even been on Instagram! It was a reflective thing for me — and I just posted it. It didn’t get some sort of crazy engagement but I got a strong emotional response from some people. What I’ve come to realize is that it ends up being a natural filter of the things that matter to you. Even if you follow crazy shit on social media or geopolitics, it doesn’t affect your mood or suck you in — and I find that I’m the too online one, talking about something I’ve read on X and that’s just not good.

It’s a personal defense mechanism: if I spend an hour writing or reading, then I’m not spending that hour scrolling or losing that time. I’ve only recently got Netflix and it’s not very good. I’m sure it has something once a month that’s a decent series but me, personally, I can’t use it every day. I’m just scrolling and there isn’t really anything for me, nothing I could engage with every day. Then I read about people putting on Netflix and just scrolling at the same time, making it a double distraction. If you’re going to do a double distraction, listen to music and paint. [LAUGHS] I’ve lost a lot of hours procrastinating. I’m not a ten hour creative guy. But there’s a feeling with these products that they don’t have our best intentions — and it comes across in the work. I don’t watch a lot of films but I saw a Tweet that, before 1999, there was a lot more sincerity to films. Now, films avoid social media and phones to make you detached — but then they still have conversations that are terminally online. It’s a weird one.

KRF: Everyone used Netflix for that reason. To the point of multitasking, to the point of music and paint, there’s a confusion that people equate leisure or creative acts as “watching a film” on Netflix which actually means scrolling. I don’t think we recognize the passivity in that versus “labor,” of working and thinking. Reading! That takes effort. Cooking! That takes work. I get being out of work and “not wanting to do anything” but so much of what we do now “as leisure” suffocates living.

E: A lot of this generation assumes that art has to be sold or productized. The idea of painting something you don’t intend to sell or writing something you don’t intend to make a book of is a waste of time. It’s weird how that marries with the excuse of being completely passive, or they can’t see the difference between watching Netflix and going to the cinema. The sensory experience of going outside and to the cinema and meeting with a friend: all those jumps you go through…that’s why they exist in the first place because that was the only way to watch films, on a technological level. You also got what came with it, going outside and having a coffee and taking the bus. There were all these processes that have been stripped out. You can’t have an emotional response to something because you haven’t gone through anything to get it.

I eat out a lot because I travel a lot. On occasions that I have delivery, I have the exact same thing — and it tastes different. Is it because my house doesn’t smell like a curry house? Even though it’s the same food, I can’t enjoy it on the same level. I stopped getting delivery because it’s not how you’re supposed to eat the food. It’s the same with music and films and even sports. I barely watch it on television because there’s way too much on and it’s expensive. That sensory experience is so different because, again to use the word, the community aspect of enjoying something together. Then, when it’s done, I move on. That’s very powerful. At home, when I watch something, I then watch the highlights and the punditry and what happened around it. It has this grip on your experience of the world. I don’t want that anymore. It’s not serving me — and that has changed my relationship with media.

KRF: It has to do with being intentional. People struggle with that, given how much of society is based on decision fatigue and making yourself exhausted by choice, to the point where you don’t have an opinion anymore because I looked at 100,000 restaurants tonight and I still don’t know what food I want. That’s exhausting! That then makes you outsource your own ideas, to have other people weigh in on what you should do or think or feel. All because you’re tired and you just want to auto-play the world so you don’t have to make any active choices. In the process, you lose yourself.

E: I don’t know if you saw this post but it was about how there is no 2010s culture or that there’s no 2020s culture — and there were a lot of the responses. But step outside because that’s not true. If you exist only to consume, it does feel like that, that there is no culture now, that there is no new music. In London, there are these constant residencies of Beyoncé and Usher which could have happened ten or twenty years ago. There’s a lot of nostalgia but the things that people hear in London and consider cool did not exist prior to 2019 or 2010. The city is very rich with ideas! You could go out every night of the week and find something: there are talks, chess clubs, talks, music, jazz, clubs. If you spent a month here and had an amount of energy, you wouldn’t say there’s “no culture.” But if you stay indoors? You’re going to be watching some Tom Cruise film or Ronaldo and Messi. That’s what happens when you get locked indoors.

KRF: That Tweet is a reaction to staring at media all day long. Of course everything is going to feel the same and locked in! To the point of community, if you’re not a part of something everything looks the same.

But even online, things are changing too — it just depends on where you are. Twitter and TikTok for example still have the sauce. I hate to say Twitter or to support Twitter but it still has sauce. Bluesky? Threads? Are you joking? No. Culture doesn’t happen there. Twitter and TikTok are where things happen online now. I know you’re on Twitter too. What else do you use?

E: It's a shame that so many people left because, as I tweeted this the other day, because I asked at a workshop, people have a violent reaction to it. That’s such a shame. There are interesting conversations over there. It captures points of views that — it’s not that I disagree with them but they represent a point of view I don’t experience in real life that I think I should see —

KRF: That’s true.

E: I follow people I would never hang out with in real life. Some of these people feel let down about the way the country’s going and they lash out in ways that a lot of people do that are not socially acceptable in society. They use Twitter as their space to vent. It’s a shame that people don’t have a space to vent now so they use the internet, which takes people down these silos. Maybe one day it will all explode, where people don’t give a fuck and say what they want. You can’t fire everyone if everyone feels the same way. It’s a bubbling up of what could be bigger social issues.

For mine, I use Twitter, Substack, and YouTube. I got Premium during the pandemic and that’s where I get video essays and podcasts. There were riots here in the last year and there were guys who were going there and filming, who would speak to people who wouldn’t have a big following on Instagram or anywhere. That I find super interesting: they represent a point of view that no one would ever #Ad or sponsor their point of view — but they’re representative of a large part of the nation. I love hearing from them though.

I was just in Wales, in Cardiff. People there feel upset about the lack of resources. They consume Instagram from the point of view of being not-included. Because I’ve always lived in London or bounced between cities like Barcelona or Paris or New York, I don’t get that experience. If you live outside of a city, which is not culturally invested in, they experience Instagram as if it’s taking the piss out of them. I can understand their rage! DJ AG was just there recently and they were so happy that someone was putting the mic up to them, that they’re getting to perform for people, because it’s so rare for their voices to be heard. When people talk about the UK and UK culture, they’re mostly talking about London — and that’s, like, 7% of the country.

KRF: By population?!

E: Yep.

KRF: I had no idea. Wow. But, to your point — and this is true of any country — there’s a much bigger world outside of cities, contrary to what people in cities may believe or want the world to think. That negates and minimizes local cultures and, to the point of brands, it gives things coming out of cities more of a cache versus what might come out of Wales because “that’s not the city.” Therein lies this modern problem, or the tension, of city versus country when both should be working together.

E: Exactly. You see this in elections, where people say they don’t know anyone who voted for Trump or whoever. Did you see how many people did? That’s the rest of the country. Here, in London, that makes the city like its own island. People in the city think everyone outside is stupid, or there’s an undertone of those outside hating London, that people who leave think it used to be better “back then,” that it’s now going to shit. Again: you can’t build a social following from that. Nike’s not going to sponsor you or you’re not going to get booked for Sonar or whatever. That point of view doesn’t sell tickets outside of those places. It’s not commoditizable, as opposed to the work we’re doing. It’s a representative point view of a large platform who have power in their own way — and it’s going to decide the fate of the places that we live, in a way that our cultural production is unable to do. That’s the next challenge of our work.

KRF: That’s a profound predicament, the riddle of these times. Post November 2024, the realization is that the people who thought they had power culturally were completely kneecapped. Who actually has the power now? To that point, yes, you could say “city people” but clearly that’s not true. That might change in the next election, that a rebuke of the right-leaning thinking but…is that really going to happen? Who knows but, either way, that unseen population did win. They are dictating the culture! And a lot of knees are bending to them. Whether that is valuable or not is to be seen but, to me at least, it represents how unbalanced culture really is now. No movement or person has stepped up to equal it out — and it’s because this moment is perhaps for the non-city person, which I hadn’t thought about before. [SIGH] Woo!

E: [LAUGHS] My experience of using YouTube and Twitter in this way is to listen to people, to hear what people want to say, unfiltered. They’re not trying to sell me anything. There’s no product in the end: you’re just getting thoughts.

There was a bin strike in Birmingham, which meant no trash was getting taken away for about three weeks. People were having a conversation about who actually has the power. Is it the people who work for the council? The politicians? Or is it the people working? The thinking is, “Keir Starmer isn’t going to take away your rubbish — it’s me. We have the power.” Reminding people of this — at least in Birmingham — is showing where power can be.

Yes, there’s talk about AI and energy policy — but AI isn’t taking away your trash, my friend. You’re going to have to pay these people.

KRF: That’s where the conversation is going to head. We saw that with the LA protests, bricking a Waymo car as an expression of creating space between you and the state. What a metaphor for these times! AI could take out your trash — but it’s a machine and machines break. Then what?

E: Yep.

Get more from Elijah on his website and be sure to follow him on Instagram and Twitter.