Suli Breaks - Inspiring Change Through Verse

Full transcript: Suli Breaks on London Real

5:39 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. With me today is Mr. Patrick Vickers, who is a former derivatives trader with Goldman Sachs, who turned into an MMA fighter and promoter. He is guest hosting with us today. He’s also a trustee of SOS, which is the group surviving our streets, which we had Jason Featherstone on here a couple months ago talking about that group.

6:01 And there’s a link here, which I’ll get to later. But our guest is Mr. Sully Breaks. He is a spoken word, rapper, poet, artist who’s just recently racked up over 2 million views on YouTube with his video, Why I Hate School but I Love Education, as in my mind I think he’s questioning the role and relevancy of formal institutions for education. Is that a pretty good summary or not?

6:26 Yeah, in a sense, yeah. It is. First of all, welcome. Pleasure to be here. Cool, man.

6:31 You’ve been featured in like the Washington and the Huffington Post. You’ve spoken at over 100 universities in the UK, you performed in the Camden Roundhouse, and I think you were also an ambassador for surviving our streets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s quite a CV, man, you’re busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, at the moment.

6:46 And hopefully I just get busy also, that’s all right, hopefully, man. You know, I put the video up on our Facebook and I tweeted it out, which is the one you’re most famous for, right? Yeah. And you just shot that a few months ago, is that right? Yeah, well, we actually shot it longer, but actually it came out in December.

7:02 Okay. back but in December is when I released it. Okay, can you talk about that piece because it’s pretty powerful. I watched it like weeks ago and then I watched it again today and I kept going back, kept rewinding it you know and trying to listen to some of the things you were saying so for people that haven’t seen it what’s that all about? It’s basically a lot of people when I mean when you do something as an artist you never actually understand the gravity of how it would really affect people so when I wrote it, it wasn’t really me trying to highlight any specific point to try and make some kind of statements, it was me just speaking on my experience, so how I personally felt about the school institution. Obviously it resonated with a lot of people, but initially when I did write it, that’s just a summary of my whole school experience and everything that I’ve seen coming out of the school system and relating it to the society around me.

7:51 So when I did write it, it wasn’t me saying, oh, everybody drop out of school, everybody look at what it was just me writing from inside me as art. It’s the same way someone would just paint a picture and the world perceived it, how they wanted to perceive it. So that’s essentially what that was when I actually created it. And it was just about me being in school. You know, you spend a lot of years in school and you’re always told that when you come out of school, there’s a notion that life would be perfect, especially when you come from an African background. That’s like the holy grail to get a degree. So when I actually did get the degree and then I looked around and life wasn’t panning out how it was supposed to be, there was a lot of pent up frustration for a long time, but then I started to open my eyes to the world as well.

8:29 So that’s where the inspiration for the piece came from, just that experience of my life. And one of the things you talk about in that piece is all the pressure you get from your family, right? It’s like, not only the rest of the world is telling you your degree is your ticket, but it’s like your family, because it’s not only your ticket, but it makes them proud of you, right? Yeah. Can you explain what you were saying there?

8:48 It back to being from a typical African background. Obviously I was raised in London, but there’s always this kind of perception that people who have degrees are better in a sense, you’re held in a higher esteem. So for parents, for a child to have a degree, that’s the ultimate accomplishment. It doesn’t matter how rich you are, what situation you’re in, it’s just so they can tell their friends or they can have that poster on the wall of you graduating.

9:13 I mean, that’s what’s important. You see a lot of my friends, they could be struggling, they could have no job. I know someone who hasn’t worked since they graduated, probably like four years, but the fact that they have a degree kind of qualifies them. And for me, that was kind of, it’s not a real success, it’s superficial. Obviously, when you do get your degree and you do get a job and you’re successful, that kind of counts for something.

9:35 But just the fact that you’ve done something, just gained the label. For me, it’s superficial kind of success, as opposed to actually attaining something after it. So yeah, that’s that’s what I mean when I say that your family is kind of there’s a lot of pressure for them Just it’s more to reflect on them to say that I’ve raised them. Well, he done this and you know, that’s the end of it Right. They’re all it’s almost selfish. Yeah, it’s in it to an extent. It really is I believe it is to an extent but as a child, there’s always that pressure and you don’t want to let your family down Yeah, wow That’s kind of like a head a game in itself and in the in the video you talk about you drop names like Steve Jobs Richard Branson Oprah Zuckerberg Gates Spielberg as you were saying that none of these guys actually had degrees Yeah, I did actually make a mistake in mentioning Oprah, because she does have a degree which is highlighted so clearly in the Huffington Post, but when I was doing my research I didn’t find that she had a degree, but yeah, the other individuals, what I was mentioning is obviously that I wasn’t advocating that you don’t need to get a degree to be successful, what I was showing was providing examples of outliers or people who have been successful without having a degree, and they’re extremely successful, meaning that you should open up your mind to the alternative forms of success as opposed to the ones dictated to you by

10:46 Society and that’s why I thought I’d reference those examples and I got a lot of stick because people said these are just individuals but what I wanted to say is that if I didn’t mention individuals that people that are familiar or popular, the point wouldn’t be evidence. I could have said like Tommy down the street is successful without a degree but who’s Tommy you know I mean hence why I did pick those particular individuals and I highlighted Steve Jobs because they’ve made significant changes in this world that we’re living at the moment. Yeah, and as an artist, you have to make your point.

11:13 Yeah, you have to, yeah. You’re going to offend some people, aren’t you? You can never make anyone happy. I realized that a long time ago. If you’re trying to make everyone happy, that’s how you felt, so yeah.

11:21 And what’s your educational history? Because it’s interesting, because I read that you have a law degree, and then after that video, you kind of look at you, and you’re really questioning the whole institution of education, and yeah, what’s your history? Yeah, I did the conventional route. I mean, I did primary school, I went secondary school, I went college, and I went straight to a university and what I mean is I did it in the sense that I didn’t say no gap years, I did it exactly how you’re supposed to do it if that’s the right way to say it. So that’s what I was the system I was in and I believe that’s what even qualifies me more to speak to what I do because I actually was in the system, I saw how it operated and I’m speaking from that perspective as opposed to being someone who, not taking it away from anyone who drops out and says it, but as opposed to being someone who wasn’t in the school institution and was speaking against it because then it just makes you seem bitter, but it makes you seem like you didn’t do it properly.

12:09 So with me, that’s my educational history. I was actually in the school institution. The next step would have been to take my master’s and did my PhD, but that’s when I kind of just said to myself, enough is enough, you know what I mean? I did a law degree as well. And then I went on to do my master’s as well.

12:24 Oh really, yeah. Did you not, but you could have gone and done your LPC or gone and take the bar or something like that. Yeah, the thing about me is when I actually went into law, it was all based on this notion of that you have to be University and I found the reason I thought it was so relevant for me to say is because I found a lot of my friends were all in that same situation none of us really there was a few individuals who were actually passionate about what we were studying and I could see that’s why they were excelling you know they they went the extra mile to do this research and that’s why they were excelling all of us kind of stayed at the same level not because we wasn’t trying but because we didn’t have the passion for it and I feel like to excel at something you have to have a passion hence why when I did finish I didn’t want to pursue the LPT just because it was the next option or to try and get into the bar just because it was the next alternative route. I wanted to do something which I actually enjoyed and I think which I would reap the benefits of it even more.

13:14 And the thing is you did law so you didn’t just go and do any degree at university, it’s almost as though you picked one of the hardest ones to get in for. And the funny thing is I don’t know what your family’s background or where you’re from but the guy who was my best friend at university who had the most pressure on himself was my Nigerian friend because he felt as though he had to do well and he had to work hard for his family and obviously you know I wanted to do well but if I didn’t do well and I dropped out my parents would have you know they’d have been okay but he felt a lot of stress from his family to continually achieve and you know and to do well so it sounds similar to what you were going through. It’s very similar I mean I’m from Ghana we’re neighbours in Nigeria and that’s what it is it puts so much pressure on you and at the end of the day it ends up being counterproductive You know, I mean because you’re putting unnecessary pressure on yourself if you want to do something for yourself That’s when you know, you’re more likely and you’re more incentivized Yeah, but when you do want to benefit your family, that’s not a bad thing But sometimes you don’t need those external pressures when there’s already so much ahead of you and so much that you need to achieve Yeah So you graduate and then you realize you’re not gonna go into the workforce and in that trade and then how did this spoken word

14:22 Happen or have you been doing that all along? Um, the spoken word it happened when I was in uni That’s why I can never say to anybody, oh don’t go uni, like it’s uni’s evil because it’s not an evil place because me myself, I discovered myself there, so I don’t want people to take my message to say that, oh everybody should drop out of uni, that’s not my message at all, my message is to kind of, to focus, if you’re in uni, understand why you’re doing it and pursue it for the right reasons as opposed to because of influences around you. So when I was in uni, I did my first spoken word performance in front of an audience, I mean I’ve always been a writer growing up, I’ve written, I used to write short stories and I really used to be passionate about reading. I used to write a lot of stories and I used to listen to a lot of music. I used to write a lot of little raps but I never really pursued it avidly. Then when I was in uni, an opportunity came up to perform at an event and at the time I didn’t really want to do any rap. I thought let me do something which will engage with the audience so I wanted to write a spoken word piece and that’s when I wrote my first spoken word piece and it got a good reception and then I just left it for a little bit. Then when it was coming to my last year of uni, I started to realise that I wasn’t really focusing in terms of what I was doing in law, and I was with my girlfriend at the time, and she said to me that, okay, if you don’t enjoy what you’re

15:29 Doing with law, and you’re not focusing, you’re kind of wasting your time, what are you good at, what do you enjoy? And that’s what made me think back to the spoken word and how people gravitated towards it, and I thought, you know what, maybe let me try and pursue this. So starting in my last year of uni, I started doing it a lot more, being a lot more active, and going to different events, trying to get my name on the internet, etc. And then upon graduating, I realized that this is what I want to pursue, because it seemed like I kind of had a knack for it, just based on how people responded to me, the kind of messages that I was getting.

15:56 It kind of just came into my head that, okay, let me try and make something out of something I’m actually good at and something I enjoy. Now talk to me about spoken word. I mean, every kid wants to be a rapper, and you can see very few people doing spoken word, and it’s a powerful method of communication. It’s almost more powerful than just speaking. Can you explain it?

16:17 I think it’s hard for me to, I don’t understand why it’s a lot more powerful than speaking. I guess it’s the metaphorical aspect and it’s the entertainment aspect of it, because as people obviously we need inspiration as well as information. I think that when you use the metaphors and when you use the rhyme that’s inspiring and then with the underlying message is always the information behind it, if that makes sense. In terms of everybody wants to be a rapper, but the thing is there’s so much negative connotations attached to rap that a lot of people distanced and a lot of people don’t like rap music for that instance. Even though me, when I listen to rap and spoken word, I see it exactly the same way. But a person who’s not a fan of rap music because of the negative aspects of it or stuff like that, wouldn’t see it the same way. Whereas they’d be more responsive to spoken word because it doesn’t come at you the same way, not the same as glamorizing the music videos or glorified in that sense. So I feel the general public a more receptive to spoken word because of the medium, but personally I feel like that and rappers so interlinked, I see both of them as the same.

17:17 I was watching your video today and I was thinking if there was a fat beat on it, I would have paid attention to the music and I would have missed some of the words you said. You get distracted, yeah. Yeah, and that’s what I use, because you say some things that are powerful and some things rhyme and I was just like, yeah, if that had been a song, I would have just heard the hook and I would have seen you, but I think I would have missed the message unless I played it 20, 30, 40, 50 times.

17:39 That’s exactly what it is, because with rap, it’s a lot about, and the difference, one key difference to a lot of people don’t know, with rap it’s about how you say it, because it’s music, you know what I mean? It’s entertainment. How you, with spoken word it’s about what you’re saying, and that’s what, that’s the key thing that allows the message to translate, and that’s the only way to differentiate between the two. But if you was actually a fan of rap, you’d be able to appreciate both of them in the same capacity, but I can understand how people who are not a fan of rap music and have different tastes can appreciate the spoken word more, because it’s just listening into what you’re saying as opposed to trying to dance and all this other stuff attached to it.

18:11 Have you ruled out doing any kind of rapping or any kind of musical stuff? Yeah, I do, obviously, essentially, I do do a little bit here and there. I mean, I’ve got a tape coming out, but me, personally, I prefer the spoken word more, hence why I do do the spoken word stuff. It’s just my general preference. But when I do enjoy it, when I do wanna rap something, I do it from time to time, but what you’d find with my rap, which is a lot different from a lot of artists, is that it’s very similar to my spoken word in terms of the subject matter and how I deliver it and how it comes across.

18:41 So hopefully when I do have, it’s just like a little EP, essentially, that’s what it’s called, but that’s the only way I could categorize it. When it does come out, you will maybe hear me a little bit, but that’s not gonna be the main focus on it. It’s more about me communicating my spoken word to people. Seems like stand up comedy, like spoken word, like you got nowhere to hide. It’s like you got no beat to hide behind.

19:00 You just, it’s like you- You gotta bring it. You gotta bring it. And if you’re not on that day- Yeah, it’s true. A lot of my influence actually came from comedians when I did start performing. If you ever, when I’m on the YouTube videos, I don’t have, there’s not time to talk and et cetera, you know, get engaged with a crowd.

19:15 But in front of a crowd, a lot of people have said that, oh, you do exhibit a lot of characteristics of a comedian. And that’s because when I did start performing, I used to go to a lot of comedy cafes and one of my mentors was actually a comedian. I put a lot from there, because I like the way they mix like the witty and the satirical with the humor at the same time. And it’s essentially what you do with a spoken word, witty and satirical but at the same time there’s always an underlying message and with a lot of my favourite comedians they always have a prevailing message over what they’re saying which is hidden behind the humour which I think makes it even more funny and more artistic in that sense.

19:47 You know they almost have like a political or satirical one. Yeah something real. So that’s what I was going to ask. Do you think and do you consider yourself political? I don’t like to consider myself political.

19:59 I like to say everything I do is just based on life spirits. I don’t have a particular political stance. My views is always, it’s all in line with just the way I think it should be right to treat your fellow man or how the fellow man should understand life. I don’t like to meander into the lines of political and all that kind of stuff because I don’t have a particular political view or political party. But are you trying to make a change?

20:21 That’s what I mean. A lot of people perceive that I try to make a change, which in a sense I do, but I never ever, what I’m really trying to do is just tell my story. I mean, If it does change somebody’s life, I hope it does, but I don’t want to put myself up there as a person who’s trying to be an activist and trying to say that this should happen and that should happen, because I don’t think anybody should tell anybody what to do. Each man will find their own path, but if I can be the person that just shows you the alternative, that’s cool, but essentially, it’s me.

20:47 It’s just very introspective. It’s all just about me just telling my message and my story, and when a lot more of my work comes out at a later date, I think people will find that aspect as opposed to thinking that I’m trying to change them, because I hate being perceived as a figure who’s kind of like above people telling them how, what should be wrong, and that’s how I see politicians, you know what I mean? I don’t like being perceived as that. I’m just a regular guy, and I’d like people to appreciate that, who’s just sharing his story.

21:14 It’s like, I think comedians do the same thing, they just want to point the things out to you and then get you to think about it, and they’re not always doing their own political message. Yeah, yeah, that’s right. It’s funny, we interviewed Eddie Bravo out in LA like six months ago, and he said comedians they see through the matrix and they pick all the things out that aren’t consistent and then they tell you them and that’s why you laugh because you’re like yeah I never thought that about about you know girls when they do that you know and it seems like you’re doing something similar you’re like looking at something like the education system and you’re like picking out things that to you seem ludicrous you know you’re talking about Jesus and Muhammad and all these people that you know were they educated formally or not and you’re talking about people like Steve Jobs or Zuckerberg or Bill Gates who didn’t have a formal education and you’re like, how does this work?

21:58 Yeah, that’s exactly what I tried to do. People follow lots of people that didn’t have all this kind of education, so why are you following them if they didn’t have … You’re chasing this education, but all these people that you figure that you follow, you believe in, don’t have none of this formal education. I think when that video did come out, a lot of people got the impression that I was like an educational activist. That’s not the impression I’m trying to portray, because if that was, I tried to be implementing some kind of reforms, you know what I mean?

22:24 I don’t like people who just speak about something and never do anything. Hence why I say, I’m not an activist because if I was, I’d be actively trying to implement some kind of changes in the system or meeting different people to change something. But I’m just somebody who’s just sharing the story. And like you said, I’m just showing the little glitches in the matrix. And if you learn from them, then hopefully you can do something about it.

22:43 What’s been the biggest surprise since you got big on YouTube? What’s been the biggest surprise and then the least surprising thing since you hit the 2 million views? biggest surprising thing. So I think for me the fact that people from different countries, I always thought people like in America and countries which speak English as a native language being to understand the message but when I’m getting a message from people like in Korea and Japan and people like in Brazil and stuff like that for me that was kind of the biggest mind-boggling thing because I was like oh wow like my voices they actually find some way they’re picking out what I’m saying and not saying they don’t speak English but I I just didn’t think there’s always like a kind of barrier which automatically comes up because I didn’t think they could relate to the scenarios that I was going on.

23:27 And then it just for me, it was like, this is actually universal. I knew it was all going on here, but I didn’t know it was universal to that extent. So for me, that was probably the biggest surprise knowing that although we’re in so many different parts of the world, we all have this commonality and so many different things in common. And I wanna highlight more things going forward and to see how many things actually do go on around the world that I’m actually experiencing, For me, it was just knowing that everybody’s experiencing the same thing, it was weird.

23:53 It was just very weird. The least surprising thing, I don’t even know, I can’t think of the least surprising thing. Have you been showered with media and all these people that want to sign you to this or get you to do that? Yeah, here and there, but that’s always expected, if you know what I mean. You’ve done…

24:10 Oh, that’s the least surprising. Yeah, that would be the least surprising. Okay. But you’ve got exposure before and you’ve been interviewed by Esquire and having to post and all these things. So that’s not a big…

24:18 Yeah, it wasn’t too surprising. And then all of a sudden everybody wants to be a friend and everybody knows how they can help you. You know what I mean? And it’s not even just people that I don’t know, it’s people that I’ve spoken to before and asked them for help prior. Then all of a sudden they have a genius idea which we can both collaborate on.

24:36 You know, that’s just kind of a given. Tricky, huh? How old are you? 25. Okay, that’s cool.

24:42 Now you did a previous video before that called, it’s in my notes somewhere, The American Dream. Yeah, that was after. That was after? Yeah. What’s that all about?

24:51 If you could just explain what that is. Yeah. With the American Dream, a lot of people took the wrong impression because I wasn’t aware that by having a American Dream in a title, a lot of people would initially think that I’m trying to bash an American bash, but that was not mine. Are you surprised by that? Yeah, I don’t know.

25:07 As an artist, you get caught in your own creative head sometimes, and you think, obviously, people take things that face value, and that’s the most obvious thing you would take from that, but what it was actually about was, do you see the American Dream, the notion of the American dream, the pursuit of happiness, that any man can come from the bottom and make his way to the top. And what I perceived that as, I thought it was a worldwide kind of ethos. I thought everybody wants that. In every society there’s this kind of rags to riches kind of dream. Because obviously America’s a superpower. I thought, okay, let me use America to highlight that rags to riches. I think that’s the best way to define it, American dream. And then I said America can’t dream because I said a lot of people are in institutions or work environments which are not conducive to this dream, like they’re chasing someone else’s dream or they’re just working simply, never actually pursuing what they want to do. And rather than chasing the American dream, they’re chasing the American can’t dream because they actually can’t dream, you know what I mean? But because I used to work with a lot of people and I felt a lot of people always say they wanted to do this or they wanted to do that, but nobody ever left the workplace, nobody ever did anything outside of where they were working. And I felt like these people were in a sense lying to themselves. So they were all talking about, yeah, one day we’re going to do this,

26:18 One day we’re going to do that. But I thought, okay, we’re both sweeping floors right here. How are you going to do that? If you’re not actually actively pursuing anything outside of what we’re doing now. So that’s what the whole thing was about. It was kind of about understanding the difference between a career and a job. And I wasn’t saying anything against anyone who is working in a job. What I was saying is that there is a difference between a career and a job. So if you are working in a job, be aware that you’re working in a job. And if you are pursuing a career, be aware that you’re pursuing a career and actively try and pursue it, but then again, it’s your choice, but I was just highlighting that.

26:49 You seem to stumble into controversy that’s twice now. That’s what happens. A lot of people call me controversial, but the way I define that term, I feel like every time you have an opinion, that’s not consistent with what society thinks is going to be controversial. Everything I say is always controversial, just because I have my own opinion. It seems like you’re not allowed to be an individual in society, so if that’s what being controversial entails, and I’ll take that title and say that, yeah, in that sense, I am controversial then.

27:17 Some of the things you said in that video, you said a job as a J.O.B., just over broke. I don’t say it as good as he says it. And then you said, you’re trying to make an honest living, but are you honestly living? Yeah. Okay, where do you come up with this stuff?

27:29 This just over broke one, I can’t take credit for that. Someone actually told me that, and I thought it was so funny, because they said, like, obviously, that’s essentially when a lot of people do work, that’s what they do, because every single month you get money, but as soon as you get paid, the next week the paychecks already finished you know I mean so you’re just living over that broke barrier so when they told me that I thought that’s very interesting to put in with the honest living part I don’t know it just kind of it just it just came to me I mean it’s supposed to be honest living but you really living we’re not really living you know we’re surviving and that’s what I wanted to say it’s such a contradictory term honest living but really we’re not living especially when coming from a background where a lot of people may not have been doing things which are honest, but they were living lavish lifestyles, not condoning, I was saying that you should do that, but they were living lavish lifestyles and I was like, I’m working really hard and they seem to be enjoying life more than me, so am I really living and this is the honest way of living.

28:23 So that’s kind of where that term came from, honest living, but are you honestly living? I think it was Picasso that said that good artists copy and great artists steal. You know, finishing my sentences. Is that true? Huh?

28:38 Is that true? But I don’t think that’s true. Picasso is a good artist. I’m not taking him to Picasso, but I don’t think that’s true. I feel, I don’t see, I don’t think, I wouldn’t say I stole his because obviously when you approach that, I gave him credit.

28:53 I think good artists take, learn from other artists, great artists learn from other artists. I don’t, I don’t actually, when I heard the quote, I don’t actually understand what he meant by a great artist still. I feel like a great artist should always be innovative in a sense and always like, but always draw inspiration from other people. I believe there’s a saying that says no idea was original, which I believe to an extent because everyone always gets that inspiration from somewhere else.

29:16 So your idea may be new, but it’s emerged from lots of different ideas. So I can understand that saying. Now you attribute your video in the notes to a similar video. Well, not similar, but it was one called Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus by Jefferson what? Becky, yeah.

29:31 I never heard of him before. I guess I’m a bit out of it. But can you tell me how your video and his video, I mean, they look similar. And obviously it’s a very different message, but also a contradictory message. What’s up with Jefferson?

29:43 Do you know him? No, I don’t know him. I don’t know him. And I saw his video, and I liked the concept of him taking two things, which normally is associated directly with each other and highlighting the difference between them. So that he took God, and he took religion, and he took Jesus.

30:00 Or is it why I hate religion but love Jesus? So then with me, I thought, oh, that’s very interesting. That’s pretty clever. So I thought, what is, like for me, what is school, and then there’s education. These are two things which are supposed to be interlinked.

30:11 When you look into the, like, that go into them deeper, they’re not actually as closely linked as people think. And that’s what he did. In his, in a sense, a lot of people did say his was kind of contradictory, but the kind of idea behind it, I thought that was very inspiring. And like I was saying, good artists take of other artists and apply that to themselves. So I saw that kind of idea and I thought, oh, this is cool.

30:30 And I just kind of did it from there. Has he seen your video? Yeah. What’d he say? He tweeted me, he said, it’s amazing.

30:36 He said he really liked it. He said, I like the video, yeah. It is cool. I think great artists appreciate when they get to the one from, I don’t know. That’s cool.

30:44 You said something else is on your Twitter feed. You said, the world is your school, and London is your dorm room, is that what you’re saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you mean by that? I have this saying where I- The world is my campus, and London City is my dorm room.

31:00 Yeah, I have this saying whereby I have this thing called University of City Breaks, and and everyone always thinks it’s an institution, but for me, it’s a mind state where I believe everybody should educate themselves as opposed to looking for someone else to educate them. So even if you’re in school, just because you are taught something doesn’t mean it’s a given. Like most of the theories that were developed in this world were developed by going against what they were initially taught.

31:22 So what I’m saying is always learn to explore your own mind and that’s what I meant by the world is your campus because campus is essentially where we go when we’re in school and we’re learning, we’re living on campus and I was trying to say, so your whole life is learning, this world is your campus, from your campus and then me personally, London City is my dorm room because that’s that little room which I stay in and do my revision and create what I want. So that’s, it’s just metaphorical for that. Do you carry around a book and like write stuff down all the time or how do you, yeah how do you create that way? Fortunately I have a good memory but I have an iPhone as well you know, thanks for technology. So if you go on my iPhone it’s just littered with lots of different notes and lots of random different quotes and stuff like that and I just write them and and send them to myself.

32:03 But a lot of the time, I just remember it in my head. I just remember it. You remember everything? No, I’m not Jay-Z’s level nine. He doesn’t really remember everything, does he?

32:10 He does. Come on. It’s possible. That’s a marketing technique. Nah, nah, nah, it’s possible.

32:14 If you’re an artist, you realize that it’s possible. Really? Little Wayne says that, too, which I find it hard to believe, man. If you’re an artist, you realize that it’s very possible. You tell me I’m not an artist.

32:23 No, no, no. You’re not an artist. I agree, I’m not. But so when you’re saying once you create something and it clicks in your mind and you will remember it? Yeah, once, the thing about rap as well is rhythmic, that’s the word, rhythmic.

32:37 So it’s easier to remember stuff, but once you’re like, and once, as an artist, I have a piece, when I did it, I just memorize it all in my head because you just keep on going over it and it kind of connects with you. It’s like when you learn stuff in school, it’s always easier to learn it in a little bit of a rhyme and you know what I mean? A, B, C, that you learn that for the rest of your life. So when it does have a rhythm, it’s a lot easier to remember and when you’re gonna lay it just there in the studio, it’s kind of, it’s already inside you.

33:00 But you must have, when you were developing it, you must have gone over it hundreds, thousands of times. Yeah, exactly. So it just ingrains in your… Exactly, yeah. That’s how repetition is how you learn anything.

33:11 Yeah, and you’re doing this unconsciously. When you’re doing it consciously, you’re thinking, oh, I’ve done it four or five times. But when you’re doing it unconsciously, you can do it next to 200 times and you won’t even be aware of it because you’re rhyming, you’re rhyming, you’re trying to think of the next word, and then you’re thinking of the next word, and then you have to say the first word again. So unconsciously, you’ve probably gone over that like 200 times and you’re not even aware of it.

33:31 So it does engrain in your head. That’s why it’s very possible. A lot of people would think, oh no, but I believe it to an extent. Yeah, but you constantly must be revising. I mean, you must have like three different versions that you’re playing with, playing with.

33:41 Yeah. And then you just choose one and that’s it forever. Or you never come back to it and you’re like, I wanted to do it the other way. You choose one, but sometimes, even when you’re reciting that one, sometimes you go back into the old one because that old one is still stuck in your head. So sometimes you may see rappers, They may perform something different on a song.

33:57 When they perform it live, they perform it different. Why did he perform it different? But that’s probably just the initial version that he did and it’s still stuck in his head when he is performing. But yeah, it’s just like he’s saying repetition and it just gets stuck. Do you freestyle?

34:09 Do I freestyle? I mean, no, that’s not a spoken word thing because spoken word implies that you would never freestyle because you’ve thought about it, right? Yeah, you thought about it, yeah. But a lot of hip-hop guys and rap guys. Are you challenging him to a battle?

34:20 Jesus. You know, it’s funny because Ice-T, I’m a big fan of Ice-T and people ask him to freestyle and he’s like, I don’t freestyle. Don’t ask me. He’s like, I write my stuff and I perform my stuff, but I don’t freestyle, so I thought I’d ask you. Do you believe in the concept?

34:33 Do you do it yourself just to get ideas? I do it for fun. I do it because I enjoy it. I understand what I teach coming from, what I teach coming from, because it’s a different art form. There’s some artists that just freestyle, and there’s some artists who write down, like you said, who prefer to structure it.

34:48 And when you’re doing it for a song, a lot of artists that are musicians, they don’t freestyle because freestyle is just free verse and doesn’t have any kind of structure when you’re doing it for a song you’re trying to construct it to the beat and come to a certain way you know I mean but you pardon me me I freestyle yeah I freestyle just for fun when I’m with my friends you know after a while it just becomes it’s part of it because to become up with new stuff you have to be able to freestyle but when he says he doesn’t freestyle means he’s not gonna sit here and freestyle but lots of different stuff because that’s not how he creates his art right yeah how he performs yeah okay do you do you find that all of your pieces of work have the same rhythm and the same cadence, do you always go back to the same structure or does it vary a lot?

35:28 Yeah, that’s what I think, that’s what I pride myself on really because if you do look at my body of work even going back, it’s never the same. And I like that the two reasons why I did were quite similar, like why I hate school and American Dream, which I didn’t like, I hated when stuff was similar, but I guess it was kind of, American Dream was was kind of a continuation. So we had to kind of follow that same kind of format, but I never have the same kind of pattern or structure.

35:52 Sometimes I’m a bit more rheumatic and sometimes I’m not rheumatic at all. I just have so many different styles because I believe as you live life, life is not structured in one way. You find a lot of artists have one way of saying stuff and that’s never genuine because you might, if you’re in love, you don’t talk the same way as when you’re in love. If you’re angry, you don’t talk the same way as when you’re angry. So what I find is the best artists, when you look at people like Tupac Shakur, There’s always different emotions, like translating through their music, which means they say stuff different ways.

36:21 It’s just easier to stick to one. It’s easier, yeah. If you know when you’ve done it, you know, if you’ve written ten songs or ten pieces of work in the same way, then you’re used to it and you know, but if you have the ability to change everything up, then obviously that’s a skill that should be admired. And it’s something you have to develop as well, because like you say, once you get comfortable, it’s easy to be uncomfortable, but I feel like if you truly enjoy what you do, you don’t want to do it the same way, because you want to keep on developing, you to learn new ways to do it. And for me, that’s where the challenge comes in and that feeds into the passion for doing it. So that’s why I try to do things differently every single time.

36:52 And even sometimes someone might point out, say, oh, you always do this. So next time, I’ll try and change it. So yeah. You mentioned Tupac. How much are you inspired by hip-hop guys? Or who inspires you? Is it Tupac? Does Big E? Is it before that? Or do hip-hop guys inspire you at all?

37:07 Hip hop, well definitely, definitely, my main, the thing about initially when it comes to the art of like rhyming and words and stuff, it’s definitely hip hop artists. I mean the first CD I listened to was like a JZCD and I wasn’t even, a lot of my friends used to listen to hip hop but I got into it quite late and I wasn’t, like I was like Q, I’d listen, that’s why I can always appreciate when people don’t like hip hop music because I used to listen to it and I’d just hear the beat. So then I was supposed to be revising one day and I put the JZCD in and I was listening to it and I realised these guys are actually saying something and so definitely that inspiration comes from being oh you can write stuff that sounds good but at the same time you’re actually saying something. But in terms of my inspiration personally like they come from so many different areas. I like people who anyone who excels at what they do like Robert Green is a huge inspiration of mine because I like he takes his medium and his craft and he excels at it so I like to take different traits and skills that each people apply in their respective industries or craft and apply it to my work. So inspiration just come from everywhere. I’m a big basketball fan. I like Michael Jordan and obviously he always had his tenacity and his hard work, that aspect. I take that away from him. I take that and try and apply that. I’m not particularly a football fan but I like David Beckham just

38:13 Because of the way he transcends football as well. He’s an icon as well. So I like that kind of that aspect of him. You know so many different things you just take. So my inspiration is a lot varying but hip-hop guys definitely do play a role in it. Michael Jordan man, I’m surprised.

38:26 You know for your age, Steve, you’ve been inspired by Michael because usually it’s older. It’s my generation. I think it was his birthday just last year. Yeah, just last year. I saw Michael Jordan play in Chicago when he came back from baseball.

38:37 Really? If you remember, people forget he went and left basketball, tried to master baseball, which takes a lot of balls to do, had a hard time, came back and then he came back with a different number. 45 years. And played in Chicago and I was there and I was like, oh shit. I mean, it was powerful.

38:51 Yeah, he’s amazing. But why does he inspire you as opposed to say, you know, the current basketball star, what’s it about Michael? Because he transcended it? Yeah, because he’s the greatest ever. For someone to be arguably, but for someone to even have that attached to them that’s the greatest ever, the work they must have put in or the things they must have done along the lines to achieve that title just next to their name, same thing like with Muhammad Ali, you have to appreciate them and you have to take out your time to see what they did to transcend to that level.

39:19 So Kobe Bryant’s an amazing player and he’s more my generation. When I started playing Kobe Bryant was playing, but he would never kind of overshadow Michael until his legacy gets to that point where everyone’s saying he’s the greatest player, even though he is arguably one of the greatest ever, he’s still not solidified as Michael Jordan is. But I don’t think anyone will ever approach, not in our lifetimes, because he won so many championships in a relatively short period of time and they’re very good individual players.

39:43 Lebron gets talked about in the same, and you know he’s a physical, amazing specimen that command a game, but he didn’t win six out of eight years or whatever, whatever Jordan did. grabbed that and like he always wanted the ball and he just transcended it to you. I mean he made basketball like with his whole you know free line slam with the tongue out he was quite similar today for Beckham in that in that way is that he took basketball outside of America and Beckham took basketball outside of Europe oh sorry football outside of Europe and he did the same thing and he made it popular in which very few people have the power to do become icons rather than just playing.

40:21 So why isn’t Michael Jordan happy? That’s my question. He’s not happy. Apparently he’s not very happy. I don’t know.

40:26 He left his wife and he’s got a new… Apparently he’s still… I think in achieving the best, he’s very competitive and apparently he’s just still a lot of enemies and stuff from coming up and he still holds a lot of grudges and I think it motivated him as a player because he was always like, I’m never going to lose to that guy. But I don’t know if he’s in the most zen state right now. He’s got gambling issues as well or he’s had gambling issues.

40:48 I mean, yeah, what do you think about that? I mean, if someone gets the ultimate success, but yet they’re not happy in their own mind. I mean, what about that trade-off? I think that’s what I mean. I don’t know if I would be able to make that trade, but I think with everything comes a price, isn’t it?

41:01 Like Spider-Man with great power comes great responsibility. And I feel like whenever you get to a certain level, there’s certain sacrifices that will come of it. For instance, Oprah’s extremely successful. But if you look at her family life, a woman of her age, most people would wanna have kids and if they’ll be married, she’s still had a boyfriend, she’s been with him for a long time. So I suppose there’s certain sacrifices that come with attaining such success, and maybe they’re not as fulfilling as the actual success itself.

41:29 But the way I see people are never really happy, I think the only time they’re ever happy is when you’re not living anymore, and people always want more, they always want, so sometimes I think you just have to appreciate what you have and just be at peace with that. The thing is with a football player, a basketball player, you eventually have to give up the sport. You have to. Right, so you have to stop doing the thing that defined you and that made you, you know, gave you the highest highs. Whereas Oprah, she can still go on running her company and if she wants to present her, you know, she’s still got many years whereas, you know, a football player or a basketball player’s life is maybe 10 to 15 years maximum. So we’ll see what happens to Beckham as he enters to retirement. Does he get frustrated that the challenges aren’t there anymore? It strikes me that maybe he won’t because I don’t think as a player he reached the pinnacle that Michael Jordan did.

42:16 He was very good, but he wasn’t arguably the best that ever played, whereas Jordan very much was. And that mindset required is now sort of eating him up potentially. We had Dorian Yates there, who was a six-time Mr. Olympia, and he was there, and he did six years, and then he tore his bicep, and he couldn’t compete anymore, so he stopped competing. But he had some depressing times afterwards, and he saw colleagues that would turn to drugs and all that stuff he said because he said they tried to reach that high again of being the best in the world of being on stage and he said you know what he’s like I realized I can never reach that high again he said so stop trying he’s like the crazy thing to me is if you look and you probably went through this if you look at the American system for sports is that you start off playing at high school and if you’re good enough you go to college and if you’re good enough you go to the NFL or the NHL or the NBA but the The pyramid is so narrow that you could have reached, when you’re playing all these sports, whether it’s a college or a high school, you are the man, right?

43:16 But if you finish playing and say you were the star or you played on the high school team and you never made it to college, those were probably the best years of your life. And if you were good in college, but because the pyramid’s so steep and you never managed to make it to the NFL, those are probably the best years of your life. How are you ever gonna attain those again? And to me, in England you have four professional football leagues and you have all of these, the ability to play competitive sport outside of college and university.

43:48 Whereas in the US, if you don’t make it at that particular time and you don’t continue to make the grade to this really, really steep curve, then you’re treated as an absolute hero while you’re playing, but after that, and you see a lot of these guys who either leave the NFL or leave playing college, Those were, you know, they were treated like gods and now they’re, you know, they’re nothing. It’s true. So to me, that’s a very hard thing to have to deal with, but it’s sort of, it seems to me, and obviously you’ll know better than me because it was, you know, I never went through it, but you get given all of these opportunities and if you don’t quite make it, then there’s, you know, there’s not a lot left.

44:24 Imagine as a university player playing in front of 100,000 people. How are you ever gonna get that feeling back again? What in your life can you do to get the feeling of being part of a team playing in front of 100,000 people? You have to play a different game, like Dorian was saying, just try to focus on something completely different. But you can’t, like, there are no sports for you to play.

44:42 That’s what I mean. I mean, don’t play that game anymore. Yeah. You see, even in programs like One Tree Hill and all these programs Friday night, it kind of exemplifies exactly what you’re talking about, because it all starts in high school, then they’ll have an injury or something. Then you see how their life just goes down a downward spiral just because they can’t reach that level again.

44:58 Yeah, it’s interesting. You mentioned superheroes before, and when I first moved to New York City after I went to school in Boston. I stayed with a guy who was in a band and it was him as a singer and he had a hip-hop guy and all of his hip-hop buddies would come over and they’d roll up the blunt and they’d freestyle and they always talked about superheroes like it was all about this and they became superheroes and it was like this power this power and it was a real part of their freestyle and of hip-hop culture and I was wondering if the concept of the superhero I think the super ego and all that stuff inspires you as an artist.

45:29 Yeah, it does. And why? Firstly, I’m a very big comic book fan from being a young age anyway, so there’s always been… I read something about comic books which makes sense. When you’re kind of in a society whereby you’re a childhood and you’re an outcast, so you don’t fit in with everyone else, the most readily characters for you to identify with are superheroes because that’s exactly how their lives are.

45:49 They have abilities which don’t make them the same as everyone else. And I think as artists especially, when you perform or you become your persona or or you’re in the element of your art, you are an alter ego, you are that superhero, do you know what I mean? So when I do, even when I do do my poems, a lot of people say that it’s a different person from when we’re actually just meeting and that’s because when you get on stage, you become like Superman or you become Spider-Man or whoever, if that makes sense.

46:15 Yeah, you’re a very different person than what I expected. And I think also if you look at Spider-Man and Superman and Batman, a lot of these superheroes is that they are relative social outcasts when they’re not this alter ego. So that’s very appealing to children, right? In that, look, this guy has amazing powers, but you know, he’s not part of the cool crew. So it’s, I think that’s why superheroes are such a big part of our culture.

46:40 Yeah, especially for an outcast kid. It’s like, when he’s not getting love or nothing else, he can look at the superhero and he’s like, yeah. He’s just like, yeah. Because they’re multifaceted, I think they can appeal to lots of different people. I’m tired of superhero movies though, man.

46:52 Too many. Yeah, they’re ruining some of them. I liked Avengers, ruin in some of the classics what’s what’s next in term of a spoken word career because like there’s no one that’s really done what you’ve done before I mean you know honestly the first spoken word guy I remember is Henry Rollins you know that is he was a he was in a in a metal band called Black Flag back in the day yeah he lifts a lot of weights and he was in this like really hardcore heavy metal band and then he flipped to spoken word this is like 15 years ago when nobody was doing this you know and this before big you know before Jay-Z and stuff, and it was a really strange career path.

47:27 So for you, there’s not a lot of people that are examples of what you’re going to do. I mean, you see the next five years, 10 years, I’m like, I don’t know, I know it’s a big question, but what do you want to achieve? I think in a sense it’s an advantage and it’s a disadvantage because it’s a disadvantage in the sense that there’s no one’s paved the way, meaning there’s a lot of close opportunities and also there’s not an exact path to follow. I mean, as an artist or a musician, you always know that, okay, I can get signed to record labour, I could emulate this person’s career, and really companies, et cetera, people know where exactly to place you and how they want to market you, whereas when you’re doing something unique in that sense, it makes it very difficult for those kind of opportunities and also just for you as an individual trying to feel like your path, but then there’s an advantage in the sense that it means that you’re unique, which is always a good thing in my opinion, and at the same time it means that there isn’t something that I have to do. The whole reason I didn’t fit into the school institutional because I didn’t like it was because there’s always something you have to do. There’s a set path that you have to follow and I feel because what I’m doing is a bit unique, I have free reign as opposed to what I want to do because my mind is very creative in the sense that I like writing

48:33 Scripts and I like writing films, I like making music. So if I did want to make a spoken word film or write a script, nobody could tell me that that’s what you’re not supposed to do. A lot of people tell me that I should write a book and I have nothing wrong writing books and I probably will, but when I do write it, I’ll write it how I want to write it. I don’t want to just write a simple poetry book where it’s like, you know, you just read it and read the poems because I don’t enjoy those myself. So I think in that aspect it does give me that advantage. What essentially I do want to do though, in the long run, I do want to come to the point where I can be more than just artists and I’m a figure of significance. Like we’re talking about Michael Jordan and Dave Beckham who actually transcended their arts and did so many different things, but I think even outside, I think it wanted to be on a business capacity but also in a social aspect as well whereby I can probably speak and help people and just do so many different things.

49:22 I admire a lot of people in history, people like maybe Gandhi or Malcolm X, all these kind of people who did what they were doing and I like people like Bon Marley as well who although they were making music, they were still making impactful changes in the world and they were doing stuff so hopefully that’s the level I’m trying to get to whereby I’m a figure of significant and it is more than just a heart, more than just an art. Which brings us on fairly well to Surviving Our Streets and the first piece of yours that I saw was RIP. Oh yeah.

49:54 And then, so how did that get you, is that what got you involved with Jason and Surviving Our Streets? What is RIP? Can you just explain to people who haven’t seen it? Oh, it’s a spoken word piece and it’s basically about gun crime and knife crime in the UK obviously growing up where I grew up there’s a lot of gun crime and knife crime so it directly relates to that and that’s exactly what surviving our streets kind of speak against against the violence trying to prevent violence in the streets essentially so that is what he saw and the message kind of exactly tied in exactly what he did it and exactly what you’re doing and especially the way in the format in which I did it in was especially was very unique so I think that’s what appealed to him because it meant that it could appeal to the masses because because when I did do the video for RFP, it got a very, very big response.

50:39 Obviously, looking back, like why I hate school but I have education, got a much bigger response, but it got a very big response and I think that’s what attracted me to Jason, yeah. And what part of London are you from? In Wood Green. Okay. Yeah, North London.

50:52 Yeah. What’s that like? I mean, if you had to tell someone who doesn’t live in London, how would you describe Wood Green? It’s in the city, in the city living, you know what I mean? It’s a lot of, I’m trying to paint it in a good way because I love it in it but obviously when you look at it statistically it’s like a lot of kids on the streets like you know they’re not really there’s not really a lot of guidance like they say they do fall into circumstances where they there is a lot of violence and they’re subject to do things they don’t want to do just to make money etc so it’s like it’s an inner-city kind of ghetto if you want to say that word but so we deal with a lot of kids that you touched upon it before in terms of honest living is that they want ideally they would they would live an honest life and that they will be able to pay all their bills and have enough money in order to live the life as they wanted to. But the best way that they can make money is not through honest means.

51:44 And so they see all the guys driving around with cars and flashing lots of cash and they think, well, you know what, I want a little bit of that. And that’s what leads them down that path, not because they’re bad kids, but because they don’t feel as though they have any choices. Yeah. And surviving our streets, if people want to watch them, they can listen to Jason in Featherstone and we had an episode all about it, but it’s trying to break this whole cycle of violence.

52:05 There was a movie in the States called The Interrupters and it was like, you get violence and it begets more violence, it begets more violence and if you can just stop that cycle, it can make a big difference. The amazing thing to me about surviving our streets and the model that they want to implement is that it’s empirically proven. Right, there’s the Department of Justice, basically the government in the United States went through 10 years or however many, I can’t remember exactly how long it was, but they did a case study on the results and the effect of implementing this model of violence interrupting in Chicago.

52:42 And then they subsequently done it again in Baltimore and it empirically said, yes, there is causation and there is effect of reducing violent crime by, you know, in some places it was down to zero and this is in intensely violent, really incredibly bad places in Chicago and they had a profound effect on it. So to me, there’s lots of charities that say, yes, we do this and we do that, but they can prove it. The government has said that it works and it’s quite controversial in that you take ex-offenders and ex-gang members who are walking a path between potentially going back to their old life and wanting to actually do something good for themselves and you get them in there to snuff out crime right at the start. So to me it’s a fantastic and fantastic charity and the fact that it works, it can be proven to work and we can show cause and effect is fantastic.

53:43 I agree. And it should be applauded. Did you have to think about it before you decided to sign on and be? Yeah, yeah. I even spoke to Jason this morning. Like you were saying, they said the violence in the prison is down lower than it’s ever been in the last two years. Now I’m just on the basis of the module they’re implementing. And when you do actually get time to look into how they’re approaching it, they’re treating virus like a disease, the same way people combat a disease. And I was like, wow. And then when like Patrick was saying, when he actually told me that they were using ex-offenders or people who have actually been in these situations to snuff out the violence, that’s what really appealed to me because I feel like growing up, the only people I would listen to were the people who’ve actually been in the same circumstances as me.

54:22 It’s all about credible messengers, so if you’re going into a violent situation, you need somebody that’s lived it, that’s been through it, that’s suffered it, and telling you that this doesn’t work. If you go back and you go and take your revenge, it’s only going to span out control and more of your friends are going to get in trouble. But if I went in and said that, then go, who’s this guy, right? It’s true, that’s the reality of it, because they disengage because they think you don’t know what I’m going through.

54:45 Exactly. You don’t understand my circumstance. Exactly. I said, why should I listen to you? And I said, yeah, you know what I mean?

54:50 So that’s what really drew me to it. But yeah, definitely, I’m definitely supporting that. That’s really cool. No, that’s a really big thing. You’re doing that, you know?

54:55 And just to touch on what Sully said there, we’re now in prison. So we started off, or the original model was just in, just on the street, and now we’ve taken that and put it into prison, and it’s already starting to work. So long may it continue. Yeah, no, I think it’s a fantastic organization. Like you said, the numbers don’t lie.

55:15 And to someone who’s empirical, like you are, it’s like, look, this works. That’s right, it caught my attention straight away because I read the report and said, look, it works, anyway. It’s a really interesting organization and it’s a fine line because you obviously, you aren’t part of the police, you aren’t part of the street crime, you have to walk this, it sounds like a real tightrope, because you can’t necessarily tell the police everything that’s going on, and so it’s an art, and no, I wish SOS all the best on that.

55:40 What do you think about, do you think you have to represent London to a certain extent, and what do you think about the world’s view of London as a city, and do you think it’s correct? I definitely think 100% that I have to represent London, not because, because when I say that a lot of people misconstrue it and then, because a lot of people represent where they’re from on a basis that that’s why I shouldn’t accept this person, that’s why we got beef essentially because he’s from here. I don’t mean in that sense, I mean in a sense that I can speak for people living in London and I think they will appreciate that because at the end of the day, if they know that I came from where they came from and I’m trying to do what I’m doing, it will hopefully inspire them.

56:18 And I definitely think that I have to represent London that aspect because, like I said again, growing up, the people I looked up to were the people who spoke for me, who I felt resonated with their message because I felt they spoke for me and they did come from the same background as me and they didn’t try to make them seem any better than me and didn’t distance themselves from me. So I definitely feel I have to do that. In terms of the world view, when I speak to a lot of Americans, because I speak to quite a few on Skype, etc., or people from different countries in general, they get the impression that in London we all just sit down and eat tea and drink tea and eat crumpets.

56:51 There’s a general impression that London’s really nice, and London is a very nice city, it’s a beautiful city, but I mean they all just get the impression that we’re all just living like the Queen, but it’s not really like that. Very misunderstood city. I mean, I’m American, but I’ve been here 10 years, and Patrick, you lived in New York, and people, yeah, for some reason they just think of the Queen and they think of tea and James Bond. Yeah, James Bond.

57:14 They assume we’re all hanging out in central London by the Thames and all this stuff, and they don’t realize it’s an extremely diverse city. Eight million people. Yeah, with people from all walks of life. Yeah, they’ve never seen it. You know, it’s just like, I mean, like, it’s weird.

57:28 I walk in New York City, and it’s very diverse, but everyone’s an American, you know, everyone’s like, I’m an American. But here, it’s like, you can walk in certain parts of London, and you can see, you know, a woman in a full-on burka, you know, you can see, you know, someone from Ivory Coast, you can see someone from Russia, you know, someone from the continent. And it’s like, man, there’s so many different people here. And I think it’s a really open-minded city.

57:48 Definitely, definitely. And also, it’s a trading city. So I think by definition, when you get all these people in here, I think it’s more accepting than a lot of places. But it’s a tough city to represent, isn’t it? It is.

58:00 It’s a lot of responsibility. But I feel like I don’t have any other choice. I mean, hopefully, I don’t misrepresent it. But I feel like I have to. Because God willing, I’ve been put in a position whereby I can represent it.

58:11 And I feel like it’s my duty to do it. So I’m willing to shoulder the burden to an extent. Do you have any contact with other hip hop figures? I’m comparing you to hip hop. I don’t know if that’s fair or not.

58:22 No, that’s not a problem. Okay. Someone like Dizzy Rascal, he’s did something for the Olympics or something. Do you get communication with him? Is that something you want at some point?

58:30 Or are you doing your own thing? Or is there going to be interaction with you and the community going forward? Hopefully. I’m not against it. But initially, when you do start out and you are reaching out to a lot of people and and then no one’s getting back to you, not talking about anyone in particular, by the way, and no one’s getting back to you, kind of develop this mentality whereby, and I think this is just our generation in general, whereby you develop the mentality, whereby you have to build yourself, you know what I mean?

58:54 I think we’re a very entrepreneurial generation in the sense that everybody’s focused on themselves and trying to build their own business, so I wouldn’t reject any help from them, and I’d be loved to speak to Dizzy and stuff, because obviously, people like that, we grew up in the same environment, you know, sometimes I can see Tiny Temple, I can see lots of different people and different aspects, So I do get contact from some hip-hop artists that are in the UK, and I have done work with some of them, probably none that you would know at the moment, but a lot of the underground artists and some artists, but it’s not something I would rule out, but at the moment, my main focus is just trying to build my brand. If that does come at a later date then I’m not going to reject it, but at the moment that’s what I’m just focusing on at the moment, but definitely.

59:32 How hard do you work? There was a point when I wasn’t really sleeping, I mean, like, by that time I had a job as well like I had a regular job and obviously to be getting my videos out and to be putting myself on YouTube it was a lot of work you know I’d be up to like 2am or 3am and then I have to be up for work at like 5am so I like to pride myself that I think I do work quite hard it was only recently when I did the Why I Hate School but Love Education video and I was trying to do everything I want trying to reply all the messages all at once all that stuff I actually felt ill because I wasn’t sleeping then I thought maybe I need to take it easy a little bit because when you do overwork yourself, it does become counterproductive because your mind isn’t as sharp as you want it to be.

1:00:13 It’s like, for instance, when you go to the gym, you work very hard, but the rest is what actually makes the muscles grow. So that rest is essential, but I like to think that I do work hard. You can’t reply to every single message, I know, especially if you start off grassroots, like we have, you want to, but then sometimes the reason people like you is because you’re creating the art. And if you stop creating the art, then there’s no point in talking. So at some point, I think you have to keep that in mind.

1:00:39 Sounds like you will. I hope, yeah, I try. And the thing is, I’ve got a lot of work, a lot of stuff that I’ve done, people haven’t heard and will never hear. But I’m always constantly working on stuff, you know what I mean? So yeah, I try to work hard.

1:00:49 And I try, I feel like when you’re young, as I feel like I am, you’ve got to exert as much as you can, you know? Because when you do get older, obviously, there’s more responsibilities. So while you’re free, you should do as much as you can in that time period. You know, I was watching his videos and I was thinking, what do you do to get this This diction and this vocabulary and all this knowledge base, do you read books or do you watch documentaries or how do you, you’re well spoken, how do you get there?

1:01:14 I read a lot, like I said I enjoy reading and I think I read a diverse range of reading material. I like reading different stuff but a lot of the stuff I do learn, it comes from just speaking to other people. Everyone always has something they can tell you about or direct you to and then I can just do further research on it, but I don’t particularly like documentaries, but if I’m recommended one, I will watch it and I always do enjoy it. But I’m the kind of person that likes watching TV, sitcoms, you know what I mean? I watch Big Bang Theory, Breaking Bad, I just sit there writing poems and watching stuff like that. So I feel that’s essential to be diverse in terms, but reading is probably the primary place where I do get a lot of the stuff that I say.

1:01:53 Do you think writing makes you a better speaker? Definitely. Yeah, I’ve heard that too. Definitely, definitely, definitely. I think it also makes you think clearer if you write things down.

1:02:03 I think so. I’ve never thought about that, but I think maybe it does. There’s some evidence too that if you write down traumatic experiences in your life, then you get over them in your mind as well, as opposed to talking about them or thinking about them. I think there’s definitely that therapeutic aspect when you write. When you do write, you feel like there’s a lot of emotion that you’ve been out.

1:02:19 So sometimes I do just write for the sake of writing, not because anyone will hear it or anyone will see it, but it’s the best way to channel that emotion out. So I definitely think there is the aspect of it. Who’s your favorite character in Breaking Bad? Oh, it has to be Heisenberg, the main man in so much to me. Do you watch Breaking Bad?

1:02:36 Well, you see, that guy is a great, I mean, I’m only on season four, but I just love the character development. Like I say, hopefully, I do have a, we have entered, we have won some film competitions. I actually do write scripts and stuff, but yeah, I just love the character development. From where he goes and where he’s ended up, and he’s always faced with so many different dilemmas. I just feel for him, I’m just so connected to him.

1:02:59 I mean just when you think he can’t get darker, he gets darker and if you count out the number of people he’s killed. That’s what I mean. And he’s just a regular T-shirt and he’s just killed so many people but it’s always justified. I think it’s very well written, very, very well written. It’s very well shot as well.

1:03:13 Yeah, it’s good. The Senate Talkers are really good. How many people has he killed? I’m only on season four. It’s over four.

1:03:19 He killed that girl. I think he’s killed about three or four or five. You’re ruining it for any of our viewers that haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen it. I don’t know.

1:03:27 Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. He sells a lot of meth and kills a lot of people. But he’s a really nice guy. That’s hardcore.

1:03:33 Yeah. So, and for you, like, projects for this year, is it more videos like you’ve just done? Or is it, I know you speak a lot, and so yeah, what’s on your calendar? It’s definitely, the performance aspect of it, that’s when, that’s based on requests. I mean, I may do like a one-man kind of show later on towards the year, we’re actually gearing up towards that.

1:03:53 We’re still in the preliminary stages. But in terms of, yeah, it’s more gonna be more videos, but like I said, I wanna tie it into an audio project because a lot of people do arts. Can they hear myself? Because people are accustomed to listening to, like, rhyming words via that hip-hop media minute. So a lot of people do what my stuff on audio, which is a bit unconventional because a lot of people are like to me, why didn’t you just write a book?

1:04:13 But I wanna do that audio format. And then it’s gonna be a lot more, a lot more is gonna be visual-based in terms of not just me reciting poetry on my channel, but also expressing some of my views or just highlighting different things. We was even looking into doing little kind of documentaries because I feel like when I do talk about something like the school system, it kind of does help if I did actually interview people who were actually involved in it or people who want to speak about it because I did meet up with people afterwards who were like, this, this, this is wrong, do, do, do.

1:04:38 And I feel like it would be interesting because a lot of people are actually watching my channel to get those views heard by people and I think people would appreciate that. So that aspect obviously will come at some point, we’ll integrate that, but at the moment it’s more about the content in the video, but all of that’s gonna tie in later probably. Sounds like a perfect Reddit Q&A to me. Oh yeah, yeah, we might have to do that. For some of our guests, we’ve been doing Q&As on this website called Reddit, and they get all sorts of questions for people, and we might hook you up with that later.

1:05:05 But what would the one-man show be? Would it be like an hour, where you kind of go through different things in your mind? Yeah, I think the format in which, whenever I try to do something, I try to make it as different from the conventional method as possible. So in a sense, it would be like, if you went to go and watch a Michael McEntire, if you went to go and watch his show, it would just be him. But what I’m also gonna do is incorporate so many different things that it wouldn’t just be me speaking on the stage.

1:05:29 And there’ll be the spoken words, there will be the poetry of me talking, and there’ll be me speaking, there’ll be me engaging with the audience, and there will just be like, there also there’ll be visuals as well, we’ll incorporate that. I like the way Darren Brown does. You know when Darren Brown does his shows, he’s got so many different ways. I like the way he does his stuff. So definitely maybe some kind of Darren Brown kind of style kind of thing, but we haven’t finalised everything.

1:05:49 Wow, and when you speak at the universities, what’s the format like? Do you speak? Do you do some of your spoken word performances or what? Yeah, it varies depending on the kind of event. Some events are like shows whereby there’s music acts etc, so when I come I just do my spoken word, that’s what people want to hear.

1:06:04 But sometimes it’s more intimate whereby they want to speak to me about what are my views on success, being in university, what was my experience. So it’s all different. I did I’m a Skype interview with the University of Waterloo, it’s in Canada somewhere, and they just asked me questions, it was basically just a Q&A, so it just varies. And I like that aspect because I think as artists it makes me more diverse and it gives me more layers because it means that people can just talk to me about stuff and at the same time people can just appreciate my art and at the same time people can learn from me.

1:06:34 I like different aspects. You know, you mentioned you like Robert Green and when he was here he said something at And he said, sometimes you have to do things to figure out you don’t want to do things. And it was like really powerful what he said, because he spent a lot of his life just screwing around. You know, he went to France, he worked in a hotel for a while. He didn’t even write his first book till he was like in his 30s, you know, and he was just saying, but he’s like, I had to do the wrong things to figure out what I didn’t want to do.

1:06:59 Experience is the best teacher. Yeah. And I’m just wondering, you know, you went to school, you got your degree, and I’m just wondering, like, there’s going to be this 20 year old kid out there who’s going to be like, okay, so what do I do? Do I go to school? Do I not go to school?

1:07:12 What do you say when people ask you that, because you must get asked that question a lot. Yeah, I do. A lot of people actually say to me, and there’s another phrase that I like, it goes, I never went where I wanted to be, but I ended up where I intended to be. You know what I mean? Do you know what I’m saying?

1:07:25 So it was kind of like, there’s another one that says, a man often finds his road on the path he chose to avoid. So I feel like, I always tell them to try and discover yourself. If you know exactly what you want to do, maybe you should pursue it, but I always tells a lot of people stay in school because I mean that’s what you’re familiar with and you will meet people and university is definitely an experience to discover yourself you can never take that away from you because I discovered myself and I think that is so essential to anybody’s development so I never advocate not going to school especially when you don’t know what you want to do it’s only when in some scenarios a lot of people have a lot of going for them in a certain business and then they want to divert their attention just because people are saying you should go you should go and do this but I definitely feel like it’s good to be in the school system, even if just to see why you don’t want to be in it, like you’re saying, but I don’t think you should just disregard the option just because I said that I didn’t benefit from it because your experience might be totally different and I can never take away from that. I met my girlfriend in school, I’ve been with my girlfriend for four and a half years and I met her in university. So if I could say that I regret going to university, she would call up and kill me, you know what I mean? So yeah, I definitely feel, I always say to people, listen, if you have

1:08:28 Something, try it, but at the same time, don’t rule out the option of going to school, Try it, see what it’s like, you got the first year, the first year doesn’t count, you can see what, if you enjoy it, you can see just what you want to do but don’t rule it out simply just because other people have told you or because you heard me say it. Do you regret going to school? You got a lot of degree. Most fun four years of my life. Yeah.

1:08:50 No responsibility, you meet, instead of like, sometimes at school you have to be friends with that sort of group of people because you go to school because of the catchment area or whatever. At university you pick who you want to be friends with, right? So it gives you a lot of independence, you have to learn to be on your own, you have to learn how to look after yourself, plus there’s more freedom and you make a lot of mistakes. I had an absolutely amazing time, all my best friends are still from university.

1:09:14 What about when you see a video like his and do you not question the institution or the whole concept of the institution of the school you went to? You’re talking about the personal experiences you had, but should you have had to go to this three or four year program and get these specific grades and write these things? In his video he’s talking about staying up late at night with the Red Bull and he gets to class and he’s fallen asleep. Does it make you question the institution at all?

1:09:36 Unfortunately, if you want to progress to these careers of media, accountancy, law, banking, you have to go through that structured path. The reason that structured path exists is because that’s how these institutions want their people to be. That’s how they can judge how intelligent they are. how they can build these mini robots in order to continue to make them work and to make them effective. Is it the best way for you to increase your knowledge of the world? No, not necessarily, but it’s a fairly easy formulaic path to walk. So I think could you have learnt a lot more by travelling around the world and maybe going to study or learning another language or you know but while living in somewhere yes but I think it’s ingrained in a lot of people that these formulaeic routes and paths to specific jobs are how you have to proceed and it worked out fairly well for me because you know I followed that path almost to a T and do I regret it no but could I have learned more about myself and the world doing other things then then probably It’s funny because you could watch two of Sully’s videos and he would say drop out of school and quit your job

1:10:58 Oh good, but even to add to what he’s saying like like I was saying when I was in school and I’m like some You can’t say it’s not useful because people who did medicine and dentistry You can see how they they were doing practical stuff while they were learning So there were definitely was definitely preparing there for their career That’s another reason why you can’t say that the school is everything in school is bad because because some of my students were medical students and you can see how they were directly being prepared for their career. But vocational careers, engineering, you know, dentistry, medicine, those kind of things. And even law, that they have a direct, if that’s what you want to do at the end of your life.

1:11:33 But I think university is about learning about yourself. And yes, there’s a subject there that you’re learning to help you get higher up on the ladder. But the best things that you learn about if you’re doing it properly is about how, you know, how to interact with society and how to look after yourself. And those are the biggest things that I think you learn. There’s another podcast out there called Joey Diaz, and he never went to the university or anything, but he says the reason people like to see a degree is because it shows that you made it through the four years that you had commitment and all that stuff.

1:12:01 That’s another thing as well. I just added to what Patrick was saying, because the reason as well, I wasn’t so keen on the university experience is I kind of had advantage on everyone, because prior to going to university, I lived by myself in the year of Middlesbrough because I was playing basketball. So I wanted to go into a basketball academy, so that whole experience of discovering yourself. When I went into university, I had pretty much done most of it, because this was really worth living.

1:12:23 I mean, it was nothing like how we perceived, they put us in the worst area, like prostitute, and I had to grow up by myself in that space of a year. So when I came into university, I actually felt like I did have a bit of an advantage ahead of everyone who was just enjoying themselves and realizing I just wanted to be back home. And that’s kind of what helped me to get the thinking that I had in relation to the whole university experience. Where did you go?

1:12:44 Middlesbrough. Which university did you go to? Oh, in Sheffield. Okay. Sheffield Hallam or…

1:12:49 No, University of Sheffield. Okay, University of Sheffield. It’s interesting because you had a really good experience but you could argue you were at that top percentage that you went there and you got the right job and stuff. I enjoyed you. I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it.

1:12:58 I did enjoy it. I just thought I could be doing something more. But the experience for me was good. Yes, I got a decent degree and studied hard and stuff but reasonably hard but it was the whole experience there. Right.

1:13:10 I had a great experience. I spent four years… I went to MIT in Cambridge, so it was four years, they beat our asses down, and I was in the library a lot, but I also was at a fraternity and I partied a lot, and yeah, it was brutal in the GPAs and trying to get a job on Wall Street afterwards and all that stuff. So it was a wonderful experience in my life, but I must say there’s certain parts of the institution that probably could change to make it better in the future, you know, to where it wasn’t this rigid way.

1:13:38 And I think about it all the time. The English university system is a lot more relaxed. If you’re doing a social sciences or a arts degree, you might spend two or three hours in lectures a week. Whereas if you’re doing engineering or maths, you might spend more time. But what the UK system does is give you more rope to hang yourself.

1:13:58 So you will have to do a lot of reading around. You have to write these essays. And so you’re doing history. You have to write these essays, and you pick which question you want to answer. You do a lot of reading around the subject, and they give you a reading list.

1:14:09 But they’re trying to get you to think independently on your own, they’re not spoon feeding you in English 101 or anything like that. But obviously it means that because you’re not being supervised, you can go off and get drunk and never do the work. But it also means that if you do decide to do it, you read and you discover on your own, which is probably arguably a better way of learning from a long-term perspective because you’ve decided that you want to do it rather than having it spoon fed to you.

1:14:35 So would you like to see the education system changed? certain things about it? I’d like to be there more awareness. It’s not even, at university level, I feel like you’re going into being an adult so you can make decisions and I can say the message and you can interpret it and understand how to apply it to yourself and focus in uni. I just think at the lower levels, when you’re in primary school and stuff, I feel like a lot of people, like my little sister, her teacher said to her, oh, you guys would never amount to anything.

1:15:05 And that’s because they couldn’t do and what they were being asked to do in a particular subject. And I feel like at a lower level, if it was explained to the kids that you’re not as good at this, but you may excel at this, if that was prioritized and the individuality was kind of recognized, and it was recognized among all the students, I feel that’s the only kind of change I would want to kind of see within it. As an adult, I think going into university, you’re gradually becoming an adult, you’re learning and you can make your own decisions.

1:15:30 You can watch my video and understand what I mean, but at the same time, go to your lecture and help it focus you. But at the younger level, I definitely feel like it would be beneficial because I know a lot of my friends who went down different paths in life, just because there wasn’t good at maths in school where they couldn’t get grades in particular subjects. They get alienated right away. You’re no good at that. Yeah, you’re no good at that.

1:15:48 And there wasn’t encouraged to maybe have other skills in other areas. So definitely at that level where you’re still developing, I definitely feel some changes can be implemented. Totally agree with that. So how do people get ahold of you? How do they watch their videos?

1:16:01 How can they find out more about you? Yeah, everything. I’m just in the digital space. Sully Breaks, S-U-L-I-B-R-E-A-K-S, if you type that on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, everything will come up there. And all my videos are actually on my YouTube channel, which is YouTube forward slash Sully Breezy, which is S-U-L-I-B-R-E-Z-Y. It’s only because of that, because once you make your name on YouTube, you can’t change it. I did it so long ago, so yeah.

1:16:28 What’s your favorite form of communication on social media? Twitter. Yeah. You have the Twitter bug? It’s not even a Twitter, it’s just that it’s so easy to get back to people, you know what I mean?

1:16:36 It’s only 140 characters, sometimes on Facebook people expect you to write two pages, you know what I mean? Sometimes I don’t have time to write long, long messages back, so I like Twitter. Have you tried Vine yet, that whole video thing? It’s like six seconds of video, what’s called Vine? I’ve got Keek.

1:16:51 Oh, okay. Keek’s 30 seconds. I’m telling you, all these kids these days, it’s going shorter and shorter. Like, you probably write some emails, but like… I write letters longhand.

1:16:59 Send them by people. Send them by people. You’re old school. you’re old school. Wow, Zoey, thanks for coming on. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

1:17:08 You know, I get to see you on your video and as an artist, you’re very powerful, but you’re also a very cool guy, so thanks for coming on. Please come back again sometime and let us know how you’re doing. Go check Sully out on Twitter. Patrick, thanks for guest hosting. It’s good to have you here. Thanks for having me again. And the SOS connection and stuff.

1:17:25 If you’re listening to us on iTunes, please subscribe. If you want to see our beautiful faces come to our YouTube channel London Real TV and we’re on Twitter to come find us we’ll be retweeting a picture with Sully after this and we’re on Facebook as well so there you go thank you both and until then it’s about the journey guys all right peace okay On a plate.