Offie Mag

I first came across 'Rap TT' in the most mundane way possible: TikTok doomscrolling when I should’ve been reading a book. It was early January, and Girling had been posting unreleased tracks from his hard drive.

#04 had me hooked from the first few seconds. That distorted vocal, the swing of a garage beat locking into sharp, trance-inflected drums - a collision that carved out its own pocket of energy. All I knew at that moment was that I couldn’t lie still watching it through my phone screen. “Fuckkkkkkkk, this is a tune,” I muttered to myself, before scrolling on. I figured I’d hear about it again sooner or later.

Weeks later another scroll revealed Girling explaining he’d sampled the vocal from a 50p white label. That detail stuck with me. There’s a kind of poetry in it: a forgotten vocal buried on a cheap piece of vinyl, reimagined into something electrifying. It felt like the crux of the underground - nostalgia woven into a beat, a calling back to the truth of dance music.

Months rolled on and then in May, during another doomscroll, I froze in place. Ben UFO had dropped 'Rap TT' at Gala. I sent it to Girling immediately, and it turned out I was the one breaking the news to him. From there the track snowballed, threading itself through my summer as I worked bars at festivals up and down the country. Each time I heard it - that vocal ricocheting over the crowd, the beat snapping dancers into motion - it felt bigger, freer, more of a beckoning.

When it finally got an official release on the very day I arrived at Houghton, it was surreal. Playing it at camp, I felt this weird pride for someone I don’t even know, just from following their music over the years.

'Rap TT' is pure movement. From a twenty-second TikTok snippet to a summer-defining tune, it’s one of the most rewarding journeys I’ve followed. Proof that even a 50p record can spark a track that defines a season.

Words by Simran Aujla