The sound of the north is taking over. After years of supporting the scene when the key players in London had fallen off the UK sound, the dedication is now paying off with some of the top artists in the game hailing from the north of the country.
Out of these MCs, the name Kamakaze has been spreading quickly. Bursting into our eye-line with some crazy freestyles across some of the biggest platforms, as well as some stand-out mixtapes, he’s steadily growing to be known as one of the most talented of the new era. We sat down with the Leicester born artist to find out more about his path.
How did the journey into music start for you?
K: “I started writing bars at around 11, mainly because one of my friends from primary had a cousin in the secondary school that we were all going to who was in a crew. At the time they were all doing eight bar rallys and we had them on our phones.
“You’d go onto LimeWire and searched for grime instrumentals. Then we used to go to the park and play one instrumental on a phone then record it in one take on another phone. If you messed it up you started the whole thing again.
“Even at that age, I had a wide vocabulary, I was just always good at English. Everyone’s bars were more basic, I was using longer words which sounded more complex even though they might not have been. At the time that’s what set me apart.
“Everyone was experimenting with it, everybody spat, everybody had eight bars. After that, little crews formed, I think the first one was called TBS, which I made out of my friends who spat when we were in year 10 or 11.
“Later, my best friend, his brother had a mate called Kwame, who I met by chance at Leicester carnival. He went to a different secondary school to me, and also spat, but that was different more hip-hop stuff. From there we started our own hip-hop collective called BLG which I still rep today. We made one EP which was banging, called BLGenuis.”
Why hip-hop over grime at that stage?
K:”I’ve always been a person who listens to lyrics, so there was always a side of grime that wasn’t really fulfilling that, not even on a disrespectful one. I was listening to a lot of different stuff, a lot of American rappers the more conscious ones, but still spitting grime on the side.”
Initially, you’ve gained a lot of notoriety across various platforms with your freestyles, what was your first experience with these?
K: “I was probably 18 when I did the first one. Then about three years later, the Road Rage freestyle blew on JDZ Media and it just escalated from there.
“When the Grime Show on Rinse happened, that was surreal. My friend went to school with the producer of the show and someone had dropped out so they shouted me. I’m not even sure if Spyro would have heard of me before that, or he might have watched that one JDZ freestyle. They were like ‘yo just come down it’s on Sunday’, this was Monday and I was thinking ‘yo I’ve got bars, but I haven’t got that’. Then my boy said to me, man you can do this and he picked me up and we drove to London. We went down there and I remember thinking ‘just catch the first drop’ and I did. 15 minutes later, even Spyro himself was surprised.”
Compared to London, what is the scene saying in Leicester?
“The weird thing about it is that you don’t get chances to do sets in Leicester. The main radio station is BBC Radio Leicester but they don’t have an urban show. There is DemonFM, which is the student radio, but in terms of there being a culture around it and people locking in every weekend, it doesn’t happen.
“There’s a bass music event in Leicester called Beastwang, they’ve had Flava D and Skepsis play, they even booked Stormzy before he ‘d blown majorly. The most recent one with London names they did was with Spyro, Killa P, and Capo Lee. Initally they started doing events in a venue that’s a bit like The Alibi in London, a basement space. They did a grime show there, I think it was an after party for something, and it just went off. That was the first time I thought ‘rah, there’s a scene in Leicester’. It continued to grow from doing that. They book warehouses now and they had their own stage at Bassfest in Manchester, also at Forbidden Forest Festival.
“I think it’s good to see, as far as I’m concerned the blinkards people have had on means people have missed a lot of talent.
“It just takes one or two people to be accepting. Obviously, in the past, the focus was on London because the whole team is in London but there are MCs from London who were big ten years ago who some man in Leicester might not have heard of. You couldn’t get Rinse FM there then. You would just see what was on Channel U and you’d download stuff from Limewire.
“It’s building all the time. Look at people like Mist, who’s not even a grime MC. Whenever he drops a project people listen and then they’re going to look at people around him, people like Jaykae. The person who I think will be the best is Dapz On The Map, he’s got his own sound, he’s got his own thing. Then look at Manchester, they’ve got Geko, Bugzy Malone and now IAMDDB. They all have their own scene.”
The industry can be a mad place, who do you turn to for advice?
K: “I’ll chat to my bredrins, not a lot of them make music anymore, so they are neutral. They’ll just tell me the truth. Or my dad, he doesn’t know about the industry, but he’ll always tell me the truth.
“There’s also a guy called A-Bomb, he’s got a legendary status in the area. He’s always recorded me, ever since I was 13. If I ask him for advice its usually on local matters. He’s got a wider perspective on things because I’m not in Leicester all the time now. I’m probably there five days a month if that”
Obviously the fact you play professional football, as well making music, is a talking point for some people. What advice would you have for anyone else involved in two separate disciplines?
K: “People think I can’t do both just because no one else has done it. Why do you need to pick? If you utilise your time there are no limits. Ill schedule shit, I write 90 percent of my bars when I’m driving. What I’ll do is put a playlist on my phone, put my headphones in and then sit there and freestyle to myself. I’ll press record on my phone on the handsfree then two hours later I might have a song. It’s all about making the most of your time.”
Your mixtapes, Wavy Shirt Wednesday and Cold Side Of The Pillow seem more hip-hop influenced but at the same time you’re on tracks where you spit over the coldest grime beat, do you have a preference?
K: “I’ve always said to myself I’m going to make what I’m going to make. If I hear something I like, if its 90 bpm, 140 bpm or 160, it doesn’t matter as long as I like what I’m doing.
“At the end of the day it’s a reflection of me, and I appreciate that you might want to hear a certain something, but I’m always going to have that certain something, you might just have to wait. I do appreciate that a lot of my fans have come to enjoy and accept both sides. Certain people who listen to my music are like ‘oh shit I didn’t know you could do that sound, do more of that.’
“When I did Fire in the Booth I made sure I used a hip-hop beat because people weren’t expecting it. People are like ‘rah we need more of that’ or ‘when are we going to hear more of that’ and it’s like, ‘when I’m ready’. I just want to do both genres for as long as possible.”
I’ve noticed you re-tweeting a lot of fans claiming that you’re the most underrated in the game, why do you think this is?
K: “I don’t personally think I’m underrated. I just haven’t had the exposure that someone with my ability deserves. That’s nothing to do with me, but that’s what I think people mean by that. It’s using underrated taken as unexposed but you’re exposure and your ability don’t go hand in hand.”
Tell us what’s next for 2018?
K: “I’ve got a new project dropping in the next couple months. It’s a personal accomplishment. The person who I’ve made the whole EP with is someone that I used to spit over their beats when I was younger. For me to be going studio and making a project with them ten years later is an amazing accomplishment for me. It’s a milestone.
“The project has mainly a grime sound. There are nine tracks on it, six of which are grime. There are rock and dub influences too. It’s nice for me to put something out where people can’t question.
“Then I’m trying to do a tour in June. I’ve had mad requests from fans all over the country. I feel like that’s the next step, it’s a natural progression.”
Watch out for a new project from Kamakaze coming real soon and catch him at Outlook Festival in September 2018