Ayah Marar - Hussle Girl

Full transcript: Ayah Marar on London Real

10:30 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Ayah Marar, who is a singer, songwriter, performer, DJ, radio show host and owner of the label Hustle Girl, correct? You have been featured as a vocalist or writer for the huge artists such as Calvin Harris, DJ Fresh and Camelphat and Crookers. Yes, you were born in Jordan to a Jordanian father and a Czech-Bulgarian mother.

10:54 Big shout out to the Bulgarians. My girlfriend and my stepdaughter, right, Wowy, everyone there, you [expletive] yes. I’ll save for the show. So they’re very excited about this, to say the least., your manager Ali says you are, quote, pretty much now the biggest dance vocalist and writer on the planet. Oh wow, so, his job, what a great manager that is, right?

11:17 That’s lovely. So if anyone’s an aspiring musician, you might want to give him a ring. Absolutely. Oh no, you can hit me on Twitter, man. I’m there.

11:25 Yeah, he’s definitely in your corner. Welcome to London Real. Thank you thanks so much for being here. It’s nice to break our streak of male guests, and I take full responsibility for that, and I’m glad we’re going to shake it up today. Absolutely.

11:39 You know, I moved to London. I was just speaking earlier with your husband about this, and a very cool dude, by the way, and I moved to London about 17 years ago, and you know, now whether I like it or not, it’s part of who I am. You know, it’s part of who I, of how I dress, of how I talk, how I walk, things that make me laugh that normally wouldn’t make me laugh, laugh in California, and so now it’s part of who I am and I was wondering, you know, when you moved to London 15 years ago, how that transformed you as a person or defined you as a person, and then as an artist.

12:10 You know, I’m so glad you say that, because I feel like London is the place where anybody can come to start their lives, to be who they want to be. They, you can come from anywhere, any background, any education, political views, and it’s still one of the only places in the world I think that you can do that. And as far as I’m concerned, I mean, initially I, I came over to Warwick University to study. So I was living around the Coventry area, which is in the Midlands, and then moved to London a couple years after that, and it’s home.

12:43 It just makes you feel like home, and for what I do for a living as a musician, I love the Middle East, and I loved growing up there. I love the values it instilled in me, but there was a distinct lack of support for my trade, specifically as a young woman wanting to do something in music. There was a little bit of, I’d say, a bit of a fight, you know, and it took me a while to convince people, including my father and my family, that it was the right thing for me to do, and that came with the success and with the hard work, and you know I’ve been in the game about 15 years now, but London’s made it happen.

13:19 So, yeah, was Jordan because you were a female musician, or is it because it’s also a smaller town than say London, or is it the popular music that wasn’t happening? I think it was just about being, you know, there’s a very big divide., you know, as you know, most of the country are below the poverty line. It’s not, we’re a third world country, and I was lucky enough to be from a, a, I’d say middle to upper class family, but a self-made, my father is a self-made man.

13:46 He worked hard. My grandfather was the first, electric engineer in Jordan, so he worked his way up that chain and stuff, so it’s, it was more about a status thing. So how could someone from such a, a prominent family do something that’s, you know, that was reserved for, you know, people who perhaps were uneducated, or does that make sense? You know, it was less of a kind of, so it was kind of a social issue. Absolutely, absolutely and so they want to say, my daughter is a doctor or a lawyer.

14:16 Absolutely not, or married to one, or married to one. Okay, not a struggling musician. Okay, let alone musician. Absolutely. Okay, so you took off from Jordan, and you didn’t tell anyone where you were going, or no?

14:26 I, well, because I came to study. Initially I basically the only way you can leave there is either you come to university or you go to university in Jordan, and because, we’d spent most summers in England. My family and I used to, to holiday here, so I had an affinity with London from a young age, and I thought to myself, I want to come and study in England, and I went to an international school, so you know, we did the baloria, so it kind of set the stage for that.

14:52 And I came over to Warwick to read history of art, which was, you know, it was three years. It was more of a university of life than anything else. I met people there. I experimented a lot with everything. It was social, emotional, musical, all these different experiences, these new things that I never would have experienced if I stayed in Jordan, and it set the stage for me to decide how I wanted to go from there.

15:18 I always knew it was music. I always knew it was performance, but I wasn’t too bogged down about what my role would be in that, whether it was as a teacher or as a songwriter or as a DJ, or I didn’t really know. You know, so it just gave me the good foundation. Yeah. And I’m curious, do you ever think, if you had gone to, say, New York, or maybe Atlanta, or LA, yeah, if your style would be different, if your career would be different?

15:40 You know, it’s funny, because I was thinking back the other day to all the meetings that I took about, I’d say, eight years ago, when I went and sat with labels and, lawyers, and everyone was telling me, what are, what are you, are what music do you do? I don’t understand, are you R&B, are you soul, are you drum and bass, and for that reason we’re going to pass on you, because we don’t really know, and you know, I thought to myself, but I love it all, and I feel like I can do, I can do it all, you know, and I didn’t want to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Absolutely, but where I’m at now, people are coming to me because of that, because of the diversity in my output, because of my affinity with all these different scenes, and it’s because I stuck to my guns with that, and you know, I made a decision when Ally and I started working together.

16:21 I said to him, I’m not interested in joining a major label, because, no disrespect, because absolutely. If they, if artists want to sign on to a major label, and there’s a formula that kind of goes along with that, and if you’re ready to adhere to those, to that structure, fair enough, but that was never really for me so you know, I gave Ally a few gray hairs, but we are where we are now, so yeah, I’m thankful for that. It’s interesting, ’cause kind of with the internet and they call it the long tail, where now everyone can kind of have a specific style, and everyone can find them, but say 10 years ago, that wasn’t the case necessarily.

16:51 It was about the hits, and you had to kind of fit a certain. Sure. I mean, they don’t really do development deals anymore, really. You know, we’re talking about even people like Madonna, Michael Jackson, any of these artists who, when they were signed to labels, they put that behind them, and they had, you know, a team, and it developed the whole thing, whether it was image or whatever. You get people like Lady Gaga now, and the reason she’s so, she’s a talented lady full stop, but her success has come with her amalgamation of technology, fashion, music, performance, bringing back that kind of edge, so she really had that in her anyway, and then you know they cotton onto that, and they can help her kind of make it bigger, but really no one’s going to invest in someone who’s, a diamond in the rough anymore.

17:34 They, they don’t see that. They want to see the success before the success, and it puts pressure on artists to perform, because if they don’t, they get dropped, you know, or they have to pay back a, a big advance and it’s not a position any young musician should be in, really. I want to get your thoughts later as far as whether musicians can make themselves on social media and YouTube. But absolutely, but now let’s talk about some hits. I mean, I’m sure you’ve been asked about this a million times, and we’re going to ask you, the, the single, thinking about you, you did with Scottish producer Calvin Harris.

18:03 It’s one of the top-selling records in the world in the past year. I think I’m quoting Ali again. That’s, that’s pretty crazy. How has that changed your life? The beautiful thing about me and Calvin is that, Calvin’s an old friend.

18:17 I’ve known him for about years, yeah. We’re coming on to 11, 12 now. We met, about maybe 2011, I’d say, so I was, I just left university and I was working at a place called Uptown Records in SoHo, selling vinyl, and, he walked in, young, cool, to sell vinyl Right, well, this is it. Yeah, now it’s come back around, isn’t it? Yeah, now it’s kit, but back then you know, we, people used to bring white labels in, and you know, a lot of the BBC Radio DJs and other club DJs used to come in and buy the people like Craig David, even Richard Blackwood, things like that, and, he came in with a demo, and then he walked out, and I put it on, and this is when he, he used to work on an Amiga.

18:58 I don’t know if anyone remembers. Was that? Absolutely. And he had that really analog sound so his first album, I Created Disco., we had that in an analog form. He gave me that in an analog form.

19:11 He’d already done it, and I was amazed. I thought he was incredible, and there was just an email on the CD, and I emailed him, and I said, who are you? You know, what’s this about? And he said, well, you know, I’m from Scotland, and I, I’d love to live in London, but I have nowhere to stay, so I had a spare room, and asked him if he wanted to move in, and he said yes, and yeah, we, we became, we’ve been the best of friends ever since. We’ve written a lot of tracks together.

19:35 We did a track called Let me know, when we were living together, which is also on his Amiga. It took ages. It’s all about, you have to record the vocal, burn it onto CD, load it up into Logic. There’s no autotune, there’s no tracking, none of that. We were you recording in your place?

19:50 Yeah, he built a vocal booth in his room, which took up most of the room. He had his desk there, and yeah, and then he couldn’t afford to stay in London. He was working, in M&S, Marks & Spencer. He did a, he, he used to get two night buses to get to work in the morning, so I’d be coming home from clubbing, and he’d be going to work, and, he had to leave, but then it was all the same people that said he’d never make it. Who, you know, now he’s the biggest star in the world.

20:13 So it’s the biggest f*** you to the record label, to the record industry. I think, you know, he’s fantastic, and I’m so proud of him. You know, when you first played that record, that he left you, and you like the sound of it. I’m always curious, you know, when you, when you see an artist like him, or like yourself, you know you might hear a sound that you think, wow, this, this guy’s really talented, but then do you also, does that need to be completely backed up with the drive and the hard work, and have you seen one without the other, and did you know, he had both in the beginning, or is it never clear?

20:39 I don’t know if it’s something that I’ve got, when I’ve just, I have a, a knack for it, but I feel like anything that comes from, a true place from a place of love and honesty, it doesn’t matter. The technical, the technicalities don’t, don’t really matter. The performance doesn’t matter if something is real, you’ll know. You’ll feel it, you know, and I felt that with him, and there are other people that I saw that in, people like Ed Sheeran, for example.

21:03 He used to support me when I used to play an acoustic night in North London, and I remember seeing him and telling people, people like, no, no way, like that young boy, he has a long way to go, like, and I was like, no, no, there’s something about this kid that you know, and how they perpetuate their careers after that, that’s up to them, but there’s something about True Grit that I think, yeah, it shines through. Absolutely. And your, two albums ago was called The Real, that was your first album on your label, right?

21:27 My only album, my first. Yeah, it’s funny how you say this, something about real, because you know, we put these episodes out, and, and, and the great thing about YouTube is that I can see the ones that people love and I can see the ones people don’t, and sometimes I think we had a great talk with someone, and people are like, whatever, and so they really respond to realness. You know, I mean, okay, we’re called London Real, but people respond to real people expressing their feelings in a real way.

21:51 It’s strange with all the bells and whistles and everything, the humans still know something that’s genuine, and like you said, comes from place of love or congruence. Isn’t that weird? I think it’s happening now more than ever. The veil is thinner than it ever has been. I think that, with everything that’s happening in the world, and with, you know, we, we’ve lived through the biggest advancements in technology and in, in social patterns, in sexuality, and everything, you know.

22:17 And I think now what’s happening is people are really yearning for grassroots. That’s why, you know, the, the smaller businesses are doing well as opposed to the massive, you know, conglomerates and stuff, that you know, after the market crashes and everything, people want a bespoke service. They want to feel like they know the person who’s selling them something. So the lady who sells cupcakes, whose company now is worth God knows how much, is going to triumph over a massive chain that, that just, you know, dishes out generic cakes.

22:42 You know, does that make sense? I think there’s a real, you know, yearning for, for realness. Yeah, yeah, and people want to see the behind-the-scenes videos more than the scenes video. It’s crazy. We’re going to take a picture after this at the brick wall, but if someone saw a picture with all the lights here, they’d be like, oh, what’s that?

22:59 And it’s strange, with social media, I guess, if you go back to the studio system in Hollywood, or the old record label system, it was this product that was chosen, and then it was put out, and you never knew all the details. Abely, but these days everyone wants those, and they demand access. Do they demand access to your private life too? I mean, you’re very active on Twitter. I am, as we saw today.

23:17 You know, yeah, I am, I am. The thing is, I like to have that door open, because technology serves a purpose, especially with what we do for a living. So if it’s to put across a message, or if it’s to open the door for fans or people who are interested to, I can see when people tweet me, I can see, why would, why would I want to ignore that? Why would I want to not reach out to someone, or not, whether it’s in just, or whether it’s serious or whatever it is, they have a direct connection to you, which is what Twitter offers.

23:44 So for me, that’s what Twitter serves a purpose for. Things like Instagram, people seem to respond to personal pictures more than they do things that are staged. So they want to be part of your life. I think it’s because they want to know that they can succeed, and it’s not, not about telling people that unless they are in a, a creative medium, that they’re not going to succeed, because you have, everyone has a role, and your role might be something that you don’t even know how important it is.

24:10 You, you might walk past someone in the street who was about to kill themselves and smile at them, and just through that smile you’ve changed the whole trajectory of their lives, you know, because then they realize that someone cares about them, and that’s your role, and I think people are forgetting that it’s the tiniest things about us that are so important, you know, and if I can break down those, in any way, that’s why I don’t use, people say to me, oh, you can use those programs, that you know, you can amass fans, and every single person that has pressed like on my Facebook, or, like on my Facebook, and or followed me on Twitter, they’re people who want to be there. We never get trolls. I never get anyone dissing the music.

24:45 I never get anyone being horrible. I never, because they’re not being forced to join into something. So yeah, yeah, I’m happy with the amount of fans I’ve got there, because they’re there because they want to be there. That could be a reflection of your realness as well. I think so.

24:58 There could be something there. So, you know, you really paid your dues in the music world. I mean, you were in SoHo in 2004. I mean, you know, it’s funny, ’cause you look at a lot of TV shows these days and a lot of YouTube sensations, and it’s like, boom. But you know, I mean, you were, you were, I mean, 10 years for you, right?

25:15 I mean, 50, yeah, 50. My first single, I released in 2001, which was on Metalheadz, Goldie’s label., a couple of guys called Luxy and Inc gave me my first break on a record., in fact, it’s when I had to go back to Jordan because I had issues with my visa, and I couldn’t stay in the country., and I went back, and I remember one of them calling me and saying, we’ve got this track, and we know you’re not really a singer, but we know that you like music. Would you like to give it a go?

25:39 I said yeah, and that was, that was what started it all, and from then I went on to work at Uptown, I started a funk band., we, we performed at nights with Gilles Peterson and things like that, and then I started a record label, a Dr based label with some friends of mine. We were promoting nights, became an MC for a while, was touring, and then got on the road with Calvin, obviously, as a backing vocalist for his live show, but it’s been a constant thing, and I love it, and I wouldn’t change a thing, and it’s, I’m constantly paying my dues to music because I work for music. It doesn’t work for me.

26:11 You know, was there a point in ’02 or ’03 or ’04 or ’99 where you were just like, I’m packing this in, I’m going back to Jordan? I’m going, no, no, no, no, once. No, okay. And when you were starting labels and doing these things, I mean, those are quite, these are entrepreneurial moves, you know, and Is that something that was always in you, or is it in your family, or is that? Absolutely.

26:32 Yeah, my dad, a lot of people would be like, a lot of artists come from this frame, I want a label to sign me, how come the label won’t sign me, and until they sign me I’m not going to make anything. I mean, that’s that is a, that’s so dead, though. I mean, especially, but 10 years ago before there were all these outlets. Absolutely. Now, yeah, with the technological revolution, I suppose.

26:51 Yeah, you have more of a platform. You can be a kid in Peru who makes a song in his basement and put it on YouTube and become a sensation overnight. So, so that’s broken down the barriers, and that’s really exciting to me, how we can manipulate that into working, you know, the trends and what people want. I think at the end of the day, it’s like politics, you know? You can’t use what you’re good at to cover up what you can’t do.

27:10 You have to use what you’re good at to either influence or to be honest about how people can listen to it, can catch on to it, can proliferate it. It’s not about making it a personal thing. It’s about making it, we’re in it together, kind of thing, you know, and I don’t really understand that attitude where people say, you know, until a label signs me, until, if they’re not signing you, there’s a reason, you know, and if there’s a reason, why would you want them to?

27:39 You know, either you fix that or you find another outlet for what you do. I never thought that I would pack in music if I wasn’t a singer, because I wanted to do something that had to do with music. Like I said before, whether it was as a teacher or as a, you know, handing out flyers in the street, or, you know, working in a record store, doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter to me, as long as I was within music in any capacity, that was enough for me. You know, do you give advice to up-and-coming people?

28:03 They must ask you all the time. What do you tell people? I get a lot of people, sending, and I make this a point on, on Twitter and Facebook to say to people, if you want to reach out, send me, because also, you never know what you’re going to get. People who send you stuff, and really exciting music. And nowadays you don’t have to have a, a £30,000 studio.

28:20 You can have a laptop and a program on there, and you can make just as good. It’s all about the more basic sounds. Now people are going back to,, less busy and less produced stuff. So yeah, I do. When, there, people that I think that’s the thing as well.

28:36 I mean, art’s subjective, so I can’t ever tell someone that I don’t like it. I could tell them technically what’s wrong with it, but then again, that’s not for me to decide, because I’m not the one who’s going to give them a job in it, you know, and I don’t know what their other attributes are, what they could succeed in otherwise. So what I tell people is, if this is something you want to do, keep going, because if you write a song that’s good enough that a radio DJ will play it, radio DJ plays it, clubs play it, and it grows from there.

29:01 So you’re only as good as the last song you’ve written, and keep writing. If it’s not working, keep writing. Absolutely. Keep writing, keep evolving, and you have to publish it, right? You have to put it out there, to move on, and let it get criticism, and then go to the…

29:14 Easier. Now it’s a bit easier. I mean, I’m published by Notting Hill, and they’re fantastic, and it’s like a family, but you don’t really need to have that anymore. You don’t really need to have, you know, people say to me, oh, you know, I really need a manager. I really, I’m like, why, why do you need a manager?

29:26 I mean, again, it’s hard for me to speak from a position, because I’ve got those things, but those things came to me. I didn’t go, if you go to them, if you’re talented, of course an agent’s going to take you on, of course a manager’s going to take you on, but then you’re not priority. You know, they’ll put you on the back burner. They’ll have you there because they know that you’re going to do something, but until you do, and that creates a lack of motivation that makes people stale.

29:46 You know, because they’re sitting there and they’re trying to be creative, and they’re trying to, oh, am I doing this right? Don’t worry about it. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and those things will come. They’ll come to you. Let’s talk about the creative process.

29:56 Okay, how do you create? Yikes. Is this about people have this vision that you book the studio and go in the studio, and you know, you just bust it out, or you ride it here, and you make it and then you go home? I’m guessing it’s nothing like that. I think it’s different for everyone., I think with myself, most of the time I’ll be put in a session with a producer, and we’ll either make a beat together or he’ll play me something that he’s done before, with my album for example, which, I can, that’s the best example I can give.

30:28 I wrote with a man called Will Sims, who’s a ridiculously talented French producer, and him and I just built the beats from scratch together. We locked ourselves in a basement studio for about four, five months, and we lived it, you know, and, you know, when he was playing stuff on the keys or whatever, I’d start to write., we’d bounce words off each other, and that’s kind of my creative process, or someone might send me a beat. I’ll work on it at home., it’s different for everyone.

30:53 You know, with me, most of the time I work from the chorus backwards, but it depends. It depends what the track is and what the vibe is. Absolutely. Do you play instruments? I play the piano.

31:03 I got my grade eight when I was 16, and regrettably haven’t really been following it up, because I was classically trained, and the music I do now is, I mean, I, I hate to say, far removed from it, but if we’re talking about chords and structures that are more blues and jazz-based, which is what influences my writing more, it’s harder to you know, to build around that. But, yeah, I am, I am musically trained, cuz I, we had Beardyman on here who has done, yeah’s, fantastic, but that was kind of his advice at the end. He said, learn an instrument.

31:33 I’m pretty sure that was Beardyman. And, you know, ’cause he said with that, as a singer, then you can learn so much from that. But he, it’s funny, ’cause Beardyman and I, we used to go to the same illegal raves back in the day. This is like 10 or so years ago, and he did that song with, was it, oh goodness me, he had a famous song recently? Oh yeah, yeah, the one you know, the one with Fat Boy Slim.

31:55 The Fatboy Slim one, and when I heard it and someone said it was he, yeah, and he was recorded outside a club, and I was like, wicked, he’s still up to the same thing. You know, he’s wonderful, you know, he’s a great guy and super talented, super driven, but we all, all these names seem to be coming back around, so we’re all part of this movement. I’m hoping, ’cause you know, if people don’t remember my name now, it doesn’t really matter. It’s about, if one day someone goes, if I can do it, then I can do it, I can, I can do it, then that’s that.

32:21 We’ve done the right thing., but sorry, to go back to your original question, you’re asking me about the instruments. I mean, go back to piano. You sit, you sit in with your producer, he’s playing music. I mean, do you ever think, well, I don’t know what instrument it would be if I played the violin, or if I had my sack guitar? Is a really good guitar?

32:38 Yeah, I mean, I can play the first two bars of Nothing Else Matters and Wonderwall on guitar. That’s about it. That’s, so it’s not necessary. It’s not. Absolutely.

32:45 Nearly, absolutely, no. I’m not trained in singing. I’m not classically trained in singing or anything like that. I taught myself to sing, so it’s not necessary. How important are lyrics?

32:55 Very important. Okay, yeah. So, ’cause you know you are a singer and a songwriter, and so obviously you write the lyrics, but then the way you perform them can vary so many different ways, and that can make a song or break a song. And so how, so, how do you start? You do start with the lyrics, because the message has to be there, you know?

33:14 I mean, sometimes it will be, I’ll start with a melody, so I’ll hear something over a beat, and then you fit the lyrics in. And it’s funny, because I’ve been listening back to a lot of songs that I wrote a long time ago, and at the time I wasn’t really aware of the weight of the lyrics, and they start, they’ve started to make sense to me a bit more now than they did at the time, which shows that it is a, it’s a subconscious thing., but again, it ties into when it comes from a real place, so again, I can’t fault anyone for the technicality of the lyrics, or whether it’s a pop song where it’s a bit more throwaway. It doesn’t really matter as long as the sentiment behind it is real.

33:50 The actual lyrics, I’m not saying you have to be profound or anything, you know. That works for some people. It doesn’t work for others, and also the music-buying public, they might not want to sit there and have to think about it. They just want to have a dance on a Saturday night, you know. Have nothing wrong with that.

34:03 Nothing wrong with that at all. So it’s just about doing it from a real place. And so, are you meticulous with your lyrics? Are you, like, when you know, when it’s, yeah, are you? I used to be.

34:14 I was a bit more, adamant that I was right about lyrics, when I first started, when I was younger. So, I actually used to work with a man called MC Comrad, who, was part of a crew called Good Looking, and they, drum and bass crew, who did a lot of, kind of, they pioneered the whole intelligent drum and bass movement. And, he was my sensei in a way when I started MCing. I remember I used to write 16 bars and I’d recite them to him, and he’d be like, no, do it again, do it again.

34:41 It was kind of like Karate Kid, you know, and you get so frustrated, why? But this is amazing. Why? And it’s like, no, no, but there’s something to, just breaking this. It’s humility.

34:52 It’s learning to be humble about stuff, not thinking that you’re incredible off the bat. Some people are, I mean, I don’t know how Stevie Wonder or Michael Jackson feel, because I’m not them, but there’s, that’s a different thing, you know? There’s something, that comes inherently to people, or that’s sort of inbuilt, that a lot of us, especially if we’re trying to break into, commercial or consumer society, we have to adhere to certain things. We have to put it in a way that people can digest, you know.

35:19 And should you edit your lyrics? Is that the thing that he was pushing when he was waxing on, waxing off, making you cut it and make it tighter, get better? Absolutely. Yeah, and he’d play me a lot of Biggie, and, you know, the way the waiting of the phrases, and I was just thinking about Biggie. Were you really?

35:34 So yeah, he used to, and it’s all the kind of timing and the way, ’cause he said to me, it doesn’t just because it rhymes and it fits into a scheme doesn’t mean that’s clever, you know. It’s about having a lil to it, having a putting a spin on it that’s your own, you know, making it something that’s, yeah, that’s unique. So I think that was the message behind it, right? And Biggie kind of brought that in a unique way, because he was, and when you listen to it now, like I remember I used, I listen to the same Biggie song for, like, you know, 50 times, which is that it was, it was, not Thugs and Harmony.

36:05 No, no, it wasn’t that one. I can hear it in my head, but I can’t think the name of it. No, it wasn’t. It was,, I’m trying to see if they’re the ones that I love, Cubans with the Jesus Piece, like, and, and, and I remember I listened to it. I was training one time in the gym, and I caught a lyric that I hadn’t caught ever before, and I was just like, Jesus.

36:24 Well then, you’ve got Tupac and Biggie, who were doing that same thing, but what Tupac was doing was, he was, he was an actor, a model, a musician., you know, he used to, you see all these guys now rolling around with, like, 10 deep with their own entourage. This man was rolling through the hood with the top down at the height of his career on his own, you know what I mean? And that’s aside from the fact that he was, amazing at his delivery, and his personality.

36:49 With Biggie, it was more about that focus, with the lyrical content, and the way, and you know, they were friends for a reason, because they had, what, similar styles, profits, right? Profits. Yeah, I mean, look at, if you listen to what Biggie says, I mean, it stands up, like you said. It’s come from some genuine place where people are like, wow. I mean, they’re just words, but obviously they’re not just words, and he was so economic with those words.

37:13 Absolutely., and, yeah, now it’s going through my head. Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it? Do you ever play with, hip-hop as a style? Absolutely, yes. Okay, do you prefer one of the other?

37:22 I can’t say that I do. I mean, I work with a lot of MCs., IL Man on the road with me, and he’s fantastic. He’s part of a crew called Problem Child, and, what they’re doing is kind of an amalgamation of grime and hip-hop, and that’s what I love about London as well, the way we put things together, how it’s influenced by our, not just what we listen to, but our cultures, and, you know, ability to perform certain things. But absolutely, I draw from it in terms of beats and beat production., Kemo, who I work with, is part of the UK hip-hop scene and has been for a long time, and, he does all of my vocal recordings.

38:00 So it’s funny, because before me he didn’t really work with many vocalists, and before him I hadn’t really worked with many beat makers, hip-hop beat makers. So coming together, you know, to do what I do now is, is, yeah, it’s a really interesting way of bringing it together. I think you were a DJ for a while at Herbal, right around here, right?, how has that affected your music? What was DJing like? Why did you DJ?

38:21 Oh, I loved it so much. I was more of a selector than a DJ. I wasn’t really a beat matcher. I saved that, I leave that to professionals, but I played a lot of reggae and funk and soul and stuff, stuff that really is hard to mix at the best of times, so it’s been, in a lot, slow things down, and, you know, I wasn’t even aware of the politics within reggae when I started playing, ’cause there were a lot of rers and yardies that used to hang out at Herbal, that at this, at the beginning, they’d be like, you know, who is this chick who thinks she’s playing?

38:46 You know, people would come up and take the record off and chuck it across the room and stuff, and by the end of the four years that I’ve been there, you know, obviously we were a family, but, I loved it because, first of all, there’s something about vinyl that makes you feel like it’s like a hug when you walk into a room. You know, it might not be as crisp as digital, or as, and I think about vinyl and I go, you know what, I can kind of understand digital. You know, signals are sent, all this kind of, but I still can’t understand.

39:12 You put a needle on a piece of acetate in a groove and it produces that sound. You know what I’m saying? It’s still pretty fascinating. It’s unbelievable, you know, and, you can touch it, you can see it’s there, you know? It’s like skin, and, and a heartbeat, and it’s just, it’s human.

39:27 You know, almost, you miss those days. I miss them. Yeah, I miss them. I mean, it’s, it’s different now, it’s different. They, it’s coming back around, obviously, with Serato and things like that, but I’m glad I did it when I did, and when people ask me to DJ, I’ll always ask them for a pair of decks, not even Serato, ’cause I’m useless at that, but I’ll do it for for the love.

39:46 Yeah. And do you, would you ever go back and do that again? Or, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Paradex. I’m there.

39:52 Absolutely. Parex, you’re there., I want to talk about something topical., I want to talk about, booty, because you tweeted something out about this, and I want to talk about this too. You tweeted, quote, is it the law that all pop songs have to talk about booty these days? And, you know, funny enough, I saw a recent video released by, Iggy Azalea and JLo, and we can get on to the rest of the booty videos. That’s fine, but I, that’s the one that made me tweet it, though.

40:18 Okay, that’s the video that made, I didn’t know that. So, I saw that video that came out. Now, I, I heard about Iggy about six months ago, and I, I’ve, I’m a fan of Fancy, and I’m a fan of Work. I like the videos. I kind of like her message., I I feel like she’s kind of empowering in a certain way.

40:33 Okay, you might hate me. That’s okay. No, I don’t, but Then when I saw this JLo thing, I was like, I was like, waiting for the joke, because a lot of her videos is a joke, or that she’s making fun of something, and I was like, okay, I’m, I’m giving this, okay, where’s the joke? Okay, I’m like, you can’t be serious. We’re not really doing this show.

40:49 Especially, and I, I was expecting a little more from Iggy, ’cause I thought she was bringing something a little new., is, am I just an old man ranting, or what’s going on? Well, then I’m an old woman. If you’re an old man, why does, I mean, why does Iggy have to do this? Why does JLo have to do this? She’s very accomplished.

41:03 Why do we have to put Booties up there. And talk about that. It’s so funny, because the first thing that came out was the Nicki Minaj video with the [lyrics] sample. Yeah, the Anaconda. Yeah, I watched that today just in preparation for this song when I saw Anaconda, I thought to myself, do you know what, this woman has outsold Michael Jackson album sales this year?

41:22 She, has come, she came from the hood., she’s, she’s still talking. She’s a caricature of herself, you know what I mean? And she’s using a song that initially was derogatory to women to bring it back and empower, so I understand that to an extent. I’m kind of like, you know, what, Nicki Minaj, go, true girl, ’cause it’s funny still the video, and she is parading herself in the video, right? She’s not taking it seriously.

41:49 Point, but this is what happens in popular music. When something is popular, then there’s a surge of videos that are similar or imitating this, or thinking, you know, because that’s a trend, let’s jump on it. So that’s where I think people like Iggy go wrong now. The woman, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not my kind of thing. Not bringing her down any way.

42:05 Something for everyone, if people are, if that’s what they want to listen to. Absolutely. But what upset me was more jumping on something you don’t need to. You’re already a very successful artist, you know, and more to the point is that what Nicki was doing or is doing is very different to the journey of all these other women. So empowerment, I’m all down for it.

42:24 You want to get your bum out, you want to get your boobs out, do whatever you want, ’cause it’s coming back around now, and if you want to be empowered by that, that’s, it’s not my cup of tea, ’cause I, you know, I’m I’m a bit shy when it comes to that stuff. But it’s coming back around. You mean that it’s becoming empowering? Yes, that women are reclaiming. They’re reclaiming it, you know?, but I didn’t, yeah, I just didn’t see the need for someone like JLo.

42:44 You don’t need to do that. You don’t need to do that, especially with the fact that they’re so lucky to be in a position where people look up to them and people listen to what they’re saying. So you want to trivialize it, that’s fine, but then, like you say, make sure that it’s felt, that it’s a parody, that’s a trivialization, as opposed to making it, like, this is me, I’m back now. And check out the song. Come on.

43:05 It just It’s upsetting. Yeah, maybe this is like an April Fool’s joke. We don’t know yet, because I couldn’t even watch the rest of the video. I was just like, come on, ’cause I have respect for what JLo did for back in the day and all this stuff, and so she’s kind of like an icon, and then, she’s kind of on her way up, and she’s got some messages there that I like. They’re empowering women.

43:22 If it wasn’t for some of the words in her lyrics, I would like my 10-year-old to watch some of it, because it takes the power, and then she knows she can compete as well with things like Fancy, and then they just did a train wreck. So shame on you, Iggy and JLo. There you go. I also bring back, I have to tell you, Brian, I work with, I mean, I, I write with a lot of talented artists, and you know, there’s a young man in particular, Kieran Allen, and a young lady called Sona Relay, and they are incredible.

43:46 They’re both from the UK, but they’re doing, the whole American, thing in terms of like, they’re out, but they’re over in LA all the time, songwriting and stuff like that, and they’re, they’re such, they’re good kids, and they, you know, they have a good message, and they still can be sexy, and they can be outspoken, and they, write, and they sing, and they dance, and they look beautiful, and I think to myself, that space is being taken up by people who are misusing it, when there are people that are ready and hungry and real just coming back around, and I just feel, you know, what if I can make it my mission to make sure that those kids replace what’s going on? It’s my one-woman mission right now. Are you optimistic?

44:24 I mean, you know, as much as we’re talking about these videos, you know, Nicki has 226 million views or something. Good, man. Nicki is doing a thing we can’t touch. Okay, so, so are you optimistic that the, that the real music will, will rise above the fray? Yeah, I mean, ’cause we can put down Iggy and JLo and the booty, all of that, but ultimately the, the consumers are pushing them to the top.

44:46 It’s not even a, exactly, but people will consume what they’re given. Okay, so we need to find a way to, we need to come together, man, like, we’re the mainstream, are using underground techniques and methods and sounds, and we’re given it. So why not have it as a two-way street? Why not help each other, because obviously both of us are struggling? If we come up together, we’ll stay up together, and if we come back down, we can have a party and we’ll be cool, but if you go up on your own, when you come back down, there’s no one checking for you when you come back down.

45:15 So what’s the point of that? Let’s do it together. We’ve all learned by doing what we do in our spheres, so why not bring it together? And now is the time, more than ever, because if we’re talking about making it like a political movement, what better way to show the world that if music can do it? And music is all about love, and you know, I, I can’t even tell you the impact that certain songs have made in my life growing up, and you know, how music was there for me when people weren’t, you know, and it, they made me feel like I had love and a family and understanding and all this stuff, and that’s why it pains me to see it misused, but I’m hopeful, because it’s not about pointing the finger, people at people for doing it wrong.

45:53 No one’s necessarily doing it wrong, but it’s about, don’t forget that we’re not alone in this. You know, where is the music industry going? I’d like to say, I’d like to say, it’s revolution, but I don’t know. I don’t know, revolution, how, as in, it’s going to have to come down to go back up again. Okay, what, the label system, or the, I, that’s already employing?

46:14 Yeah, because really nowadays you don’t need the model for a major label. It was about having it all in house, so you had your radio pluggers, your publisher, your PR, your stylists, everything, your video, you know, video makers, directors. They were all under one roof, so a label would commission all these people in house, but nowadays everyone’s freelance with that, so as long as you have a bit of capital, which you can make from working a 9-to-5 and saving up, for example, if you’re, if you’re very serious about your dream, save some money, and then put it into building your company, as it were, and bringing in the people that want to be there, because not only are they talented at their job, but they love what you’re doing and they want to support it.

46:55 And that’s how we make it good from the inside out. Okay, I like those words. I saw a picture one time that Ice-T tweeted out. I’m a big Ice-T fan, and he was taking pictures with fans. He’s known always as being really cool with his fans, and he said, you know, something to the tune of, you know, I do it the old-fashioned way, I make fans one at a time.

47:13 Oh my God, yeah. And I was just wondering what you think about that. Do you think that a sudden acceleration in a career is setting sometimes will be followed by a sudden descent, you know, when you talk to the young artists like you’re talking about? Is it just like, look, this is a grind, this is about putting the time in, and it’s not about instant fame. When you get to the top, there’s nowhere else to go, so why are you in a rush to get to the top?

47:39 It’s the experience of getting there. What if you ever, it’s like saying you’re going to learn everything there is to learn. You’re never going to learn everything, but the beauty is in training yourself to be able to understand more, to experience more, to be sympathetic, to be empathetic, to be more knowledgeable. It’s a journey, you know. It’s a, it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s like the pursuit of happiness.

48:02 People think that happiness is a place you have to go. No, it’s not. I’m sat here with Brian right now. I’m happy. Life’s tough.

48:10 Tomorrow something might happen that makes me upset, but I go, you know what? I can be happy, ’cause I was sat with Brian last night and I was happy, and that’s what fuels me. So, particularly, to believe in happiness, or to believe in that, and for me it’s not really happiness, it’s fulfillment, because who’s to say that happiness is right and sadness is wrong? You can’t really say that. Some people, I was actually fueled by sadness to write my album, for example, by heartbreak.

48:31 We need it as artists. Some of the best albums. Yeah, there you go. Gwen Stefani’s breakthrough album was all about heartbreak, with the guy in the band., so really, I just, I just, yeah, people can’t be confused about it. There’s no rush to get that, and again, you have to enjoy the journey.

48:51 So I’m saying, of course, have landmarks within that that make you happy, that make you feel like you’ve achieved something, that make you feel fulfilled, but it’s not, it’s not a Do or die thing. It’s an experience. You have to fill your time somehow, and why are you wa? What’s the rush? Man, that’s well said.

49:06 What’s the rush? It’s interesting, ’cause people think that famous people and rich people don’t have problems, and you hang out with all these people all the time, and they have just as many problems as everyone else does. Oh, sorry, sorry to interrupt you, Bri, but coming back to the, I, things, it’s funny you say that, because I used to say we haven’t got the resources of a major label, but what I can do is I can change it one club at a time, one festival at a time.

49:28 Every time we performed, I’d say that’s how we do it. That’s how we spread the message, as opposed to, you know, when people have more resources at their beck and call, or, you know, money, they can proliferate easier. But yeah, sorry, and just to go back to that theme, I agree, and I think you have to earn them one at a time, and that’s what I used to say, even with the show with London Real. We started off like really basic, and it’s just like each episode gets out there, and people are like, okay, we see what you’re doing.

49:51 And, funnily enough, I just read an article, I don’t know if you ever heard of it. It’s called 1,000 True Fans, and was written a few years ago. It’s a fascinating article, especially for an up-and-coming, any kind of artist, and the theory is, if you can get a true fan, and this is a fan that will buy any album that you make, that will drive 100 miles to watch you perform, if you can get a thousand of those, and say they spend roughly $100 on your material every year, then you can live on what you should be able to live on, 60 grand a year, and be an AR.

50:19 And so the idea is, if you can just think about those 1,000 true fans, don’t think about the million, just think you need 1,000, which is, it’s a doable number. Absolutely. And just concentrate on those, that once you get the thousand, then you can be artistic and free and create the rest of your life, and by getting those, you’ll focus on the correct message and everything you should do that will scale to more. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we’re not making money off record sales these days.

50:43 That’s not how we’re making our money. We make our money off sinks of touring, of merchandise, so unless you’re Lady Gaga or Nicki Minaj or someone like that, you’re not really seeing any surplus revenue from your record sales, from your album sales. So we have to do it that way. We have to do it in a way that, you know, I’d have to write for other people. I have to maybe do a show that I wouldn’t necessarily like to do, but then equally, by doing it, I’m going to gain a couple of fans, like you say, and it’s about finding a balance within that.

51:13 I’m very lucky to do what I love for a living, but it’s by no means a given thing that you should, or that what you do for a living defines you necessarily. You know, it’s about making it more of a, your personal role in life is about what you’re here to do, as opposed to whether you’re a doctor or a street cleaner or a teacher or musician. We’re lucky, we’re lucky that we can do what we do for a living, but again, it doesn’t come without cost. It comes at, it can be isolating.

51:45 It can be lonely., it’s stressful in terms of, output, when people are depending on you to, you know, to, to reach a certain target or to perform in a certain way, or to, and it’s the high is the higher, and the low is the lower, because you’re doing what you love for a living. What is the hardest thing about what you do? I want to say accepting that you’re alone for a lot of the time, and I don’t mean alone as in no friends or no fans, whatever, but it’s a lonely place to be when no one really understands, doesn’t just apply to myself or my trade.

52:22 It’s just feeling like no one really is understanding you. The creative process, it’s everything. It’s because it ties in. The creative process is you as a human being, is you as an individual, and you know, what’s put on you in relation to that. So it becomes a lonely place, and I can’t even imagine how people who are higher up, or, you know, who this Stella of Fame that people like Michael Jackson had, and I can’t even imagine what that must be like.

52:47 If, if you know, I have a couple of moments where I’m just like, oh God, no, you know what I mean? It’s, yeah, is it because of all the pressure people are pulling on you and do this and do that and help me out with this?, it’s, for me, I’ve always been, I, I get even defensive about, not being understood or being misunderstood, and that’s, I’m, that’s my fault as well, because sometimes I might not put it across in the right way. It might seem aggressive, or it might seem, like I’m pushing people away.

53:14 Whatever. It’s just being misunderstood is a big fear. How are you misunderstood? What’s the typical way people misunderstand you? If people misunderstand my intentions.

53:24 So, it’s hard. It’s, it’s hard to say that you know you’re doing the right thing for somebody or something when they don’t want that for themselves, and I think that was my problem for a long time. I’d say to myself, oh my God, but you can do this, and you’re so talented, and you’re so, so why are you choosing not to? And they’d get angry with me, and that would make me feel like, do you think that I’m pressuring you to do something you don’t want to do?

53:45 Because that’s not the case. It’s that I see something in you that I want to. And then their misunderstanding of me would make me feel, yeah, these are people you’re collaborating with, everything, yeah, people I collaborate with, friends, anyone in life. Yeah, okay, so you’re pretty, you’re pretty intense. I can be.

53:59 Yeah, and you think they misunderstand you because you’re trying to make them better, but they think you’re just, it’s yeah, it’s not fair. It was, yeah, it wasn’t fair of me to do that. I don’t think it’s fair to do that, because everyone’s journey is their own, but I think through that misunderstanding, that isolation came, and that loneliness came, and yeah, it’s just a cycle. Is it harder on tour, or is it harder when you’re in the studio trying to create something for your album?

54:23 I love being on tour so much. I love being on the road. If I could live my life on stage, I’d do that. If I could do 90% on stage and the rest off, I’d be cool with that. Okay, and I was on, on to when I was on tour with Calvin, there was 15 guys on a tour bus, and me, so you can get sounds like, be smelly.

54:41 It was. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was rowdy and smelly, and yeah, it was crazy, but it didn’t matter what was happening in between, because we were getting to places to get on stage, you know, to get in front of, I’d never been in front of 20,000 people until I went on the road with Calvin, and it’s incredible. It’s an incredible feeling., but studio, it’s different. I mean, with the studio, that’s my personal journey.

55:03 It’s something that I can do, with somebody that not only I think is talented, but I love as well, because all the people that I work with, I have such love for, and such respect for, and it’s the, it’s the coming together of those two things, and the output of that, and then seeing how that does and how people react to it. I love that. So I think that, yeah, they’re very different. One’s, one is more personal on the outside, and one’s more personal on the inside, if that makes sense.

55:26 And you’re performing, is it very different if you’re performing with Calvin than if you’re performing on your own, your own stuff? Yeah, ’cause there’s no pressure with Calvin, ’cause everyone’s looking at him, so, so you can be more free. You can be more, you know, we used to have fun and look at each other and just have a bit of a laugh, but the pressure was on him because it was his show, whereas when it’s my show, yeah, the pressure is on you, so it’s easier when you’re doing it in the background.

55:49 Okay, why haven’t you moved to LA? And have you thought about it? I always think musicians are always drawn there, and they at some point made a decision, they’re going to stay in London. What’s your relationship like with LA? I’m there quite a lot, actually.

56:01 I’m there about two, three times a year., LA is cool. I mean, I’ve made some really good friends in LA, and I’ve met some fantastic producers, and the UK movement is so strong in LA, which is what I love. You know, they’re really looking to us for style, for sound. Yeah, it’s beautiful, but because we have style and sound, right? It’s crazy, though, Brian, because I was sat with a, a young man called Alex, in LA not too long ago, and, I said, also, how are you getting there?

56:25 He said, I’m getting the train, and I thought to myself, the, the UK is, LA kids are becoming English, and the English kids are, everyone wants to drive here, and every, was it’s like it’s swapping around. Does that make sense? And you know, the music they were listening to, they recognized, they didn’t pull me up on Calvin. They pulled me up on a, a song I’ve done with a guy from San Diego, actually, Castle, who’s An underground music producer. He’s an electronic producer, and they said, oh, you did that track with Castle, and he’s a guy that not even the underground knew about in England.

56:54 So it was interesting to me that the LA youth are kind of catching on to that scene. So that’s why I love kind of dipping in and out of there. There’s something about LA that I find a little bit disconcerting, just in terms of, there’s an unrest there. There’s some kind of an uneasiness there, and I don’t know whether that’s born of the frustration that people feel at coming to the land of milk and honey and not having a drop of milk and honey, and, you know, working their asses off and not seeing any of that.

57:18 There’s something that breeds a hugely transient population, you know what I mean? So there’s something about that that I can’t really, I can’t, I can’t come to terms with, which London doesn’t really do, ’cause London is so much more open with that. But there might be a shift. I don’t know. We might be living a shift now.

57:34 Fascinating what you say. It’s definitely the Americans are always looking over here. I mean, look at Downton Abbey, right? They always want to know what’s going on in London. I’ve got more viewers, I’ve got more people that watch this show in America than in London.

57:45 I love it. Yeah, and so they’re looking always to Paris for fashion, and so the Yanks always want to know what’s going on over there, but then, but then that’s what America is, that’s where everyone came from anyway. I mean, it’s, it’s, I think people are now starting to catch on to their roots again, and kind of, you know, I love that. I love that people look to, to, to the, to Europe and and the Far East and the Middle East, whatever it is, for inspiration, and for, because that’s where you all from, you know?

58:09 Yeah, we’re all from., yeah, LA is strange. I’m from San Diego, but LA is like night and day, and I agree. It’s got some weird energy there. There is a huge, a huge number of people that come there every year to find their dream. A lot of them don’t.

58:21 It’s got, it’s a strange old town, you know? It’s got a lot of weird things going on, but it’s fun. Yeah, it’s fun, and, yeah, I was there for Christmas one year, and it was just vacant. Oh my God, it must be crazy. Like, there was no one there, and I was like, what’s going on?

58:33 Everyone was like, no one is from LA. No one’s really from LA, and I was like, wow, I never thought of it. That, yeah, absolutely. So, what’s it like being in a music video? I saw you in The Thinking About You video.

58:44 You’re on a boat. I mean, you know, I’m on a boat, you’re on a boat, and then you’re getting attacked by Somali pirates., what’s, what’s it like shooting a music video? Is it all glamour? Is it fun, is it hard work? No, I mean, I tell you what, it depends.

58:59 With the Calvin videos, yeah, absolutely, ’cause there’s money in there, and they’re whipping you around from place to place, and you’re getting your makeup and hair done, and it’s glamorous. With the ones that we do, I love, I obviously, I, I don’t know. What I actually, no, I say prefer, but it’s so much easier doing the bigger videos, ’cause people do everything for you, but that’s just lazy, but, but some of the greatest videos are guerrilla videos, right?

59:21 Exactly, and I was just going to say that. I mean, Cross the Line, for example, I did, and I hope we don’t get in trouble for this, but we had to climb over fences to get into this quarry, and shoot on a camera. There was only four of us, and it was all, you know, started to rain, and we were scared we were going to get rained in, in this place and get airlifted out, and that was really exciting, and to see that now, there are, I don’t know, like three, four million views on that video.

59:44 Where’d you shoot that? We shot it in a quarry, up north somewhere. Okay. Yeah, I’m scared to say where it is. Not scared, never fear, but worried about, feel that it had that guerrilla.

59:53 I hope so. I hope so. So yeah, and obviously that was put out by Hospital Records, so they have a big fan base, and they helped us push that. But you know, Bass Soldiers was the last video that I shot, which was my last single, and that was, an EP that I put out on my own label. And Bass Soldiers was about, I brought in all of the bass music heads, DJ Fresh, Stamina, Jenna G, Funcase, invited them all down to just shoot against the black screen and just have them dancing.

1:00:19 And I just wanted to kind of take it back to that, like, guys, this is what we do. You, yeah, it looked great by the way. Yeah, thank you so much. Everyone was having a lot of fun. Yeah, it was great, ’cause everyone was drinking, behind, and eating, and, you know, even when Fresh turned up, and he’s a mega star, you know, everyone was kind of throwing jokes at him, and everyone’s having a bit of banter, because it wasn’t like, oh, you know, the talent’s here.

1:00:38 What? ‘Cause he’s real. You know, I’ve known this guy for a long time, and he’s been on the scene a long time, and he’s having his success now, deservedly so, ’cause he’s a really talented cat. But it was just, it was family. Yeah, it was a family vibe.

1:00:50 I loved it. Talk to me about Hustle Girl as a label. Why’d you start, you know? Is it important to have your own label these days? Is it hard work?, you know, what was going through your mind when it happened, and is, is there, has it changed?

1:01:03 Honestly, Brian, I’ll tell you, I needed an outlet for the album. I wanted to have a place, where it could be born, where we could push it out in conjunction with, with, with Transmission, here, and, and Radical Records in America, obviously, and various people who’ve distributed it around the world. But we wanted to have a, a home for, for The Real. So Hustle Girl really was my way of using myself as a guinea pig, so that when I start to, sign artists, because that’s what we want to do, we want to manage, and we want to be an agency, but I want it to be a place where it can be freelance.

1:01:37 People can come to us, and you know, we make things happen. I might put you with a team, to help a certain artist for a certain reason, and, that’s how we want to build Hustle Girl. It’s not necessarily just a record label, but I don’t exactly know what it is right now. I just don’t like defining it, because we don’t know. I don’t think you need to know what it is these days.

1:01:57 I think it’s better if you don’t know. There you go, you I don’t even know what that means anymore. You know, a label, I mean, it used to mean something, ’cause it used to mean a capital and a distribution network, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that anymore, and you might not want that capital with the strings attached. We had an artist in here somewhere that said, you know, someone was talking about, I’m getting signed, and they were like, do you know how much that’s costing you?

1:02:18 Yeah, oh, they gave me 25 grand. Okay, that’s costing you. You know, you’ve got to pay that back as well. That’s no fear. You’re paying that back.

1:02:23 That’s in advance. They’re not just giving you free money. It’s, you know, I don’t know if you know Scubas? Pip, but we had him in here, so, you know, he made a guerrilla video too, where he had one shot where he was shaving his hair and he lit something on fire, and, like, a cargo transport, and he started his Speech Development records, and he has some of his, you know, people that he knows really well that he’s signing, and, you know, it sounds like a similar type journey, but it sounds like a difficult journey as well.

1:02:45 It is. Again, anything that you do that’s that you have a vested interest in, or a personal interest, is going to be, it’s going to be harder, but then, a friend of mine once said to me that anything done with love might take a little bit longer to get there, but when it does, it’s there to stay. Have you always had this, with love, theme? Yeah, it’s really resonating. Is it?

1:03:02 Do you know who you remind me of? Who? Okay, so, early on in London Real days, we embraced,, the psychedelic called ayahuasca, and, it was something we did. It was one of our, our huge breakout shows in the beginning. I was terrified about doing it.

1:03:17 I have an old career in banking, and I thought, once I drink ayahuasca, you know, I’m I’m would never be allowed back in my old, my name’s in it as well, funny enough. Oh yeah, that is true, and so we had, we found the shaman, that was a female shaman. She’s wonderful., we call her Suie on air, and, but she reminds me a lot of you, as in, like, everything’s coming from a loving place, and, like, that loving energy just kind of exudes and gets places. But did you always have this, or is it something that’s come with, with age?

1:03:43 I mean, that in a good way. No, no, absolutely, that’s, that’s absolutely true. I, I’ve always had, I’ve had the feeling, and I’ve had the, that it’s come from that place, but I’ve never known how to express it, and I find it, it’s, it’s lovely to speak to you because I feel a bit, it’s, it’s easier to, to talk to you about it than other people. Sometimes I feel like I have to modify the way I say it, because if you say the word too many times, either it devalues it for people, or they think it’s cheesy, or they think, but it’s a strange word.

1:04:12 Love. There’s the Greek, they have six different words for love. It is, well, there you go. But what is it, you know?, I, for me, that’s what God is to me. God is love, and my religion is love, and that’s kind of why would I want to live my life in any other way?

1:04:27 But that doesn’t mean that it works for everybody in terms of having to teach people how to do it. It’s something you feel, you know, and if you need to, to like any religions, or any, you know, anything where you have to adhere to things, if you need something that keeps you in line, you have to adhere to that. That’s my, that’s what keeps me in line, you know? That’s what, that’s what makes me stick to it, and what the beautiful thing about it is, I don’t have to think about it.

1:04:50 It’s natural and it’s real. Were you like this 10 years ago? What was the 23, 24-year-old you? I like, what were you like? I, oh, I still, yeah, I was actually in everyone’s face.

1:05:02 I think I was, how come this isn’t happening right now, and I’m going to do this and f*** you guys. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I never got sort of, angry, or sort of tear out about it, but I, I did. I was very, I was a little more animated. I, I, I used to, and I still do at times, dress like a 16-year-old boy., I used to go to raves and just sit there in a corner on my own and kind of listen to what was happening, and sort of, yeah, I was very eager and very, all, it’s this.

1:05:29 I can’t imagine ever feeling differently to how I’m feeling now, but it’s how I’m relaying it that’s changed. Yeah, eager, anxious, yeah, I mean, anxious. It’s like saying nervous. When people ask me, are you nervous before going on stage? Not nervous, anxious, eager.

1:05:44 Yeah, I suppose that’s the word. It’s more that you want it to go well, so you’re, you know, it’s or again, to not be misunderstood if you do something that’s not to character, or not, you know, what is, what’s like, I’m just thinking to myself, 5 years from now, what’s, what’s on your not bucket list? But what’s on your list? We were talking about that the other day, funnily enough, really, the bucket. What’s on your list?

1:06:08 Is it you know, that that, that Hustle Girl becomes a certain size, or is it that you’re now performing in front of those 20,000 people as opposed to performing with Calvin? What’s, what’s on your mind? I never thought that this would be the case, but Right now, it’s, starting my, starting the family, you know?, I have my man, and I have my, my, my job, which I’m very, very lucky to have, both of those things, ’cause I thought I’d only have work forever, and that, in it, even having that was beautiful to me, and I loved it, and I still do, but now it’s about finding that balance of life and career, which I never thought I’d have the chance to do., putting the love that I put into my work into building my own family, which doesn’t necessarily have to mean biologically a family.

1:06:55 It’s just building a, it’s a tribe, you know?, an army, and that’s, that’s really where I’m at with that, and that’s happening with your label and other places. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I’m not putting, I think it’s important, and at this point, to tell everyone, don’t have a fixed set of achievements. Absolutely, have things that you want to achieve by a certain time, but no, especially within music, you can’t plan anything, so work around it, but if it doesn’t happen, then don’t think you’re a failure.

1:07:27 Don’t panic. It’s okay, there’ll be a reason, and that’ll be apparent, maybe not right then, but your despondency will affect your work and will affect the scene negatively, so keep your head up. Okay, well said there. How do you collaborate with people? I was, I was talking to Scubas, and he was like, I did a track, and Travis from Blink was doing my drums.

1:07:44 I was like, how’d you do that? He’s like, he emailed it to me, and I was like, so I mean, is it true, do you collaborate like virtually now these days? Yeah, well, CLE, who I mentioned earlier on, I’d had one of his remixes, I can’t remember if it was online or on a radio show, and I just tweeted him. I’ve never met him, and we’ve done three tracks together which have been on his albums, and I’ve just basically gone into Kemo, recorded the vocal, sending them to, sent them to Castle, he’s put them on tracks, and we have this, this relationship, and you still haven’t met him?

1:08:14 Never met him. Never met him. I know I love him, but I never met him. That’s a little weird. It’s weird, but is that the way it is these days, you know, for us?

1:08:21 Yeah, I think for underground artists more so, because with major artists, they’ll put them into sessions, they’ll, you know, it’s all very kind of,, built, but with us, we have to. It’s guerrilla warfare, you know, right? Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, by any means necessary. Yes, sir., I want to talk about the radio really quick., you, ’cause you, you also do some hosting on the radio., everyone that’s sat in that seat, from a musician perspective, whether it’s Akala or, Ashley Walters, or even Scubas, all had radio love in the beginning of their careers, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was still talking to them as musician.

1:08:54 So how important is it to get radio in this day of the internet, and was that important for you to come out? Well, now that radio’s become digital as well, it means that radio is the internet, you know., I think that again we’re all parts of different pieces of a puzzle that together make up the music scene, so having radio DJs play our songs means that people get to listen to it, means people come and check you out online. So it’s just a cycle, you know?

1:09:29 And I think with radio in particular, as far as I’m concerned, I’ve always been interested in broadcast. Not necessarily, I’ve loved the shows that I’ve done for the BBC and for radio stations back home in Jordan, which have revolved around music, but I’m not necessarily set on it just being musical. The interaction that I have on radio, I just like the idea of having a forum, where people feel like they’re part of a discussion, perhaps, or they can interact, whether it’s online or on the telephone, or it’s just a direct line to human beings, so you can talk about what’s on your mind, you talk to other people.

1:10:03 Yeah, yeah, look at LBC, for example. I mean, I listen to that all the time, James O’Brien. I think that’s fantastic, and they have things like the mystal, people could phone in and they can learn things. It’s wonderful. It’s interactive, it’s still an interactive medium.

1:10:14 So yeah, and is it still a necessary gateway for any musical artist? Do you have to get radio love? It’s, it’s worrying. I mean, it was worrying. I don’t feel that anymore, but Radio One had a real monopoly on, you know, if you didn’t get radio and you weren’t successful, I don’t think that’s the case anymore.

1:10:27 I think now, with the rise of digital stations, and other stations, radio stations, that it’s not as important anymore, and I think if we keep putting emphasis on the one, that will be, it’ll be, it’s, it’s just bad news for people. So I think getting your, like you say, by any means necessary, get the songs out however you want to get them out, and if they’re good, they’ll get heard. Stand on the street corner and play them. You know, doesn’t matter what’s a, what does a day in your life look like?

1:10:54 What would we be surprised to see you doing? I clean a lot. I tidy a lot. Yeah, yeah. I’m, I was, I used to look down, well, when people would see me tidying, and, and, and say to me, oh, you know, you’re being neurotic, you’re being, and I started to feel bad about it.

1:11:11 I was like, why? I love, I don’t love necessarily, if I had someone to do it for me, that would be great, if I, but I like organizing things., and then someone said to me that it’s quite a Buddhist thing that when monks first join, when they go to the temples, they have the younger guys on sweeping and tidying, because you organize your thoughts when you’re alone, and you can, so that’s something that I don’t know people be surprised. People that know me aren’t surprised, obviously, ’cause they know I’m neurotic when it comes to that, but yeah, an average day, writing., I, I hit a few emails and listen to people’s music,, cook, we go to the cinema.

1:11:48 We, you know, do you make yourself write every day? Do you like a certain time, or certain, I’m writing constantly. That’s the funny thing. I never just sit down to write. Right now, I’ll be sitting there and I’ll hear I’ll hear something, I’ll see a word, and I’ll either note it or I’ll put it in my phone, or I’ll sing it into my phone, so I’m constantly collecting ideas, and then when I sit down somewhere I’ll go, oh yeah, the train of thought that, you know, a few days ago I would have seen a sign, and then I kind of build on that So it’s constant.

1:12:10 Yeah, it’s not a conscious thing. Okay, you’re from Jordan., do you ever feel like you represent the Middle East? Do you ever feel like you have to explain to people the Middle East, or where you’re from? Or, I hope I represent., a lot of people ask me straight away. They always ask me where I’m from.

1:12:26 No one can figure out the accent, even though I sound more London now than I did when I first came here. But I love being from the Middle East, and I hope that I’m doing my country proud. And I know that I’m the first Jordanian to be in the charts in the international charts, which Ali, my manager, brought to my attention recently, which made me feel very proud. Do you go back often? I do, yeah.

1:12:45 I was back there about two or three times last year to perform. Yeah, they roll out the red carpet at the airport. Crazy. Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing, the reception that I get there, and what I love is that I feel like there’s some kind of shift now, where kids are seeing that because I’ve done it, they can do it, which doesn’t necessarily, again, I have to stress, doesn’t necessarily have to mean doing it, you know, as a singer and musician, whatever.

1:13:06 It doesn’t matter, the medium doesn’t matter. It’s about just being able to grab your balls. So, empowerment. Absolutely. I hope so.

1:13:13 Okay, yeah, I always ask people that come on here a few questions at the end. I’m going to hit you with them., if you can make are we done? No, we’re just, we’re not done, we’re not done. All right, if you, if you can make a phone call to the 20-year-old, a, and give that young lady a bit of advice. I’m guessing you were at work at the time.

1:13:30 I, okay, if you could give her some advice, and if you think she might listen to you, she’d probably hang up on you. Shut up, old lady., but, well, what would you tell her? You know, I used to think I’d say don’t do it, you know, don’t do something silly that you, but now I’ve realized that everything I’ve done has led me to this very moment, that here with you. So there’s nothing that I could or would change about it, but I think, to save myself a lot of heartbreak, I’d say modulate what that comes from, and that, and how it comes out.

1:14:03 So instead of it going like that, make it kind of go like that first. Okay, you know, okay, in what, professing love, anger? No, just think, think before you speak. Okay, yeah, very important to everybody, or anyone in particular. Just yeah, that, that words have more meaning when they’re, when they’re thought through.

1:14:21 So even if it’s coming from the heart, you can’t expect people to understand it just because you’re speaking from the heart, and then get frustrated when they don’t. You have to think about how to put it so that that person understands you. Otherwise you’re just prolonging your journey. Okay, well said. You know, you said something earlier about me listening to your album, and you said, you said, Brian, I’m sensitive, so just keep that in mind.

1:14:42 How can you be sensitive when you put your music out to the world? How do you respond to YouTube comments and people telling you that you’re blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? So I’m lucky in that, unless they’ve been things we’ve put out on other labels, so, you know, UKF or Hospital, where they’ve got fans, or people that come on and just want to be mean for the sake of it, and they, you know, they’ll attack you physically or this, which is silly. At the start I used to read them, and they’d be really upsetting, but now I don’t bother, because if someone has something to say to me, you can say it to me on Twitter, on whatever it is, email me, it doesn’t matter.

1:15:13 But, it’s more that there are certain people whose opinions are valuable, and I just felt like yours would be one that had value, so it was more about me playing on the emotional side. All right, thank you. I look forward to it., the advice question continues. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? We spoke about it earlier, actually.

1:15:32 What was that? If you tell the truth, you’ll never have to remember a thing. It’s very good advice. Funnily enough, yeah, it’s good advice. Huh, yeah.

1:15:39 I had a guest on recently, and that’s what his Irish grandmother said to him. Yeah, you always tell the truth, and anything to worry about, no one can put you down. It goes far. And then the last question I always ask everyone here is to the 20-year-old, let’s say the 20-year-old, The woman that’s listening to in Brazil or in China or in South America, that wants to be like a, someday she wants to, you know, to her with Calvin, she wants to have her own label, she wants to produce music you know, for a living.

1:16:08 What advice do you give to her, together, to get there? Go for it, man. If that’s I mean, if I can inspire a journey, that’s wonderful, but I, I couldn’t ever expect someone to want to emulate my journey., and God, I wish I could. I wish they’d just get in touch with me if they wanted to speak to me, you know, that’s it. But, go for it.

1:16:33 If you, if something you believe is going to give you fulfillment, and if you think that even the journey, whether it makes you happy or sad, whatever it is, just do it. Why not? Do you have, like, a certain pet peeve of people that come up to you and say, I want to do this song, but, or I really want to do this, but, and you just, it’s just part of, you say, does, do you have anything like that?, I think, we touched on it earlier when people say to me, oh, I, I want to do this, but I need a manager, but I needed this, but you don’t need anything, but you all you need is you, when you accept yourself and when you love yourself and when you know that you’re all you need, and you can’t be anything to anybody unless you’re somebody to yourself.

1:17:17 Then yeah, ’cause when people say that to me, I’m like, dude, what, what do you mean I need this? Any, you don’t need anything. You have what you need. Do you think they’re afraid of failing? Who isn’t, right?

1:17:28 Who is? Have you ever been afraid to fail? Have you ever noticed yourself not doing something because you think, I’m afraid to fail? I don’t like the word, I, and you know, people have sort of told me off about this, but I’m scared, or I fear, is not really part of my vocabulary. I don’t really respond to that.

1:17:44 Not fear. You can worry, you can, you know, stay up at night tossing and turning, but fear is a really strong word, you know, and I hope we never have to experience it, and I hope, and I know things that are happening in the world now, getting people pretty close to me, and myself, someone who I never thought I’d use that word. It’s the stuff that’s going on around me that makes me more faithful for us, Rather than faithful for myself., so, no, I’ve never really been, no, never fearful., impatient, know it all a little bit.

1:18:16 Yeah, pushy. Yeah, I’ve been all of that. I’m imagining the 20, early 20s, Jesus, Jesus., and People all want to know, are you going to be doing more tracks of Calvin? Are you going to be touring with him? Is that an important thing to you?

1:18:29 Or if it happens, it happens. I hope so. If it happens, it happens., you know, Calvin and I, we see each other quite a lot. I saw him a few weeks ago when I was in LA, ’cause he’s out there at the moment, and he’s just released the tracklisting for his new album, which obviously I would have loved to have been a part of, but the man’s on his journey and he’s doing his thing. I didn’t even know that he was putting out another album.

1:18:50 So, you know, good luck to him., yeah, I hope so. I think with me and Calvin it’s never ending, ’cause you know, I did two tracks on his second and one on his third, and from the success of Thinking About You, I’m hoping that yeah, there’ll be something else in the pipeline. I mean, you guys must have one of the longest musical relationships that he has. Right? I’ve never thought of it.

1:19:09 Yeah, actually, we probably do. Yeah, so you probably interact very differently in the studio ’cause you know each other for so long. We do, and it’s just him and me when we’re in there, and when we weren’t thinking about you, it was just us, you know, and I think he likes to keep it that way. I mean, you’ve seen, I mean, obviously with him and other artists, you know, when you get this kind of mega fame level, it’s tricky, ’cause the, the, the UFC, the cage fighting organization, the president, Dana White, calls them Klingons, and like when these fighters get really big, all of a sudden now everyone’s around them, and then they tell them things like, oh yeah, you shouldn’t do that, or you shouldn’t do that, and then, but it changes things.

1:19:41 Do you see that happen in the music industry? I do, yeah, yeah. Money changes things. Money changes things. And listen, I, I can’t, we can’t knock it, because we’re living in this consumer society, and we’re here for a reason.

1:19:52 If we didn’t want it, we could go live on an island in a loincloth and, you know, eat fish all day long. We can do that, we can get an easyJet flight to wherever we want to go., the possibilities are endless while we’re in this In this society. Yeah, there are certain things you want. You want a roof over your head. You want a couple of holidays a year.

1:20:09 You might want a car. You might, you know, we have priorities. But when it comes to that Mega Fame, that, that amount of money starts to mess with people. But that’s what happens in politics as well. I think when mega money is involved, people want to cover their asses.

1:20:23 People want to lie., so it’s never really a good recipe. But, if we’re using Calvin as an example, he’s perfect, because he’s got a strong head on his shoulders. I don’t know if it’s a Scotsman in him, but they seem to be a pretty determined bunch of people., as, as, as we know from my associations with them, I seem to attract them. But, you know, he’s very strong- willed, and he’s super, super talented, so he keeps, he keeps his inner circle tight. Yeah., how do people get your album?

1:20:51 How do people get a hold of you?, tell me, every, everything. I am Ayah Marar. My name is spelled A-Y-A-H M-A-R-A-R. Website, Facebook, Twitter. The album is online.

1:21:02 You can get it on iTunes. You can get it on, on HMV websites. Things like, you can buy anywhere, really. You can get anywhere. Just Google it.

1:21:10 Okay. And strange, creative things of the new future. Will you ever act? Will you ever do anything?, you know what I’d love to do? I’d love to voice a cartoon.

1:21:19 Oh yeah, it’s been a dream of mine to be the voice of a cartoon. I always wanted to do that. So if anyone’s watching, they think I can do, I do good voice. Yeah. Have you ever done anything like that?

1:21:30 Never. No, no, in the confines of my, yeah, in privacy of my own, my own house. Yeah, but not, not in public. No. That would be very cool., I,, thanks so much for coming.

1:21:39 Pleasure. I never know, it’s like, life is like no. London Real is like a box of chocolates. Yeah. I never know what I’m going to get.

1:21:45 Me earlier, actually. Yeah, and so I just, you never know. You see someone’s Twitter profile, or you see, I see your videos, and by definition, as humans, we create this person, and it’s never that person., with London Real, it’s always a cooler person. That’s you, though. That’s your maybe.

1:22:00 But I, I see where you’re going with, like building your family like you said, and, and, I think I’m probably trying to do a similar thing here, and it’s like, it’s a community, and it’s a people, and it’s a love. And absolutely, I think in the south in America they call it laying down roots. Is that right? Yeah, and I see it, ’cause it’s like you really want to set up. I think it’s an old, habit of ours when we used to be in these hunter-gatherer clans, tribal.

1:22:21 Yeah, you want your people around you. The kids are all we’ve got, man. That’s all, like, if we can’t pass on what we know to them, so they can sort it out. What are we going to do? Yeah, it’s crucial, and it’s not just about your kids, it’s about other people.

1:22:34 Everyone, each one, teach one. Absolutely. It’s a village. Yeah, that’s what I don’t get about parents. You know, they get, I can understand this protectiveness that people have, but you, you, you’re, you’re, you’re risking,, limiting their horizons if, if you keep it within.

1:22:49 Why, why, we, why are we confining everything? Just, you know, open it up. My, my Marsh warts instructor is a teacher at one of the schools, and he said to me once, he said children need, relationships with, adults that are other than their parents, so that’s why they need Grandma. They need cousins and hang out with old people and young. They say, was that Chinese?

1:23:06 There’s a Chinese philosophy that says you should spend x amount of hours with under sixes and over 60s every week. Yeah, so, yeah, I just had a guest on last week who said you spend a third of your life with people you know younger than you and less important with you, a third of them the same kind of status, and a third with people that are almost your mentors, and just always be kind of giving peers and then being inspired, let it go around. And yeah, this whole community thing, I can talk your ear off about it, but it’s funny, I had a guest on here called Charles Eisenstein, and he said, he’s like, Brian, I went to Chicago.

1:23:36 I lived out in the suburbs, and I thought, I’m going to make a community now, and he invited people over to Super Bowl parties and barbecues, and he found that he had no lasting relationships with them, because he said ultimately he didn’t need them, and they didn’t need him. So it’s like, you have to set up a community where people need you and you need them, and that’s how you build your tribe. It can’t be, let’s meet up for dinner. It has to be like, you really have to do things.

1:23:58 You know, it’s like, someone said to me, it’s like stars: you don’t have to see them to know that they’re there, kind of thing, or to believe that they’re there. You know? There you go. There’s a lot of stuff going on subconsciously. Absolutely.

1:24:09 Anyway, so I, your off., thank so much for coming on. Pleasure. It was a lot of fun. People are going to love this., yeah, I really think they are., and, yeah, let’s do it again some time. You’re doing a great thing.

1:24:20 Thank you so much. Okay, thanks. Let’s say, London Real, it’s about the journey., I wish you well in yours, and, all the best. Thank you so much. Okay, take care.

1:24:28 Thank. Right. What we call reality is in fact nothing more than a culturally sanctioned and linguistically reinforced hallucination. This week on London Real, we have the English rapper, poet and journalist Akala. [lyrics] If I didn’t go to Pan-African Saturday school. If I didn’t grow up in the H Empire.

1:25:00 If I didn’t listen to Wu-Tang Forever or read the autobiography of Malcolm X when I was 9, would I be the person I am today? Probably not. One of many men that could have been doctors and end up spending the whole life boxed up. Hip-hop was my life. It was something I lived.

1:25:11 I loved interacting with it. I wrote lyrics every day. I was in battles, ’cause to me all they do is breed conflict. First time I saw someone get stabbed, I was 12, and it was a little poke. It was a meat cleaver in the back of a guy’s head.

1:25:21 I had other teachers that felt that person from my racial, cultural, economic background, and certainly from my socioeconomic background, should not have been top of the class. These were guys who were doing well in the street, but they’d spent so much of their life in and out of prison, etc. They were like, you don’t want to be like us. You know, you’re clever. In fact, if you drop out of school, we’re going to give you a hiding.

1:25:40 You say you are British, and that lovely patriotism, the feed, but in reality you have more in common with immigrants. Doing with your leaders, if the music is good enough, if the visual is good enough, if your online interaction is decent, you can keep your integrity and have a career. If we’re honest, true strength is the strength to be honest, ultimately, any power structure in the world wants to stay powerful. On Sunday, London Real presents Akala, knowledge is power.

1:26:04 It’s fair, but [lyrics]