Up All Night – TJ Maestro feat. NMCG Review

Good evening everyone, it’s Thursday which means that there is only a few more hours until new music appears at midnight and, today, Niamh and I have some new music to discuss from TJ Maestro. Now, TJ Maestro may be a new name but he was known as T UGNA and is a regular on the blog and we were delighted to be given the chance to chat about his upcoming track ‘Up All Night’ featuring NMCG. ‘Up All Night’ premiered on YouTube on October 9th and, due to popular demand by both artists’ fans, is being released at midnight tonight (September 27th). You can find both TJ Maestro and NMCG on Instagram and links to the Music Video on Youtube and other relevant links are at the bottom of the post.

As regular readers already know, TJ Maestro (formerly T UGNA) is a Roscommon rapper who has garnered a lot of attention for his release ‘Right Now’ this year (our review is in the links). TJ is an up-and-coming hip hop artist and has shown without doubt that he has the talent and skill to go far in the Irish music industry. 

NMCG may need some introduction, however, as he is a new artist on our blog. A fellow Irish rapper, NMCG has a very full playlist of original tracks on his YouTube for those who like what they hear on the upcoming single and his EP ‘New Life’ was released on June 16th of this year.

Up All Night

E: This track featuring NMCG who is a fellow Roscommon artist shows lockdown doesn’t necessarily prevent collaborations when you can find talent in your own county. I mean, what are the odds that you’ll find two talented rappers from one county? Also a note: NMCG is a new artist to me so I’m hoping for a good introduction to what he’s capable of with this track. For me, every song that you add to, even if it’s a feature, should be a show of why you deserve to be on the track and a way for the listener to hear your talents. The music video for this track is already up on YouTube so this track was heard by followers of TJ Maestro and NMCG a while ago and I’m honestly very curious why they decided to release this track in, what some would think of as, reverse order. The hook has a catchy rhythm with elongated syllables to create flow, specifically words like ‘change’ and ‘thing’ which creates a sort of lull in tempo that almost mimics the backing music. The instrumental lull between verses and the point of transition between one artist and the other shows the shift of focus and highlights the two very different approaches to the same music and highlights that no two people will interpret music the same way even if they’re collaborating on the same idea. References to “Ugna is dead” conveys the idea that this new era of music and newer style is identified by the new name showing, perhaps, that TJ is ready to move away from the preconceptions people may have of him based on his old name and start afresh.

Also something I pointed out in TJ Maestro’s previous releases was a unique rhyming pattern where the accent dictates what words rhymes and may in fact influence the words TJ Maestro chooses to use. If that’s the case, each track has to be carefully composed to maintain, not only flow but, the rhyming scheme as well. “Represent Rossie, you know I’m not common” is a clever play on the county that TJ is from, Roscommon; where the people are referred to as Rossies but the line also elevates his personal status by saying he’s not common. Using words and lyrics like “humble” and “you know I’m winning” is a repeated theme that hasn’t changed throughout a majority of TJ’s work. TJ has progressed greatly in his writing style and flows and each track shows a little more growth and progression from the last. I do enjoy that instrumental gaps lose most, if not all, of the bass and drums found in the verses and allows the track to form its own beat from the lulls in the guitar. The guitar loop and the actual rap in verses almost seems syncopated but not disjointed which is hard to do well at the best of times. NMCG’s inclusion in the track adds a new flavour to the track and, while these two work well together, they don’t try to overshadow one another. There is a real sense that these artists understand each other’s styles and NMCG shows that he deserves a place on the track with confidence and style.

N: This is TJ’s third release of 2020 and it seems with each release something new is brought to the table by this artist! ‘Up All Night’ is the best example of a creativity explosion born out of Lockdown. One thing that surprised me was, not only have we gotten a name change with the artist TUGNA to TJ Maestro (which he addresses in the song), TJ decided to bring out a collaboration song so soon into his music releasing career. This, however, works to his advantage because as the listener is now being exposed to two up and coming artists from the same county; county Roscommon!

As Emma has stated above, ‘Up All Night’ music video was released on YouTube on the 9th of October, it quickly became a fan favourite. In a world where Tiktok and YouTube are dominating with blowing up songs for new up and coming artists it is no surprise why TJ and his fellow collaborator NMCG chose for this song to be a song for the fans first. This works in favour for the musicians because they get to see instantly what works according to fans and it also gave them some blunt honest opinions on new styles and; the sound they experimented with to make ‘Up All Night’. With this in mind, I think it really words!

Onto the song itself ‘Up All Night’ is a song dedicated to not listening to the haters and doing things for you to get you to where you want to be and perfecting your craft! In comparison to TJ’s other songs we are met yet again with a catchy beat and honestly, I think this is my favourite overall sound of his to date! The guitar instrumental which tied the entire track together was provided by established US producer Depo while the music engineers who helped TJ bring this song to a new level yet again was Zak Higgins. Personally, I think Zak and TJ are working exceptionally well together and I hope to hear more tracks with both working on them in the future.

In terms of the lyrics, make sure you listen to this one with earphones/headphones in. I’m here for the confidence, the slightly sly little digs and the massive growth these artists have gone through. The song is a continuous story from start to finish and once you give it a listen you are drawn to sit down and listen to it again just to make sure you haven’t missed anything. NMCG features on ‘Up All Night’ and it is my favourite of his recorded performances to date. With each song that comes out he gets more confident in himself. The flow of the verses in ‘Up All Night’ sound effortless for these two artists while the chorus is exceptionally catchy it not only ties it all together, it will make you bop along and sing along by the second time it comes around.  In terms of what to keep an ear out for I enjoy TJ’s visual metaphors and representations within his songs. Make sure you keep an ear out for what’s going on with the bridges, snakes and the violin.