"There’s messages in music, wrong and right. And sometimes it’s the same artist that gives you both." Sitting in a Shoreditch pub, East London rapper and grime mainstay Ghetts is talking about his religious upbringing, and whether that might have been at odds with his interest in the warring world of US gangsta rap.
"My mum was young," he explains, "And she had the understanding of, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ You’re listening to a variety of an artist’s emotions – so you should able to distinguish for yourself what’s right and what’s wrong"
Ghetts has just released Ghetto Gospel: The New Testament, the mesmerising follow-up with his 2014 tape, Ghetto Gospel, but we’re here to talk about 13 albums that he counts among his all-time favourites. They’re records that delve into the depths of UK underground rap alongside the big players of Golden Age hip-hop. This all makes sense when considering his own output – however, the things he enjoys about, say, Michael Jackson, are perhaps not so evident in Ghetts’ body of work.
He laughs when queried on this: "I understand the difference between being influenced by somebody and copying somebody – you can strive to be as great as somebody was without sounding anything like them."
Ghetts’ new album Ghetto Gospel – The New Testament is out now. Click the picture below to begin reading through his 13 album selections
