Ms Banks | Viper Magazine: Summer 2021

This is the Summer issue and the sun’s out in London so why not find a sunny spot to read this magazine while enjoying this weather?

Unknown T by Eddie Cheaba

34

Editor’s Letter

Back at it again with the Summer issue of Viper!

This one’s super special to me as it has some of my favourite artists showing face, including some fresh faces you may not be too familiar with. Case in point is C3 Boogie who had me LOLing through our interview as he explained his frustration at older women asking how old he is and ruining his chances. He’s only 18 and definitely one to watch in the UK rap scene.

A huge personal moment came this issue when after 11 years of being a fan, I finally interviewed Curren$y! Before we spoke, I searched his name on my blog and saw that I’ve posted his music 1,620 times. It was one of my favourite interviews of all time, as we covered all bases from rap to weed to cars. The best bit was discussing the Stegosaurus song he found while chilling with his son, which by the way is a fucking BANGER! Google it, trust me.

I’m still so hype that we have Unknown T on the cover! I was so excited to work with him as I’ve been a fan since I heard Homerton B, I love his double entendres.

Over the years I’ve worked with many rappers - I mean I’ve interviewed at least 100 - and was genuinely shocked by how professional and humble T was on set.

He was barely even late! Rappers take note!

Hands down, the best shoot of the issue was with Kida Kudz, who brought his three year old son to hang out with us! Kida’s energy is infectious and he’s truly one of my favourite artists hailing from Lagos. We got a glimpse of his upcoming video which is mind-blowing!

BXKS really impressed me with her rap skills when I first heard her on ‘Work Like!’

6/

and I’ve been a fan ever since. Pronounced “Becks,” she’s an artist you need on your radar. Boasting lyrical skills that are rare in rap today, she’s established herself as a solid MC coming through with banger after banger. Another buzzing name in the UK rap scene is wewantwraiths, who’s auto-tuned vocals have quickly made him a future star the scene. He was out of the country so he sent us some wild photos of him hanging out with a tiger. Standard.

Several PS Hitsquad tracks have dominated my playlists this year so it was only right to get him in the issue. I love his energy and really enjoyed interviewing him for the issue. We were talking gym before the interview and I impressed him with my PB of 70kg on the leg press.

I’m a proper music geek so I loved the chat I had with iLL BLU as the production duo reflected on their early days as DJs, as well as explaining how they merged their talents as producers to create all the magic on ‘The BLUPRiNT’ project. Likewise with TSB, I really loved hearing the story of creating Loski’s ‘Blinded’ track, both funny and fascinating.

Hailing from Chicago, Melo Makes Music makes an appearance in this issue to talk about his music career and merging elements of Rap with Punk and Grunge sounds. The shoot was masterminded by the Queen of Chi Town, Eviethecool!

Donae’O has been a staple in the British music scene for well over a decade so it was an honour to feature him in our segment, The Questions, with a set of questions sure to make you giggle! Meek and Frost gave great insight into their rise as directors and how they crafted iconic visuals for Pa Salieu, a must read for anyone looking to follow in their footsteps.

Lily Mercer

Editor-in-Chief Lily Mercer Creative Director Scott Butler Head of Photography/Creative Director Eddie Cheaba Fashion Director James Loach Editor-at-Large Lily Mercer

Deputy Editor Victor Davies Editorial Assistant Bruno Miles

8/

Contributors

James North

Jessica Thompson

Bianca Garcia

Joseph Clarke

EvieTheCool

Wilbert Lati

Cleo Wilson

Theydia Bitemo

Kojo Hammond

Luxeal London

Alex Franchini

Mercedez Jay

Kojo Dwimoh

Tahiyah Ali

Sophia Hill

Shamshawan Scott

Nadya Maki

TJ Sawer

Kashmir Wickham Thanks to: Blank Box Studios, Katerina Koumourou, Emily Gale, Olivia Warnford-Davis, Sasha Brookner, Aarti Popat, Imran Malik, Mofe Sey, Carl Fysh, Christina Lo Duca, Asa, Mousa, Natalie Kalolita, Chris Peterkin, Ross Hook, Cardel, Morley’s Bossman and all the artists that made working on this issue such a fun experience!

M O EL

AKES M

US

IC

THE QU

M

Contents

ES

TI

4

1

ON 12

10

S: D O N A E ’O

WEWA

NT

W

IL L

IT H S

BLU

30

RA

24

Z

UN

KNO WN

T

KI

DA

KU D

50

C3 B

O

O GI

E

ITS Q UAD

18 BX K

S

TSB

44

36

MEE

KS

& FR

OST

58

72

H S P

The Questions: Donae’O We ask Donae’O the burning questions...

Photos James North

12

What do you smell like right now? Joop - that’s my go-to cologne.

How would your last partner sum you up in three words?Utterly unattainable, sadly.

What’s the most troublesome thing you did as a child? I stole something once but I put the thing back in the shop because I felt bad. To be honest, I’ve never been into doing bad things.

I like being a good guy and I’ve been like that since I was a kid. I’ve always had a good moral compass and the strength of mind to follow through.

“I stole something once but I put the thing back in the shop because I felt bad.”

Who’s the weirdest celebrity you ever had a crush on? Shirley Bassey or Sade. I’ve always been attracted to sophisticated and intelligent women and both women are great examples of those qualities.

Ever punched a stranger? No, I’ve never had to. No one has never taken it far enough for me to punch them. They always back down. I know how to diffuse a situation but equally know how to end the situation if required.

What’s your most embarrassing fear? Don’t have one.

What sound do you hate? Nails on a black board.

Which character trait of yours do you hope your child doesn’t inherit? I hope they inherit all of them [laughs] - the good and the bad.

What’s your favourite sea creature? I love Whales, they are giants and are interesting powerful creatures.

The worst thing about drugs is... The addiction - I’ve seen how it destroys people. It’s brutal and it makes no difference who you are. Male or female, rich or poor, old or young etc, once addicted it ruins your life very quickly.

Melo Makes Music

Melo by name, making music that’s beautiful

Photos by: Bianca Garcia Studio: Congruent Space

Creative Director/Stylist: EvieTheCool

14

Hat: Walter Van Beirendonck Top: GCDS Pants + Shoes + Bag: Heliot Emil

Who is Melo Makes Music? Melo Makes Music is me. Melo from Chicago, born and raised. I’m a recording artist, I’m just kind of a creative person in general. I dabble in a lot of different mediums, but most important of them all is music. The most focus goes towards music, making all sorts of genres of music and being able to express myself in all those ways.

What are a few things that inspired you to become an artist? Honestly, I think it was always something that was interesting to me. I’ve always been called to do something creative my whole life, like the arts were always a hobby. I started getting into music when I was 13, I didn’t think that I could seriously do it for real as a career choice or lifestyle choice until I was 19 or 20. That’s when I was kind of inspired by myself to pursue it, because I had made a lot of leaps as far as my ability in a short amount of time. I double-downed on myself, I really bet on myself and it’s been working out thus far. I’ve been inspired by all the artists that come before me, all of my contemporaries. People that I have seen growing up that have been able to make names for themselves. Everything is inspiring, I think that’s one of the beautiful things about being an artist, that you can be inspired by anything and everything.

Thinking back to the beginning of your music career to now, what has influenced your change in style? I think in the beginning it was all about rapping to me and being able to hone in on that skill and highlight that ability. But at the same time, I’ve always been really influenced by alternative music in general, especially Grunge and Rock music. As early as 2015 when I was putting out my first songs you can hear a lot of that influence in the music. I honestly feel like the change in my sound is really just kind of an evolution. Anybody who is really paying attention the whole time will be able to find the similarities between then and now. It’s all like an evolution, a growth from where I started.

Now I think I have more of a focus on making a catchy song and making something that’s very expressive to how I feel, but also at the same time very captivating, attractive and familiar.

I definitely still have Rap songs for people who love me for rapping and I definitely have songs that are way more Pop-oriented and less focused on Rap. I think there is something for everybody, that’s what the name is supposed to imply too. I make music which is the obvious thing, but I make all kinds of music, which would be the subtext of my name; Melo makes all kinds of music.

What can we expect from you musically in the near future? By mid-July, I’m going to be

Bandana: Public Posession Top: Wekafore

releasing my first official single since last year’s release. I took a break during the pandemic to focus on myself a little more, to centre and ground and allow myself to pause while the world paused. This next song coming out is definitely like a reintroduction, it’s called ‘LOL’, featuring my friend 916frosty. If you like PopPunk you’re going to love this song, if you like Hip Hop, if you like the stuff I normally do, you’re going to love this song. There’s something for everybody there, so I’m super excited. I’m doing a headlining set at Virgin Hotels Chicago on July 9th, my first headline in over a year due to the pandemic. It’s going to be really intimate, I’m only selling 60 tickets which will be cool for the fans. And then I’m throwing a party on July 11th at Soho House, a pink party. Pink has been my thing, so you gotta wear pink. Pink is the new black for me, it brings out joy and happiness.

What’s something that you’re really proud of pertaining to your music? My song last year, ‘Manifesto’, did a lot of numbers. We went viral on TikTok, but then went viral on WorldStar.

For an indie release, doing multiple millions of streams on a song is definitely not a small thing.

I’m really proud of the team that worked on that, the most people I’ve ever had working for me in one moment.

Which female and male artists would you like to collaborate with? Honestly, a lot of my favourite artists are female artists or non-binary artists. SZA’s always been a dream, she’s been a dream since 2016. I feel like that is going to happen , normally anything I manifest will come to fruition. I did a show with Doja Cat like two years ago, ever since then, I’ve wanted to do a song with her. I’ve really been rocking with this artist Brakence, they have an amazing voice.

Frank Ocean, he’s amazing, a magical creature, that would be a dream for sure.

Any details you can reveal about your next project? It’s going to be an EP, it’s called ‘Fun Until It Hurts’. It’s a fun project but some of the themes are a little rooted in pain but everything sounds fun. It’s the most Pop-slanted shit I’ve ever done.

BXKS

Lyrically captivating, BXKS is making waves with her blend of hard hitting rap and grimy flow.

Words Cleo Wilson Creative Direction Eddie Cheaba Styling Kojo Hammond

Photos Bruno Miles

16

Cropped Bomber: Berthold Bandeau Top: Berthold Trousers: Karl Kani

Lyricists like BXKS are hard to come by, balancing the witty wordplay of Rap’s early years with the hard hitting energy of Grime. With each release showing a new string to her bow, Luton’s newest musical export is blazing her way to the forefront of the British music scene.

BXKS landed on the scene a few years back with an explosive ‘Next Up’ Freestyle on Mixtape Madness, a moment that gained the ears and attention of many, including Skepta.

Fast forward to 2021 and BXKS has released her debut eight track EP ‘Full Time Daydreamer’, a great reintroduction to the euphoric and eclectic world of this deep dreamer.

In this reality the stars aligned allowing us to catch up with the Luton rapper to discuss thoughts on her latest release, the wider music industry and the influence of cult classic ‘Neon Genesis’.

Some anime series have a long-standing reputation for having hundreds of episodes, is this long to jump into? No, it’s not a series or anything, what I watched was a film; It is quite old though. If you watch current anime in comparison to this, even down to the illustrations it’s quite old. It’s really enjoyable though.

Full look: Napapijri Bag: Berthold Shoes: Lacoste

First of all, congratulations on the release, I love it! I stumbled upon a video of yours last year and thought you were one to watch.

It’s great to now have a full project from you.

Thank you, Thank you!

How did you end up with this specific title for the EP? Just because I’ve never been able to focus. I might even lose focus in this [laughs]. It was just because I’ve been daydreaming a lot, one of the triggers for daydreaming is listening to music. I dunno if it happens with everyone, but when I’m listening to music I forget where I am.

Do you think it’s a form of escapism? Yeah, I definitely do. It’s so real, I think they call it “maladaptive daydreaming.” It’s basically like intensive daydreaming. It’s an actual thing!

You mentioned ‘Neon Genesis’ as the inspiration behind the ‘Full Time Daydreamer’ artwork, can you expand more on that? Yeah, so it’s an anime. Anyone that’s seen it will recognise it’s a play on the main guy with the purple top, headphones in, laying down. He’s one of the leading characters in it, I basically just took scenes of him and revamped it to make it black versions like me. Even the cover for the single ‘Menace’, I replaced the boy and girl characters in it with me and the producer, P-rallel.

What is the anime about? How’s the best way to explain it... basically, long story short it’s good versus evil. He gets recruited on this team, he kills these angels and all this stuff. So, he’s just protecting what the evil guys are trying to attack.

Yeah, I’m going to try to get into that. Back to the release though, how are you feeling now that it’s out? How has the reception been for you? I feel like it’s been received well. People have been saying nice stuff to me. Now, I just want to move on because a lot of the songs I’ve had for a while now. Like ‘Packed In’, I’ve had that for a year and a bit. That was the first song I released by myself before I had management.

It was the song that made people find me and want to manage me, but yeah people are taking it really well. I just want to make new stuff though!

You recently dropped the visuals for your single ‘Must Feel’ which is amazing. How did you come up with the concept? Thank you! I

Jacket: Karl Kani Top: Karl Kani Trousers: 82K Degrees Shoes: Nike

you’ve collaborated. How did you meet them?

It’s so funny you ask that. So in 2019 I did a tape with Capo Lee, there was a bunch of people there, but I met one guy called Kabz who’s a part of the 237mob which RADA is also a part of. Then, long story short, after I put out ‘Packed In’, I came across Kish [237mob] and I was like, “Rah, so there’s actually people out here making music that isn’t really the norm.” I’m from Luton, so we don’t really have this whole underground scene, it’s like I didn’t even know this stuff existed. So when I’ve seen all these other artists, I’m like, “What the hell? Look at what I’m missing out on!” After ‘Packed In’, I made ‘Work Like’, I literally finished the song, sent it over to Kish and was like, “I really want you on the song” and he jumped on it. So, from there, I’ve just been able to get support and connect with other artists that he was already cool with. I’m so happy it went that way as well; it feels good being accepted in that scene because so many of them are mad talented.

came up with it because I’m Jamaican so you know that saying, “those who don’t hear must feel?” It was my interpretation of that, but through the Internet. I feel like my generation, or even as an artist, you have to be on socials a lot to promote yourself. The video was kind of me saying like: I’m an artist now and unfortunately, I’m going to end up like those people who are constantly on their phone, posting just so they can keep the attention of their consumers.

I think it was a captivating portrayal of how addicted people can become to their social media personas. How do you stay authentic during this image-based time we’re in? Do you find it hard to navigate through it all? You know what, I’ve come to realise... most people that are authentic, don’t know they’re authentic.

It’s like even now, me sitting in my room looking around... to be honest I’m just myself. I don’t really have a deep answer for that. I feel like if you’re not yourself, you’ll find it hard to be authentic anyway. It’s like with socials, sometimes you see a lot of people getting their personalities from there but I don’t watch people and think, “ah, what can I pick and choose to be today?” I’m just me really! That was a good question though.

Talking of authenticity, I do feel like there’s a rumbling resurgence of the real. There’s a lot of underground artists who go against the grain creating some really wavy stuff. Like RADA, Jaydon Clover and Kish with whom

18 /

I agree. I think it’s important we push sounds that we’re not used to, because it’s really there you just have to be open to it. Yeah, and you know what I even had to make a decision myself, because one time I made an Afrobeats-type song. It actually did really well, it was my most streamed song on Spotify and was on an Apple Music playlist, all before I had management.

Then I was like, “Do I really wanna make music like this?” I was like, “Nah, I actually don’t.” I just did it once to see if I could. When I made ‘Packed In’, I realised I wanna make songs like this.

I genuinely love ‘Packed In’, you’ve got such a zealous flow and the visuals are so quirky. I think you’re three for three visually right now.

Are you creatively heavily involved in them?

Yes, visuals are super important! For me, the visuals aren’t there to show my personality, but to show what’s going on in my head. These ideas spring from my brain, so I always want them to come forth how I see it in my mind.

Me and my friends, Joel and Jonathon, did the ‘Packed In’ and ‘Work Like’ videos ourselves.

Just one camera, some green screen and edited it ourselves. We stayed up 10 hours editing. The ‘Work Like’ video didn’t take too long because it was quite a simple video, I just wanted it to be like a mini film. Doing the ‘Must Feel’ video was interesting, I was in control of the video because it was my idea but it wasn’t me filming or editing so it was different. I’m definitely going to go back to doing it myself, I just feel like I enjoy it more.

Do you feel like the ‘Must Feel’ video strips away that bonafide DIY appeal? Yeah, boy with this video you can tell there’s a budget, with the other two videos it didn’t cost any money at all.

I’m glad it didn’t look too over the top though, like, “Ahhh she spent mad p’s on this!” I think it’s quite balanced. I don’t think all my stuff will be

like that, I just needed this one video to be this way, because I had a certain vision for it.

Yeah, I love it. It definitely feels very cosmic and intergalactic - are you into that kinda stuff? Yeah, I am and I was definitely aiming for a futuristic video. It’s kinda like in a universe where I’m taking pictures of myself but I’m not actually there. You see how the characters in the video were there, but they weren’t really there. Like an outer body thing, because even when I wake up in the video, I’m like, “How did I get here?”

I think it all coincides with the daydreaming theme of the EP itself to be fair. Definitely, yeah.

What’s your favourite song from the EP? I’d probably say my favourite is ‘Packed In’ obviously and then ‘Work Like’, Those are my two favourites.

Why those two tracks in particular? I think it’s because of the way they were made, I wasn’t thinking, “This song is going to get me so much traffic!” I had just moved to Northampton because I was living in Luton before. I was just in my room, chilling, making music with YouTube beats. I came up with a chorus and then I was like, “this sounds kinda cool.” I slapped a snippet on my Insta story of me vibing to it and everyone was like, “you should drop that it sounds hard.”

I hadn’t made something in mad long so they were birthed in a great way, I find the stories behind these songs mad cute.

Are there any artists you’d love to work on new material with? Yeah, there’s soooo many people. Give me a number because I’ll just list bare [laughs].

[Laughs] Okay... five. In no particular order, I’d like to work with BINA, Louis Culture, KAM-BU, NAYANA IZ and Lava La Rue. Sorry, can I add Enny too? I have to add Enny.

Is there anything that has piqued your interest as of late? Hmm.... This might be really random but I’m gonna shout out Corteiz RTW!!!, because they just did a really cool advert for their brand that I think is so sick. It’s a really cool clothing brand by this guy called Clint. I’ve actually got a CRTZ poster on my wall. So yeah, probably him. I just love what he’s doing and it’s so authentic. Oh, and Enny, I just love her stuff, I’ve been listening to her music a lot. Little Simz too actually, I like all the music and videos she’s dropped recently.

She drops quality music, it’s a shame there still isn’t enough collective support for her and others of a similar style. It’s because she doesn’t make bubblegum music, so she doesn’t get a lot of support here. She gets love abroad though and with that she wins anyway because

she has real longevity. I think it also comes down to award shows, even mainstream shows too. They have eyes on the “urban” award shows too, so if they’re not seeing us push specific talent that doesn’t meet the status quo, they won’t either. They’ll just continue to shout out other artists that already have mainstream recognition. They don’t really put the nonpopular genres in the loop, which I think is really bad.

Earlier you were saying you can’t wait to move on and create new material, what’s next on your agenda? I do wanna collab with people, but I feel like I need to work alone for another year or so. Not to prove to people, but just to show that I’m an artist by myself, and I can make good music without needing a feature verse or hook on the song. It got to a point where I was just accepting bare verses. Like, “yeah, I’ll work with you! And you! And you!” Now it’s like, I need to remember that we’ll look back at my catalogue one day and I don’t want it to seem like, “she’ll work with anyone!” So I really want to focus on working by myself and exploring sounds. I’ve been working on my new EP, but I don’t know when I’m going to drop it. I think I want people to keep taking in ‘Full Time Daydreamer’. Even the songs on that, they’re quite different to the ones I’m making now.

What kind of sound would you describe ‘Full Time Daydreamer’ having? I don’t even know, you know! Most of the songs were produced by TK, he works with people like Tion Wayne and Young T and Bugsey. I even asked him what genre he would describe this as, and he was just like, “I don’t know.” [Laughs] So, I just call it Alternative Grime. I kinda wanted to double back on that description but no. The music I’m working on now, I’m spitting at a Grime tempo.

Just because the beat doesn’t sound like Grime doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t. If I was to take the lyrics that I’m spitting and put it on a different instrumental, it would be Grime.

To round up, what are you most grateful for at this very moment? Probably just the journey in general. Sometimes I’ll just be sitting in my room like, “Rah this is actually so mad.” So, I’m just grateful for the actual journey and the experience. I didn’t even know how to rap in 2016, I wanted to sing and stuff, but it’s not really exciting to hear women sing. I guess it’s kind of like a stereotype, that women should be able to sing, like it’s a feminine thing? I knew I wouldn’t personally have a long career if I sang, so I learned how to rap. I started to realise, there’s a way that men rap, that women don’t really rap. I realised I was able to emulate the pockets without sounding like I’m straight copying someone and I started to figure out what sounds work best for me; now here we are!

VIPERMAG.COM

•

19

With just three songs, the Kilburn rapper has the industry desperate for more. But ladies, just don’t ask how old he is…

Creative Director Eddie Cheaba

Photos Bruno Miles

C3 Boogie

Words Lily Mercer

20

C3 Boogie caught our eye with a trio of Drill bangers, culminating in the ‘Plus One [Freestyle]’. Aged only 18, with an incredible sense of humour, this Kilburn MC should be added to all your playlists immediately! Get to know him before he blows, and get ready to LOL. You’ve been on the scene for about nine months, tell me about your career so far, have you always been known as C3 Boogie? True say, people used to call me C3 before I started music. I was seeing a lot of people my age doing music and I just thought, ‘I could do that as well’ so I did it. Really I’ve got a lot to talk about due to upbringing and such, what I’ve been around and what I’ve experienced. So yeah I just kinda slid right in.

Did you record a lot before you dropped your first singles? Yeah I recorded a couple of songs before my first release, I think I recorded about three or four but I never thought they were good enough so I never released them. Then I made ‘Lean Out’ in July 2020 and dropped it in October after that.

“My dad wasn’t surprised I was doing music but he was surprised how good I was, because I would say I’m defo better than him.”

Recently the ‘Plus One [Freestyle]’ blew you up to a bigger audience, the song is a freestyle but it sounds like a single. Was it a throwaway? It was actually a throwaway. I was at my manager’s house, I was going through songs in my notes, I’ve got a lot of songs in my notes and that. Then I spat this one on a whim, I wasn’t really expecting him to like it and I spat it. He was like “Nah run that back, run that back” so it’s history from there really.

The song’s serious but I always laugh at the end when you say, “she ask how old am I, I said baby girl don’t ruin it” - was that on your mind at the time? [Laughs] It was an experience I had.

I remember I was chatting to some girl, she was about 26. I was 17 at the time and everything

was going well and then she was like, “I never asked, how old are you?” I was like, “ahhh you had to ruin it init? You had to ruin it.” So that’s where that came from.

Do you find older girls are more into you after the lyric? Older girls have always been into me but obviously they can’t tell how old I am so normally they just don’t ask. Then you get the odd few that are like, “how old are you?” And it just fucks up the whole process. I’m not gonna lie about my age, that’s a bit weird.

So now you’re encouraging girls to not ask the question? Just don’t ask the question. Don’t ruin it. Baby girl, don’t ruin it. [Laughs] [Laughs] Besides that, what’s the lyric of yours that people reach out about on social media? I’ve had a few weird DMs because on ‘Turn It’, I said, “Or I might just give em a sibling ‘cause he know I got dick for his mother.” I said that, so I get a bunch of weird DMs. It’ll be like a random account and they’ll be like, “Can you please give me a sibling?” with heart eye emojis.

I’m like, what the fuck? How does one respond to that? I like to respond to my fans but what do you say to that?

[Laughs] It is a bit weird when you’re basically saying you’ll impregnate their mums. Exactly.

That’s the C3 Boogie fanbase…

Is that the weirdest thing a fan’s done? Yeah that’s the weirdest still, defo the weirdest.

Do you feel your audience is a mix of gender or mostly male? It’s mainly boys, or it’s only boys that I see reaching out and liking my posts. I do see a few females but I’d say they’re definitely a minority in my fanbase.

You said your new project is 90% Drill, what’s it mixed with? Yeah defo Drill and R&B but to be honest, I do have a lot of Drill songs but I’ve got a lot of other songs that wouldn’t be classified as Drill because I don’t classify myself as a Drill rapper, I classify myself as an artist, I can do a lot of other shit, I’ve got a song singing and shit.

I don’t wanna be stuck in that box because a lot of Drill rappers fail to understand that, when you’re a Drill rapper and you only make Drill, you can only progress so far. Rather than being an artist and doing other genres when you can

VIPERMAG.COM

•

21

Hat: New Era Jumper: Made By Mensa

“I was chatting to some girl, she was about 26. I was 17 at the time and everything was going well and then she was like, “I never asked, how old are you?” I was like, “ahhh you had to ruin it init? You had to ruin it.”

collab with other people and bring it to a new high, or just reach new people with your music in general.

What’s your go-to topic? I’ve got a lot of crazy stories and such, so I kinda just reminisce and start writing. Everything I rap about is real, everything I rap about has happened. Sometimes I keep falling into the box of having to write about an event but just change the way I rap about it.

You’re only just 18 so how do you try to push yourself as an artist? I just try new things, even if I’m not comfortable with it, I just try new things to see what can happen.

Even if it’s out of my comfort zone, I still try because surprisingly, sometimes it turns out right and then you might hear it in the future.

You played instruments when you were growing up, does that ever influence the beats you choose? Nah not at all really. It’s just music’s always been in my background. The school I was at, they let us play instruments from year two so I started on the cello up until year six or year seven. Then I moved onto the bass guitar until I finished school in year 11. I never picked it up after that, after that it was straight rapping.

There’s a bass playing at the start of ‘Plus One [Freestyle]’ isn’t there, do you like beats with strong basslines? Yeah, I can hear the bassline because I used to play the bass guitar. One fun thing I do while I’m in the studio and listening to a beat or mixing down a tune or something… because the tune’s playing on a loop and there’s a piano in the studio or a guitar. I’ll play that to the beat to try and replicate the same bassline. I used to do that when I’m bored.

What stands out when you’re picking a beat to rap on?

The bassline, it’s gotta rumble me. You know when I’m hearing the melody and the bass kicks in, it just shakes everything. That’s me because I like to bring energy to the room, when you play my songs, ‘Turn It’, the bassline in that, you can’t ignore it.

You always sound quite chill, even when the track is fast paced. It just comes natural to me so maybe it just sounds chilled, it’s not really a hard thing for me to rap, it just comes to me so that’s what it might come from.

With my songs, you can hear a song and know that it’s C3 Boogie, but you can’t listen to the flow of something and say it’s a C3 Boogie flow, because ‘Lean Out’, ‘Turn It’, ‘Plus One’, they all have different flows. Most of my songs have different flows because it depends on the beat of the song.

The only time my flow might be similar, is because the beat might be similar.

There hasn’t been a rapper from Kilburn in a minute, who did you look up to locally when making music? I looked up to family more, there’s no one I looked up to with music really.

My family’s really musical, not everyone’s released music but everyone can spit so I just looked up to them really. My main inspiration is my pops and both my uncles, just my whole family really, my whole family’s really musical so there weren’t really any influences through the area I grew up in, mainly family.

to preference really. They’re both bangers, the whole EP is just bangers the whole way through, even at the end of the EP, that song there is still banging, everything’s banging.

Tell me about the new video for ‘What Do You Mean?’ My manager and the director I use for my music videos, they’re always coming up with different ideas for my videos. For this one, we’re playing on the fact that I’m always wearing a balaclava so there’s things in the video where

“For my new video, we’re playing on the fact that I’m always wearing a balaclava so there’s things in the video where I obviously can’t do them with the bally but I’ve got the bally on. Like eating Cornflakes; brushing my teeth...”

Were they active in the scene? Or did they not release anything? My pops was active, yeah he was active still back before I was born. After I was born he kinda dropped out of it but he would always keep up with it. I would be with him in the studio and such, I used to just listen to him rap. I always thought it was mad because it was just mad to me as a kid, I don’t know how to explain it, it’s a weird feeling, it gives me goosebumps and shit.

Is he not surprised you became a rapper too?

He wasn’t surprised I was doing it but he was surprised how good I was. Because I would say I’m defo better than him, one trillion percent better than him. He’s probably surprised at that but I feel like, I don’t know how to explain it, I don’t think he was happy at what I rapped about though. He definitely was not happy with what I rapped about but he knows the drill, he knows how life goes.

Do you ever think about rapping about less violent stuff? Yeah I’ve got a lot of love songs, it’s just not the right time to release them so I’ve defo got other things to talk about besides Drill and the stuff I’ve been through but it’s just not that time yet. We start with the Drill, I wanna keep going with Drill then when we see an opening to change… like the song at the end of my EP, it kinda shows diversity. Then after we drop the EP and people hear that song then we can kinda branch out into other different things.

Is there a song on the EP that you’re most excited for people to hear? Me and my manager keep having an argument. He likes a song called ‘Watch How I Kick It’, I like a song called ‘Matrix’, we’ve been trying to decide between the two songs but I don’t know, it kinda comes down

24 /

I obviously can’t do them with the bally but I’ve got the bally on. For example, eating Cornflakes; I can’t eat cornflakes with a bally on. Brushing my teeth, I can’t brush my teeth with a bally on.

Just shit like that really, tryna make it different and also we’re tryna show progression, not through that but with everything I’m wearing, so we’re levelling up. Yeah, just a big level up.

Tell me about your name I started being known

by C3 Boogie in early 2019, obviously C because of my first name. That’s all I can say on that, I can’t say too much. Nah nah nah. [Laughs] What can we expect from you this year? All I can say is stay tuned, it’s gonna be a mad year. I ain’t done, I definitely ain’t done, you know what I’m saying? I’m not even a year in yet, I got some shit loading for real!

You haven’t performed yet, what are you most excited to play at a show? Shit, by the time I get to perform, things from the EP will be out! Ahhh, I don’t even know. Everything you know, yeah everything, gonna absolutely shell it, I’m ready for anything really. I’m just excited to perform in general, not even a particular song. If I had to pick one, it’d probably be ‘Matrix’, a song that’s on the EP. ‘Matrix’ or ‘What Do You Mean?’

Who would most wanna collaborate with if you could choose any artist in the scene? 808 Melo, I was a big fan of Pop Smoke and 808 Melo produced most of his beats. He’s very different with his beats and the bass, as I said before the bass is very important to me. His 808s are crazy, that’s a producer I’d like to work with. Artist? I’d have to say Headie One, he’s my favourite UK artist at the moment. I think I’d shell it.

26

wewantwraiths

Words Sophia Hill

Photos Kojo Dwimoh

With his melodic style of rap, wewantwraiths is already hitting the UK charts, read on to find out why he’s got the music industry on its knees.

The Humble Artist Rewriting the Rules of Rap In the heart of England, Leicester’s wewantwraiths is serendipitously making his way towards becoming a game-changer in the UK musical arena.

His attitude towards his craft is unmatched on the scene right now, which became increasingly apparent as we spoke over Zoom. Much like the Rolls Royce Wraith – named after an old Scottish word for ‘ghost’ he remains shrouded in a layer of mystery. The mask, the name, the autotune, many aspects of wraiths’ image is that of someone who prefers to remain enigmatic; but what shines through as we speak is his captivating sense of gracious humility. Not only this but he is someone who is grounded in thought. Through his gentle demeanour he emits a seldom found but powerful sense of candour.

A second similarity to the lavish car is that wewantwraiths has a luxurious vision of his own. The artist is unsigned and he wants to keep things that way he tells me “I want to be able to own everything I’ve ever made during this period where I’m creating music... It’s very important to me that I keep my masters and I’m in full control of ownership and production.”

Lyrically he offers a catchy blend of compelling storylines and lavish living, bookended by personal narratives about his own experiences.

His bars are that of someone who isn’t afraid to stick to the facts of life, such as with ‘Voices’, the track revolves around the sensitive topic of mental health wherein he depicts the toil of trying to make it out of difficulties and the eternal tender place in his heart for his family – “That was the moment I was dreaming while awake. Hooyo on the phone I just told her to pray for me” he raps. When revealing what helps him remain so vulnerable through his lyricism he explains, “I try to make it more relatable for the people listening. I will talk about the kind of stuff everyone might be going through.” wraiths has a knack for taking the foundations of multiple genres and conveying them beyond the usual rhetoric surrounding money, cars and girls. In less than a year of his steady rise to fame, the Somali artist has developed his flow alongside an undeniably fortuitous take on creating music. After breaking onto the scene with his debut singles ‘Unforgettable’ and ‘Chanaynay’ in September 2020, the rapper was inundated with support, receiving over a million views. His debut was soon followed by an

appearance on Kenny Allstar’s Mad About Bars series via Mixtape Madness which saw wraiths’ fame grow exponentially.

VIPER spoke with the affable and independent artist that is wewantwraiths as he shared with us some valuable nuggets of wisdom from his refreshing approach to creating music, the importance of integrity and following your heart, to the gratitude he has for the people around him.

People are saying 2021 is your year as an artist. Was this rapid rise something you were expecting? Or were you building towards it?

It kind of just happened. You know, I’m sort of going with the flow and taking everything as it comes.

Your layered melodies and bars definitely portray a story within them. How did you learn the techniques that you apply to your music?

I mean, at first, when I started, I didn’t really know how to utilise my voice. I was literally just talking to the microphone because I didn’t know otherwise and I think there was one day where I just said, fuck it, let me put my chest into it.

That’s when I realised I can do all this melody stuff and I just kind of ran with it.

Is there any inspiration for that level of storytelling from any particular artists that made you think this is the kind of artist I want to be? I think the American culture makes music look cool as fuck. I feel like they kind of inspired me, especially when I used to watch their videos and listen to their content. Also what I do is a bit different anyway, I think the reason my music is a little bit different is because I really try not to talk in derogatory terms about women and I don’t talk about money as much as I could. I like to try to be careful when I talk about certain things, I try to make it more relatable for the person and for the people listening. I will talk about the kind of stuff everyone might be going through. Rather than, you know, how these rappers just talk about the luxurious things in life and what things people can’t actually access and stuff. What I feel I do is I make it relatable for everyone.

100%, you’ve touched on some really personal sounding topics in the past, such as with the tracks ‘Voices’ or ‘Emotionally Scarred’. Do you find it flows out of you or are those topics quite hard to write and reflect on? I think because I’m talking about things that are genuinely in my

heart, and in my mind, it actually comes easy to me, it just kind of flows. You know?

Definitely, there seems to be a huge amount of love from your fans for what you’re doing in the industry and how you’re representing it.

What messages do you want to portray to your fans through your music? Be dream chasers, just chase your dreams. Don’t be scared to do what you want to do. Don’t be scared to start something new. You get me? Whatever it is, whether it’s a new job, whether you want to start doing music, just take that step. That’s the kind of message I give out to people. That ‘don’t sleep on yourself’ sort of thing.

Have any fans ever reached out to you to ask for advice on something they’re going through? I get it a lot, I’m not gonna lie to you.

“Be dream chasers.

Just chase your dreams. Don’t be scared to do what you want to do.

Don’t be scared to start something new.”

But sometimes, as much as I’d like to help, I don’t actually know what to say. But yes, I do get that and I try to advise as many people that pop up to me saying, “how did you do it so fast?” I just say, “do you, focus on your brand and focus on being independent.” Stuff along those lines, that’s the advice I give them.

Your single ‘Know You’ has hit almost four million views in just two months. What was the process behind putting this tune together?

During the time I was travelling, shooting the video, studio mashing and recording, I was in Holland. I like the vibes in Holland when it comes to studio. They’ve got another sound to their music and I feel like I never really set out to shoot something but I knew I wanted to shoot something along the lines of that vibe from ‘Know You’. So I recorded it literally the next day – made the logistics happen, started planning and then shooting it. We did it fully independently, up and down the country with

the cameraman, up and down Europe. We were in Holland, Belgium, France, Germany and we were basically just travelling and blogging the trip. We got a video out of it at the end.

It sounds like it came together quite quickly.

Would you say your approach to creating something is a bit different to the average artist? Yeah, 150%. When I was on the way to shoot ‘Know You’, I had three or four other songs recorded that I made in Holland. No joke, on the way to the shoot where the cars were, we were in our car and we just thought “Yo. Should we switch it up? Should we record another song?”

I’m so glad that I have that level of creative control where I can change everything last minute. I feel that’s kind of a blessing when it comes to being an independent artist, you don’t have to stick to the rules.

It’s a valuable asset. Would you say that owning your own legacy and being an independent artist, separate from any labels has pushed you to be more self assured? 100%. For me, most first and foremost, I’m a Muslim. I know what I’m doing right now, the music, is not what I’m supposed to be doing in my life. You know?

But I am doing it anyway. There will be a time that I want to sign out, if you know what I mean, and I want to be able to own everything I’ve ever made during this period where I’m creating music. So it’s very important to me that I keep my masters and I’m in control of full ownership of my production.

You’ve got that legacy. Exactly.

We’ve talked about how quickly you’ve risen.

Would you say as your fame grows, have you had to rethink your relationships with the people around you at all? I’m so grateful for the people around me. No one’s ever changed up on me. That goes for me too, I haven’t changed up on myself. I feel like where I’m from, it’s such a tight knit community. People don’t look at me as wraiths, they still look at me as who I am, without the mask. So with people, if anything, they’re cutting me slack, they’re not hard on me at all. I really appreciate that.

In what ways has living in Leicester influenced your music taste or your approaches to style and music? I feel like in Leicester we’re just cool, we just listen to cool music. We know what’s cool, we know what’s poppin’. Because we’re out of the way from the rest of the UK, we’re literally in the heart of England and Leicester people are just in Leicester. I feel like because of that, it helps us create our own bubble. From the outside, looking in, I think people appreciate that bubble, they like to see something different.

It’s definitely a different come up compared to a lot of artists. Do you feel like wearing a bally or a mask has given you the liberty to express yourself even further? I mean yes, but also no in a way. Now, when people listen to my music, they listen to the voice. I feel like the mask takes away any stereotypes people have of you.

Takes away the preconceptions. Yeah and I mean, I’m Somali. You know, a lot of people don’t like Somalis. I’m not sure if you know that.

But in my heart, that’s how I feel. It’s not that I’m not proud, I’m a proud Somali and I feel like if anything it adds integrity to the whole thing, because if you know Somalis we’re actually really humble people. We don’t like attention and stuff.

I’m speaking on most of the people I know. It’s just big families and you also have the integrity and religion along with all of that stuff which comes into play as well. There’s gonna be a time where I actually might want to be focusing on religion. Following my religion wholeheartedly, I wouldn’t want videos to be out there of my face, I believe that’s purely for integrity. For now, it kind

30 /

of just happened to be like that. But this is what I realised when I analysed the benefits of wearing a mask.

There is definitely a strong sense of humility and togetherness, it’s admirable. Has your family influenced your style at all? No one in my family is into music. To be honest, I’m the first one.

So a blank slate. Yeah, I literally am the first one.

I have no relatives, no uncles, no, nothing. There are people whose grandparents used to listen to music, but for me, I have no musical influence in my household.

You’ve mentioned you started out without the intention of becoming a famous artist. Which gives you another level of humility from the get-go. Is that something you see in your vision as an artist in the future? I feel that the only reason I’ve been able to push myself this far is because I have no expectations. So when we talk about the future, I don’t expect anything. I feel

that’s the best way to go about it. Because I’ve never been disappointed when I go about it that way. I’d say that the artists that are starting off as new should not say things like, “If this doesn’t get the satisfactory numbers that I require, then I’m not going to carry on or that sort of thing.

But you should look at it as something to build towards.

With your collaborations, are you selective with who you work with? 100%. That’s not because I don’t like any artists, it’s just for me, music is now business. So if it makes sense, then I’ll work with you. I’ve had full control of the artists I get to work with, I like to do link ups that are organic, there’s no label or anything like that. Just us messaging each other, speaking for a few months and then meeting up in the studio. Nothing forced, it wasn’t, “Yo we need to get into the studio,” nothing like that. I’m very selective with my features, when I do go to the studio with an artist that I’ve never worked with before we don’t necessarily get to the music straight away. We pick each other’s brains and figure each other out to see if we’re compatible.

Then we get on to making music and even when we do that, I always put a disclaimer in it and tell people that even if the song doesn’t work, we can always make another one. Let’s not make songs to release, let’s just make songs to create a vibe sort of thing. I think that’s the reason for the features that I’ve got lined up which are actually big records – because that’s how they’ve come about. All of them, nothing forced. I do have a few features on the way but I don’t really want to spoil it, just some big, big UK artists.

I know you’re close to Central Cee and a few others in that circle. All of whom are making big waves in the UK, Cee’s definitely creating some commotion. They changed the game.

100%.

So tell me, your name – wewantwraiths - is that anything to do with Rolls Royce Wraith?

It jumps out to me because you don’t seem like the kind of artist who strives for just cars and jewellery? Yeah, I remember I think it was around eight years ago when the Rolls Royce came out in the first place with the Rolls Royce Wraith. I remember it was when Meek Mill was coming on to the scene. Meek was on Rick Ross’ label at the time and I think Rick went halves with Meek to buy him a Wraith because Meek Mill was on his come up. As a car, it’s just such a fucking cool car and it was also my gamer tag

and my Instagram tag. So then, when I started to make music it became wewantwraiths.

So is that your dream car now? No, not anymore it’s sad.

It’s good. It means you’re moving on to bigger aspirations maybe? Hopefully, but I will still probably get one for the sake of it anyway. I will get one and have it parked outside. But there’s more fun cars to drive now.

I can see you like to put your style out there, if you could collaborate with one brand right now what would your choice be? Dior. But I’d want to have creative input. Okay. Cool. Like that? Sounds cocky I know but that’s the big moves, that’s me putting it out there. But on a lower level, I’d say I’d want to work with other aspiring brands that have come from a similar background as me. To give you an example like Daily Paper in Holland, [one of the owners is a] young Somali man doing his thing. He’s shutting down the stores all over the world now. He’s got the biggest artists wearing his brand. It’s not the fact that it’s Daily Paper, it’s who’s behind and stuff like that. That’s why I’d like to get something done with them too, I rate their thing.

“I’m a proud Somali and I feel like if anything it adds integrity to the whole thing, because if you know Somalis we’re actually really humble people.”

It’s obvious you apply your true self, to your style, to your music. Just an authentic and organic mindset. That will certainly take you far.

Thank you, I appreciate it!

32

iLL BLU

32 /

From Funky House beginnings production duo iLL BLU have established the perfect Drill fusion sound. Read on to find out how they complement each other’s sound and how they brought the scene together on ‘The BLUPRiNT’.

Words Lily Mercer

Meet the Producers

London production duo iLL BLU have worked with some of the biggest names in today’s UK music scene, but it all began in the days of UK Garage and Funky House. They explain how they each compliment the other’s production style, ‘The BLUPRiNT’ Mixtape and collaborating with overseas artists.

What songs from the project do you think will have people hype this summer? Darius: You got a record called ‘Talk To Me’ with Sneakbo, Donae’O and Aisa, that’s a banger. You’ve got another smooth one, ‘Burn One’ that has Loick Essien, 169 and Wretch 32. Those two are definitely bangers to watch out for and we’ve got a special one we’ll be dropping that’s a surprise for the people. We won’t tell you who’s on it, but it’s a big surprise.

It’s good to hear new music from Loick Essien, how did you get him on the project? Darius: He’s our guy so we were in the studio vibing, he laid the hook and we was like, “We really like this record, this could definitely work for us on our project.” We asked 169 ’cause we like his vibe as well and then we had a session with Wretch and were like, “What do you think of this record?”

And he done his ting on it, that’s how that came about. But Loick’s our guy, we’ve done quite a few sessions with him.

is the moment for us! This has been an eight year journey!

James: Even though the clubs are closed, you’ll get down with this project, basically. So a lot of the records you’ll hear on this tape are rave orientated.

That’s the vibe already, with ‘Magic’ and ‘Dumpa’, despite the pandemic. James: Imagine the energy you’ve got with ‘Dumpa’ is the maximum, the ‘Burn One’ record is still energy. It’s still something you’ll hear in a club but like mid-tempo, it’s still a vibe. Every aspect of our music is to aim to please, to party, to feel good, to vibe, that’s the overall feel of our tape.

The formula for ‘Dumpa’ is perfect: two great MCs, a Vybz Kartel sample, female vocal and a heavy bassline. Do you agree, or what is your formula when you start creating a banger?

James: There is no strict formula. When you break it down like that, it can seem formulaic but

“Every aspect of our music is to aim to please, to party, to feel good, to vibe, that’s the overall feel of our tape.”

You’re very versatile as producers but you’ve kinda boosted the UK Drill x Garage sound, do you think that’s something people attach to you? Darius: There’s a mix, we’ve definitely got a few more of those mash-ups or fusions with Drill and Garage. But then there’s Afrobeats on there, there’s some House record on there that harks back to our Funky days so it’s a mix of everything we’ve done on our journey. It’s just bangers though, everything is bangers, it’s all set out like a musical journey for you to enjoy like a rave.

Nothing but vibes, is this the kind of project that you put on in the party and can play it all the way through? [One of their managers comes on screen] I’m jumping in! These man are the fucking best producers that I’m hearing.

I’m one half of management and these man are so humble, it’s so fucking amazing. Been in the business for over 10 years, multi-genre, they’ve dropped their debut project, they’ve got some amazing things happening on there and they’re just way too chilled about it! [Laughs] Guys, this

we had two views. One, what would Vybz Kartel sound like on Drill? That’s where it started, then we found that sample from ‘Dumpa Truck (Smoking Riddim)’ and then we produced the beat around it. 2010, 2011 when Vybz Kartel and the whole Dancehall movement at that time was huge, we were DJing at that time and we could see what was happening. When we came to do the fusion with Drill, we added Vybz Kartel and then we were like, ”this is sick, yeah this works.” Then we were like, “Can we put vocals into this?” That was how we sculpted that track, it wasn’t like,”We’ll do this and then do this.” The song was just a feeling and the general idea of trying to do something different.

Darius: A lot of the tape is more about feeling, rather than it being orchestrated a certain way, like “Put this here, this here.” It’s all about feeling, this new stretch of music that we’re making, it’s all about feeling. Because we’ve come from making Pop, where it feels like “this has to go there, the hook has to go there,” it’s too manufactured. I feel like a lot of the urban stuff, it’s more about feeling and it brings us back to our Funky days when we first started

VIPERMAG.COM

•

33

making beats together, when it was all about the feeling; It didn’t have to be the same structure as popular music. Dropping ‘Magic’ and dropping ‘Dumpa’, we’ve seen what it does to the general public and what they’re feeling, so we can build on those records.

Even when you work with Drill artists, you create more of a fusion sound with other genres. How have you managed to commercialise Drill in a positive way and turn it into something that could be Pop? James: I think some people see something that’s popular and try to take from it, we haven’t taken from it, we’ve added to it. I feel like off the back of ‘Magic’, we’ve had ‘Dumpa’, it’s going to inspire people that are already in Drill - producers or artists - to further their production skills or their creative skills to where it’s more than just Drill music, but can become whatever you want it to be.

Tell me about producing as a duo, especially when you’ve made beats solo. How do you come together and blend sounds, does one make a beat and you then add to it together?

Or do you make all the beats together? James: Like you said, we may produce something individually. I may hear something that Darius produced and go, “that’s great, I think it just needs a few additions here, or maybe remove this or I can do the drums better, or it needs a bassline” and vice versa. That’s changed over time where in the beginning we were in the same room, we had the time, it was more of a hobby I’m on the drums and Darius is the bass or vice versa. But as we’ve grown, families, schedules, things change so now we work more individually when we’re creating tracks, then we go into the studio and finish. Definitely when we’re in the studio with the artist, it’s all about collaboration with the artist, talking through things, arranging things, maybe even change the beat after, that’s happened a few times. It depends but mostly we’re talking and emailing ideas back and forth to each other.

Darius: There’s one rare occasion, recently we did a record and that was the first in a long time that we’ve been in the studio and made the beat together. That was nice, it brought us back to our old days.

James: One thing I’ve learnt about myself as a creative is, I like my own space because sometimes you just need to get your original idea out first. Because sometimes when you’ve got somebody there and they’re trying to get their idea out. You’re just always having to compromise so sometimes it’s just good to get that idea out so then you can go, this is what you’ve presented, cool, now let’s see how we can improve on it. That’s how it’s worked out.

34 /

Plus you’re both individuals, you’ll come into the studio in different moods so I can imagine it might be hard to blend those vibes sometimes when you’re creating. Darius: That’s true.

James: Yeah there’s times where Darius has sent me a track and he’s like, “This is the one, this is cold!” I’m like “Yeah yeah” and then a couple days later I’ve listened to it again and gone, “You know what, that tune’s sick you know!”

Darius: Music is like that, you can listen to it once and be like, ‘I’m not really feeling that” and then a week later, you’re like, “This is actually hard,” that’s how music is.

James: Yeah mood is important.

With you both being skilled producers, do you ever look at a talent the other one has developed more than you and respect it?

Darius: Me, with James, I admire his attention to detail. I always have, because with me, when I produce, it’s very raw, off the cuff. I wouldn’t sit there for time, looking for the right snare, while James would and he’ll perfect it. I admire that, having the patience to really hone in on those things.

James: While that’s great in finishing and executing a record, sometimes it can be my flaw.

So the same thing for him, with Darius, he’s good at looking at the bigger picture. You’re spending so much time on this snare, this melody ain’t even the right melody! So you’re able to quickly go, “Yeah this is a good idea, let’s work on this one.” Whereas I might work on an idea, which I think technically is amazing but might not be the most musically interesting, it might just be technical. You’re interested in the technical side of things so much, you’re missing whether it’s actually that good, is it going to move people?

Darius has got that, because he’s the DJ in our group, he’s thinking about how’s this gonna move a crowd? How’s a DJ gonna feel mixing this or playing this out? So that’s very important, when you add those things together, it’s almost like a perfect relationship, in regards to how we balance each other out. It needs to sound executed, if it doesn’t sound executed, it’s only at a certain level. I think one hand watches the other, we help each other out.

You’ve got some big production credits with MoStack’s ‘Shine Girl’ and ‘What I Wanna’.

Do you find people don’t realise how much they’ve heard your production for other artists because your name isn’t in the title? James: On Mo Stack’s album ‘Stacko’, we produced nine songs. Obviously ‘Shine Girl’ and ‘What I Wanna’ then from the Mo Stack catalogue at large, ‘Liar Liar’, ‘Let It Ring’ ‘Ussy Ussy’, there’s loads in his catalogue. Then Headie One’s ‘Home’ we produced, we produced for Young T and Bugsey, stuff for Notes, IAMDDB.

“A lot of the tape is more about feeling, rather than it being orchestrated a certain way” VIPERMAG.COM

•

35

Darius: It’s been like that even from the Funky days. We have people like, “Know this tune? It got me through uni” and they don’t know it’s our record they’re talking about. Because we haven’t been visible, we are starting to be more visible now, like doing videos and being front and centre of our videos. I feel it’s because we’re not in peoples faces, like Nevs our manager came on and said, we’re just humble, we’re just chilled.

We’re not trying to be on the instagram like, “Oh look at me, I’ve done this, I’ve done that.” We just do what we’re doing and let the work speak basically. I feel like that’s a good trait but in the world we are, it’s the kinda thing that can stop us from maybe being more noticeable.

James: We’ve been doing this a few years now, I think some people are catching on, the iLL BLU tag is on most of the records. Sometimes it doesn’t make it on the record for whatever reason but tags as producers are important. If there’s no visual for a record, if someone doesn’t see a credit, at least they can hear a tag, I think the tag is becoming a lot clearer, now people are like ‘Oh that’s iLL BLU’ when they hear the tag. Most producers now have tags and they’re

was the artist. Do you think having seen the transitions of the music scenes, you’ve seen the changes in terms of the profile of the producer/DJ? And has that helped you see the position you can be in now, rather than taking a back seat to the artist? James: Yeah I guess so, we see how trends move and also we like to foresee things. We see it going this way so we imagine it turning a corner in the future so we’re definitely aware of our surroundings and what’s happening. When Hip Hop was created, the DJ was the focus. When we started doing and producing as iLL BLU, the DJ was still the focus, there weren’t many artists out in that genre and as commercialised and as big as the urban scene is now. The focus is the artist but we’ve gotta remember that 50% of the music you’re dancing to, the music is the beat. In America, they are getting more credit and over here you’ve got ourselves, Jae5, Steel Banglez, the Beatfreakz, loads of other producers that are stepping out of just the producer role and into the artist role.

Because we are the creators, we are creating the soundtrack to people’s club life, home life, their musical journey, so it’s important. People

“We’re definitely seeing a change in the way people are viewing producers. They’re not just the guys being the drum machine in the studio now, so it’s our time. ” utilising them so that’s the reason we use a tag. It’s not just because we’re trying to be like, “Yes we made this,” it’s just credit, otherwise you’re not going to see us. Also coming from the Funky and House world, it was more like you just put your records out there and you kinda keep quiet. Since we dropped ‘Chop My Money’ with Krept and Konan, Loski and Zie Zie, that’s when we noticed the change. Both of our pictures were on the billboard outside a club, so we saw the actual difference of something that’s a bit more underground, to a more commercialised urban scene. The Afroswing thing was a lot more popular and now Drill is popular. When we dropped ‘Magic’ just before we went into lockdown which was sad for us, loads of bookings were coming in. We were really starting to pick up on that front, in regards to just DJing out at popular clubs rather than the niche clubs we were used to.

Trap music has helped the producer become the artist, like with Metro Boomin. Same with the UKG or Funky scene, the producer or DJ

36 /

like Diplo and DJ Khaled have been doing it for a few years now across genres, we’re definitely seeing a change in the way people are viewing producers. They’re not just the guys being the drum machine in the studio now, so it’s our time.

The DJ was the MC in the Jamaican music scene as well. I wanted to ask you, since ‘The BLUPRiNT’ is majority UK artists, if you did ‘The BLUPRiNT’ internationally, what region of the world would you choose? Would it be Jamaica and the Caribbean or the US, South America, Europe, what sounds? Darius: Oh wow, that’s a good question.

James: Well there’s one international artist on ‘The BLUPRiNT’, C Tangana from Spain, so we’re already thinking in that way with artists outside the UK. Wow, that’s a good one.

America naturally because we do a lot of Rap, there’s a lot on the tape so I think America would definitely make sense.

Darius: Other than that, Jamaica, because we’re both from Jamaica so that would make sense as well.

James: We pull from so many different areas, there’s Reggaeton and Latin Music, all that type of stuff. We pull from our Jamaican heritage which is Dancehall and Reggae and then everything we’re doing in the UK, obviously Hip Hop is American but we pull from all of those things. I think a fusion of all those places would be perfect.

So could that be on the cards? Will we be lucky enough to get ‘The BLUPRiNT 2’? Darius: You know what, you may have sparked an idea there.

James: You’ll get a credit [Laughs].

If you need an A&R, I’m there! I’ll help pick some artists! Darius: We’ll hit you up definitely.

I wanted to ask about ‘Dumpa’ and ‘Magic’ and the use of sampling. What’s your approach to sampling? James: Going back to when we were kids listening to our favourite songs, most of our favourites whether we know or not, are samples. Not knocking anyone that creates anything totally original but most ideas come from somewhere, even if they weren’t directly sampled. Because we’ve come up in the era of raving to Garage, the whole UKG scene, that scene isn’t really prevalent any more but we would love to infuse that energy in what we’re creating now and make that fresh. In regards to sampling things, at one stage in our careers, we were like “don’t touch samples because clearance issues, blah blah,” but some of the biggest tracks have samples.

Darius: Early when we weren’t making music professionally, we would sample, so that’s how we came into producing. We sampled loads of records cause we listened to Nas, all the Jay Z music, so that’s how we started making beats with samples. We know about sampling but like you said, when you get into the business…

James: Yeah, you’re publishing. When you look at the hits and some of our favourite songs, Diana Ross samples here and there, old 80’s Disco samples in stuff. The way I look at it, it’s just other songwriters on the track and for us, we’re able to hit multiple different demographics, people in our age bracket, the younger people, they all find something familiar with the record.

‘Magic’ is just the bell melody, from Sticky’s ‘Triplets’, a song we grew up listening to and DJing in our bedrooms and stuff. We don’t just sample anything, we sample things that actually mean something. The only sample in ‘Dumpa’ is

Vybz Kartel and we only sampled that because we DJ’d Vybz, at the height of Vybz’s career and we saw the reaction and thought that would be perfect to link with the Drill energy.

We haven’t really heard it before and it will be something fresh and new. I say to producers out there, sampling is a great thing, taking from the past and making something new is always a great thing; do it tastefully as well. We’re not trying to sample all songs, just songs that mean something to us, something understated that we can turn into something. And always clear your samples, so just go through the clearance process ’cause you don’t wanna get sued.

Darius: As James said, the key is going for those understated records, we don’t go for the mad big Pop records. Even when we did ‘What I Wanna’ for Mo Stack, obviously Ariana Grande used it but if you go to the original, it was an understated record. Even ‘Chop My Money’, we used ‘Cure And The Cause’, that was an understated hit for Funky lovers. We’re not trying to go for those crazy Michael Jackson ones.

James: And if you do and you are gonna go for the big big hit, flip it in a different way because then you’re bringing some creativity to it. That’s cool, but just regurgitating things, that’s not pushing anything forward.

The UK music scene can be London-centric, is it important to you to work with artists outside of the city? Darius: We’ve never been ones to not want to work with anyone. Like James said, ‘Go Time’, we’ve got C Tangana from Spain.

We’re open to working with anyone as long as it’s good, as long as we feel them, we’re down to work with them. We’ve got Aida Lae on the project, she’s from Sweden, Jillionaire from Major Lazer, he’s on the tape as well. If it’s good music, we’re all up for it.

When the clubs are back open, what song you paying first? James: I wanna play ‘Dumpa’ first Darius: Yeah ‘Dumpa’ James: In a club environment. That song was made with the idea of [Notting Hill] Carnival, I just need to see that, ‘Dumpa’ and ‘Magic’ cause we were robbed, Corona robbed us of that live moment.

Darius: I can’t wait to hear it at Carnival, that’s where I wanna hear it. ‘Dumpa’ would just go down, it’s the bass.

VIPERMAG.COM

•

37

38

TSB

Meet the Producers

Mustard Jacket: Versace

Words Lily Mercer Photos Alex Franchini Stylist Nadya Maki Stylist Assistant Joel Ryan Behind The Scenes Bruno Miles Special Thanks Cardel

Meet the man behind some of the most beloved Drill instrumentals, from J Hus to Loski to Unknown T.

With production credits for almost every major rapper in the UK scene, TSB has proven himself to be a force to be reckoned with.

Behind the boards he’s a beast, but his humble nature adds to his charm. He talks sampling, what he considers to be the perfect beat and how surreal it was to have Mike Skinner on his son.

Why did you choose the name TSB? I don’t really think I chose it, I think it was more given to me. TSB is really just an abbreviation of what my music name stood for but I don’t really go by that name anymore. I just stick with TSB because in my opinion, it’s more professional.

But yeah long story short, when I was 16 I had a friend called Shyron who was a producer as well. I guess we were a duo and he was like, “Let’s call ourselves The Shy Boys” so I just put Shy Boy at the end of Tobi, but with the Shy from Shyron, so it came from his name. That kinda stuck with me, everyone knew me as Tobi Shy Boy and then I think when I was in university,

“I wanna be known as a tastemaker and innovator, I know what the fans want.

I’m a fan, I wanna hear M1llionz and Unknown T together so why not be the one to bring it together?” one of my friends used to always be like, “TSB, TSB like the bank.” TSB’s not that bad, it’s kinda short, it’s more professional.

Where are you from? South London, Stockwell, Clapham, that’s where I grew up, then I moved to Surrey for some years; my mum still lives there. South London, that’s my home really.

How would you describe your production style?

Unique. Simple at times but effective, always full. I would say my production is very whole and full, it’s exciting, it’s innovative, musical and quality. That’s what I would say, I try to

keep pushing myself and make sure I’m always doing something new or fresh. When I’m making music, making beats in the studio, in sessions with artists, my head’s always nodding. I try to transfer that same energy over to the listener.

What would you say are some of the most popular beats you’ve created? Popular, I’d say all the J Hus records, so that would be ‘Spirit’, ‘Scene’ on the ‘Big Spang EP’ then there was ‘Disaster’ by Dave featuring Hus. J Hus’ ‘Daily Duppy’, then on his ‘Big Conspiracy’ album, the title track, ‘Helicopter’, ‘Know the Line’, ‘Reckless’. Away from Hus, Mo Stack ‘Shine Girl’ featuring Stormzy, ‘Shannon’ as well, I think both of those were singles off ‘Stacko’, ‘Mo Stacks’ ‘Daily Duppy’ too, the M1llionz singles, ‘Lagga’ and ‘How Many Times’ featuring Ash from Lotto Boyz. The DC stuff, ‘Neighbourhood’, ‘Tears, Sweat, Blood’ both singles and then ‘Bobby & Rowdy’ featuring Knucks, a single off his EP ‘In The Loop’. New releases that have come out, Clavish, ‘How It Goes’ that just dropped, Headie One ‘Princess Cuts’ and ‘Chanel’ which was on the Music X Road EP. Loski stuff… I could go on but it’s been good to do so much in the last three, four years that has been perceived as really good music. Unknown T, ‘Main Squeeze’ with Young T and Bugsey as well, so there really have been a lot. Sometimes I don’t really take it in until I’m looking at my discography. AJ Tracey’s in there as well, I did two AJ releases, ‘Elastic’ which was on the Top Boy soundtrack and then AJ Tracey and Unknown T ‘Black & Proud’ that was on the ‘Reprise’ Roc Nation album. It’s been great, I just want more - I’m not satisfied at all.

What is your favourite song that you’ve worked on and why? Favourite would probably be DC, ‘Neighbourhood’, I feel like DC’s an incredible artist that’s maybe not as known or spoken about as much as the others I’ve mentioned but the music speaks for itself, you just have to hear it. I enjoy working with someone like that because it gives me an opportunity to create a new sound with an artist and build their sound.

I feel like with DC we’ve built a sound from the ground up that I’m seeing people appreciate but at the same time, it’s a one-off, one sound that not everyone can go out and try and create themselves. It’s not easily imitated and I like that about what he does, I think he’s got a powerful message as well. In the records we’ve put out,

Blue Shorts: Hustle Clothing Shirt: Hustle Clothing Socks: Hustle Clothing

loops, you had to really think the ideas Whereas now, it’s a lot quicker to make as a good instrumental or a good beat through their own learning curve, it’ll w You could have your come-up super q thrown into the deep end, can you stil

Who influences you as a producer? and foremost, he still produces today was like 18, he was producing for Rih ‘Unapologetic’ it was called ‘What Now good, that early, kind of shows you w you up to the journey. I’m definitely fo in that position, that’s humble and jus ADP, P2J, producers that I’ve grown u Away from the people that I know pers so Da Vinci would’ve been one of my Luger would’ve been one of my bigge Kanye West, Pharrell, Timbaland, Qu love different music AND I studied a Labrinth, Two Stripes, different produ pay homage to almost every produc liked, you inspired me.

‘Neighbourhood’, ‘Tears, Sweat, Blood’, ‘Bobby & Rowdy’, the whole EP to be honest… I think we’ve been able to put out “conscious music” whilst still delivering a vibe. I think that’s quite important but difficult to execute.

“I can’t even believe that I’ve got Mike Skinner saying something on one of my tracks, that’s nuts!”

What software did you get started on? Fruity Loops was when I first encountered production software, I would’ve been 16, coming up to 12 years. I started making music in Summer 2009, when I first finished secondary school, that’s when I started making beats. I still use Fruity Loops now, I did boycott it for years though and started using only Logic but I’m back. I started using Fruity Loops again during lockdown, I just do my drums on Fruity Loops and then I still do all the music and stuff in Logic.

Do you think that production software becoming more accessible is a positive or negative thing for music? It’s always gonna be a good thing, it’s gonna always have more positive than negative because it’s gonna give birth to the new generation of producers. It’s better now because software is way more obtainable, before it was so difficult to get your hands on all of these things. It makes a huge difference, you always get the negatives in the sense that when I was growing up, there weren’t 40 /

s through, you had to create a lot more. e something that’s gonna be accepted t. I feel like every producer’s gonna go work for some and not work for others. quick now but the question is, if you’re ll deliver?

? I would say my older brother, firstly y, he’s my biggest inspiration. When I hanna, he had a single off her album w’. Having an older brother that’s that what you could be, it just kinda opens ortunate and grateful to have a sibling st naturally talented. Other producers, up around a lot, my cousin Ayo [Beatz]. sonally, growing up I was a fan of Grime y biggest inspirations growing up, Lex est influences growing up, Just Blaze, uincy Jones. I’m a student of music, I lot of greats when I was growing up; ucers for different reasons. I’d have to cer because if you made something I

Having a brother that produced, did you find it harder to develop your sound or are you into different sounds? We’re into different things but we’re into the same things. My brother likes Pop a lot so I’d say his main focus is Pop music but I also believe that’s down to his age, he’s the same age as Labrinth. Growing up, making music back in the day, especially if you’re a real musician, Grime was never really gonna be the thing you’d try to make, you would have made pop music, ballads, all these other things.

But at the same time, I love all music genres, I’m a big Garage fan, R&B. I’m grateful to have a big catalogue of music already but I don’t think my catalogue of released music as a producer showcases what I make on a day to day, like how good my other stuff is. I’m conscious of that, I hope that this year and the years to come, that people really hear TSB away from Rap music and just appreciate it the same, if not more.

Your single ‘Jagged Edge’ has a sample on it, how important is sampling to you when creating? This might sound weird but it’s not super important to me, that’s the first time I ever sampled something, well no actually… Loski, I put out a record with Loski on his album last year called ‘Blinded’. That was just me playing around with the whole R&Drill, or nostalgic Drill kinda vibe.

The instrumental for ‘How Many Times’ I made before I started going a bit deeper into R&Drill. I guess as a musician, my Drill always sounds a bit different anyway. The first ever Drill song I made was ‘No Denying’ for J Hus so I think you can already hear that this is not just an ordinary Drill producer.

But sampling if done correctly, let me not say it’s not important, maybe it’s not as important to me but that’s just because I don’t like the stress of trying to clear the sample. I’d much rather create my own timeless melodies, the feeling of making something and someone wanting to sample it must

VIPERMAG.COM

•

41

be incredible, because you’ve clearly made something so innovative that someone wants to tap into that and bring it to life. So the goal is to have my own music sampled but there’s nothing wrong with drawing on a sample, especially if it’s something you love. Sampling is important depending on how it’s executed, same as any part of music is important depending on how it’s accepted. I wouldn’t say it’s more important than the next part but it does take someone to still be creative with the sample, I don’t think sampling is lazy, I think you just need to have the ear so big up all the samplers, me included.

You made Loski’s version sound more uplifting, how do you touch songs without distorting it, how did you respectfully improve it? That was a moment for me, I remember when I was in the studio with Loski, I was like, “I’m working on these kind of ideas, what song do you like?” And he didn’t even know the name of the song, he was like “the Kidulthood one”, I typed it in, ’Blinded

By The Lights’, The Streets. Then I ripped the audio of ‘the lights are blinding my eyes’, so I made the beat, jumped on the keys, done my thing, cooked up the beat, sent the beat to Mike Skinner and the first thing he asked was, “How did you get the vocals?” Because he was struggling to even get the vocals, I was laughing so much when my label guy told me that. To actually get him on the intro… if you noticed, the way I did the intro, I played the actual chords which was similar to the original, so I gave it that nostalgic feel. I can’t even believe that I’ve got Mike Skinner saying something on one of my tracks, that’s nuts! When I really think about it, that’s crazy. Now that I’m actually taking it in, that’s huge. That’s why I love music though.

Were you ever involved in any other musical projects besides the ones you are doing now?

Tried to rap, had the pen and paper, didn’t bang.

Had nothing to talk about, left it alone. I played keys so I played with a live band for a bit. I DJ now too, which is interesting, quite fun. I tried to sing, couldn’t. I’ve got really good ears so if something’s not gonna work, I just leave it alone.

I can’t be one of those continuously persevering rappers that just doesn’t have it, you know what I mean? I can’t sing but I’m still tryna force the story. It’s ok, I’m better off not tryna do that.

I’m very honest with myself, I critique myself a lot, I don’t make everything and say, “that’s amazing!” I guess I’m in touch with reality in that sense, if something’s not for me… like I’m not Labrinth, I’m not… I’m not gonna sing and it’s not gonna sound amazing.

What, for you, is the perfect beat? There is no perfect beat, there’s many different perfect beats. Any beat can make you move any type

42 /

of way, any beat can evoke emotion out of you.

‘Chasing Pavements’ by Adele, that’s a perfect beat to me, ‘Set a Fire To the Rain’, that’s a perfect beat to me, Drake, ‘One Dance’, that’s a perfect beat to me, ‘Princess Cuts’ is a perfect beat to me, Kano ‘Brown Eyes’, that’s a perfect beat to me. There’s no such thing as a perfect beat, because if you ask all of these musicians, “Could you have done more?” Or “What was the version you wanted to put out?” or whatever… nothing’s perfect. But that’s what makes it perfect at the same time. Again, it’s subjective but music is just an amazing thing so if you can even get to the stage where you feel like something is perfect to you, that’s really good.

What’s the story behind your tag? I didn’t want one to be honest. I really wasn’t on it, my old management and my A&R in the meetings was like, “you need a tag” and I was like, “I don’t need a tag, I’m good without one.” I started naming some of the best producers in the world like, “Do they have a tag? No.” Unfortunately there are some producers in that category who do have tags so it’s purely subjective. Dark Child, one of the best producers ever, he’s got a tag. So that kinda threw that argument out the water, but then Quincy Jones don’t have a tag, nor does Timbaland, nor does Pharrell. But then they are their own tag, their brand is their tag. So yeah, I didn’t want one and then I’ve got a friend, he’s a producer/artist/writer, a triple threat; Ebenezer, ridiculously talented. So 2016 or 2017, we were in the studio making a song called ‘Tesla’, the song’s crazy and as he’s recording, he can record himself and I made the beat so I’m just sat down on my sofa bed, lying down watching TV relaxed, and he’s recording himself. He says my name, and I’m like “Ok!” Then I heard it back, I was like, “Oooh this sounds hard” but I didn’t use it for time, I didn’t use it for like a year. I used to feel like having a tag was self-glorified but I understand the benefits of it. Sometimes my friends message me because if you listen to the radio, you’ll always hear my tag, but I don’t think about things like that. Maybe I’m just super relaxed about things but I like that because I always know there’s more to do and more to achieve. It kinda keeps me grounded as well. But that’s how I got my tag, I decided to bounce it out, render it and put it on different songs. I pick and choose when I put my tag on songs, it’s not on the Clavish song. Sometimes it’s too late, when you’ve already submitted the song and you’re like “I should’ve put my tag on that.” ‘Know The Nine’ would be the perfect example, that’s the first J Hus track I had that was just me, having a song that came out so sporadically and unexpected and you’re used to hearing a J Hus beat by Jae5 but then you’re hearing TSB, it’s something different. I think

Jacket: Labrum London Trousers: Labrum London Shoes: Jordan 4 Black Cat

VIPERMAG.COM

•

43

44 /

the first time you would’ve heard my tag on a J Hus track would’ve been the ‘Daily Duppy’, followed by ‘No Denying’ so if your introduction to TSB was from ‘No Denying’, you would’ve automatically thought this guy’s a Drill producer, so maybe those are the cons of having a tag.

I am cautious about it because I don’t wanna be known as a Drill producer. I just wanna be known as a producer but those are the things that I have to be conscious of.

I think of you as a much wider producer than just Drill music. It’s interesting because in 2017, I had three songs come out. 2018 I had 12 songs come out, none of them were Drill. 2019, I had 12 songs come out, the only Drill one was ‘No Denying’. 2020, I had 17 songs come out, maybe only three were Drill and this year I think I’ve had over 12 releases already, of which I’d say two or three were Drill. So maybe in my whole catalogue of music, maybe eight songs are Drill.

I know I’m not a Drill producer but again if your first introduction to TSB is through M1llionz, then you think I’m a Drill producer. The first ever Drill track I produced was ‘No Denying’, the second was ‘Lagga’ so I think because these records were big, it’s easy to assume I’m Drill but I’m more just a music man. I’ve been working with Miraa May, I’ve got five songs on her album actually which of course, none are Drill [Laughs].

R&B, ballads, a bit of Trap and Hip Hop so I’m looking forward to people hearing more of what I’m really about on the other side of stuff.

Why did you choose Unknown T and M1llionz to feature on ‘Jagged Edge’? That was a moment for me, I wanna be known as a tastemaker and innovator, I know what the fans want. I’m a fan, I wanna hear M1llionz and Unknown T together so why not be the one to bring it together? If I can bring collaborations that are unexpected, then I’m doing something right so that’s how I felt about that. They’re both really talented artists, I think they’re both predominantly known for

their work in Drill music but I wanted them both on that record because they’re strong artists in general. I’ve got some really good music with both of them, really strong records that are not like anything that has come out from them so far. I did something recently with M1llionz and Young T and Bugsey, that tune’s crazy but it definitely ain’t Drill! I’m a fan of both of them, it was an amazing opportunity. I spent a lot of 2020 working with them so it was only right that I went with them for the first record.

“I don’t think sampling is lazy, I think you just need to have the ear so big up all the samplers” Can you tell us about any projects coming up?

That’s definitely the first single to something, I’m working on a whole album so I’m not playing games, the plan is to give really quality music this year and every year after that, until I hang up my boots. God willing we’ll get two more singles this year, the project will come next year but I’m still understanding that I need to build my brand and I’m not in a rush to do that.

I don’t wanna drip great records on deaf ears, so I’m understanding that I’ve still got a lot of groundwork to do on the PR side of things to keep building a story and a narrative so that people want the music. Then as that happens, they’ll be getting it, but that won’t be the last single I drop this year.

VIPERMAG.COM

•

45

46

BOJ

As one of the pioneers of Nigeria’s rapidly expanding Alté scene, BOJ is making waves.

Following his recent appearance on the new Dave album, he talks about collaborations and the formation of DRB LasGidi.

Who is Boj? Boj is a fucking cool Nigerian eagle.

As someone who was born and bred in the UK and now living in Lagos, what have been your most prominent influences growing up? First of all I was born in the UK, not born and bred. I was born in the UK, grew up in Lagos and went back to the UK at 15. Now to Lagos, most of the time growing up there. My musical influences came from what my parents listened to. They listened to a lot of Lauryn Hill, Wyclef, Tracy Chapman, TLC, Shaggy, Lagbaja and Fela.

How did your Audio Engineering degree feed your desire to create music? I would say that doing audio engineering wasn’t what I thought it would be. I did learn a lot from it but I must admit I hardly use those skills today [laughs].

What is Alté and what does the movement represent in the development of African music? Being Alté is being extremely true to yourself and expressing yourself without boundaries. Freedom in all aspects of life and freedom to create any way any individual sees fit. That has brought out a generation of artists that are extremely creative and don’t do things the normal way.

Describe the evolution of Afrobeats and Nigeria’s cultural revolution over the last five years through your lens. I would say Afrobeats

has successfully been able to infuse sounds from all over the world into one. People might not know it but that’s what makes Afrobeats.

It’s heavily influenced by world music and not everyone knows that, even if it is just the vocals or the beat, it’s been able to infuse those and it’s been able to build a new generation of creatives: artists, dancers, producers, directors, writers and photographers.

How did DRB LasGidi come about? DRB LasGide came about in high school. We were all in boarding school in England and we were all school mates and we just started doing music, it was started by Benzo and Fresh L. How do you feel about comparisons to the likes of Ajebutter 22 and Falz and how does your sound compare? I feel like people are allowed to draw any comparison but I generally don’t see it. I’m sure it stems from the fact that we have made great music together but that’s because we’re great artists.

How did the collaboration with Davido and Mr Eazi come about on ‘Abracadabra?’ It’s a really funny song. “Abracadabra no dey cause belle” is the story, you can’t get pregnant by magic [laughs], something has got to go down basically. The way you’re teasing me to make me want you but then when I approach it’s like you push away; Nigerian women, they’re Queens

VIPERMAG.COM

•

47

of forming. I had known David for a while and I reached out to him basically, he told me to come through. I’ve been a fan of Mr Eazi and his movement so I reached out to him as well.

What’s been your single greatest moment as an artist to date? The funny thing about this is that I can’t remember because I’m not driven by those moments. I’m driven by what could be and I’m always looking to see what I can do and push boundaries. It might be a bad thing but yeah, that’s me.

Who has been your favourite artist to work with and who would you love to work with in the future? I guess it goes without saying that I’ve had fantastic chemistry with Ajebutter

48 /

22, it’s just been the easiest to be honest and it comes naturally so that makes it my fave. I would like to work with Sean Paul and Asa. You’re organising the next biggest festival Lagos has ever seen. Who are the headline acts? My headliners would be Sean Paul, I wanna see Lil Wayne for sure! Olamide, Asa, how could I forget? I wanna see Skepta, I wanna see Drake, Tracy Chapman and I wanna see Shaggy.

What’s next for BOJ? Maybe a feature-filled Alté album? [Laughs].

Last words? Thank you and keep being true to yourself!

Jeans: Suavo World

PS Hitsquad

With many crowning him the best Drill lyricist in the game, PS Hitsquad’s about to turn the sound on it’s head. He tells VIPER about throwing away the lyrics he wrote in jail and what it’s like to grow up as a member of the Zone 2 collective.

Photos Eddie Cheaba Stylist Nadya Maki Words Lily Mercer Special Thanks Cardel

Photographer Assistant Bruno Miles

50

Paisley Print Jacket + Bottoms: Night Addict Shoes: Jordan 1s Low

Considered by many to be one of the top lyricists in the UK Drill scene, PS Hitsquad made his name as a member of cult group, Zone 2. Having worked with several members of Giggs’ SN1 collective, he’s made a name in Peckham and beyond. He talks to VIPER about throwing bags of lyrics in the bin when he got out of jail.

Big Steppa is your latest release, tell me a bit about what you have planned for the rest of 2021… Really it’s just about being consistent for me, obviously I’ve been away… keep going away, whatever. Just trying to keep consistent, keep releasing, watch what happens.

Have you been in the studio a lot? Could we expect a project this year? Yeah I’ve got a lot of music, I’ve got a tape’s worth. I’m tryna release a tape in the near future.

You’ve got a lot of big tracks but of your recent ones, ‘Black’ with Giggs is one of your biggest, it’s an amazing song. He’s obviously an icon from your area so what was it like working with him? That’s big bro, man’s been rocking with them lot for a while and just shouted man.

The thing is it’s mad ‘cause being from Peckham and watching them man’s ting, for them to then shout man, it’s like “alright cool, say nothing.”

You see when you support a favourite team or something? Imagine like Ronaldo said, “yeah, you’re sick at ball you know.” It was like that, it was alright still.

What was it like growing up in the area they’re from? How old were you when you realised how important they were to your area? It’s more like, they’re the first rappers to blow, like real street Rap, not Grime. So as a young G, being gassed and that, it was like that’s what man’s tryna listen to. Plus it’s from man’s hood as well, so man can proper relate, I can say Peckham with man’s chest, I can throw up man’s P’s. It was like that, I just grew up rocking with it.

It was all around man, the tunes being played, it was all around.

Did you ever see them in person when you were little? I seen a couple of them in ends, the SN1 guys. It’s a mad ting, I got a funny story… imagine I was in primary school and Fos SN1 used to do some little youth thing. Then one day I’m bopping up Peckham Rye Lane, he sees me on the mains and these times I’m probably eight or nine, I’m a proper juvie. He gave man a SN1 tee, I rocked with that so yeah, man’s seen them around in ends. Big up bro.

Tiny Boost shouted you for his song ‘Peckham Krazy’ a couple years ago, what was that like, working with him and your friend Kwengface?

You know what it is, all the attention is

appreciated. It’s not like we’re shit or nothing but when you’re shelling it, people have to pay respect, or man’s gonna keep shelling it until they do pay respect. Them lot, they’ve seen it from early. Plus we’re from the ends so they’ve been preeing it, it should be natural, you get me?

Zone 2 are very much the second wave for Peckham. 100% I’m sure SN1 can even see the youngers around them are definitely fans of yours. Yeah man, it was cool. The industry likes them lot as well so I’ve seen other people reaching out as well.

“When you’re shelling it, people have to pay respect, or man’s gonna keep shelling it until they do pay respect.”

You started out your career as a Drill rapper, the Drill genre isn’t usually very lyrical but with Zone 2, you’re all lyrical. A lot of people consider you as one of the best lyricists in the UK. Ahhh, stop it [laughs]. Thank you though.

Was the lyricism in you already? What was it that made you bring such a lyrical element to your Drill? You know what it is, even from early I’ve been playing with words. I’ve always liked it, in school when you’re writing and shit, I liked doing all that. From early, from primary school, if I was writing I liked to play with words or I used to write poems and shit. I’ve always been like that, it needs to be more than you just saying nonsense, for me anyway.

There’s a lot of depth to it, do you put pressure on yourself with the lyrics? You know what yeah, I just kinda have fun with it. I’ve only

VIPERMAG.COM

•

51

slyly started thinking about it now, in terms of structuring a tune and the actual song but I try and have fun with it. Music’s art, you know what I mean? You can do what you want as long as it sounds good, it is good.

Were you writing way before Drill came about?

100%, even when Drill came about, we were still one of the first ones there. But even before that, man used to try little things, I used to write and bro would be like, “Bro you’re hard man, you need to start.” It just went from there.

Zone 2 has a lot of lyricists in the group, were you seriously all friends before you started rapping? Yeah, all of us were bros, Hitsquad, Zone, we were all bros from the jump. I’ve known Kweng for 10 years plus, I’ve known Trizz

52 /

for nine, 10 years. I’ve known Karma from when I was a baby, it’s all mad. We all grew up together, we’re all from the same area. After school we’d be at the same places, all of that.

That’s a lot of talent in one small place! I know!

Peckham’s been had talent though, it’s not even just music! It’s football, acting, Peckham’s been had talent.

Why is that? I dunno, might be something in the water.

Is it healthy competition, having friends that also rap? Does it push you to be better?

Hundred million percent, like Karma, Kwengface, you know who the set is around and they’re all hard. When you come, you gotta come proper for man to say “ooooh” because they’re all hard

Jeans: Suavo World

VIPERMAG.COM

•

53

54 /

as well. It’s like real recognise real, if you’re hard then you gotta go with proper shit. It’s like Simon Cowell…

You use a lot of very British references in your bars, do you always pull for things that people will relate to? It’s mad ’cause I’m a weirdo [laughs], I mean in the sense I like to watch documentaries, I like general knowledge, I like to know a lot init. I like to know something about everything.

In reference to your song ‘Bruce Willis’, you said that you’d like to be in the Nakatomi Plaza from Die Hard, why? 100%, I like things like that.

It’s an iconic movie, I like to go to places like that. For every movie, I can name something I’d like to go and see; I like seeing things in history that have happened.

“Man’s sitting in my cell the whole time.

Sometimes I’d sit that whole time just writing. I just had so much music, I probably wrote three, four mixtapes and just threw them away. It gets like that.”

Would you judge me if I said I never saw Die Hard? Nah you know, because now you can go after this interview and watch it. You might not like it, but you might like it.

Is your upcoming project going to be strictly Drill? I don’t feel like they’ve seen enough of the other things so there’s definitely gonna be some other things, other than Drill. I can’t say it’s gonna be just Rap, or just Trap, because I like to try other things init.

If you were to collab with someone outside of the Drill scene, who would you work with? Like a singer. I dunno, you threw me. I’d like to work with Wizkid or someone, he’s proper hard.

That would be amazing, like a bouncy DrillAfrowave combo? Yeah, I could talk about

other stuff though, just watch me grow!

You were away for a couple of years, was it hard coming back to music when you were released? Nah you know, I’ll be real.

Because when man started it, I didn’t really think it was like that and then I’ve gone away kinda at the start anyway. So by the time the mandem’s proper going and doing radio and doing all these other things, I was away. ’Cause I was having fun with it, I was like I’m just gonna come back and have fun with it again.

What was your writing style like while you were away, was it the same or were you trying new things? Definitely trying new things, ’cause

you’ve got so much time on your hands, you know what I mean? There’s times when man don’t come out, man only comes out for 30 minutes in a day, or like 20 minutes in a day. Man’s sitting in my cell the whole time. Sometimes I’d sit that whole time just writing. I just had so much music, I probably wrote three, four mixtapes and just threw them away. It gets like that.

From Lagos to London, Kida Kudz has spread his “Jiggy” sound worldwide.

He talks about balancing music with fatherhood and what we can expect from his upcoming project.

Creative Director/Photos Eddie Cheaba Video Bruno Miles Lighting Wilbert Lati Stylist Nadya Maki Esthetician Mercedez Jay Make up Tahiyah Ali Words Lily Mercer Studio Blankbox Studio

56 Kida Kudz

Moving to London in his teens exposed Kida Kudz to the hard hitting British rap scene, which he later merged with the Afrobeats sound of his home to construct a sound that stands out from his peers.

Working from his home studio throughout the pandemic, he’s ready for the world to hear his new music.

‘Animalistic’ is your recent single, is it the first release from your new project? Yeah I haven’t dropped nothing off it yet, this is the first song.

The video is very cinematic, how did you come up with the concept and get it all made?

It was me and my friends in Nigeria and I told them, “I’m on fire right now bro, I wanna be on fire but happy on fire, not in hell fire.” Because when people think of on fire, the first thought is, “why you wanna be in hellfire?” But it’s not hellfire, we’re actually lit, literally. It’s just putting the energy that I had in the song, quickly in the video. That’s what we tried to achieve. There’s a scene where there’s fire in the circle, I lit that, I did that. ’Cause everyone was shook to light it up so I took the petrol, put it in the corners and the fire went, “shzooom.” That’s all I wanted, fire, I wanted people to feel sweat. The video shoot was like I was performing on stage, I can’t lie to you. But yeah ‘Animalistic’ was the greatest energy that I put out there this year.

“I don’t think I belong somewhere.

I just belong in the world, anywhere the energy takes me to, I just gotta go there.”

You have amazing visuals already, do you find you compete with yourself to make the best video you can? Yeah to be honest, I learnt from the OGs. R.I.P. DMX, Tupac. I like the 90’s and some of the 80’s, I love them Boyz II Men videos. I wanna make a video in the rain, you know them ones where it’s raining and they’re just spinning and crying and talking about a girl.

Yeah, maybe that’s the kinda thing I need to try and step into, I’m tryna get on that level. I’m not really into what my age group are into, I feel like I missed a lot so I need to catch up first on all the things that I missed. I think I just compete

with the next Kida, like what was last Kida like?

Last year I never had no locs in my hair but this year because of corona, I was like might as well leave my hair to grow out. So I’m more of an Anime character now, that’s what I’m trying to go into. I wanna shoot anime videos and stuff, I wanna have a series every week for kids, it’s part of the plans man.

You’ve got big dreams! Does it help having two sons? Are you ready to create things for them?

Yeah the thing is, it’s actually not fair because I’m very young right now. I’ve also got my young babies, I don’t wanna miss out on that time of their lives. I pray everything goes easy enough for me to bring my kids up everywhere I go because that’s my pride, my first pride. I’m just trying not to miss my kids growing up because I know I still got a lot of work to do, but so far my boys are rock stars, both of them. They ain’t got a choice, they gotta eat so they gotta be on road with me.

How did you balance lockdown and being a father while making music? It was hard but the thing is I recorded my tape in my living room, that was the good part of it. I’d wake up in the morning and go studio because I record myself a lot. But also I’m a father and I have a routine I have to follow, ’cause my bosses are my kids. I live with my partner as well but it doesn’t make anything that easy because sometimes we’re both tired! But I’m still an artist, no one really cares if Kida didn’t sleep alright, I still have to work. I wouldn’t say it’s easy, everyone out there make sure you’re ready for it, there’s nothing that can replace that. When my sons are up I’m like, “Wow, this little baby actually needs me to be up as well.” They need you to stay up and they go sleep, they nap in between but you have to stay watching them. It’s a beautiful thing, just make sure you’re looking after what’s yours. That’s my responsibility in life, I can’t run from that.

Has it changed how long you make a song?

Because time is limited now. I just came back from Nigeria, I had to go to shoot videos and work and I made over 50 new songs. I’ve actually got stuff ready for next year and the year after, that’s how I work basically. I work two years ahead of me, so if I wanna go to a record deal, I go in there with all my songs ready. I’ve never been into a deal, I go in with my videos sometimes because I like to work a lot. I’ve always been like this so when I had

my kid, nothing actually changed cause that’s my habit. I wake up, work out, go to my studio, so I’m just carrying my kids along with this. My first born son loves the studio, he’ll pick up my headphones and put them on his head and he wants me to say “Jiggy.”

Has he got any features on the upcoming project? Nah his voice is in one of my tracks and I left it there ‘cause it was him screaming and it was on beat. I was like, “publishing bro!

Let me leave it on there and put your name on the credits.” You know what I mean? Give him a little 25%. I don’t want my kids to do music for real, unless they make the best music, I want them to play all instruments, so when my kid’s ready, I want him to be in all instrument classes.

I’m trying to learn how to play the Saxophone and I started learning that before Corona came because I was gonna make that my debut, for Wireless. I was gonna come with a band with Sax, I don’t think they would expect that. It hurt my soul, I was taking two lessons a week and I was already getting my hands round it but when that happened, my mental health wasn’t really that great so I dropped it. I saw it the other day and brought it back out so I’m about to learn again.

It’s a hard instrument to learn right? It’s very spiritual, the Sax. When the teacher first came to teach me, he was like, “Have you played before?” I was like “no” but it’s just the fact I knew what it was and the old genre of Afrobeats, Fela played all the horns; I think it’s more spiritual. When I was a baby, I used to play

“I think all musicians are magicians because we create what hasn’t been there before.” the flute, or we used to call it recorder; I went to a little music school in Nigeria. I think it had the same kind of vibe so I can make rhythms with the Sax. I don’t know the notes and stuff but if you play me an instrumental, I can play along; It’s weird but I can.

How do you feel about the evolution of Afrobeats with modern sub-genres mixing in? It’s called Afrobeats because Fela Kuti, he’s the one that created this sound that we follow.

Under this we have Fuji Music, we have Apala

58 /

music, we’ve got so much under Afrobeats.

So whatever the new school are doing now, because obviously I don’t sound like Fela, but I got inspired by true Afrobeats because I grew up on Apala music. Apala music is like very, very traditional Nigerian music where they use a lot of traditional drums, like chanting basically. Fuji music is like a straight Nigerian Hip Hop. I grew up listening to all this stuff and I’m modelled into Kida. Me moving to the UK when I was 14, I blended in the Wiley I was listening to and old Tim Westwood. Shout out to Wiley who I got a song with eventually, because I knew who Wiley was when I was in Nigeria. I remember he brought Chipmunk on a freestyle and now I’ve got a song with both of them, it’s quite crazy.

Right now, speaking to you, I can remember the day watching the freestyle, Wiley bringing up Chipmunk for the freestyle and Ice Kid. Then fast forward and I’ve done songs with both of them, it’s nuts. I’m still working though, I’m not there yet, I’m still mobbing every day.

I recently heard about Afro-Techno, have you heard of it? Fela said if you play with music, you’re gonna die young. I didn’t say that, he said it. So I don’t know about Afro-Techno, I know about Afrobeats, it should just be Techno man. Because there’s so much culture behind the whole Afrobeats genre, I don’t even like saying UK Afrobeats sometimes because it’s not disrespectful but it’s not convenient me saying it. I feel like Afrobeats should be called Afrobeats, if your stuff is qualified to be known as Afrobeats, it can. I call my sound Afro-Jiggy but I know it’s from Afro before anything. AfroJiggy is like saying Afro-Kida, my real name is Kayode, it’s like Afro-Kayode, it’s just Afro-me basically. So I don’t know about Afro-Techno basically, I know about Afrobeats, I think that’s just a DJ mix [laughs].

Apparently it’s like African instrumentation but in a dance-music style, less gentrified than what you’re thinking [laughs]. Yeah I’ll listen to the music but I won’t say it’s called Afro-Techno.

But African drum patterns existed way before Techno sounds, there are still Dance rhythms in traditional African drums, plus drums can put people into a trance-like state so I feel like Afro-Techno makes sense in a way. In Nigeria, some people drum and I can understand what they’re saying with the rhythm of the drum, I can’t understand actual techno, but I can understand the drum rhythm in Yoruba. It’s a talking drum, they speak through drums. Back in the day in the kingdoms, when they wanted to make an announcement, they used bells or drums so this whole Afrobeats thing, sometimes Fela doesn’t even speak, he can be chanting.

But yeah shout out to all the DJs doing AfroTechno but Afrobeats goes so deep that I don’t even know too much about it. I read Fela’s book

Jeans + Shirt Set: Moschino Grey Joggers: Madness Collection

“I got inspired by true Afrobeats because I grew up on Apala music”

Durag: Duraggy Trousers: Moschino Red Shorts: King Apparel Pearl Necklace: Feather Pendants

60 /

that he wrote before he left and I still don’t know. I don’t think I’m moving that spiritual right now for the Afrobeats. Don’t let me sound like some dumb guy, I’m gonna do some research on Afro-Techno because what you said makes sense, because beats can get you in spirits, you can be in church listening to religious music and you can get spiritual. I get spiritual when I pray because I believe there’s another phase where we can all tap into. That’s why I think all musicians are magicians because we create what hasn’t been there before. Right now if I go to the studio, they play me a beat, I’m gonna come up with some random stuff that came into

“My first born son loves the studio, he’ll pick up my headphones and put them on his head and he wants me to say ‘Jiggy.’” my head, so that’s why when it comes to the Afrobeats stuff, it’s very spiritual when you pick it. Some people are really chosen for this, we’re all magicians, shout out to all the artists!

You grew up in the UK as well as Nigeria.

When you were growing up in Lagos, seeing the American rappers of the 90s and 2000s, how did it feel being so far removed from their culture? I can’t lie, it was like a place we’d never go to. I remember watching everything in Nigeria from my grandma’s house and Lil Wayne, that was the first person that blew my mind. Like, “Yo I’m gonna make music ‘cause of this guy.” I wanted locs when I was probably like 10 but my mum would never let me, my mum loves a fresh cut because of school and stuff. Americans were the biggest influence on us, I was saying yesterday that now the big UK singers are in Africa too ‘cause before it was us and 50 Cent, us and Ja Rule, us and Nelly. We grew up on all these songs but we didn’t know nothing about the UK growing up. When I came here the first time and then I went back, I took back music. I remember telling my boys about Grime when I was like 13, but now look it’s so big now, I can go to Nigeria and feel comfortable talking about it; I don’t have to tell people about music anymore.

There’s obviously a lot of migration between the two but what bonds Lagos and London? I think they’re six hours away from each other, it’s like I was in Nigeria in the morning and said to my girl, “I’ll be home today.” I landed at four o’clock,

it’s not far; like it’s weird. Maybe that’s why I love Nigeria too, there’s 200 million plus of us, but the scene is getting so big that we can’t even control it anymore, the whole UK scene and the Afrobeats scene as well, worldwide it’s getting that big. I’ve got friends that have got Grammy’s now, before it used to be like “Grammy’s!” So now I’m like like, “bro, you need to get ready for your Grammy because your boys got Grammy’s now.” It doesn’t look impossible anymore, you gotta just work hard and wait your turn basically.

When I first came to this country, it was mad but now it’s like, everyone loves to learn because people never wanted to learn, it was like, “Oh where you from?” They don’t know but now it’s like people want to listen and learn and that’s beautiful. Everyone’s dancing, that’s what we want to do. With Afrobeats everyone’s happy, coming together and forgetting your sorrows and dancing together.

Afrobeats sounds so uplifting and happy but is anyone making music that sounds a bit dark? Yeah sometimes I make dark music, I don’t like to do that all the time but you can’t control what comes. I like to tell stories as well, not every time I wanna be on a dancing vibe.

On ‘Top Member’ which is coming out, there’s a track called ‘Never Saw Us’ which is speaking about when I used to be a dancer in Nigeria. All our neighbours used to come watch but they didn’t care about me, so I’m breakdancing like a robot as I said in the song, I’m breakdancing and watching my neighbours and they don’t even care, they’re looking at me like what the hell is he doing? And I’ve got another song called ‘Last Day’ as well, I’ve got some songs where I get a bit personal ’cause I want people to learn what I have to offer. I wouldn’t say I’m like Kendrick Lamar but I have a way of spreading my message. I’m not a punchline rapper, more of like a real guy speaking about what he’s been through and the enjoyment and the bad things.

I like that music because it helps when I’m sad.

It’s been a year since the last project, was there anything different in the approach this time? I feel like this new project’s got more solid songs than the first, I would say that because obviously that was the old one so I probably would’ve said the same thing last year but I feel like as an artist, I’m improving. That was made a year ago, I finished my tape a long time ago.

Because of Corona everything got pushed back so I’ve already made more progression on my music. Now I’m like, I can’t wait to put this out so I can put out the new stuff ‘cause I feel like no one’s heard me in 2021 because they’re hearing what I made in 2020, 2019, 2018. There’s new vibes already that I need to unleash before the end of the year.

Tell me about the video for ‘Makaveli’ cause it’s crazy! So ‘Makaveli’, I shot all of that myself, I planned all of it myself. I recorded that in my living room as I always do and I was like, “I need to shoot a video.” Because it was during corona,

I was like, “I need to put something out” but those times, I came out of my deal when I landed from Nigeria. I was open to doing more festivals last year and then everything got cancelled. So I was like, I’m home, I’m gonna start working on myself because that’s all you’ve got. Every artist, no matter how many connections you’ve got, music is always everything. I was just like, “I’m gonna keep working on the craft and putting things out for people that care.” So now I’ve recorded it and was like, “I need to remake Tupac scenes.”

I didn’t have any budget for it, I just called my friend and was like, “I’ve got this idea, can you shoot it for me? Can you rent a studio? Who’s gonna be Suge Knight?” I found everyone then was like, “What am I gonna wear?” Went online, I made my moodboard and I ordered every ‘fit, tried it all on and went to shoot the video. I felt so great shooting that because I put my all into it. That’s how I like to do a big part of my craft, I don’t like to be relaxed, I like to be involved in everything that I’m doing and ‘Makaveli’ was a proper breakdown of your work with your boys, with no budget. That’s why I keep telling people you can actually do things with your iPhone, if you don’t have a camera. You can grab your iPhone, spit a freestyle and blow up tomorrow but obviously it’s different now. We had to rent a camera and all the budget went on the camera, I’m glad you like it.

The attention to detail… the outfits you created are so close to the originals! That’s mad, everyone’s giving it credit and I styled myself.

How many scenes? Like six or seven and I got all the ‘fits myself.

Do you think D.I.Y is the key to success?

Yeah, it feels better when you get things done yourself. I don’t really like helping hands, I like when people say, “This is what I want you to do, go do it yourself.” I don’t like when people are like, “I need money,” no I need work, work brings everything else. So that made me feel proper successful. I did something without planning it and it came out nice, we didn’t even have anyone behind us.

Are you still based between Lagos and London? I live in the world, I don’t think I belong somewhere. I just belong in the world, anywhere the energy takes me to, I just gotta go there. I don’t force things, I just have things floating in my head. I’m the kinda guy that when I don’t do things that come to my head, things go wrong, like, “I told you I should have done this, now I didn’t and look now.” So if things come to my head, I just do it, I worry about the stress later.

I was watching a Tupac interview one time and it was saying that when you’re in your early twenties, that’s when you wanna bang gym and do everything but when you start getting to your thirties, everything changes. Now I’m in my twenties, I’ve gotta do all I can. Everyone says you shouldn’t put a time frame behind things but

62 /

now I’m a father, I have to kinda do that. I know it sounds mad, you shouldn’t plan your whole life but with kids, you gotta plan how you wanna live with them because there’ll be some time when I don’t wanna be jumping up and down, I wanna be at my child’s training or football, whatever he wants to do. I wanna be that guy because I didn’t really have a father that did that for me so I’m trying to do the opposite of what I went through. All my kids feel the love, I don’t want them to be like, “Daddy’s never here.”

Are there features on the new project? Yeah real good features, Fela Kuti’s grandson played the Sax on my tape, so I think that’s the biggest thing ever because the genes and everything!

His name is Made Kuti, he plays a lot of instruments so he’s on a song called ‘Cherry Mango’ that I needed him to play on. I was like this song is already done, I just need you to put your melodies on it with the Sax. Also me and my partner made another love song cause we did that on the first one. I’ll be making songs in the living room and I’m like, “Come jump on it ‘cause you’re just there,” so we did that. I’ve got another track with two Jamaican artists, Bobby 6ix and Daddy 1, they’re going big in Jamaica right now. The craziest shit was, they DM’d me and they’re like “Y Pree,” I’ve been banging Jamaican tunes so I was like, “You’re banging my stuff as well?!” So that’s why this music stuff is so beautiful, they were into all my stuff.

During quarantine, I was on Jamaican music, learning new vibes, seeing what’s new that I haven’t heard before. They hit me up and I was like, “I’ve got this song already done, you wanna slap the verse?” And they were like workaholics, I sent them the track, they sent it back same day at midnight with two different verses, I was like, “Just put one artist on there” and it came back with two artists, I was like, “Wow!” They’ve been waiting to drop the song for so long, so that’s on there. I got Bella Shmurda that just came out, ‘Ball Till We Fall’, that was recorded in the UK but I sent it to him and he recorded it and sent it back online, he sent me another song for his own album. That’s what I done with Chip as well, me and Chip exchanged the songs like this and we had one hour to send them back to each other, it was really sick.

Who else is on the tape? I have four features on there because I like to carry the tape, I want people to know me better. There’s some people that don’t know who the hell I am right now so when they find my tape, I want them to be able to listen and be like, “This is Kida Kudz all through,” it’s not the featured artist. Very soon I wanna get to the point that I wanna do that again, but for now I wanna make sure I do a lot of things by myself. But shout out to everyone on the tape, shout out to the producers the most - Ayo [Beatz], Diztortion, Major Bangz, I work with great producers, shout out to them.

64

Unknown T Words by Lily Mercer Photos by Eddie Cheaba

Creative Director/Photos Eddie Cheaba Video Bruno Miles Lighting Wilbert Lati Stylist James Loach Stylist T J Sawer Esthetician Mercedez Jay Make up Tahiyah Ali Words Lily Mercer Studio Blankbox Studio

Bursting onto the scene in 2018 with ‘Homerton B’, Unknown T went from quite literally unknown to a hometown hero overnight.

His name became synonymous with his local area as he put E9 permanently on London’s musical map. The postcode later came to rep T and his friends and collaborators: V9, KO and Jimmy, who collectively go by the name 9 Gang or 9 Boys. But more about them later…

When making a name for yourself as a new rapper on the scene, two things are essential; a catchy debut song and an aura of mystique.

T immediately delivered both, with the catchy ‘Homerton B’ dashed into every DJ’s set for the next six months. His mystique came in the form of a pair of sunglasses, still yet to be removed from his face and a moniker that held a strong sense of allure. When asked why he chose the name Unknown T, he explains, “Because whenever you think of Unknown T, the first thought is, ‘who’s that guy?’ It was a strategic method so people can look into my work.” It’s safe to say it worked, with him quickly rising up the ranks within the UK rap scene.

For many the first Unknown T sighting was a 2017 Tim Westwood Crib Session, in which he debuted one verse from the song that would soon become a Drill classic. Later removed from YouTube, the freestyle saw him surrounded by countless members of the 9 Boys and 98s, with not a bare face in sight. Already wearing his distinctive shades and gloves, along with a black balaclava, T captivates as he raps the lyrics with a sea of hype men behind him. His star quality was visible from the start but he admits that he didn’t initially have the confidence to be an artist professionally, saying, “You know what?

Up until 2015 in my mind, I never thought I’d be a rapper. I was that guy, yeah, I was slick with my words, I would rap here and there when we had little sessions in a circle but unbothered.”

Those around him encouraged him to pursue it as did his growing online fan base, “Everyone would tell me, ‘Nah you’re hard G, stick with that’.

I weren’t bothered but you see social media’s powerful init, man must’ve done something.

It’s gone all over Twitter - boom - a couple of exclusives. You know them friends get excited and leak your tunes on YouTube and that, word gets around. It made me realise that maybe I do have something special. With the assurance of all my close people and my community, which made me deep, ‘fuck it let me try and do this ting’ and 2018 - it worked.” That Summer, ‘Homerton B’ dropped with immediate impact.

Many artists pray for such a response to their first single but it can be daunting reaching such

66 /

successful heights so fast. With this in mind I ask was he nervous to drop a follow up track?

“Yeah I can’t lie ‘Homerton B’ was supposed to be the warm up but them boom, it changed my life straight away. I had to improvise really, like what can I make the next tune? And then ‘Throwback’ came.”

‘Throwback ‘ displayed his versatility, with a delicate female vocal, laid over nostalgic rhymes about his early years. It was different, especially from a song like ‘Homerton B’ which had dominated clubs since it dropped. The sonic diversion was strategic, as one of the new names in Drill showed he was capable of creating a lot more than one subgenre of Rap. However, his reasoning behind this was more personality-led than tactical, saying “I feel like not many people but some people do the party ting and that’s their ting, big up their ting. But for me maybe my ting’s more of an emotional ting.

It’s a journey and that’s something that people can lead with to help their emotions as well, you get me? Music that you feel.”

“Yeah I can’t lie ‘Homerton B’ was supposed to be the warm up but then boom, it changed my life straight away” Being born in Homerton Hospital myself and growing up just a few miles from Unknown T’s home, I recognise the vibe and energy of Hackney within his music. I tell him that I feel his sound embodies the borough as it displays a darkness and mood to it that you feel when you’re in it. When asked if he makes an effort to do this when writing he admits, “It’s not even a conscious thought, I feel music.” The best example of his sound representing Hackney’s dark energy is his 2020 song, ‘Deh Deh’ which builds from a sparse place into a high energy.

Weaving tales of ride-outs and brandishing tools the lyrics bring a bounce to the beat. T skirts

Varsity Jacket: Unknown T x Billionaire Boys Club x Places & Faces Signature Sweatpants: Aeliza

T-Shirt: Unknown T x Billionaire Boys Club x Places & Faces Signature Varsity Jacket: Billionaire Boys Club

Shirt: Maharishi Pants: Maharishi Shoes: Adidas Originals x Arwa Al Banawi

70 /

the fine line between detailing and glorifying as he outlines his days of gang life, while also showing maturity with lines like, “Real gangstas don’t need to talk ‘bout drillings.” There’s a sense of urgency to the song, thanks in part to the ominous build-up which, for me, feels like an impending sense of dread. The melody is quite dissonant and gives the song a lot of tension, while the reverb on the SFX adds ambience.

Continuing to explain how his sound embodies his home borough he describes how he draws from relatable experiences, “A lot of people resonate with my music, especially because we all go through similar emotions. Some people may go through darkness, some people may go through happiness, I replicate that in my music.

Every time I make new projects or new songs, the audience will feel it because they’re with me through that journey. It’s not even a thing that I do consciously, it’s something that as humans we all go through and that’s why I take a lot of care in my music.”

For years Hackney had no star presence in the rap industry, though throughout the noughties various areas within the borough produced local stars. But as far as a rapper that made noise in the streets and on the airwaves, the Number One spot was there for the taking in 2018.

When asked if prior to him, Hackney needed a strong rapper in the scene, he agrees, “Hackney

“I see Digga D make ‘Woi’ in my cell and I’m so proud to see what’s come out of that” needed someone in that position. Yeah they needed it obviously, then I made history init.”

His career was almost derailed by a lengthy prison sentence in 2019, but the rapper was thankfully acquitted. The experience changed him, as he explains, “It humbled man a lot.

Where I was on the frontline of my generation of rappers, going jail and having everything taken from me made me realise that, at the end of the day, man’s just like everybody else.”

Entering the jail system as a recognisable face can attract unwanted attention from fellow prisoners, but also from the guards, or “guvs.”

This also affected T’s experience, as he says they were quick to remind him of his civilian status behind bars. “The way guvs treated man at first, it’s like boom, a man can be buried dead like everybody else; or man can go jail and get

treated like everybody else. It don’t matter how much money you have, how much clout you have, mind the way you treat people init. When you’re there, they’ll treat you like shit.”

Though this wasn’t his first time away, things were different this time, as he’d experienced the bright lights of fame in his city. Talking about how his feelings adapted when entering the second time he explains, “To be honest with you, my mentality - obviously I was younger before - it just woke me up coming out. Man treats everybody fairly, man don’t think I’m Unknown T in my head and I’m above people; man’s just T init. It’s a humbling experience.”

With his new mixtape on the horizon and plans for his debut album already in place, he seems focused on maintaining his redefined reality.

Observing this, I say, “I bet now you’re more determined than ever not to go back.” His reply is inspiring, “Yeah straight, but everything’s a story, everything’s written. I had to go through that to better myself, to grow within myself.

Then come back to make ‘Adolescence’ and I’m chatting to you now. Yeah cuz.”

‘Rise Above Hate’ dropped at a time where people were hungry for a project from T, with it dropping a whole two years after his debut.

For me it’s album quality and I was surprised he called it a mixtape. Likewise I expected ‘Adolescence’ to be an album, instead of his second mixtape, due to quality. T’s flattered by this, saying, “Thank you. Because it was my first selection of work, I decided to let people see my journey because I was absent for a little while.

It’s all stepping stones isn’t it, mixtape, then let

them see that stage of life, onto the next step.”

“The process of ‘Rise Above Hate’ came from my experiences, where there was a lot of negativity and hatred around me at the time. I thought to myself, let me try rise above all of that hatred with positivity.” He explains the significance of the building featured in the mixtape’s artwork, “The cover was so important because in my area, the artwork that was behind me was [on a building] that was due to get knocked down.

The art represented the dynamics of my area.

Where that was getting knocked down, I just wanted to represent that even though people try and knock you down, you can’t hide the beauty of art. That’s what man was trying to represent with it.” Speaking on how recognisable the building is, he adds, “It’s mad still, I didn’t even realise ’til I saw the reactions on Twitter after, it meant a lot to my community.”

T’s sophomore mixtape is on the horizon, titled ‘Adolescence’. The project and its title display T’s growth as a man and an artist. With just a few weeks left until release he’s hype for the world to hear it, allowing the VIPER team to listen to exclusives throughout the shoot.

“Where I was on the frontline of my generation of rappers, going jail and having everything taken from me made me realise that rah, at the end of the day, man’s just like everybody else” Describing the title and cover, he starts, “So boom, this second tape is called ‘Adolescence’ and this is supposed to basically show the light after the negativity, seeing as ‘Rise Above Hate’ was about all the hatred I was going through.

This time around I’m trying to show my growth, ‘Adolescence’ meaning growth and the different spectrum of my life.”

72 /

It’s evident that the rapper has shed a lot of the moodiness displayed on ‘Rise Above Hate’, including more upbeat and energetic songs on ‘Adolescence’. Explaining how this change is reflected in the mixtape’s cover, he says, “You see the cover where it shows all those different boys that are supposed to represent different versions of me. That was from my past, younger stage, leading into the vision that I am today. I’m holding up the bottle of Ace of Spades, that’s supposed to represent man’s success.”

Throughout the shoot we enjoy the sounds of ‘Adolescence’, including some surprise features.

Later, during the interview he describes the vibes, including the first single from the project ‘Wonderland’. “On my tape I have M Huncho, of course we have our ‘Wonderland’ track, done a mad ting. Potter Payper, with his type of real rap and my type of Drill rap combined into one, it’s interesting, you get me? We tried to put that US culture but make our own UK ting, real rap.” He continues, “I’ve got something with Nafe Smallz as well, that one there’s slimy, that Gunna type of vibe. Then man’s got something with M1llionz as well. Yeah you know what to expect with that one.” Speaking on his second collab with another of the UK Kings of Drill, Digga D, he adds, “Digga’s on it as well of course, we got a special one; ‘Adolescence’. That one there’s for all the olders, all the mandem, all the galdem that have been about back in the day, those nostalgic BBQ memories. It’ll make you feel young again, that track there’s not that Drill, not like you’d expect.”

His friendship with Digga D has blossomed since the two met, unfortunately not in the studio but in jail. I ask how their first meeting came to be and he begins, “You know what? I feel like everything’s written. We knew of each other, obviously we were supposed to have a session before I was in jail, before he was in jail.

Unfortunately the day of the session, he went jail first. A couple months pass, I end up in jail for a separate reason. We were both in two different prisons at first, then we were both transferred to a category A prison, Belmarsh. I didn’t expect to meet him there, but when we met, the energy was there. I remember pulling up to his side of the prison, because he’s in Belmarsh first and then when I came, all the tugs welcomed me, ‘Yo T, come through, come with all the genners’.

Mandem are cooking, mandem are doing what they’re doing in the cell, you get me? Then it’s bang up so everyone’s gotta go back in their cell but Digga was next door to me. Think of it this way, all the windows are next to each other so man can speak and I can talk to my guy from over there, or over there or over there or Digga next door. So they had the speaker, playing music out loud and that, he started rapping, I

Tee: Ferino Visor Hoodie: Lostboys Channel

“Even though people try and knock you down, you can’t hide the beauty of art” 74 /

Longsleeve Tee: Ferino Tech Trousers: A-Cold-Wall* Shoes: Adidas Originals x Arwa Al Banawi

bounced back started rapping, everybody’s gassed you know.”

Continuing, he says, “It felt like a story, just them moments there, we just naturally built that friendship, nothing forced. No manager telling the other manager ‘let’s line a session’. Nah man went through pain to get with man, man went through that remand time together. Obviously man’s grown much closer with him and not many guv’s do this but we wanted to move in together and they said, “You know what, we know something special’s gonna happen, fuck it!” They patterned us up. From there, had our radio, we was patterning music. The guvs, everyone knew that us man were working, like, “Nah leave these lot, let them man do their ting.”

It was just natural, that’s what’s not in the air right now in the scene. That’s my n****, coming out man’s grew close init.” He expresses pride at the journey Digga’s been on musically, “I saw everything with ‘Woi’, I see him make ‘Woi’ in my cell and I’m so proud to see what’s come out of that, you know what I’m saying. Because my track, he seen ‘Fresh Home’, I knew I was gonna come fresh home with that track! It’s just nice seeing that, mandem have worked in jail, like rock bottom but to come out and just shoot for the stars is a good feeling.”

In just four years, T has evolved into an artist as opposed to simply a rapper. I ask if coming from the Drill scene, he feels there’s pressure to be more positive with music, to avoid the backlash that comes from the media? He responds, “I feel like society in general put all that pressure on us because we’re in the public eye. What I realise is, I’m not a role model but man can show you the route that I’ve taken.” Admitting there’s expectations on him now he’s in the public eye, he says, “Even though there’s loads of pressures for me anyway, man just avoids looking at all those pressures. Because trying to be this person, this role model, this perfect guy, it’s not me innit. So man just dropped all that pressure to show them me and it’s like follow this path, not that.”

He avoids pressure as much as possible when creating too, using his studio time as a release and an outlet for his self-expression. Describing how he puts his energy into a song, he says, “If I’m feeling angry one day, cool - let’s transfer that into that. Or if man’s got a lot on my chest about a gyal or something, like man’s gone through something emotional, I’ll try and transfer that energy into music. If I’m feeling bubbly, I might come to the booth all happy, jump on an Afro-wave type of ting, put the emotions into different energies fam and boom.” Studio time is never forced, as he explains, “Before, me and my managers and my boys used to go studio

and try and just see what I can get out. But recently we’ve noticed we should just let it be natural.”

Though he’ll always be regarded as an MC that shaped the sound of UK Drill, T’s never felt restricted by it, I ask if he’s evolved out of the Drill sound and if so, where does he place his sound currently? He responds, “It’s more open than Drill, right now. I feel like Drill’s evolving and I can’t forget my origin because that’s where man came from. It’s still in man but now I’ve revolutionised it a bit, just put it into different waves, different styles to give it that little burst that other people aren’t doing. But I could never just let go of the Drill, I’m just still trying to learn different versions of myself in this music ting.”

Amongst his generation, he’s far more lyrical than the average Drill MC. We discuss whether he changed the perception of Drill not being lyrical and he speaks on an equally important sub genre of UK Rap, stating, “Before me I looked up to guys like Ghetts, like Skep, they

“some people do the party ting and that’s their ting, big up their ting. But for me, maybe my ting’s more of an emotional ting” were doing their ting back then. Even in the Grime scene, they were doing that so it’s been adapted a bit.” For a second he gets shy but is appreciative when I remark that he’s got some of the best wordplay in the UK rap scene. He agrees, “Yeah I take a lot of time and detail behind the music, it’s not like man’s just rapping and thinking of a next line to rap with this word and that word, nah it’s mad detail behind it! As well as that, man’s been forensic with my work.

I’ve been through a lot of situations deeper than people, they don’t know the life experiences.

They don’t know how to put it into wordplay, man’s just dancing.”

Music has always been significant to T as he describes an early love for linguistics in both him and his parents. “Music’s something that I’ve always been around from a young age and just lyrically as well, it’s been in me as well.” He adds, “My mum studied English Lit, she’s very

good at it. I found out the other day that my dad was a journalist, so it’s them little things there that you deep, “Rah, it’s been in man.” You know what I’m saying? Musically it’s from young, I just loved music so it makes sense, certain things are just bred into you.”

The conversation moves on to his longtime friends, who he makes music with. The larger collective is the 98s, which includes members from Holly Street in Hackney’s E8 post code, alongside Homerton residents 9 Gang, more specifically V9, KO and Jimmy. They’re more than collaborators to T, “because we all grew up in the same area and man have gone through the same story, the same situations. All of that made us grow unity, it’s like a family, it’s more than just music now.” Reminiscing on the first time his fans came across T’s close unit, he says, “My journey started from the Tim Westwood session, a lot of the mandem started from the Tim Westwood session and we’re still together to this day so it’s not like a temporary ting, big up my Homerton brothers.” The 98s released a group album, ‘Class of 98s’ in 2020, on which T appeared on two songs, including ‘Ughh!’.

The album was highly regarded in the British rap industry, with many remarking on the high quality production. Speaking on the importance of making good music he acknowledges, “quality over quantity, that’s what I’ve begun to realise. Sometimes if you do too much, it’s too much for the audience to digest init?”

When it comes to collaboration, T’s got a strong discography. He’s traded verses with many of his peers, including M Huncho, DBE, Young T and Bugsey and more on his debut mixtape.

Having worked with so many artists, I ask who’s left for him to tick off his bucket list. “I’ve always wanted to work with Dave, I’m ready now.

Dave’s a very intellectual man still. I’ve always wanted to see what it’s like to bounce back with him. Stormzy, J Hus, Skepta, I’m not gonna lie to myself, Chip. Reason why, it’s another person I looked up to in this rap ting, just keeping it real to myself, his flow is out of this world and I think I can be like that too, or better. But one day, Chip.” Speaking of other North London rappers, I ask about the photo of T and Abra Cadabra, recently posted to social media. Though he admits Abra’s not on the mixtape, he adds, “Oh, yeah that one there’s a little teaser still. Yeah a collab’s coming real soon, we’re tryna give them something summertime. Keep your ears pinned for that.”

He stays focused on the UK scene, so much so that even it comes to being asked about working with producers outside of the UK, he chooses a Brit. “You know what big up Axl Beats, when you said American producers that’s the first thing that came to mind. But what I like about him was, obviously I’m a man of energies init.

Unfortunately Pop Smoke’s career was when I was in prison so I didn’t get to meet him. The thing with music is, I like to understand deeper than just the music and fortunately when I got to meet Axl, he got to show me about Pop Smoke. I wanted to understand his ting, how he discovered Drill properly, how he decided to venture his sound even bigger. Chatting to him deeper helped me understand, “Alright cool, this

“I feel like society in general put all that pressure on us because we’re in the public eye.

What I realise is, I’m not the role model” is what man’s gonna do now” and we tested the waters and made a banger. So for me, he’s very inspirational and I appreciated that knowledge he was feeding man.” He adds, “Another person is EY, EY’s from the UK but he works with a lot of people out in America as well, he’s a real brudda.

My man’s educated me a lot as well just about the scene, how to manoeuvre in this music ting, and just about within myself as well. There’s not many man you can go and chat on a level with like that but big up my man. There’s a couple others as well, Nyge, TSB, plenty people, too many names.”

As the interview draws to a close, I fight the urge to ask if Unknown T will teach me his infamous dance, the T-Bop, and tell him something a previous cover star said. When we featured KSI in the last issue of VIPER, he expressed a desire to work with T. I tell him that KSI said he’s got a flow like water. Then say “I think you flow like butter, what do you think you flow like?” He replies, “Olive oil, is that a good one?”

34

Curren$y Words by Lily Mercer

His blend of weed raps and car commentary made him a legend.

Sweatshirt: Jetlife

Needing no introduction, Curren$y’s career spans almost two decades. Having maintained a solid fan base from the era of Cash Money and No Limit to modern day, he’s maintained relevancy and respect from his peers and fans alike. VIPER talks to the New Orleans icon about dinosaur songs and legacy.

Congrats on the new album ‘Welcome To Jet Life Recordings 2’! Thank you, we actually shooting videos for it right now.

The ones you dropped already are amazing.

Don’t trip, we shooting all of ‘em. I’m actually shooting a video in front of my house right now, I’m just sitting inside. We gon’ bang all of ‘em out.

Wow, a video for each song? I wanna make sure I shoot ‘em because I put people from the label and people closely affiliated with the label on each one of the records. So some of them have yet to be in a video or do a collaboration with somebody with the success that I have.

Not even like I’m some mega star but with the amount of spotlight I do have, I’m able to share it with people close to me. I wanna make sure I shoot all those videos and give each one of those records the proper time to run and give everyone a chance.

It’s a special project for that reason. Plus we all know you’re talented but now we see you have a really good ear for talent. Well I’m trying to get out of this in a minute so I can’t be the only one bringing money into Jet Life. I’ve gotta get a few pots on the stove and I think we’ve got the right formula.

This is the second project from your Jet Life roster, the first featured more solo tracks while this one is a lot more collaborative. Yeah you right, I made sure this one had a lot less solo records. The other one, ‘Welcome To Jet Life’ was almost like a normal album from me but I gave the homies each a song, a solo record to be on. I feel like this was a better display of everyone’s skill set.

Plus it’s the first time we’re hearing a few artists right? Yep, this is the first time because some of these artists are not necessarily signed to Jet Life but they collaborate with us or they use our studio a lot, and there’s people we want to just help further their careers and whatever they do outside of giving them a record deal.

We wanna do it because if we get them on the stage with us, somebody might offer them a situation that could change their lives.

OG Maco’s on there too, how did that collaboration happen? That’s been a good

buddy of mine forever and ever, music from us has been long overdue by years, maybe five, maybe eight years. We been supposed to do some music so he happened to be in LA when I was out there. That’s really the way I work, I try not to email songs to people and wait for verses to come back. If I see you and we in the same town then we’ll work because the universe wanted it to happen.

How did you build the roster and come across these artists? There’s nobody I just met out in the street rapping and was like “you’re great” except for BLU, the female singer on the last track. She is garnering quite a bit of attention

“I wish I got on the Batman ride at Six Flags before they closed the Six Flags in New Orleans. Other than that I’m pretty stoked about the decisions I made and the things I chose to do.” and buzz out here in New Orleans. She’s an underground artist but her performance, just her set when she performs and the way she carries herself, it’s superstar quality. I just wanted to make sure that I gave my listeners a chance to check her out before she gets too big. Because this is the thing; everybody I put on this album, I feel like with or without me helping, they’re destined for greatness so you’d do better to help that train build up steam than to be a motherfucker standing on the track and get smacked by that train.

New Orleans is a very active city in rap today, how do you stay connected with the new artists coming through? Absolutely, I think it just needs a bigger spotlight so I’m trying, just doing my part. At one point, I was in the same shoes that they’re in and artists like C-Murder

Bomber Jacket: Jetlife Trainers: Adidas

and legends like the late Soulja Slim, they all felt that I had something. So they just all tried to chip in and do whatever they could do to make sure I made it and it worked.

You were involved with Cash Money and No Limit: great business minds. Was there any advice you were given that had a strong impact on you? Just watching how much my more successful homies work in the studio and it made sense. It makes sense as I’m saying it to you because of course; if the way you’re getting paid is the music you’re making, where else should you be except the place you make the music at? You have more opportunities to get paid, each song is popping. You don’t know which one is gonna be the one so you gotta keep working.

You’re famous for dropping several projects a year, did you always have this work ethic?

Yeah ’cause before I learned, I was observing legends. I was around Master P and stuff so I was like, when I do get my shot, this is clearly the only way to go because this guy had immeasurable success at the time I was around.

He’s gotta be one of the best people to learn from regarding business as well as music.

Absolutely, and I was around him, the Cash Money situation. After that I’ve spent a good

“I think we’re nearing the twilight of my career. I was gonna say it on Twitter but I don’t wanna ruffle feathers and upset my listeners.” amount of time around Dame Dash and them, helping them set up their situation. I picked up a lot of game, I saw some mistakes, I saw what I wouldn’t do and that helps too. Just being around situations where things might have went wrong, you step away from that with, ‘OK, I know not to make that right turn, or that left turn, I saw what happens’. All of that is valuable.

Anything you wish you did? There’s a few roller coasters at theme parks I wish I went on, like I wish I got on the Batman ride at Six Flags before

they closed the Six Flags in New Orleans. Other than that, I’m pretty stoked about the decisions I made and the things I chose to do. Or the things I chose not to do because it all got me to where I am right now and where I am right now and right now I’m looking in the backyard. [Starts shouting] Hey! I’m looking at my asshole dogs drinking swimming pool water, when I have two pots of fresh water right there for them. Fucking assholes. I don’t even get it because if you’re observing these dogs, you’ll think I’m taking shitty care of them, like they’ve gotta drink swimming pool water because he’s so high, he’s not putting water out there and that’s fucking bullshit. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to throw the interview there [laughs].

What does legacy mean to you? Well you know none of us are gonna be here forever so it’s all about how you live forever. That was a question I asked on first dates, I’d be with a chick and I’d be like, “How do you intend to live forever?”

[Laughs] So you know that always stroked people the fuck off but what I’d mean was like, you’re gonna be gone and the only thing that’s gonna live is who you helped and the stories that they tell about what you did. You know, how you impacted the lives of those still here because you have to tell your story. It’s the same way the bible exists because it’s a collection of stories. Somebody had to do some dope shit for

someone to remember to tell their kid that they saw this, to tell somebody else they saw this. So that’s what it means to me, making sure you get out of the game in time to where you don’t make many mistakes and let people see that they can possibly touch you.

[Interview pauses while Curren$y answers the door] Damn, my neighbour just came over and gave me a fresh plate of spaghetti, chicken sausage, corn, looks like some kind of fancy bread I don’t know about. So yeah my neighbour has created such a legacy, when he’s not around, people will remember that he made sure everyone ate around the neighbourhood.

So that’s important, you have to leave something and don’t stay around too long to where people see your decline. As your skill sets soften and you stay in the game too long, you’re not as fast as other people. People start pointing that out so you’ve got to dip so that what you leave is something flawless, something untouchable.

You’ve gotta make sure you don’t get stuck in the game and doing shit too long so that people see the flaws. They see you play too much they say, “He don’t have a left hand, he can only dribble with his right hand.” They tell the other teams, “If you guard him this way” and then you not looking so good, you done did the trick too many times.

You’ve stayed consistent and passionate for two decades, do you think you’ll stay as passionate for another two? About stuff but I don’t know if I’m gonna be standing in the booth making raps. Also what I checked out just from observing Master P and everybody was that they became, just like I say this about Puff Daddy, Diddy can’t stop - I hate to say that because its corny, it sound like what he say “can’t stop, won’t stop” - but he literally cannot stop. I can go to Walmart and get socks, I can get glue to build my model cars, maybe five or six people in the whole Walmart will be like, “Oh what up Spitta!” But they know enough about me to know it don’t make no sense to fan out or do nothing corny because I’m too normal so once you get to that point, you can’t turn it off and I like that I can still turn it off. I think we’re nearing the twilight of my career. I was gonna say it on Twitter but I don’t wanna ruffle feathers and upset my listeners. I’m gonna stop being too cool for school. My teachers always used to tell me, I was getting B’s and C’s off doing no work and they were like, “If you applied yourself a little bit, you’d get A’s.” I feel like that’s where I’m at with Rap. My whole career, just because it comes easy to me to make songs fast and shit, I put a lot of stuff out and maybe I should dial it back a bit, think a bit, hold on to videos longer, put some explosions in the video, I don’t know.

Just sit back and look at it a little bit more and

84 /

roll it out that way, garner all that attention from the media and the gatekeepers who keep us out of conversations. Garner all their respect, all them head nods and be like, “Alright I’m not even fucking with it anymore, I just wanted to make sure y’all knew you were sleeping on the champion but I don’t even give a fuck, I’m gonna go back to my house and play Xbox.” So that’s probably how that’s gon’ go.

“I’m looking at my asshole dogs drinking swimming pool water, when I have two pots of fresh water right there for them. Fucking assholes. I don’t even get it because if you’re observing these dogs, you’ll think I’m taking shitty care of them, like they’ve gotta drink swimming pool water because he’s so high, he’s not putting water out there and that’s fucking bullshit.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to throw the interview there [laughs].”

You’ve got several successful businesses outside of music now to focus on too. Yeah we just launched a strip club, it’s not necessarily a nude club, I like to say it’s a swimsuit club. I don’t know how these joints run, they got on bathing suits; but it’s hot, people love it. It’s the streets, it’s crazy. You’ve got that going on, then I got a hobby shop, completely the exact opposite. I go from one extreme to the next, we’ve got the nightlife, we’ve got a strip club on one end of the town. On the other end, closer to my house, I run a hobby shop where we sell model cars, we got kids who come in and we do cars and Kool Aid on Saturday. I have a Diecast Race Track where you can race Hot Wheels competitively, it’s kinda crazy that I’ve thrown so much of my time into that. I rented a building, like a 3,000 square foot building around the corner from my house, to just house all these toy cars and shit; it’s all I do! We‘re hosting a build-off week. We do a build-off every month where people who

Longsleeve Tee: Ferino Tech Trousers: A-Cold-Wall* Shoes: Adidas Originals x Arwa Al Banawi

know about my shop, they all purchase the same model kit and you have 30 days to build it and customise it your own way. You get to post seven pictures and we let all of the members of the model car community who follow my page, they choose the winner. The winner receives a hoodie or a T-shirt from Jet Life apparel and then some other things too.

With Andretti Cannabis, you have three strains now, what was the experience like creating them? Well you have to start with the first, Andretti OG, from Andretti OG, we crossed one of the dessert strains. I won’t name it because then you’ll have people in their own laboratories trying to come up with ours, and you have Jet Lag derived from that. Then you take the Jet Lag which is Andretti OG, a dessert strain that’s unnamed and then you introduce another classic strain which again I just can’t discuss. You have Jetz but it’s Jetz spelt with a Z, now people in the cannabis community that are up on strains will probably see that the Jetz is spelt with a Z. That Z might give them a hint to what the other strain that we introduced to it, to come up with such a hybrid flower. Maybe they’ll be able to deduce what the strain name is, I won’t say it.

Are you working on any more strains? Yes I’m always working, I have a tray in front of me right now that I’m gonna deal with after I eat this food. It’s an unnamed strain and it’s my foray into the dessert strains and designer strains.

Because I smoke OG, I like OG Kush straight up and down all the time. But I’m good friends with some people who make a lot of bread in the Cannabis industry, who do the design and the dessert strains like my good buddy Berner with the cookies and the donuts and muffin mixes, all the names. I’m gonna throw my hat into that ring and introduce a little designer line, maybe two strains. I got several on this tray right here, but I’m just trying to decide which ones I like the most, which ones I love.

What’s your taste test process? You never really know until first thing in the morning, that first joint, first two joints of the morning, you know what you’re dealing with. That’s what’s taking me so long to walk through this stuff because once you burn those first two, you’re chasing the dragon, trying to get as high as you was when you first woke up. You’ll never do it so you don’t even know what you’re burning after the first two. It’s all about the first two in the morning, so that’s the way I been walking through it.

So it takes a few days to try out all the options?

Yeah to decide if we gonna go into production, that’s not like, “Yeah let’s just grow a whole

home depot fucking full of this!” Because you’re talking about a full, I don’t even know how many square feet! So you have to know for sure that you wanna do that plant before you do a whole damn room of it. That’s something that you only liked last night when you came home from the club and it didn’t matter if you smoked that or just blew bubbles outside, you would have still been the same way. That’s why I never smoke for business purposes at night, I’m just smoking all the time because I smoke all the time. But when I’m doing research, it’s those morning joints. For the rest of the day, I’m all Andretti OG, all day long.

You aren’t the biggest fan of edibles, but will you create some that are suited to your taste? eah actually we got some fruit snacks that we developing right now ‘cause that’s how I get high. I’ve never wanted to taste that it’s an infused thing, that’s my problem with them.

No matter what they say, if it tastes too good then it’s never going to punch you. If you can taste that there’s weed and fucking keef in it, then you even enjoy the taste of it. You might as well eat raw nugs if that’s the case, it’s all about finding the perfect balance.

You tweeted some great lyrics to ‘Stegosaurus Song’, which I googled and was blown away; it’s beautiful. You know that song? That’s a good fucking song, that’s Disney calibre. I heard that shit yesterday, I’m like, “This is fucking good!” It touched my heart, it was so sweet that I was like, I don’t even think my son understands.

Because right now he don’t care about gentle dinosaurs, he likes T-Rex, Allosaurus, Raptors, whatever’s gonna kill the whole room, that’s what he likes. So he looks at Stegosauruses and he thinks they’re pretty tough because of those plates on their back. But the Stegosaurus song was too sweet for him, he was like, “That’s not him” and I was like “That’s him.” He was eating plants and shit and Cruz was kinda bummed, he was bummed out about it and I’m like this is a good song. So I threw it out there because I was like, I wonder if anyone else has that connection with their kid like I have. This is not a job, I literally made a homie and it’s crazy because he’s genetically engineered to be into what I’m into so I don’t wanna hang with nobody. I don’t want people to pull up, I don’t wanna pull up on nobody. There’s a dude who’s definitely into what I’m into and he’s not gonna steal anything, he don’t wanna ask to borrow anything yet, he’s not asking for car keys, he just wants dinosaurs and Hot Wheels so we got him. Stegosaurus walking through the forest, I’m about to pull that shit up right now. That shit was good. And what’s crazy is I was in the bed like, how I didn’t know that Stegosaurus and forest would rhyme like that? Like I should’ve been said that shit in a rap, like, “The trees like a stegosaurus in a forest.” People would’ve been like, “Oh shit this dude’s like the fucking RZA” if I said that.

I think you should get RZA to sample it for a beat and rap on it. [Laughs] I’m so glad you brought up Stegosaurus walking through the forest. This is a real thing right here. I hope the Stegosaurus conversation makes it to print.

People need to know about it, people need to check it. Put the link under our interview.

Has your son developed a strong love for music already? Yeah, we get up, listen to oldies.

He likes the soundtrack to the movie The Mack, he asks for it by name. He’s like, “Play The Mack, play The Mack,” so we play The Mack and we watch the movie. He’ll reenact the whole scene when The Mack becomes The Mack and the big homie’s giving him a cane and a cool outfit, he knows the music. Outside of that, we go outside and sit in the low riders and listen to old West Coast music all the time. Dude know what he doing, he’s the man, he know what he wants.

You say on the new project that you have almost 40 cars. Yeah 40 cars, I dunno, 38, 37, 39, maybe it is 40 at this point.

What was your first car? The first car I bought was a ’84 Monte Carlo SS. As I built my collection up, as the number rises and it seems so insane, I’m not talking about 40 Lamborghinis, you know what I’m saying? I really like old Chevrolets, they’re not hard to get but they’re hard to bring to the level that mine are. That’s just spending money over time and having love for it. I got two ’85 Monte Carlos, ’78 Camaro, ’90 Camaro, every Impala year ever, ’62, ’63, ’64, ’65, ’68, ’76, ’84, ’65 Bel Air, ’65 Cadillac, I got 80 zillion billion cars.

With the new ones, I got two Rolls Royces, two Bentleys, a Ferrari, I got three Corvettes, three ‘96 Super Sports. I don’t know, it gets a little hairy but it all comes from different times in my life when I was getting different levels of money.

The purchases was me realising that I broke that ceiling and I can be in that room now. That’s why I never sold nothing ’cause every time I was like, “Oh shit, those cars cost three hundred grand.

Could we get one of those and still be able to eat and shit?” And my management was like, “Yeah you’re living well.” So I’m like, “Oh shit I didn’t know, fucking yeah! Find me one of those so I can ship it to the house so I can have one of those.” So I just do it.

That’s how you started collecting? Hell yeah, well my love for the cars came from my Hot Wheels collection from being a baby. Being a kid and being in the store, my mother would buy me a Hot Wheel if I didn’t wind her off in the grocery store. Hot Wheels spark a fire in a lot of young men and then if you’re blessed enough to be able to graduate from monopoly money to the actual money then you get the actual cars.

Does your son have a favourite car of yours, what’s gonna be his first car? It’s probably gonna be the Corvette I got for my birthday this year because he has a Hot Wheel version of it and he says, “Papi’s car.” He goes outside and puts it next to the real car. So I’m like yeah that’s probably the first car he’s asking for. He’s the man, my mom just came to get him so we can get on the phone. If we talk more about him, I’m gonna go get him because I’m not the guy who’s like, “Watch my baby, I need to go do something, I need to hang with the homies.” My son is my homie so as soon as somebody take him from me to try and give me a break, I’m like, “No it’s cool.” I’m tryna come back to your house and look in your house to make sure he’s ok even though you’re telling me he’s alright. I don’t know, I’m obsessed with him.

You released collaborative projects with Thelonious Martin and Harry Fraud last year.

Which producer who you haven’t worked with, would you love to do a full album with? Hmmm, there are a few but honestly they exist in different realms than I do. Because if not, we would have

already done the music or made the friendships, extended to one another. Outside of Jermaine Dupri, there’s no one that I’m thinking of pulling up to work with. Through my career people have asked me that question a couple times and the way the universe works, I’ve been able to name that person and then find them or they find me.

Or without being asked that, the universe brings certain people into your life. I made a record, I called it ‘Jermaine Dupri’, Jermaine Dupri hit me and was like, “We need to link up, come out here and get some records.” The only reason I named it ‘Jermaine Dupri’ was ‘cause he had a Bentley back in the day, I was like, “Yo that’s my life, I need to have that shit.” And I have it, so I need to tip my hat to him. But now I’m gonna work with a Grammy, major award winning, historical legend producer in a few days, whenever I go out to Atlanta. Besides him, nobody else ‘cause fuck, Alchemist, Harry Fraud, Cool & Dre, these are people I’ve done whole projects with and I can just call them to get more. Cardo, DJ Fresh, so many big producers and what’s crazy is, even Alchemist, Alchemist would attribute some of his rise to me. Because he’s like, “Man, when we did ‘Covert Coup’, that made people know that I can do a whole album and then people started reaching out to do more of those.”

‘Covert Coup’ recently hit streaming services ten years after the release. Yeah I was missing out on some money! [Laughs]

“I’m sitting here like, ‘Huh, I don’t remember even saying that. But if you say I said that man, then cool” I saw you and Alchemist didn’t realise it wasn’t available for streaming. Yeah we were in San Francisco, we were about to start recording a different album and we were like, “People will say this is like ‘Covert Coup 2’.” Then I said, “Well shit, when did we put it out?” And he said, “10 years ago damn near to this day.” I’m like, “That’s fucking nuts, is it on iTunes?” He’s like, “I don’t know.” I’m like, “I don’t know, I don’t listen to myself.” Then we tried to pull it up, I’m like, “oh shit, it’s not.” That’s the only reason, we

88 /

didn’t know. It was no, us tryna keep it secret or clearance trouble, we just didn’t put it out there. ’Cause we did that for love, we didn’t really do that to get the bag.

I can’t believe a lot of people never heard those songs, newer fans don’t dig deeper than streaming platforms usually. Right and people are reacting to it like it just dropped and I’m sitting here like, ‘Huh, I don’t remember even saying that. But if you say I said that man, then cool’.

A lot of music from that era is still only on DatPiff. Years ago my mum was trying to find a song of yours on iTunes and I had to send her the DatPiff link. Yeah ’cause they wasn’t putting us through shit at DatPiff, motherfuckers were like, “Nah you got any clearance, we need to know that it’s ok for him to be on this record.” I’m like, “Nah, well just put it on DatPiff.” Because the people that listen to me, they’re gonna go wherever it’s at to hear it so I don’t give a fuck.

Are you a fan of the rap industry today, are glad you started out when you did rather than breaking into the scene today? I don’t know that my way… I’m not cutting holes in my pants or doing what it seems is needed to be the prerequisite for success nowadays.

I’m painfully normal and I think people lend themselves to things that appear larger than life. I’m no super human at these times because everybody’s themselves, you know what that says to the state of people. A lot of the new guys that came along that I fuck with have said that I made it possible for motherfuckers to be only themselves in music. But what I see right now, is that a lot of the kids are trading in their identity for the quick turnaround because they’re watching too many other kids in their age brackets make real money. I can’t hate on them for doing what they gotta do to get to it, so I don’t know. I think I would have been lost in the shuffle because I’m never one to participate in games and shit. I feel like that’s the ceiling I put on myself anyway, I’m doing pretty good but I know I could be making way more money and doing bigger things. What comes with that is me not being happy with myself, because I did some shit I didn’t wanna do, so if I had to make my bones in the industry right now, I don’t know if I would have 40 cars. I don’t think I would have got 40 cars out of that shit because I wouldn’t be able to do no sucker shit and just get the loot, you know.

I think that’s why you have such a cult fan base because of being who you are, I can’t see you doing TikTok dance challenges. Nooo my god

Tee: Ferino Visor Hoodie: Lostboys Channel

no and I get it, I understand it makes you more accessible, blah blah blah, but you know what?

Everyone who already knew of me would say what you just said, so I don’t give a fuck about the new people that would get from doing some shit like that. Because they’re not the ones who would ride with me, they only came because I’m doing what everybody else doing, so they’re not gonna go with me into the next phase of my life or when I do music differently or when I open up a different business and wash my hands. The people who fuck with me, they gon’ go with me to everything, they ordering model cars. Some people never was into that shit but they’re like, “Fuck it, I’ma try build me a little model race car. I don’t know, Spitta be doing that shit.” So they’re just doing it, learning shit so they gon’ move with me to whatever my ventures are.

But in that mainstream world, when you change your sound to garner those fake fans, they just sticking around for whoever gon’ do the next thing, whoever gon’ do the next wild shit so they not really for you.

“I was observing legends. I was around Master P and stuff so I was like, when I do get my shot, this is clearly the only way to go” You recently appeared in a video for Monogram, Jay Z’s Cannabis brand and told a funny story about Diddy following your weed scent and that’s how you first met. It’s fucking nuts! It’s nuts, alright so imagine me sitting in my backyard washing dogs and washing puppies and they’re like, “Yo it’s Jay Z and the Monogram company and they want you to get on a plane tonight or tomorrow and go walk through some of the weed.” You know I’m saying, the fuck?

“They wanna take pictures of you smoking weed bruh” [laughs hard] So I’m like, “Ok yeah” So you go and you’re at a house that Frank Sinatra built for John F. Kennedy to come hang out when they were trying to sway the votes and all this mafioso shit. They had this house built and that’s where John F. Kennedy was gonna stay. I only know this from a documentary, I

didn’t hear this story at the house, I know this from a doc, I don’t know if Jay Z knew this. This fucking house was for John F. Kennedy to come chill at and he turned it down. He was like, “Nah I don’t wanna come stay at this house because you guys are tied into the mob and whatever, whatever, you have to read history books for the rest. But yeah we’re at that house taking pictures of me smoking weed, I’m hanging out with people. There’s supermodels walking around smoking weed, I’m like, “Nah they must have thought they was calling someone else, are they sure that they want me to be here?” And then I hear “Spitta we need a little more energy, but you’re killing it” and I look up and it’s fucking Hype Williams! So I’m like, “How the fuck is Hype Williams calling me Spitta? This is my mans like that?!” So I’m like, “I guess I made it, it took a long time but me and Hype are boys and we’re working. Smoking weed because Jay Z wants me to tell him the weed was good.” Then two or three weeks later, there’s billboards in LA of me with my socks off in the pool smoking weed with supermodels and the homies are calling me like, “Yo bruh explain this!” Because the billboard doesn’t say anything about weed, it’s just like, “Why the fuck are you on this billboard dawg? And you don’t have on your shoes!” And I don’t play that shit, I’ve never had my feet out but I’m like, “Fuck dude, it’s Jay Z, it’s Hype Williams! Fuck it, I took my shoes and socks off and got in the pool, I don’t know what you want me to do.” So this shit’s on a billboard. I don’t know what you want me to tell you about that experience that I didn’t already say because I still don’t understand that it happened. When you say it, I’m like, “Yeah I did do that,” ’cause it sound like you’re talking about a different artist or some real rapper-rapper person but you’re talking about me. I did go do that, that is how I realised, I’m the homie, I got shit going on in my life though. I don’t realise it because my friends have been my friends since I was a little kid, they don’t give a shit about what I do. They’re not like, “Oh this is a hot spitta, Mr Jet Life.”

They’re like, “Yo dude Shante, do you wanna order a pizza? Do you want such and such?

Do you wanna take a ride?” They just fuck with me regular so I forget, but yeah shout out Hov, Monogram, we did that.

What more can be said? Ha ha, I nailed it!

90

Davido Words by Victor Davies Photos by Shamshawan Scott

The makings of Davido: Generational wealth, community and spreading the sounds of Nigerian music beyond the realms of Africa

Studio Assistant Cam Smith

Top: Raf Simons Trousers: Dior Shoes: MichalOfficiel

92 /

There’s so much to Davido that people simply don’t understand.

From a young age, Davido understood that coming from money into the music industry meant that whilst he could afford more studio time, he would have to graft 10 times harder than the next aspiring artist to earn the respect of his peers. Davido would have to work his way from the top of hill and meet the masses in their natural habitat; speak a language they understood, as it were. Because in the world of music, even money doesn’t guarantee success.

So, it’s important we get one thing clear.

The man you see bordering private jets, wilding out in the music videos and promoting commercial brands on Instagram, is Davido.

The loving father, social leader, philanthropist, the self-motivated hustler; well, that’s David Adeleke. And the man behind both these versions can alternate as effortlessly as one turns on a light switch.

David Adeleke aka Davido is a true artist, a pioneer of his era. The evolution of his craft and the longevity of a successful career spanning over 10 years, is ode to the talent, creativity and ability to cross continents and introduce territories to the infectious sound of new-age Afrobeats. To Davido it’s not just a job, it’s a responsibility.

He’s leading conversations in the fight against SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) in Lagos, Nigeria, rallying celebrities to show their support against corruption and brutality, promoting unsigned artists, spreading the sounds of Nigerian music far beyond the realms of Africa. What makes these contributions so noteworthy is the fact that none of Davido’s success to date has ever been dependent on these achievements. Much like his music, he’s in constant search of self-improvement and judges his success by what he’s able to give back. Not his Instagram likes.

When it’s all said and done, people will have to remember Davido for the way he made the lives of those around him better. It takes a certain level of patriotism, love and passion to do even half of what this 28-year-old man has been able to achieve so far, and by the sounds of it, Davido is just getting started. Soon enough, Davido will get back to what Davido does best, selling out shows, collaborating with the world’s most recognised artists and shutting shit down.

But you’d be at a massive loss to assume that was all Davido represented. Having studied

business administration at Oakwood University in Alabama at the age of 16, he explored outside of his home country at a young age. He tells VIPER about the journey so far.

So who is Davido? Record producer. Artist.

Father. Son. Brother. The last kid of five who grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. I grew up fast but it’s been a great journey. Not from a musical background either, you could say I’m a firstgeneration artist.

How does Davido the artist differ from David Adeleke, the son, the father and the man?

There is a small difference; the way I carry myself with my dad, for example. Likewise, when I’m with my kids because you always want to give them, your family, that level of respect and before I was Davido, I was David. But being an artist is not just a job, it’s a lifestyle too. Even when I have live shows, only my sister would generally come backstage because my family are aware that they are witnessing Davido, not David.

What are your earliest memories of music?

The parties at home, my mum loved entertaining and parties. Any small occasion was a call for celebration; Easter and graduations to birthdays and Boxing Day. There were always people, music and dancing in the compound.

This was probably when I first fell in love with music and entertainment, even though I didn’t consider being a musician at that time. Over the years, growing up watching my favourite entertainers on the TV was when I truly began to feel inspired to create. When I was about 13 or 14 was when I felt that music was something that I could do.

Everything is such a celebration in Nigeria!

That’s our culture! In Nigeria, when you live past a certain age, you should be celebrated.

My friend recently buried his mum and it was basically a carnival.

“Now suddenly everyone is checking Ancestry. com to see if they have African heritage”

96 /

Not quite like that in the UK. As the only child of five who lived in Nigeria, how did your experiences affect your journey through childhood? Quite a lot. I was heavily influenced

by Hip Hop; Ja Rule, DMX, Fabulous. At that time in Nigeria, what used to get us excited would be American artists performing in our country. Whereas today, they are so many kids who look up to and love artists from their own country. I think the first concert I went to was Fat Joe, but by the time I went to the States for college and came back, everyone had gone from being excited about Chris Brown to looking up to Nigerian artists who were beginning to create their own lane. I was always musically inclined in terms of the direction I wanted to follow, whether that would have been in African or America. Then I started listening to African music and began to study and fall in love with it.

I remember you once said “Ten years ago, it wasn’t cool to be African.” Now suddenly everyone is checking Ancestry.com to see if they have African heritage. Crazy.

How did the untimely death of your mum at 10 years old affect you? I was young so the experience affected me the same way it would affect a 10-year-old child. It wasn’t easy but sometimes I think to myself, ‘I’m 28 now. Imagine if I lost my mum today’. I would be devastated, but as a 10-year-old, there was a lot about the experience I didn’t fully understand. I wasn’t clear to me that I had lost someone I would need for the rest of my life and growing up it did begin to affect me. Any wahala [trouble], a boy runs to his mum. Which meant I handle a lot by myself, my dad was a businessman which meant he was busy and he was always a man’s man. So it was almost like meeting my dad for the first time all over again when I moved back to Lagos.

I went from a boy to a man as the only kid in the house and yes, we did initially have a rough relationship until I left for boarding school. That’s where I met a lot of my friends and became Davido. Funny enough, ‘Davido’ was a name given by my dad, unknowing that it would be the

“It wasn’t clear to me that I had lost someone I would need for the rest of my life and growing up it did begin to affect me.”

name I would be known by worldwide one day.

Every time I was in trouble with my dad, I was “David” but generally he would call me Davido.

As a self-made businessman who promised your mother you would finish school, how did your father take your decision to be an artist and when did he start believing in you? You already know how it goes! I think there were about 10 separate occasions where he accepted and began to believe in me [laughs]. There were times he would love what I was creating and he would show me support… few months later, “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO SCHOOL?” I literally just made a million dollars and you’re asking when I’m going to back to school? Initially it wasn’t even a question, school first and there was no option two but college at 16 was the first experience of freedom and independence.

I didn’t even really suggest my intention to do music, not bring it to his attention. It went something along the lines of, “Dad, I was thinking of transferring my credits to a Nigerian school,” knowing that it would be easier to navigate the world of music there, which is obviously refused to accept. Two months later, I dropped out and he found out and he made a big deal about it. I eventually went back to Nigeria and started to make the right moves around the time I dropped, ‘Dami Duro’, a song that even the president of Nigeria loved. It was at this point he really did show his support and built me the best studio money could buy in Lagos at that time and paid the costs of my early music videos. He did a lot for me, but he wanted me to also finish school.

Eventually I did, I would go school twice or

three times a week. At 17, I got my first £100k endorsement from MTM [one of Nigeria’s major mobile telecommunication companies] in 2011.

By this point, I had barely made £20k!

As you know, we take the birth of the first son seriously in Nigeria. What was the experience of having your first son like? It was critical, as you know I have two daughters already, one more girl would have been mad hectic! But what I didn’t comprehend was just how close boys were to their mother. Every time I leave the house, my daughters are so sad they cry, whereas with my son I guess I prefer that he is toughened up a bit. But I love them all so much. Not having my dad in my life would have meant I made a lot of mistakes. This showed me how important it is to be there for my son, understanding how to be the man of the house, how to treat women, how to look after your mum. It would also be the one that would look after the family say, God forbid, something happened to me.

The heir to the throne. Of course.

How has the lockdown been? I was on a 23 city tour after dropping my album, ‘A Good Time’. We had just done Vegas and LA and next stop was Toronto. At this time, I had assumed it was a virus similar to SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] until I got a call from the label saying due to restrictions, we wouldn’t be able to complete the tour.

Postponed, or cancelled? Postponed, thinking we’d be able to complete it two months later.

“This showed me how important it is to be there for my son — understanding how to be the man of the house, how to treat women, how to look after your mum.“ Luckily for me, my dad had just purchased a plane and made it abundantly clear that his intentions were to spend lockdown in Nigeria

98 /

and would pick up his children along the way. I was in Denver at the time and flew to the meet the rest of the family in Atlanta, before flying home on the jet. Lockdown in Nigeria was a bit better as I could still move around a bit, I heard it was crazy in London and there may be plans to lock down the country again?

Not after giving the city a taste of what freedom is. It’s the people who make London what it is.

That’s true. I love London, even though every time I’m always wondering just how cold and small it is. I have so many childhood memories of London, my mum loved the UK and would frequently travel there even before I blew up.

I’m about to be in London real soon!

We can’t wait! As one of the first artists during lockdown to show your support for the EndSars protests, do you think it’s important is for you to use your platform to make change?

There were several artists who received backlash for not showing their support…

Even as an artist who showed my support, I still got backlash. I guess you cannot please everyone. Everyone knows I have come for a more privileged background, so people were looking at me like, “you don’t even need to be on the streets. SARS or no SARS, you’re good.”

But at the end of the day, I am a Nigerian and I live here. I have artists and children who live here too. I understand that I have access to protection that others don’t. Weeks after, there were people dying for this cause, there are so many people who look up to us and we owe it to these people to represent for a cause that means so much to so many. The protests woke up the world and shook government officials to remind them that we put them in power, even though for the most part some of them put themselves there. It’s about accountability.

As we speak right now, the current situation in Nigeria is out of hand, so we can only pray for the best and the leaders of tomorrow will show the dignity and respect that our country deserves. Amen. By the way, if you want to pidgin my guy please don’t hesitate. I understand well, well [laughs]. Let’s stick to English for the others on the call too!

And what about other artists using their platform to make change? There’s always a need to be careful. When I got to Abuja, I wrote to various artists and other influential people urging them to support my letter to the Inspector General in my quest to evoke some change. I even suggested commissioning a plane to pick everyone up so that they could follow me to these discussions in person. But I got no response, so I took it upon myself to go out there regardless. The crowd were fired

Tracksuit: MichalOfficiel Top: Dior Shoes: MichalOfficiel Sunglasses: Anna Karin Karlsson

up to see me and there were people ready to fight government officials in the streets, which I warned against. For the days where I did show my physical support, civilians may have

“We can only pray for the best and the leaders of tomorrow will show the dignity and respect that our country deserves.” been safe but I wouldn’t be there every day.

Some of the backlash I received emphasised I didn’t address the issue well and that I was the right person to lead such conversations. To be honest, whilst I have the power to bring people together, I am not a politician. Even the world’s best presidents are criticised so you’re not going to please everyone unfortunately. But it’s always important to speak up, there are people in certain countries going though far worse and whose issues are not documented. At least in places like Nigeria, people are clued up to know what a VPN is and use that to navigate around the recent Twitter ban. I’ve toured in African countries where the governments have too much control over the people. At one point, every African country I attend would require me to sit and have dinner with their respective presidents. I’ve been to countries where everything is so perfect, too perfect in fact! Champagne, caviar, money, they would literally pull out the works. I would wonder to myself, “Where are the real fans?” because I was performing for government officials and people dressed in £10,000 dollar suits! After I left this country, I flew to New York for my interview on Hot 97 where I was approached by about 30 refugees holding up images of the president I had just met, chanting and expressing their disfavour for the current situation in their country. This encouraged me to read up further and educate myself on what was going on there. It was crazy to find out what had really been going on there!

But who decides who should lead? Exactly.

Change, no matter how small, has to come from somewhere and start with somebody.

That fact that you’ve come from money to me says you do this music because you love it.

But more importantly, because you’re great at it. Do you think that your upbringing helped or

100 /

hindered your journey as an artist? It takes A LOT for my dad to say, “Go and do what you want to do.” As a man of high standards, to him, I had to be good good. There are many who love my music but do note that, “he doesn’t have that grass to grace” story. But to those I say, sit down and count the amount of people I have helped from grass to grace. I didn’t blow up and leave my friends, every one of my friends are rich. It doesn’t really make sense because everybody is from somewhere and each have their story to tell. With or without the money, I would have made it. Somebody would have noticed my talent or invested in one of my ideas; I hustle. But yes, it was really hard for me, it took years to prove the haters wrong. Even today that still happens, but over time people began to recognise me for my talent. When it’s time to rock the shows, the people know what’s up.

Without blowing your head, I see many resemblances to Drake, a man known for his talent but often never shown the true respect he deserves as an artist. A legacy that will live on far beyond his career as people begin to understand and commend his experiences and achievements. I appreciate that and that’s why I like discussing this topic during such conversations. Ask any true artist in the world and they will tell you that what will always speak for you is your work and your art. No matter how many chains you buy or bottles you pop, no matter how many awards you earn or how much money you make, this will always be a factor.

I’ve had major corporations owe me money and delay in payments because “he has money” even though I’m busting my ass grinding as much as the next man over the same 24 hour period. That’s not okay because music is my job, it’s my craft but it’s something I have always been prepared to live with. That’s why we go 10 times harder and keep building towards that legacy.

What do you feel like you still have left to prove? I have nothing to prove but they will eventually have to do the right thing and give me the props and respect I deserve. At the end of the day, we live in a society where people are going through so much, my brother. I have also grown so much, two years ago I would have approached a lack of respect via a twitter rant or make my feelings public. I have three beautiful kids and I’m going to be 30 in years, I’ve been here a long time and I will get my props.

How have you applied this maturity to your craft? I don’t think my personality has changed me as an artist. One of the best characteristics one can have is knowing when you’re an artist and recognising the times to be you. You all see the dumb shit on social media, but you’re not in the studio witnessing the hard graft. I have always been that person to never allow outside pressures or experiences affect the work I

102 /

create. Business-wise, it has helped quite a lot.

As we can all witness, African music has become a billion dollar industry and I love to learn. I may be the baddest, but would never call myself the best and there’s always room to learn. Being in the game for as long as I have, I’m always willing to learn more.

“Do what you love and be true to yourself — that’s the most important thing.”

Speaking of which, in 2017 you re-negotiated your contract with Sony due to creative control issues. How important is creative control for you as an artist? It’s the most important thing. It wasn’t just down to creative control, they simply didn’t understand what they were getting themselves into. About two years later when the popularity of African music became worldwide they began to, but initially it was just a genre to them and they signed me as an artist because I had a following.

What was your favourite track to date and why? I honestly couldn’t pick one, ‘Dami Duro’ however will always have a close place in my heart as the song that elevated my star.

No one collaborates with international artists the way you do. How important has it been for you to take the music create beyond the borders of Africa? I think now it’s more of a responsibility. Sometimes I just want to drop something and I’m hearing, “get so and so on the track, collab with this US artist.” But I didn’t get here by features, once you do something crazy with an artist, they expect the same but my music doesn’t have rules. It’s not all about US collaborations, the music we are hearing on the radio is from local artists from Nigeria.

Once in a while, we might catch a feature with [international artists] but if you hear me collaborating with an artist, believe we were both in the studio co-creating music as artists.

I feel like that’s the mindset we need to have today, it’s a more level playing field.

What is one thing you’d like people to acknowledge about you that they don’t already? I don’t know. I think they know by now

my strengths as an artist.

Is it something you even care about? The music and the lifestyle is nice, but I’m trying to inspire others too. I have other ventures such as the record label [Davido founded the record label Davido Music Worldwide (DMW) in 2016 that houses artists such as Mayorkun, Peruzzi and Liya], and I try to make everything family-orientated. It’s about giving back to my community and other aspiring artists.

I’ve said this many times; we rise by uplifting others. It’s nice to be rich and comfortable, I’d be lying if I said I was happy with my life as Davido, but the most important thing is helping those around me to achieve the same. One day, there will be a new Davido, Wizkid, Olamide, Tiwa Savage… there’s going to be new version of you talking to whoever is in my position discussing their music and achievements. Knowing that in 20, maybe 30 years, my music lives on and I’m still successful is what matters, the same way Jay Z for example, is still relevant and creating generational wealth.

What does the future hold for Davido? I will be in London real soon [Davido is the headline act for one of the most-anticipated festivals of the capital in 2021, YAM festival on 28th August].

If not for COVID, I was meant to do the O2 last year, but I will be there in August and hopefully come back for the sold-out O2 arena show soon after. We have another project on the way which should be completed by August by the grace of God and some fresh releases by the end of the year. With everything back open, it’s time to give the people the real shit. I have movies coming out, we just did Coming to America 2 and I’m going to take some acting classes.

Anything for Nollywood? Nah. All Hollywood but Nollywood are doing some crazy stuff right now! Anything can happen, so I won’t say too much on it. It’s hard to predict the future given recent times, my primary focus is to just release music and keep doing what we are doing and get some shows done.

Any last words? For every young person out there, don’t be too hard on yourself because of what you see on social media. What you see is a result of 10 years of hard graft, none of this happened overnight. Do what you love and be truth to yourself, that’s the most important thing. And be true to your culture. I sincerely hope the world will become a better place.

Amen.

34

Ms Banks Words by Victor Davies Photos by Eddie Cheaba

Creative Direction/Photos Eddie Cheaba Reotouch René Connage-Durant Videographer Bruno Miles Light Gaffer Wilbert Lati Wardrobe Director Kashmir Stylist Theydia Bitemo Stylist Assistant Nadya Maki Hair Stylist Isongbeautyuk Hair Brand Luxeal London Nail Technician Jessica Thompson Esthetician Mercedez Jay Make up artist Tahiyah Ali Thanks To Satellite414

Dress & Earrings: Nathan Micallef

Her energy is as infectious as her sound. Fresh from dominating London’s music and fashion scenes, Ms Banks talks to VIPER about her pride in her African heritage and the evolution of women in the UK rap scene.

Unapologetically outspoken and fearlessly driven, Ms Banks has cultivated a steady following of rap loyalists who swear by her every bar. And for good reason. She began her musical journey at the age of 11, releasing her first mixtape, ‘Once Upon a Grind’. Since then, Ms Banks has grown from strength to strength, further paving the way for aspiring artists and young women in the UK who wholly resonate with the experiences that have moulded the bold artist we see today.

I had the pleasure of sitting down (albeit virtually) with Ms Banks to discuss heritage, the evolution of UK female rap and what it meant to tour with the one and only, Cardi B. As far as first impressions go, I couldn’t help but imagine the sheer amount of energy she brought to any room entered. Especially with her introduction: “Ms Banks is an African rapper from South London, bad bitch, entrepreneur, lover, a fighter. Oh, and yes, a sick rapper.” There was a notable level of realness in her delivery and approach. An ode to her success, there was no care for the way she answered how best to describe herself.

There was also something rather stoic about her confidence. The natural flow of the conversation wasn’t simply due to my own personal experiences of growing up on the South East side of the city, but rather having the opportunity to speak with someone who was not only confident, but proud to share her story through her own lens. Nothing was off limits for someone who had a sincere appreciation for every moment, influence and memory that had guided her along to the looming doors of the UK music industry.

Her Nigerian-Ugandan heritage was a massive part of her influence, “both my parents are very patriotic, so I’d say 50/50. I got a lot of my mannerisms from my Ugandan side, but when it comes to my musical influence, I’d say that comes from my Nigerian side,” she continued.

“Nigeria, being the African giant that it is, my mum has always encouraged me to portray my Ugandan side too.”

With a noticeable element of patriotism that exuded from her, it made asking the following question all the more interesting, providing a nice segue into what makes Ms Banks,

Ms Banks. I find out as I ask, “What is Black excellence to you?”

She responds, “That’s actually a mad question.

Black excellence is emotional intelligence, wordplay, natural rhythm, flow, infectious vibes.

It’s not intangible, we just naturally have it. We just kill it… naturally. Black music is the beginning and the end of all musical genres. Jazz, Hip Hop, R&B, Reggae, even Pop originates from black music. Our ancestors have been making music from the beginning of time, from the cotton fields to today. We are THAT. We are dem’. We are the culture.”

As with many children growing up in South London, it would be remiss not to mention the sometimes dark but often eventful experiences of growing up on the block. Other than the pleasures of enjoying renowned establishments like after-hours food spot Bagel King, it was the community and friendships that really helped shape the development of Ms Banks.

She explains, “The friendships. I wouldn’t trade growing up here for the world. There are so many different characters, different backgrounds.

Growing up on the block, we had so much fun.

Summer in the ends was littttt.”

“Black excellence is emotional intelligence, wordplay, natural rhythm, flow, infectious vibes. It’s not intangible, we just naturally have it. We just kill it… naturally.”

The world was the block — only occasionally do you venture out, and every resource you needed to learn and grow was on your doorstep. A sentiment most Londoners could easily resonate with, it was no different for a young Thyra. “Growing up in that atmosphere made me toughen up and grow up a lot quicker.

VIPERMAG.COM

•

107

heavily male-dominated rap industry. Whilst she has gone on to relative success in television, her chart success was because of her role as the leading lady of So Solid Crew, and not necessarily her solo career.

And whilst the careers of Estelle and Ms Dynamite helped lay the right foundation for what was to come, Ms Banks, no stranger to flipping the script, took the opportunity to exert her own influence which would soon be recognised as the new era of UK female Rap. As she explains, “I came up in an era where women were more boisterous, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the likes of Steff London and I changed the narrative. We kept it hood but made it sexier. And a lot of us are sick and I’m proud to be part of that history”

It made me more street-wise and allowed me to understand better where I stood with people and stay loyal to the people I should be loyal to,” she added.

No stranger to hood politics, it was as necessary as it was inevitable that Ms Banks would adopt a similar approach as she created her own lane in the male-dominated UK music industry: “I took that competitive nature with me; it was like a sport, outdoing my peers and aiming for their necks… But that’s very much the southLondon mentality. I was on smoke even though nowadays I’m way more versatile.”

And versatile she needed to be. Some artists create a cult following of musical loyalists based on one synonymous sound that they become known for throughout their career. In a desperate attempt to remain relevant, others change like the British weather.

But blessed are the artists who evolve and grow through their music, for they are the true pioneers. Before the likes of Steff London and Ms Banks, the UK industry has long yearned for female artists that would stand up and represent the new renaissance period for female UK Rap. The fusion of sexy and rap in the UK had never really been explored before. The likes of Lisa Maffia were left to fend for themselves in a

“We all strive to be authentic, which can be hard sometimes when you have so many on the Internet judging you, telling you who you should be.”

This “you win, we all win” mentality is not something that has always existed. If anything, it is very much a reflection of where the female UK Rap industry finds itself today. And boy, hasn’t it taken a while for the industry to get up to speed with the rest of the era.

“I would often hear, ‘look at you, do you really live that life?’,” she reflected. “Yes, I really did…

I just enjoy looking sexy and feminine doing it.”

As music has evolved, so have the values that have been attached to the artists that represent that specific era. “We don’t need to look like the mandem that have a certain story,” she remarks.

What seemed like a painful obvious statement upon reflection began to resonate with me as something that somehow still needed to be said, almost as a way of reinforcing the palpable.

There’s few platforms more powerful to promote female women’s sense of self-worth like music.

As someone who takes great pride in the topic, Ms Banks has embraced the responsibility of doing exactly that by inspiring like-minded females through her work. “I just want to make it easier for them. I want them to know that they

Hooded Body Suit: Elin Meijer Corset: Monzino

Denim Halter-neck Top & Jeans: Revival Gloves & Jewellery: Stylist’s Own

are not alone… With every move, I want to open the door just a little bit more.”

personal experiences in their music. To a certain degree, who’s keeping tabs?

‘As black women, it often seems like there’s only enough room for one of us at a time, which I don’t think is true,” she continued. “We are all slaying in our own ways.” These words rang true. That’s what she represents, that’s the beauty of her art — it is the unapologetic truth.

Even political correctness and cancel culture cannot protect the authenticity of music. It’s probably why it was even more refreshing to hear in her own words the creative process behind ‘The Coldest Winter’ series, her two-part album released in 2018 and 2019 respectively: “I actually made the first mixtape in the winter, hence the inspiration for the project, alongside with the book by Sister Souljah called, The Coldest Winter Ever. I read the book when I was younger and even used the same font she used for the mixtape cover. Part two was an extension of the first project with similar messaging. At the time, I was going through some things that made it a cold winter.”

Ms Banks is the one who says what everyone in the room is thinking. It’s easy to see how this sort

“Don’t ever let anyone break you down. Keep that child-like energy and confidence before you go out into the world and hear other people’s opinions.” of persona could have earned as many stripes in the streets as it did detentions at school. But it’s always what makes Thyra Oji, Ms Banks.

Not many people meet their idols, let alone tour with them. But not everyone is Ms Banks, so naturally Cardi B came calling when she hit the UK. Banks found the experience inspiring “Cardi B is who she says she is, which is amazing. We all strive to be authentic, which can be hard sometimes when you have so many on the Internet judging you, telling you who you should be.”

It’s clear that she’s taken a lot of inspiration from her idol too. “She’s changing the game. I’ve never seen a female rapper at the height of her career have two kids. Two! Usually as women we are told, ‘don’t have children at your peak’.

After baby number one, she had a number one album. Now she’s doing it again. Men don’t have to choose, so why should women?

We grow through what we go through, whether that’s the good, the bad or the ugly. In the quest for Instagram likes and Spotify listens, artists today are less compelled to address genuine

She adds, “My favourite tracks have been those heavily influenced by Afrobeats or Afro Swing.

One of my favourite early tracks was a track called, ‘Day Ones’. And of course, ‘Snack’, but not because of its popularity as my biggest track; those tracks really represent me as a person — people who really know me know that I love to hype my girls up.”

Her desire to inspire was something instilled in her from a young age, “Possibly because my mum and dad always hyped me up growing up, making me feel like the most beautiful, talented girl in the world. They would have me performing in front of family and friends at every gathering, giving me the validation I needed as a young girl. On those tracks, I could showcase my versatility as an artist, but also make women feel like the bad bitches that they are. They represent the artist and person I have become since I first entered the industry.” “Growth” I stated. “Exactly,” she replied.

As our conversation neared its end, I was curious to understand how someone who had flourished under the pressures of growing up in South London trying to break through a maledominated rap industry would reflect on their achievements. In truth, I probably knew what her answer would be, but that didn’t compel me any less to hear her reaffirm her infectious confidence, one last time. I asked, if you could talk to a 13-year-old Thyra, what advice would you offer her? She answered, “Don’t ever let anyone break you down. Keep that child-like energy and confidence when you go out into the world and hear other people’s opinions. Stay true to yourself. Keep being the leader that you are. Keep setting trends even when people don’t catch on. And listen to yourself — no one knows what’s best for you more than anyone else.”

Wise words.

Meeks & Frost

Responsible for some of the most iconic music videos in London’s new school rap scene, brothers Meeks and Frosty explain how they began directing videos and their plans for the future.

114 /

Words + Photos Joseph Clarke

114

Tell us, who and what are Meeks + Frost? Frost:

We’re directors from London, We do music videos at the moment. We are creative directors in general, we’re going to be doing short films, adverts, documentaries.

Anything creative, anything moving image.

Meeks: We’re definitely visual artists, storytellers, we just like to capture my passion for music. Being able to capture visual elements in combination with the audio. I feel like people nowadays need the whole package, you need the visual output to go with it to round it off.

What was your first video together? Frost:

‘Dem A Lie’ by Pa Salieu, he was freshly signed to Warner. We did his first video when he was signed and that was our first video as well. It was an interesting experience, we’d only been in the game for like a year and a half officially.

Meeks: I feel like it was more of a pilot for us, it was our first involvement in music videos. We shot a lot of that video

Do you see differences in your first video compared to your recent videos? Meeks:

‘Dem A Lie’ was about a year and a half ago, for me I see similarities but I think everything has expanded with the way we used to write our treatments. With the way we used to collaborate with our ideas, it’s almost like realising what you’re capable of, what you’re doing. You almost start off, maybe we can replicate something like that or produce something like that. As you start to build your portfolio and work on more things, you’re like, “oh I didn’t know we could do that one.” With us, I

“Being a black boy from South London growing up in Peckham, you don’t hear about directing.” ourselves, went up to Coventry, run and gun kind of thing and we learnt a lot. But I’d always call ‘Frontline’ by Pa Salieu our first video, it’s definitely the first one we knew what we were doing; it was like okay cool let’s make this happen.

Frost: ‘Frontline’, we actually put a lot of effort into getting that creatively. ‘Dem A Lie’ was kind of feeling out whether the music game was for us.

What impact did ‘Frontline’ have on your work?

Frost: ‘Frontline’ defo put us on the map.

Meeks: We are very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with such a talented artist so early on, because we were still building our skill set and I feel in some ways he was still building his sound. You’ve got two people who are both passionate about building something and it just seemed to work.

Frost: Big up Pa man.

don’t know if you can really see a vid and think this is their specific style. I think we are still creating our style and you’ll see by the next few videos we are dropping; all of them have themes and all of them are very different. We are still finding our style and equally it’s a never ending thing. When being creative there shouldn’t be any limits.

We’re always trying to look for a theme or style that’s a bit out there.

Frost: We’re always trying to take inspiration from so many different things; from so many other directors, from music, from art.

It may even be things that are not creative, there’s so many things to take inspiration from and put that into your own videos. You basically build your own world. I wouldn’t say we have a style yet, we are defo in our creative stage, still trying to feel it out.

Is there anything in particular that helps draw up your ideas for videos? Frost: It’s not even

films for me. I’m on my Playstation all the time. I’m always playing games, playing video games with the mandem. My mum hates it. In my treatments you will see video game references, there’s one in a video we have coming out that has Saints Row in there. I’d even get into that type of world creating games and writing games.

There’s so many different worlds and so many different themes.

Meeks: There’s no limit. You can pick up a newspaper, you can pick up a magazine, people use Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube and other vids for references. It’s where you want to look, it’s what you take from something, I could go outside right now and have a conversation with someone and have a whole concept. It’s everywhere if you’re hungry for it.

What advice would you give to someone that wants to get into music directing? Meeks: The

word perseverance is key, if you can’t take the L, don’t bother. You have to believe in your ideas and believe even though you’re getting knocked back at times, something has to come of it. One of our directors we collaborated with recently was saying he had to write on hella things before his first video. With us we didn’t write on a ton of stuff, we had a bit of good fortune in terms of how we developed. But you’ve got to persevere, you’ve got to be hungry for it and it has to be a passion, otherwise I feel like there will be no longevity in it.

Frost: We were kind of lucky, we stumbled upon fortune but we proved that it wasn’t just luck; we got the ability to produce.

There’s advice I’d give to people, being a black boy from South London growing up in Peckham, you don’t hear about directing.

The mandem don’t know what I do, they know what I do but they don’t know everything. The awareness of directing is not really there within this industry. The advice I’d give is just be open, work hard, learn how to take losses, take more losses than wins but turn those L’s into W’s; two L’s make a W. Expand your mind as well, you’ve got to be open to the expansion of your mind.

Are you looking to expand into different music genres? Meeks: We both listen to

everything.

116 /

Frost: Even some Anime soundtracks, man don’t know about Attack on Titan’s soundtrack.

Meeks: One thing I’ll say about my brother, he loves soundtracks.

Frost: I’ll listen to Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Tron, I’ll listen to any soundtrack that bangs. If I hear it after a film I will search it and put it on my Spotify.

Meeks: There’s no bias, in terms of other music what we’re doing is urban British at the moment but I’d do a classical piece.

Frost: Hans Zimmer call me! Call me man, I beg.

Meeks: There’s enough genres, they all need a creative visual. There’s no boundaries to it.

If you had to choose one Meeks and Frost video that best represents you both, what would you choose? Frost: ‘Hit The Block is

good, it’s a very good video, one of our best videos. But to represent us? I would say I don’t think there’s even a video to represent us you know, we’ve got a lot of good videos out.

Meeks: But we both love ‘B***K’ fam, the representation in it.

Frost: We’ve got a lot of underrated videos that need their props for the artist obviously. If you know, you know. It’s for the real ones, because I know it might not get a million or ten million views but the real ones have seen that, the ones that matter have seen that. I know that’s a fact you know what I mean. I’d probably say ‘B***K’ just the technicality of it.

Meeks: The technicality of it and the story, the character representation.

Frost: It means a lot to the culture and to society.

Meeks: The timing of that, like you said we are two black boys from South, from Peckham. We had a mad year everyone knows what 2020 was saying. That was probably the most proud moment of a visual that has a deeper meaning to it, I’d like to put that forward as something that represents us.

Frost: Big up Pa Salieu on that man! Banger.

What do you do to make artists feel comfortable on set and to get the most out of them on camera? Frost: More time they’re

just my age, they’ve grown up how I grew

up. I can just talk to them like one of the mandem, some of them I do actually know.

It helps to form a relationship out of the music however possible.

Meeks: In the future, I’m pushing for a situation where there’s a bit more transparency between how you develop an idea. There’s this thing and maybe it’s an industry thing but there’s this protective nature of like you have an artist and sometimes the connection you have with the artist and director is a bit hearsay. Kind of Chinese whispers when you’re speaking to someone and they’re feeding it to artists.

Me personally, people that I want to work with in future, I wanna have that personal relationship. It’s a phone call like, “Cool, we’ve been watching some videos, got some ideas. Like bro do you like this kind of thing?” It just makes the process kind of easier, rather than going through other people. That transparency is something we’re looking for a bit more in the future.

Frost: All it takes is one phone call to clear something up: I don’t need to chat to this person, to chat to this person, to chat to this person. Plus it may be the wrong information or they may interpret it wrong.

At the end of the day, it’s their music, it’s their video, it’s a collaboration. The structure is a bit weird, something we need to work toward is a change in transparency, a change in structure.

What is your favourite music video?

Meeks: Do you know mine?

Frost: Do I know yours?

Meeks: I’ve got two favourite music vids.

Frost: This guy watches music vids everyday, everyday. He’s asking me, I don’t know!

Meeks: My favourite is Janet Jackson’s ‘Got Til It’s Gone’. Pree that, the style is mad and Michael Jackson’s ‘You Rock My World’.

Frost: Those are dangerous videos, people need to understand how legendary Michael Jackson is! It’s not a joke ting.

Meeks: That ‘You Rock My World’ video is... just watch the edit, the storyline. It encapsulated the kind of vids I want to do eventually. There’s a storyline, the music’s cold, it all just comes together.

Frost: I have no favourite music video bro, I’ll be serious. There’s so many different types of videos out there. Right now

you’re seeing a lot of Visual FX, we’re more practical type of guys. Like Busta Rhymes he was doing the maddest stuff, practically as well, not a lot of VFX. My favourite film has to be the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it’s different sauce man. It’s always a trilogy for me, I’d say the Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan, those trilogies are my top two.

Meeks: Mine are classics, like Gladiator is cold, Troy, I just like war films.

Is there any particular artist you would both like to work with? Meeks: Isaiah Rashad,

TDE. I just fuck with his music heavily. I’ve always wanted to work with him one way or another, so if I could develop some kind of concept for him. Anyone on TDE, Kendrick, Jay Rock.

Frost: In the UK it would defo be Nines, even though I’ve met him, I’d defo do a vid before he leaves this game, he’s not staying for too long. Hopefully I get to do something with him. I’d say Kendrick as well, his whole art form is so open to all these different type of concepts. That’s the thing when you’re an artist, you need to be open to these concepts. If you put yourself in this box you don’t expand and it’s a bit boring, a bit dry. Even though that may be your type of image you still need to venture out of it, so I’d say Kendrick.