Wretch 32: How To Build Unstoppable Self-Belief | E132

Key Takeaways

could you do me a quick favor if you're listening to this please hit the follow or subscribe button it helps more than you know and we invite subscribers in every month to watch the show in person music is game of thrones bro when you see game of thrones they kill the main character do you what i'm saying they don't mind doing that wembley makes the noise for reds feature together i think the best turning point for me was when i was 16 and my mom threw me out she feels like it was a harsh thing to do but i'm like at the end of the day if you don't do that for me at 16 i don't become rich we signed for a single which was tractor that was my ringtone twin said to me he was like this song was going to change your life and then yeah bam it goes in the charts and everything changed after that the obsession made me better made me more hungry when you find your passion here you find your calling bro you're not fair to no one everyone comes second bro my daughter she has no recognition of living with me i just became a monster man i just you can't skip what's important man how many we get 80 years maybe now your legacy can can triple that broke have the right one what if it just hadn't worked out it had to so without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this to yourself [Music] rich take me back to tottenham when you're growing up um i'm a big believer and to be honest i always start these podcasts in the same way because i came to learn when i was younger the importance of those early years on shaping who we become as adults and someone said this wonderful quote to me that we're actually just children living out the stories we told ourselves about ourselves long ago so take me back to tottenham where you grew up in the context in which made you the man you are today grew up in seven sisters in a state called tibetan tottenham was just notorious in it for a lot of madness a lot of crime a lot of this a lot of that and i think for me just growing up and learning how to navigate through that how to understand who you are what you're here for and also my parents and grandparents and all that they were proper embedded in you know fighting against police brutality so i always had a lot of understanding about certain things that were probably above my age i feel like i was always someone that could get along with everyone like whether our cool kid uncle kid whatever i like i could always have something to speak about with anyone and i think throughout life that's always helped me and it's always been beneficial but i definitely started when i was young um in their state just like the regular the regular stuff man that was happening you know i'm saying like a lot of badness um stabbings a lot of this a lot of that but we just when we were very young we just wanted to play football you know i mean when it's a play out play football play games but as you get older you you know you start seeing other things hearing other things and sometimes even not even i wouldn't say not unwillingly sometimes you're just you become a part of things because you're there on the day or you're there at that time and i think a lot of them early scenarios kind of shaped who i thought i was going to become at that time the best turning point for me was when i was 16 and my mum threw me out because i now had to be the adult that i thought i was so before that i was you know walking around the house had a bravado had attitude for i was a big man for i was a bad boy for i was whatever and you know all the time my mom's kind of like single mom you know there's um at that time there's a three two older sisters and two younger sisters and myself in the house and just like at that time just feeling like i'm feeling myself a bit too much and my mom was always like look i know you feel you're beyond your years but you're not you're actually 15 or you actually fall in and if you continue moving like this you're going to be forced to be 21 at 16. obviously as a you you're not really taking that in taking it serious one day i come home and my bags are on the door so i'm kind of like all right cool and i'm like mad prideful as well so at the time my sisters were like look just have a conversation with her she's gonna throw it out just calm down a bit whatever whatever but i'm just feeling myself still too much so i'm kind of just like whatever i took my bags went to my cousin's house for a little while then i just felt like i was just in other people's space obviously their family but i just felt like i'm in the way i don't like feeling like that went to my sisters still did feel like i was in the way even though to her she'll say i wasn't but like i just don't want to be a burden to anyone so then yeah just went to the housing and yeah 16 years old i was in my place and i learned so much man and i think that's the best the best thing anyone's ever done for me in my life why did she throw you out i was too too vibing man i just thought i was too i thought i was it do you get what i'm saying and i think as well it's like when you think you're it and you're making a little money on the roads and whatever and you're giving someone money here and there you're thinking you're doing your part so maybe i'll give you 200 this month maybe next month i don't give you anything maybe the next month i'll give you a grand maybe the next two months i don't give you anything but i'm always reverting back to the fact that yeah but i gave you yeah but i gave you oh yeah but i've done this so yeah but i've done that but what you don't realize until your adult is every month the bills are coming they don't come staggered like you're giving the money so it's not like she can't just pay 600 pound rent in january and nothing in february do you know what i'm saying so it's like but you don't have that understanding as a child you need to be an adult to have that understanding like these bills are coming regardless and i think even though she was saying it to me i was still you know like you're still calculating what you're giving like no but i gave oh but i've done this so i've done that it's not enough the bills don't work like that being 16 and learning them harsh lessons this is harsh reality and i was just like right i actually thought i was a big man and it's like like years i i was angry with my mum for a bit at the time as you would be not speaking to her kind of like kind of trying to be like that but you know like letters are still going there so he's still getting there i'll get asked my sister give me the letter bring out the letters don't really want to go in whatever still you know being attached to pride and being attached to too much attitude and i just had to like humble myself one day and i'd just be like you know what mom that was the best thing anyone's ever done for me and she was like to this day like when she hears me say it she still it still upsets her because she feels like it was you know very a harsh thing to do but i'm like at the end of the day if you don't do that for me at 16 i don't become rich at 20 odd because he's too comfortable rich comes out of being uncomfortable being backed in the corner being forced to be you know to be a provider being forced to be the man of his house rather than thinking he's the man of his mom's house the man of your house did you know your father yeah yeah did you have a relationship yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah my dad's a very was very very serious man very serious very serious very strict very well respected because of you know in the area with all the the police brutality and all of that all the things that they fought for and still fight for him my uncle and my nan but just very very very harsh very harsh and and the dj as well so old school you remember they used to string up sound systems like my mom's house like all the speakers throughout the passage one of the rooms all the speakers like all of us had to share because the speakers had their own room you know i'm saying i'm like mom can't i at least sleep in the in the speaker like i'm sharing with my sisters i need a little space or whatever but um yeah so yeah yeah good relationship obviously him and my mom parted ways and um yeah still still kept a relationship like i don't have that i don't know my dad thing like i know my dad yeah and uh your grandmother one of the things you said about her was that watching her take care of your grandfather who had cancer yeah um was what a really pivotal moment watching how sort of caring she was with him and right up until the point that he passed away you know like when you're young your first experiences of death are like so severe man like so impactful not that not that it gets any easier but you understand it more i think when you get older and i just think at the time i don't i don't i've never understood strength until i met that situation with my grandma and it was just how she how she was you know like caribbean so when i'd come around she's like make sure you come back again you know because i'm soon dead and i'm saying you're saying to me he soon did like he's not gonna die i don't even understand the severity of cancer as young as i was at that time she's like yeah man i'm soon dead managed that and all my friends that he liked she's like make sure you bring them to say goodbye and i'm like say goodbye like what the hell this everything's cool but it's like she's saying it to me like that but my mom and my dad they're not like explaining the severity of the situation to me they're not saying like there's a countdown so i've got my aunt saying like yo we're giving him organic food we're doing this so i'm thinking yo we're fighting it but every time i'm going back it's like he's becoming like i don't know less and less and smaller and smaller and now i can see it but i'm still i don't know i guess the words naive in it that you're very hopeful and you're naive thinking nah nah nah it's going to be cool because he'd been to be fair he'd been saying he was sick for years but he was undiagnosed he was ill but we didn't know when he went to the doctor he died once he got diagnosed it's a countdown now so i don't know if mentally something happens there i don't know if how that works but just watching a you know through when he became in was incontinent like washing him buffing him feeding him just being there the whole way through i was just like that to me is was the real definition of a marriage that is you know um sickness and health do you know what i'm saying that is death do us part that was literally till death do us part and i'm like i don't know if i'd ever see that level of strength again the other thing that i really stuck out to me about your childhood as i was reading through your backstory was that moment when you're nine and a car comes up next to you yeah tell me about that what happened uh what did that teach you at that point like tottenham was warring with a lot of surrounding areas in it so it was like food fiestas back then tinted cars rolling through the estate just looking for whoever they're looking for but i live in the middle of it and being young but being tall and remember back then when when when everyone's warm with each other like now we have the internet so everyone knows who everyone is what everyone looks like whatever back then nobody didn't it was just a description like he's dark skinned and skinny do you get what i'm saying so they're coming looking for a dark skin and skinny guy but i'm nine and i'm going shop and then i remember the car was breezing up to me and i'm thinking right why is it driving like that skids wind down the window and then i look in the car i'm like bro but it's like it's just like nah nah and then drive off and i just thought wow like what the hell like just imagine if i ran like because you know that for a second i was gonna run and i was thinking right the cars because he's driving towards me i can run that way ain't gonna be able to spin around but i just remember thinking like i haven't even done anything do you know what i'm saying first of all but then when it stopped and they've done that i was like let's drive off and i think that thing there made me feel like it's probably better to be involved than to not at the time do you get what i'm saying because at the time i'm not involved i'm actually just a clean-hearted good you i just play football and computer that's it you guys i'm saying so when that happened it made me feel like right that could have happened to me for no reason like i might as well give you a reason do you know what i'm saying someone could have done something yeah something something could have like i could have been shot whatever they was gonna do and i think that kind of put a chip on my shoulder do you know what i mean for the next the next couple years which obviously is what led to my mum feeling like now you're feeling yourself a bit too much go and fly the nest like if you don't you know if you don't if you don't push the bird out then this it won't fly you know if you're not throwing in the water you don't have to swim kind of thing and a lot of men i mean this happens not just on the estate but men that don't grow up in such circumstances they start using that like bravado as a as a form of self-defense but it ends up um inflicting self-harm in some way i mean that's what you tend to see with a lot of gangs right you join for to defend yourself or to try and fit in but it leads you down a path of self-harm yeah because you go from i'm doing this to fight back yeah and then you go from fighting back in the form of defense to offense now because it's gone from i'm just defending myself to now i'm out in a club or i'm out somewhere and now you're getting into situations with people that you feel look like you might end up in a situation with so now it's just happening now it's proactive yeah i'm saying if you both were just defending yourselves then you can be cool to walk past each other or be in the same club at the same time or whatever i think a lot of like things being unsaid like when things ain't clear like you're in just because you're in an environment and you feel i don't know you might not have an issue with anyone in the environment but because there's no clarity yeah because they haven't said we don't have enough of you and you haven't said we don't have nothing with you it's just tense yeah yeah i mean that's life right relationships you know what i mean is communication yeah there's just a little tenseness and it's like why is it tense and then depending on how the ice breaks i'm saying if it breaks the right way it's cool if it breaks the wrong way then it's just erupting into something that didn't even exist to be fair in the first place and at that age what did you want to be when you grew up what was the aspiration probably wanted to be ian wright realized early on that ain't gonna happen um i liked music i didn't want to be a musician though why it didn't seem realistic you didn't know anyone in your tribal circle that i had gone yeah it was like the musicians were like other people jay-z yeah you know i'm saying tupac or naz like that was somewhere else so it's like yeah you can do it for fun so we do it for fun we write whatever i record on tapes blah blah blah but i never thought like this could be a career i could make money from this i could live in this space so i guess like i was into trying to understand what else happens outside my estate because because also what happens you feel like your family your friends become your family in the estate the sweet shop is basically a supermarket um so you don't need to leave you just move from house to house then we're all outside we play football then it's 9 p.m we buy ice poles then everyone goes home we do it again tomorrow and you just end up in a cycle of that but then someone told me actually i saw one of my friends in an advert a guy from my estate called frank yeah he was in a lexus advert as a kid and i was like when he when he come when i tell you i was like mom that's francis he was over there i said frank when i saw him i said frank how did you get an advert he was like i've got an agent how's that is it how do you get agent who's that there's a newspaper that comes out every thursday called the stage so it's like by the stage it costs a pound but it just shows you so much different things so i used to buy that newspaper yeah just to see like what else can happen like what else is there and it should be like auditions or whatever to be fair i never really go to any but i think like i was just intrigued about like what else exists like what other people are doing then i'd see something about the british school i'm like i wonder what that is like all these things that we don't know nothing about anna shears i used to see sylvia young all these things in the paper but there was always a price a cost like sign up for this or pay for the portfolio or whatever and obviously at like 11 12 13 years you can't you know i mean my mom she's not gonna there's too many of us to ask for that we need school uniform first and foremost everything else is secondary so um yeah how old are you and you decided that you were gonna like record a mixtape and like publish it and try and sell it 2006 when it came out yeah 2006 learn from my mixtape came out that's my first cd 24 songs on there i tried getting it on spotify i couldn't no it's not it's not i need to you know i need to get it up one day people ask but i think there might be one or two american beats right so that's why we're struggling with that but um yeah man i think at that point i'd been on pirate radio i've been on heat fm and i was just like then i became obsessed i was obsessed i was just like i need to go studio as much as i can everything i was doing was to put into being able to record and then once i had seven or eight cds with about nine songs on each it's like right what about 50 60 some songs like this is mad maybe i should just do do a project so then i came up with the idea learned from my mixtape because i wanted it to be like quite educational like not in a school way but in a streets way like i always wanted to like educate the youth and let them know there was other ways of doing things kind of thing that's always been my thing so yeah came up with that made that project the funny thing about that cd is that you give it to the guy to press up you pay your six or seven hundred pound and then he he presses it up but there back then they were so long you're rigging him every friday is it has it arrived no it's not arrived yet ringing ringing ringing ringing so the day my son's born i'm in the hospital i get a phone call and it's the guy and i'm like so the baby's born healthy everything's cool answer the phone he's like you see these are here come now because he's not i don't know i don't remember if it was a friday but he wasn't in tomorrow he wasn't in for the next two days so he was like come now so obviously i'll come off the phone i'm in the hospital holding my son so like his mom's looked at me and she's like who was that i was like yeah man the cds are here but she knows that this is my thing so this is like but this is the thing when you make music you're obsessed bro you're obsessed so i'm like looking at my watch like yeah i'm saying she's like then she just looks at me and she goes to go and get the cds man just go and get the cds i'm like thank you man jumped in the car ripped the cred and picked up a thousand cds thousands you got them all in the car thousand all in the car bro thousand like seats two of us in the car seats down cut like a thousand it takes up bare space as well got them back so then like just put them in the hallway when i picked them up brought her home and she was just like you need to get these out of this house because now there's a buggy there's moses basket there's all of this stuff i'm just like i'm just feeling mad pressure i'm just like that was just it was just fun and exciting man it was like it was like my life was born was reborn my son was born i just felt like a new energy i was re-energized and i just i just wanted to go man so it was like spent the next couple weeks doing the salem return so you take them to a shop if they don't sell them they come back bro and at that point i don't care about the money bro i just want to be heard like i want someone drove past me and they were playing my cd bro you can't tell me i'm not jay-z back then when i heard that and i don't know the person normally you know them i'm looking i'm like right he doesn't even notice me he's driving past me i'm like yeah this is like this is happening we're growing we're growing so yeah just re-energize man and sale in return is long because you're no one the the shop guy he shows up fool so he's like yeah we'll take five i'm like my guy i have a thousand of these take 50 bro i won't even come back for the money i swear to you bro like i'm cool bro he's like nah nah give me ten bro you know what i'm doing just to get rid of them i'll buy the 10 back yeah and then he'll call me and he'll be like yeah the 10 went fast you know that'll make someone else do it doesn't matter if i don't lie what do you want you want a 50 now yeah yeah bring the 50 yeah we've got 50 for you coming so you'd get a friend to go in and buy this yes you get what i'm saying so now i can go and give him 50 that's half a box out bro this was taking up so much space so yeah doing that oxford circus birmingham cried and like all the music shops and yeah it was different time in it when you were running around shot on those cds what were you doing for money because i'm sure that wasn't that wasn't covering the bills right now me and my my manager he's my manager now he was just he's always been my virgin like my right hand we just every every penny we made from anything we just put it together and put it in this and put it in this so it's like sometimes we'd go back for the sale and return as well so we'd get a little drips and drabs there this and that and just literally just sharing money it's like we had one bank account if i'm honest like it was we're just sharing like anything what do we need then we needed to do a video how much does a video cost 2 500. whoa all right cool but now my um at the time like my son's mum's like yo we need buggy let's say we need a buggy but it's like i need to do a video it was like i felt like i was always trying to decide between a bug or a video yeah bro that you feel so guilty but you but you know it made me understand it made me understand like the the need and the obsession and the love i have for this thing because i'm actually always comparing it like it sounds mad to hear me say but it's just when it's your purpose is your purpose bro every single month we're growing we're growing we're growing it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and when it gets to that point we'll have how many buggies do you get i'm saying we have the best car everything it will be able to spin what you get i'm saying they'll put the cop will put the baby to sleep whatever you know what i mean sma champagne um so yeah but that was like that was when i was understanding that you've like you've actually got some kind of obsession or some deep rooted love for this thing that should probably not be like that you know what i'm saying like what you're weighing up against the other thing it just but it just was man how long were you in that phase of like trying to like trying to give people your cds and like how how in years or months how long was that that phase where like people weren't because i was watching the kanye netflix yeah documentary recently it reminded me of that that you got that young man who believed in himself more than anyone else did you see that scene where he plays like bro it all falls down all falls down and she's not paying attention she goes on the phone yeah yeah she's on the phone she's intentionally trying to tell him to piss off ignoring it reminds me of that like so how long were you in that phase of your journey just like selling them cds i think so if this first cd came out 2006 i reckon since like 2003 i'd been giving out music but what i was always very clever at like i always wanted everyone to like my music so i had different cds with different songs on so i'd have like a cd with 10 gram songs a cd with 10 love songs a cd with five songs about trying to turn your life around i just had different cds and what i'd do i'd give the cd to each person as to what i think they would like so i give the man name that one but what was happening is that i gave a man that and then i gave his sister a different one but his sister was like yeah but my brother's got one that's got different songs on but i'm not i don't think you'd like that so it was like i was always just i had music enough music to please everyone but then everyone wanted the other songs as well so that kind of made me decide that you know what if you put everything on 24 songs then maybe they can all be centered to this disc and it can start there and it worked yeah i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast my girlfriend came upstairs yesterday when i was having a shower and she said to me that she tried the heel protein shake which lives on my fridge over there and she said it's amazing low calories you get your 20 odd grams of protein you get your 26 vitamins and minerals and it's nutritionally complete in the protein space there's lots of things but it's hard to find something that is nice especially when consumed just with water and that is nutritionally complete and that has about 100 calories in total while also giving you 20 grams of protein if you haven't tried the cured protein product do give it a try the salted caramel one if you put some ice cubes in it and you put it in a blender and you try it is as good as pretty much any milkshake on the market just mixed with water it's been a game changer for me because i'm trying to drop my calorie intake and i'm trying to be a little bit more healthy with my diet so this is where heel fits in my life thank you for making a product that i actually like the salted caramel is my favorite i've got the banana one here which is the one my girlfriend likes but for me salted caramel is the one 2003 2006 you were trying to move them cds mixtape comes out 2006. yeah but what what were you using as metrics to figure out if it was actually working bro if if i heard my song on the radio we was winning every time i heard it i was like cool i'm a manager we are ying and young like i'm all creative and this guy is ooh genius in another way so he would be like i'd go to his house and he'd be like all right cool we're going to this show in nottingham these people are performing when you see this guy he thinks he knows you yeah because i've messaged him off your account and you'd have had a conversation so just make sure you say hello to him i'm just like have you even how do you even know who's who but he'd already engineered some idea and so then we we we were like proper that the first station to proper like really show us mad love was like one extra so it's like dj cameo ace and veers like all these bras kwame all these twin b like all these people were just showing mad love like come in man do an interview and like i like to think i'm likable people like to conversate so with talking and then this guy would introduce me to a producer then the producer would introduce me to a next person then we found out about press and pr and started working with a guy called charlie at visions and he was like yeah you pay us 500 a month and we can get you in magazines like right magazines crazy like it was just like everything was just one person away so each person introduced us to a different person and that's how i'm how i was measuring the growth so i'm like i can come back and i'm like yo man i just met this guy manny he shoots videos or i met this guy he does pr i met this guy he's a photographer like and she's in her head she's probably thinking oh shut up yeah like what's the photographer gonna do but i'm like it's another step each step each step each step one hand is washing the other and we will wash the whole body i promise you know what i mean like in that in that phase you're starting to get these radio plays and stuff which is kind of like a sign for you it's that reinforcement that things you're moving in the right direction yeah was there and i'm sure you get asked this a lot but was there a moment when even your partner at the time said to you do you know what i think oh you could see it because sometimes they don't say you can see it in their face yeah when they hear it on the radio they see you know yeah i always knew that i was ticking her off man like in that interesting in that not in everyone in that in that aspect because even like at them times i used to write at home bro i don't know if you've lived with a musician i've been around a musician bro that beat is on loop for hours you get what i'm saying and all i would hear like when i pull it back is just like as if you do again and i just was like you know what i need to just start working in the studio because this like it's not fair like it's when you find your passion here you find your calling bro you're not fair to no one you only fear to yourself you know i'm saying you're not fair to anyone everyone everyone comes second bro everyone and it's not intentional it just it just is what it is so me thinking that i'm spending time with her because i'm writing in the house even though i'm not talking to her the song's just on loop and i'm writing i'm thinking i'm spending time i ain't spending time do you i'm saying that's just being present so it's like but then it's like in my head i'm thinking yeah but if i'm in a studio for eight hours i'm at home yeah i'm at home but it's it's actually all about me bro it was only all about me my calling and making this making this music like i wake up every day i think music before i go to sleep i think music i used to have a dream that happened every time and in the dream i'm in a studio and i'm writing a verse and i'd wake up and i'm like i can never remember the verse and i'm trying to remember trying to remember one day i woke up i'm like i need i had a pen and paper by my bed i left it there i wrote out the verse that i wrote in my dream i was like bro this is like to me i'm like i'm believing in this now i'm like this is this has to be fake or something like this has to be engineered by someone higher than you man like from your writing in your sleep literally so just and just going and going and going i want to get up to the point when you release black and white in 2011. yeah what happens between that mixtape coming out in 2006 to 2011 is that what are the most significant moments or pivotal moments where things took a a turn in a good direction okay like more more exposure and little things happening here and there like mtv asked us to do something for black history month it was like a freestyle that was strong because it showed people i could write perform stick to topic then one extra gave us an award for getting i think one of our records was the most played right so it was like that was quite cool like most street heat that was dj centex is that punctuation i think it's punctuation yeah punctuation getting a lot more bookings and twin b twin b from one extra um always having conversations with him like he just gave me an understanding of the game on on the other side because at the time he was working with at ministry and he just had so many gems and he made me understand because i used to think like why am i not signed like why was i not signed why am i not saying i'm not good or that's not about good or great it's about timing and it's about what can a label help you do how can a label help you be bigger what do you need to achieve before you step into a label so with all these conversations you know doing loads of collaborations as well and then richard antoi and twin b they form a record label called levels and they're like we want to sign you man and i'm like bro okay like what happens now kind of thing it's like now you need a lawyer now you need you know all these other things and it was just like once it got to that point i knew that i was serious because richard anthony had worked with adele so many different people do you i'm saying and i knew that this guy was serious twin music lover we'd had endless conversations on the phone about music and they had their situation with ministry of sound so they were like a subsidiary of ministry of sounds it was like center levels like you know and ministry as well and i just i just knew that that was the right thing to do at the time when you get that news that yeah they want to sign you what's ashley saying do you come home and you're like ah yeah we've um i don't think i do you know i think i guess by that point just me being about me the relationship's not where it it could have been a way it should have been you know i mean so i think by that time we're already going our separate ways yeah kind of drifting apart but um yes i didn't get to to kind of have that that thing but i think i think she's you know she's happy for me always been happy for me always one always knew that this was what i needed to do she knew that it was a need and not a one because of the things what everything i was weighing it up against she knew that this is a need like this guy needs to do this like he needs it so yeah and then black and white and then black and white yeah so initially we signed for a single which was tractor that was my ringtone that was 2012. yeah that was my ringtone i don't even know what phone it was but it was my ringtone when i first i did one day at university before i dropped out and that was my my ringtone from day one my guy yeah we had that record and twin said to me when i put the verses down he was like this song was to change your life really he said that yeah and i was like i don't know how you know that but you're my guy so i'm believing in you and i'm like i just didn't know what would happen next so i'm still going back to them times when i'd go to the record shops yeah and kind of buy back the cds to give more so when i'm out in the club if they're playing the tune or they're not playing the tune i'm making sure they play the song you know i'm saying like i'm saying yeah what does it take what all the drinks cool a lot of drinks play that song when the dreams come like i'm making sure that this song is being heard we're trying everything we're not trying to we're our fingers always floor to ceiling we'd say we'd make sure we'd covered everything floor to ceiling and then yeah bam it goes in the charts and literally everything changed everything changed after that take me through that process so it goes in the charts and then you start just what's it like because i've you know never had a i never had a hit bro it's like you get throughout that week sort of say like the songs available to buy on sunday it was back then so monday morning like the labels kind of knows the numbers in it so they're kind of like your number eight i'm like bro number eight they're like yeah but we'll catch we'll catch seven and six maybe five then the next day it's like yeah you're number six i'm like what the hell like and it's just going higher then it gets to four i think and it goes back to five and it's like it's five and it's like right we've got one hold in in in the top five and it's just i don't know i just think at that time yeah you just you almost step into a vehicle and then it just starts moving and it's like you know like when you're driving through an area you're looking at the window you're just seeing things and you're just seeing people and but you're just moving it just it was just moving bro like it was just moving it was moving and then you're doing glastonbury and then you're doing wireless and you're doing v festival when you're doing everything was just moving everything was everything happened so fast that i don't think i don't think i even stopped to take it in at that time and then it and then it was cool you done it once that was one single now we want to do an album what's the next single that's like now you've got to do it again and it's like i didn't even really know how i'd done it in the first place if i'm honest like you i'm saying it was a cool song sounded good and it worked and then it was just like okay make second single and then made a second single while making the album and it was just it was just moving man everything was just it was it was it happens you know when they say like you you wait your whole life or does it happen overnight literally waited a whole life was it happened overnight and it and once it happened it just didn't stop it just kept the ball kept rolling man were you prepared for it mentally and i don't know socially we prepared for that train to pick you up and and drag you off into your dream like that i don't think so now but i think luckily the only thing i wanted to do still at that time was make music i think if i wanted to i can see like how like you know like a artist has a hit and then just all over the papers and just getting involved in different things i can see how that can happen temptation right yeah because you end up in other places other than where you should be but for me it was still always about the studio like i'd go raving but i'd go raving at one o'clock because the engineer's tired or the producer's tired and we finished and i i don't have the best night's sleep i don't sleep too well so it's one o'clock yeah i'd go out but then tomorrow it was studio like it was always i was always in and locked in so i didn't veer from that so i think in a sense i wasn't prepared for one side of it but for what i needed to do i was prepared for and i was serious about my half my half of the deal yeah and then so that album becomes a huge success um a real breakthrough moment for you um and then obviously when the album's done you have another pressure right which is the expectation of that album right bro go again do you what i'm saying like flip a coin 10 times and get heads yeah all right cool now do another 10. do you know what i'm saying it's literally like how am i gonna yeah get heads every time every time i'm saying get heads go and do it well you've done it do it go for me like making music is the part that i'm in control of i never feel pressured about that never because i have i have what i have to say i feel what i feel and i'm gonna pour all of that into music i'm going to put all of that into that album no problem i just think at that time what what was getting tricky was ministry was kind of happy that we'd had three top five singles and was kind of just you know more as a business more happy to stay in that domain like yeah let's just turn out the hits and i think after black and white and all of that and all the things like you know just i think i had a lot of frustration in me and and and it was it was almost it's almost the side of my life which i i saw my uncle and my dad and all of that talking about the police like that side of me was coming out whereas i'd always mention it in my music i just felt like i i wanted i i had something else to say you know i'm saying everything happened with mark duggar and all of that and i was like i need to speak about what's going on and and i think it was it was a bit of a difference of opinion you know i'm saying ministry of sound wanted these kind of songs ain't hit record so it was a bit of a bit of friction so we had to work our way you know around that and it was just about you know getting to the point where we could release that album which was growing over life and it was just for me it was it was it was important that i released that record man and and following black and white when you look back on how you reacted and you know that tension with the label and stuff like that in your maturity and wisdom now is there do you wish you'd behaved differently following the the release of that album and its success is there something you wish you would you know in with the wonder of high school yeah yeah change nah nah because i wasn't like i wasn't aggressive i just like to understand i like clarity and i think what what can happen in an industry is not everybody wants to be crystal clear whereas it's like if if you're crystal clear with it and say you know what if we can get another don't go and another tractor and another blackout then whatever so it's like all right cool then you understand an assignment of what you're after but it's like if you're not being crystal clear then it kind of leaves you in limbo so you're sending in songs and it's just like and they're not being clear about what yes the feedback's a bit like don't think this one's a single fact say it was a single sister it was a song that kind of thing you know what i mean so it's like yeah just trying to gain understanding i think that was what my frustration was was like just getting understand but twin b obviously twin being richard and always kept it 100 always was just like look if we can have if there's any moments where we can i think they're like you need to say what you need to say in it you know what i'm saying and if their other moments arise we'll find them and you'll engineer them you're the best at doing that you know when you're comfortable to do it you do it i'm saying ain't no pressure come in from our way and i came up with six words which was um written within that within that space and within that time and i was like all right cool i've got one the one you want is the one you want kind of thing um so yeah but i think with hindsight i didn't like i didn't fly off the handle i didn't i didn't i didn't get angry i'm not i didn't get aggressive it was pointless did you stray away from your like your principal passion of making music during that phase did you did you find yourself like not showing up obsessed in the studio in the same way after that hit because sometimes when people reach the mountaintop they they lose a bit of orientation and motivation sometimes and you know there's other temptations now you've got better money so you don't need to be the hunger's slightly different no no no love it like i think for me always wanting to be the best rapper always wanting to say the sickest things the things that people are like how did you get to that i'm saying like so that that never left me so like there was always freestyles there was always you know always raps always versus you know collaborations like at the time like my manager zeon used to say to me like he's just like bro sometimes you've got to make something make sense like these people are asking you for a feature they want to pay you 20 bags of us or 10 bucks a verse and you're saying no and your bridging around the corner is rapping you're giving reverse for free like we've got a i'm not saying don't do the verse for free but i'm saying i'm saying there's some over here that make that verse make sense as well so it's like also as well navigation and just being like oh yeah yeah you're right kind of thing and just some things work well for positioning you know i mean as well but just always yeah just always wanting to be the best artist man just always wanting to have the best album i think that's something that's never left me and i think if that does leave you as an artist that's probably when it's like you know like when you see mike tyson in the ring at the end and he's fighting some guy you haven't heard of and he's just mashing him up and you're just like mike man do you i'm saying like mike five years ago you would have finished him but he's like mike's not mike do you know what i'm saying mike got that that same one you don't love it anymore do you know what i'm saying the love's gone you can see it in his eyes and i feel like if that happens to you as a musician it's yeah it's not it's not good to kind of like mess up your legacy man like one of the things that's always made you stand out even when i listen to your fire in the booth and i listen to all of them i have them on replay i actually played one last night to my girlfriend i was like right she's coming i played uh the one you did with is it yeah i played that one a lot is the subject matter of what you write about is isn't about buying rolexes and fast cars now as a young black man myself um i tend to feel a sense of disappointment when i go on instagram and i see like the new school of like hip-hop artists all putting their hands in and showing their roles because for me it's like leading um our people astray in the sense because i would like them to show their investment portfolio or their the the equity they have in businesses and stuff because like you know um what's your stance on that i actually was gonna put some stuff on my story the other day because i saw i don't wanna name names because it's not about individuals it's about a culture um i saw some rappers that actually follow me some big big hip-hop uk rappers that follow me all like showing off the material things that really disappoints me because i know there's thousands in this case there's 800 000 people that follow this guy and they're now gonna aspire to buy gucci before they invest their money or put it away what's your thoughts on this i think we've growing up here i think like we were so like bedazzled by the american rap culture and we'd always seen them have things have jewelry have all these things and whatever and i think even myself at a point for me that was like a trophy or a measure of success do you know what i'm saying it's like the rolex was a measure of success and i and i think like like i've heard you say yourself as well it's like once you get it it's like it doesn't really make you feel inside yeah it doesn't really give you nothing like that and i think we haven't had we haven't had the luxury of of information and i think information comes from people who look like you and people who have been through it had success and are able to tell you so now i'm in that position i'm able to talk to her 18 year old and be like yeah man you can get that but at the same time make sure you've got that one of the dumbest things i'd ever done in my life i don't think i've said this anyway is so obviously when i um my mom's got a council flat bro when i signed my deal i left my house i left the whole house and just went left the council i left just left it but people at the time were saying to me yo man buy it like why don't you buy it and i'm like i don't i'm not going to live here like it was in tottenham i'm like i'm not going to leave here i'm going to yeah i'm saying no like no you don't just buy it but the people that were telling me to buy it didn't own a house so i'm like what do you know yeah what do you know that i live in princess park manor do you know what i'm saying now like this is gated community like this is way better than this bro that was a very stupid mistake i should have bought that that would be my first one on the ladder do you know what i'm saying they give you a discount bloody bloody blood whatever but even though i had the information it wasn't coming from a success story it wasn't coming from someone that had done it before do you get what i'm saying so now i'm the first one that's like yo where are you going to rent like think about what you're doing because then even myself like i wasn't even in princess part mana forever and even in there like i wasn't ever like thinking about buying property and they were like don't you want to buy the one that you're in i was like nah i'm not going to be here forever like in in my eyes property was you buy to live not buy to let and you can't move yeah i'm saying in my head i'm thinking no i'm going to buy where i'm going to live but i'm like i never really understood that no you can buy and move and just own it and then rent it yourself you know what i'm saying i didn't really understand the principle of that so um i understand i understand why it happens i understand why we we want all these trophies i get it but i think it's it's about people like myself who can now conversate with the with the young a lot and be like look man like i get it it looks nice but bro like this music is game of thrones bro music is game you see game of thrones they killed the main character bro do you want they don't mind doing that music is game of thrones bro you're michael jackson on monday your t.o jackson on tuesday bro like and then you can be michael again by sunday you get i'm saying like the mute it's musical chairs bro like you have to understand we're not always going to be number one forever so just make sure you're buying a foundation for your foundation man yeah when you had you know your first big breakthrough moment at the time did you somewhere in your mind think that this was meant that you would be number one forever is there a part of you that goes oh we've done it now in terms of like now i know the the uh the equation yeah a bit of complacency maybe i kind of think like the more you understand because obviously but at that time there's a there's a route to get to number one and it's like your song's launched by mr jam or annie mack and then the pre-order's out and then you go for playlisting on radio one one extra capital and there's like a there's a route that puts you on the pitch do you get what i'm saying attention to it yeah to get i