Jermaine Defoe was from my area. Rio Ferdinand used to come into my barbershop.
Hip-hop is the art of story-telling.
Lyrics came quite easy early on in my career. But I always wanted to push it further and stand out a bit more. We were coming from the garage era when lyrics were simplified, purposefully, to work in the club environment. They were about hyping up a crowd or bigging up a DJ. Moving into grime, our lyrics became more in-depth.
As a boy, I was known for reciting whole songs after one listen. I've always had a good memory for lyrics. It's weird because I don't have a good memory for other things. I remember lyrics easier than the shopping list.
Most raves used to end by getting CS gassed. It wouldn't be like: 'Last orders! We've gotta go!' It'd be: 'Sigh, it's been CS gassed, we've gotta leave.'
Grime, in particular, is not really about pirate radio and local raves on top of pubs anymore. There are things I miss about those times but as an up-and-coming MC, back then, I would have loved to have had SoundCloud and YouTube and all these platforms to promote my music.