Ever heard literally any song by garage star Sammy Virji and wondered where his earworm of a producer tag came from?
DJ and producer Shapes joined Lee & Tammy in studio for a chat and a mix while he's in Aotearoa touring with BRU-C, Kanine and Disrupta and during the chat, he revealed an interesting nugget of info - he's the voice behind Sammy Virji's iconic 'Virji, isn't it?' producer tag.
Safe to say Lee and Tammy's minds were blown.
While the actual fact has been out there for a little while - Shapes posted a video of himself playing an edited version of the tag on TikTok a couple of years ago - the actual origin story he shared is gold in and of itself.
Hear it from the man himself above or continue reading to get the full story.
'It's at the point now where more people know me for being the 'Virji, isn't it?' guy' he said.
General Lee then played a snippet from Virji's track 'Shapes' - assumedly named after the man behind the tag.
'This is funny because this one's the first tune he used the 'Virji, isn't it?' tag in' he continued.
'He named it after me, I guess?'
As for the tag becoming a mainstay, he said 'I don't know whether it was, like, supposed to be a constant.'
'He got a really good reaction on this tune, so he just kept doing it.'
The actual origin is the real gold and where Virji's production genius shows.
'It was during the lockdown,' Shapes said. 'I was recording, like doing jingles for DJs to earn a little bit of money because I wasn't making money from going out and playing shows.'
'One of the people that got in touch was Sammy. Back then, me and Sammy didn't really know each other.'
'So I was recording, I'd not met him in person before and I was recording these liners and genuinely what I would do is just send one long audio file of me just talking, and then they can pick up whatever they wanted.
'Genuinely I was just checking the pronunciation of his surname, so genuinely I just went 'It's Virji, isn't it?'
'And that's the bit that he took. So when people say like 'take a cut on the record,' no, because Sammy is the genius that turned something that wasn't supposed to be a tag, into a tag.'
'That's how good that guy is.'
Hell of a yarn! Make sure you get along to one of the shows on the tour as well, Shapes is a wicked DJ and producer that you do not want to miss live.
