4. RoacheeRoach Material Vol 1
The beats on this are really good. You’ve got Dirty Danger on there as well and a few other guys. Grime wasn’t being lorded at this time, it wasn’t glamorous, it wasn’t in vogue and that’s what I like. You can feel that in these recordings. Today’s stuff is still good. I bought Giggs’ album the other day, Landlord, that’s really good.
I was going to buy Stormzy’s but after last night at the Brits, I don’t know now! I can’t believe he went on stage with Ed Sheeran. Call me closed minded but I just thought, mate, what are you doing? He’s got a really good flow but he needs to live a bit more for those words to ring true. Even with Skepta’s early work you can hear he’s hungry for it.
Is grime an influence or just something that is going on at the same time as you are doing what you are doing?
It’s an influence. It’s taken rap and made it its own over here. Most of the stuff that I listen to I’m quite influenced by in some way. There’s all this talk on Twitter that grime is over because of what happened last night. What are they talking about? Fuck off mate, you don’t even listen to it.
I have seen Stormzy a couple of times, he has shared dressing rooms just across from me, but I’m really shy. I saw him at the Sky Arts Awards when I was outside having a cigarette. I was pissed out me head and he said, "Alright," and I wanted to go over there and say hi but I couldn’t do it, I daren’t. He’s really good, you know, what would I say? I’d be a bit of a fanboy. I don’t talk to anyone if I go to these festivals, I keep myself to myself.
There are a couple of people I got to know a little bit but generally I keep quite separate. I feel a bit out of place. I’ve got this idea that we’re just two old fuckers, because we get a lot of grief about being older. There’s a lot of agism – "daft old twats" – you know what I mean? It got to me after a while. You feel yourself justifying yourself online. So I don’t know if that’s got something to do with it a little bit.
