AJ Tracey - ‘Buying my mum a house will always be my proudest achievement’

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0:43Hello and welcome to How to Fail. If you haven't joined us before, then this is the podcast that sees failure as a nudge from the universe in a different kind of direction. Every week I ask a new guest about three times they've failed in their life and what, if anything, they learnt along the way. So any teachers that are listening, please tell your students they can achieve something because it really has a massive ripple effect, actually. That's my worst nightmare. Police coming to my mum's door was literally my worst nightmare. That's like my love language. Looking after people is my love language, I'll be honest.

1:13My guest today was born in South London, grew up in Ladbroke Grove, and has been rapping since the age of four. He and his siblings were raised by a single mother who was a youth worker and a pirate radio DJ, instilling in her children both a moral conscience and a love of music. Perhaps then it's no surprise that AJ Tracy was drawn to this particular career. He dropped out of his criminology degree at London Metropolitan University and started uploading tracks to SoundCloud in 2011. He went on to achieve five platinum singles and over two billion Spotify plays as an independent artist. His debut studio album debuted at number three in the UK albums chart and his breakthrough hit, Labrote Grove, became the unofficial summer anthem of 2019.

2:06His second album, Flu Game, was inspired by the legendary basketball player Michael Jordan and entered the UK charts at number two. Now, after a three-year hiatus marked by leaked songs and pandemic delays, Tracy has just released his third album, Don't Die Before You're Dead. It's his most vulnerable and personal work yet. As well as being a love letter to the UK, the album fuses grime, garage and R &B with themes of trauma, mental health, faith and love. Reflecting on the journey he took with his latest music, Tracy says, I've experienced vulnerability. I've gained maturity. I've leveled up.

2:54AJ Tracy, welcome to Hatshap. That was a great intro. That was an amazing intro. Thank you. You may be sounding like larger than life. You are. I'm so happy to have you in the How to Fail studio. Thank you for having me. And I'm also so intrigued to hear about how vulnerability fed into your new album. Because when I was doing the research for this interview, it struck me that your childhood didn't necessarily always allow you to be vulnerable. Yeah, yeah. I think that's fair to say. how has that journey been for you in terms of embracing that softer side it's a good question um i think when you're young and you have a single mom you kind of feel like as a male you feel like you have to look after your mom obviously my mom was looking after me but you feel like you have to look after your mom you know showing weakness quote unquote um in the form of like being vulnerable of course being vulnerable is not a weakness but it seems like a weakness at a time um you just feel like other people are going to take advantage and it kind of puts you at just a disadvantage in terms of the area you live in and growing up in quite a hard area it's nice to feel like no trouble is going to approach your doorstep you know i have a younger brother and he obviously he wasn't outside too much he was kind of at home playing on his computer and i kept him away from kind of the things that happen outside the house so being vulnerable wasn't something that i was able to do for a long time but as you get older obviously i'm 31 now you you learn to open up a little bit wear your heart on your sleeve a little bit and it's nice It's nice to talk about your feelings.

4:18It's nice to hear that other people relate and they've been through similar things. And yeah, it's just a nice experience, to be honest. How much do you think you've been inspired by the younger generation to be more open about your feelings? Yeah, quite a lot, actually. I think the younger generation are a lot better at expressing their feelings. I think they have less weight on their shoulders in terms of social norms. I think they just do what they want to do, which is really cool. It's quite inspiring, to be honest. And I hope that if I have kids one day, they act the same. When you put on like a hard exterior, people can't relate to you.

4:47So you don't really form connections like that. But when you actually become yourself and just open up a little bit, you form really meaningful connections. I completely agree with you. That vulnerability is what helps people connect. It definitely is. You mentioned there that you're 31. I am. You said in a previous interview that you plan to retire from rapping at 31. I did say that. I actually did say that. How's that retirement plan going, AJ? You know what it is? As you're young, the years just get like, they look so far away and they slowly like just creep up on you. So I did say that. That was a lie.

5:16I don't know why I said that. Okay. retirement's not anytime soon I don't think as long as people are listening I'll be making music your fans are relieved to hear it there's something very cool happening with your new album, tell us about the Deliveroo thing, okay yeah so I had this idea I thought I spend a lot of money on Deliveroo I'm just going to start by saying that it's very convenient so I do end up like oh look I could cook or I could just get a takeaway but yeah I just thought why don't I put my music on Deliveroo so we hit them up and said is that a thing can we do that and they were like yeah we'd love to do that So we put the album on Deliveroo.

5:48It's the first ever record store on Deliveroo and I'm delivering albums. So when people order an album, there's a chance that I myself will get geared up and go and deliver them the album. That's so cool. It's crazy. It turns up as a vinyl. Yeah, it turns up as a physical vinyl or a CD. But if you're lucky, I'll knock on your door and hand you the vinyl. That is so exciting. Yeah, it's quite cool. It's quite cool. Tell me more about the album because you recorded it on a farm in Oxfordshire. Is that right? I did, yeah, I did. How did that play into it? Your notes are amazing, by the way. Thank you.

6:19I like to over-prep. No, great notes. Yeah, we recorded on a farm called Angelic Studios. It's in Banbury, if you know where that is. And it's just a beautiful area. It's somewhere you can just step out of London, clear your head, have your friends and family around, pet the horses if you want to. And it's Jamiroquai's studio, actually. So, yeah, we recorded an album there. And it just allowed me to just, I felt like unchained. You know, you can just kind of say whatever you want in the studio. and it allowed me to make some music that I have never really made before, like talking about my mum and the illnesses she's had and what she's been through.

6:50And I think if I was in London, I wouldn't really be able to make that music. A lot of people, my family always say to me, when I'm outside of London, I look the happiest. That's probably because London's quite competitive. It's quite toxic. It's fast. I love London, but it is all these things as well. It's fast-paced. It's a little bit dangerous. So sometimes you can't fully open up and be vulnerable in London. We're going to go on to talk about your mum in a bit. but I wonder the album is very British deliberately so very very do you consider yourself more of a Londoner or more of a British person definitely a Londoner definitely yeah yeah born and raised West London and I feel like West London I was in such close proximity to Oxford Street and Soho that kind of my local area is central London so I just feel inherently like a Londoner I used to be very like focused on where I'm going you know you bump into someone you might say sorry you might not and yeah just I think London's beautiful and I think being British is beautiful and I think it was important for me especially as a mixed race person to stamp how much I love being British and to show people like we don't have to look elsewhere for influence we can you know look at home and enjoy what we have and it's not all tea and crumpets you know although I do love a crumpet so do I I love tea as well to be honest um that idea of little AJ although I know that you weren't called that then yeah rapping at the age of four and writing lyrics at the age of six yeah talk to me a little bit about what you were like as a kid what was i like as a kid uh maybe wise beyond my ears i think actually my mom used to always say i was like an old man because i kind of understood what was going on you know and um i think starting to rap is like it gave me an outlet a creative outlet so obviously when you're four and when you're six you're not writing you know coherent lyrics but you're just writing rhymes or just saying rhymes and my dad used to be a rapper so he kind of i don't think he wanted me to be a rapper to be honest but being around him and being around his friends and being around the vinyls and whatnot it kind of influenced me i was like oh this is cool like if my dad thinks it's cool we all think our dads are like our heroes our mom's our heroes my mom was a dj dad's a rapper music was inevitable to be honest um but little aj yeah man just running around very happy to be honest stress-free until i think i became sentient and then I was like oh life's a little bit hard isn't it so yeah what was school like school is amazing I love school primary school I went to a school called middle row it's in a Goulburn Road which is Labra Grove amazing school amazing school really good teachers they cared a lot I think which is really important the ethnic diversity of my school was really cool as well black kids white kids we had a lot of Mongolian kids Moroccan kids my area has a large Moroccan population um so it's nice from a young age i got to learn about other people's cultures and what's important to them you know how they live their life and it's cool to learn that because as you grow up it takes a lot of um you know stereotypes away from you you stop thinking about oh maybe xyz because you've already learned oh it's not like that you know secondary school i went to holland park which is a very famous school actually um when i went there when i first went there was a little bit rough but as i moved through the years they you know started making it a little bit better i would say now it's a really like kind of posh school to be honest but at the time it wasn't it was like no uniform fighting graffiti whatever yeah but i really enjoyed school my re teacher and my history teachers those two in specific really helped mold me into who i am because i didn't really care for the other teachers they didn't really understand i'm adhd and like they didn't really get like why is this kid like not concentrating and my re teacher miss khan and miss mop my history teacher really looked after me like they understood okay cool he might be a little bit distracted but he's actually intelligent and we should try and harness what he has to offer.

10:24Have you been back to that school? I have been back to the school, but it's funny because, okay, so I'm actually banned from the school because in one of my lyrics, I said, F the headteacher because I didn't like him. So I'm banned. But I came outside the school recently just to like see the kids and say hi and just like gas them up a little bit. So that was cool. And one of the headteachers came up to me and he's like, look, it's really nice to see you. I think you know you're not allowed to be here, but it's nice to see you. So thanks for coming, but you're going to have to vacate. so yeah I'm literally banned by the way actually when kids have prom in Holland Park they're not allowed to play my music what that's a fact that's actually a fact is that because the same head teacher is still in charge he's left now so maybe I'm unbanned when did he leave a couple of years ago I mean if you're listening head teacher of Holland Park you need to unban AJ Tracy I don't know who the current head teacher is so hopefully yeah let me come and give a talk to the kids final question before we get onto your failures that Britishness that you have so eloquently encapsulated talking about your upbringing how do you translate that into your sound on this album that's a good question it's a great question um i think some music is just inherently british i think uk garage not to be confused with garage because garage is american but uk garage is ours and i think that sound is very it just sounds like your upbringing even if you didn't listen to garage you heard it in passing you know grime of course is a british sound we invented it here um i think rock music indie music punk music my mum used to love the Sex Pistols great band I think for me having all these different types of genres available to me and being brought to my attention is what kind of shaped my idea of a British soundscape and I wish I had to put a little bit of everything into it.

12:01That is so impressive. You know it's funny I get sometimes people online say like oh AJ says he's British he's not British he's black but my mum's from Cardiff and her dad is English so I'm literally British by blood unfortunately for the people who don't want me to be my dad's from Trinidad and anyone who knows the history of the Caribbean, the Caribbean people were invited over to the UK to become British. So whichever way you flip it, I'm British, yeah. You still get people saying that to you? Yeah, I do, actually, I do. But I don't think, it's not, obviously it's not anyone who, no offence, has any intelligence, of course.

12:28But some people are just ignorant and I hope they get some education. Yeah. Hopefully. Race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait, is that an enterprise sails solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real.

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13:40EpGliss can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EpGliss. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EpGliss. Before starting EpGliss, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about EpGliss and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Your first failure is about being an independent artist. yes yes it is so talk to me about that because it it strikes me that you've made a massive success of it but maybe it was really hard along the way um yeah in fact i appreciate you saying that it's definitely been a success and it's lovely to look back in hindsight and be like oh wow i managed to do all this but it was definitely very difficult and there were some paths that may have been easier to take maybe not as rewarding but definitely easier to take so when you're a young artist the first thing that people tell you is like you want to get a record deal because it just equals money and it means like stability and you're able to put your music out and you've got a big machine behind you to help you put your music out but being independent is like the dark route the route that people don't really speak about what they do now it's a cool thing to be independent now but at the time it was pretty hard and um me being independent meant that every win that i managed to achieve is a bigger win because it's just me on my own well obviously my team joss you've met big up on my team but you know when you're part of a label it's like it's not really your win like you would have maybe won regardless of what the music sounds like because the machine are kind of just churning you up so when you're independent it's like cool if i pay 50 grand for this music video and i don't make 50 grand back it's just my loss it comes out my pocket and i've lost it if you have the label it's kind of like they're gonna spend the money it doesn't matter if you lose or not so there are pros and cons but when you do manage to succeed being independent it's kind of like if i want to make a song tomorrow me and you went to the studio today and made a song i could just drop it tomorrow there's no one who could tell me you can't or wait for this there's no any like i'll just drop my song which is amazing it gives a lot of freedom and control to the artist which i think is beautiful um also i own all my masters which is something that i think a lot of artists can't say which is a little bit sad because owning your masters is power honestly because when i make a song i own the song so you can use the song you can borrow the song enjoy the song but it's my song at the end of the day if i want to sell the rights to it i can if i wanted to go and sell my catalog tomorrow and stop making music i could and you'd never hear me again and i'll live in the bahamas but um i think being independent just means that the fight is a little bit harder but the reward is much greater um but that is difficult i'll be honest there's a lot of trial and error there's a lot of spending money and not making money back of course and sometimes you look at the coffers and you're like hmm i don't know if i can take this risk right now because i have a family you know i have uh my missus my mom my brother my friends i'm trying to like look after everyone and if i make a wrong step here it could really affect everyone so you've got to kind of wear everything up that's so much pressure it is a lot of pressure i'll be honest it's a lot of pressure but i also i'm conscious that if i succeed independently then other kids who want to be independent are going to look at that the blueprint and be able to use it and be able to make something of themselves because of the seeds that i've planted which is amazing so it is like a little bit of a community thing you know you get this sense of justice where you're actually giving people access to becoming whichever artist they want to be on their own without thinking oh i need this label i have to sign this and a lot of the time labels will come into like you know an impoverished area get a really talented kid and be like i'm just going to give you 20k and make millions off you and just kind of churn you up and spit you out which does happen a lot um not every label of course but a lot of them do do that i also think just hearing you explain it that way there is such a social justice element to it there definitely is yeah because you're going a route that has no gatekeepers and historically gatekeepers are like white privileged men not always but yeah most of the time so how aware Where were you of that element when you started out?

17:24Was this always the plan to go this way? It wasn't the plan. When I initially first started, I really wanted to sign a record door just because I didn't really understand the implications of being signed and the rewards that can come from being independent. But as soon as I kind of understood, I got with my manager, Andy. And when I was really early on in my music and he was kind of like, look, we can just do this. We don't need all these other people. We can actually just do this. And with the internet now, which is really cool for everyone who's younger than me, you can go on soundcloud upload a song and tomorrow you're viral like just that easy it's literally that easy obviously that doesn't happen for everyone but it can happen and it means that instead of having to go you know go to a label meeting and go to an office and discuss how you're going to drop your song and the tactics behind it and the whatever the business roll out you can just upload on soundcloud people like it and then that's it this is that easy so it does empower people a lot i think it's very empowering to be independent but i'm going to just caveat that by saying it's a lot of work and it is very stressful and it is possible that you know you're down to your last 50 grand you spend it wrong you're done you know it can happen it can happen so how do you cope with that pressure what are your strategies to be honest with you just staying with good friends staying around people who are going to keep me grounded and tell me the truth if a song is not that great i want my friends to say to me you've done better like you can do better than this which i need is important um having my mom just always say to me like no matter what happens outside the house you know i love you you're good over here come to my house and i'll you're hugging we're all good that's very important i think that is the main reason i have so much confidence because even if everyone's fed up with me i'm gonna go see my mom and she'll love me and we're all good so that no genuinely though that's that's kind of like what instilled the confidence in me to be like no matter what happens outside the house we're good in the house i just think the pressure is easy to deal with if if you know you know you know your worth you know what you can what you're capable of you know what you can achieve then i'm not gonna say easy i take that back but it's easier to deal with the pressure as long as you're confident to be honest have you always had that in a knowledge that you are capable of something great i think so to be honest i actually think so i think when i was in school thanks to the teachers that i mentioned they kind of instilled in me like yeah cool you know you misbehave you mess around you might be a little bit naughty but you're you're intelligent you're a bright kid and you can definitely make something of yourself and having your teachers tell you that is important i think so any teachers that are listening please tell your students they can achieve something because it really has a massive ripple effect actually and you know you can spiral downwards but some teachers were like really lifting up the kids which is really important and i attribute that to my mom and to the teachers that done their done their job you explore your faith on this album too and i wonder how much your faith plays into that sense of mission almost with the faith thing it's funny because i do feel that for me personally i can't speak for everyone but for me personally i just believe if you're a good person you live your life trying to be a good person trying to help other people that's like the mission of life right that's the aim that's the point of life to to help people who need help and do what you can do and build memories of people and try and leave a mark on the world so for me when we talk about faith i just have faith that the higher powers are gonna just ensure that i can carry out my mission which is just trying to be a good person i'll be honest there's surely going to be a couple people who don't like me are going to say oh ad is a horrible person or whatever but you know at the end of the day i always do things with um with good intentions at the end of the day and i think that's just the main point of everything if you've got good intentions then in my opinion you're on the right side of god talk to me about the meaning of the album title okay the meaning of the album title basically means live your life that's what it means like a lot of my career i've spent like oh this song's gone number two and we're doing really well and look we've made this money and we've got this big show and it's so fast and things turn over so quickly you don't really get to live it sometimes like you're just in it but you're not present does that make sense yes so you have a big show you come off stage and everyone like all your mates are like wow like what a show like i did glastonbury pyramid stage and there was so many people and everyone was just like wow that was amazing but i didn't really feel it like i feel it like a week later when i'm at home and like maybe i'll see it back on youtube and i'm like wow that's crazy but at the time i'm like i'm absent i'm not actually here which isn't great to be honest it's not a good way to live your life because eventually i'm going to stop making music eventually i'll get older and eventually i'll wish that i had you know lived in the moment more and that's what i'm trying to do now i'm trying to live in the moment more and i think the title basically just says you know we're all gonna die at some point don't die now like be present live your life that's kind of the aim of the album do you think the pandemic helps you be more present definitely for sure well i was living with my missus during the pandemic and you know we had a couple of arguments here and there but you know you're confined in this space of each other non-stop you can't make any life experiences i can't go outside the house have a day that she doesn't know about and then talk to her about it because we're just doing the same thing every day so it's quite hard but also uh bless her you know we got through it it was all good and i think being locked in the house makes you grateful for when you can leave the house you know like just going when i go to cardiff i went to cardiff the other day i went to cardiff and i got family there and like experiencing waves and just being able to see a different culture from london is really valuable and it's important you know i've been on thousands of flights to loads of countries and i go to japan a lot i go to east asia a lot and being over there being present enjoying the moment and it's not all about make sure I get a good pic for Instagram it's like make sure I make memories you mentioned your missus there is it true that you once broke up with someone because they disrespected your mum I did indeed I did definitely definitely that was crazy so basically my missus at the time this is when I was way younger she went out drinking whatever she had a fun time with her friends and then I was at my mum's house and I lied I wasn't at my mum's house I was wherever I was and she went and rang my mum's doorbell because I wasn't answering the phone.

22:53She rang my mum's doorbell in the middle of the night and was like drunk and just like swearing over the intercom. My mum called me like, yeah, why is your girlfriend being abusive over the intercom? I said, oh, God. That was the end of that. Yeah, that was it. I just called her like, I don't know what made you think you can do that. That's insane. But disrespect to my mum, that's done. Automatic. Automatic, done, finished. So your partner now, I'm guessing she has a great relationship with her. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My mum loves her, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Much better now. Much better, thank God.

23:18Yeah, thank God. And I like her mum. Her mum's lovely as well, so yeah. Talking of family, it reminds me of Big Zoo, who has been a guest on this podcast, and he is a legend. He is a legend. And you being an independent artist, I guess, gave you the flexibility to explore TV with it. He's your cousin, have I said that? Yeah, yeah. He, actually, you know what, the TV thing, I kind of wasn't sure whether I wanted to do any TV, and he just called me like, bro, you might as well just try it. Like, I can give you the perfect, we call it a through ball in football. It means like someone's standing in front of the goal, I'll pass the ball to you and you can score.

23:49so like he's like bro i'll give you the perfect free world we'll just go and make a tv show on sky which is obviously a lot of people's dream but he's like i can make that happen so i was like yeah why not we'll try and i had a lot of fun i'll be honest i had a lot of fun won a bafta yeah zoo's won two baftas and he's been nominated for six so he's doing very well very well bless him and he's a great musician as well so he's kind of just got everything going on oh ladies if you're watching hit up zoo oh is he single i want him to get a nice partner yes okay i'd love him to have a nice missus to ground him please come and ground my cousin how old is he he is 29 okay so this is a psa this is a psa this is a psa i love it i love matchmaking he's about to be 30 okay get in there while the getting's good yeah okay so we've mentioned your mom and i know that she is a huge and profound influence on on you probably one of my biggest and your second failure is about your mom yes and her and her health her health exactly when i was younger my mom unfortunately got diagnosed with breast cancer and she me and me and my younger brother are two completely different personalities as i told you he stayed in the house a lot played on his computer he's quite reserved and i was kind of outgoing outside playing out so my mom told us she was ill she told me first and then i was like okay let me let me tell my brother because i feel like i I can probably communicate it better.

25:09Whatever. I told him, cool. My mum said, cool, we're going to get through it. You know, she went and had a therapy and whatnot. And then it came back, unfortunately. When it came back the second time, my mum kind of said to me, because she's getting older, you know, she's like, I don't know if I can be bothered to just keep doing this, you know, therapy and blah, blah, blah. It's quite, it takes quite a toll. You know, obviously you can lose your hair. You get, you know, weaker and whatnot. And it's painful as well, to be honest. And she just said to me, like, I'm not sure if I want to do that.

25:34So I said, even if not for me, for my little brother, I think, you gotta give it a whack, you know? And how old are you at this stage? I was young. I can't remember how old I was, but I was younger. I was very young. I was like, I don't want to get the age wrong, but around 15-ish, something like that. I don't know. And I just said to my mom, I was like, look, even if not for me, because I'm quite emotionally stable, it's probably, like the way, I can't go and say to my little brother that you don't want to go and have therapy. You just want to kind of see what happens. I said, I can't say that to my brother.

26:02Like, if you want to say that to him, I'll leave that for you to say to him because that's going to shatter him. You know what I'm saying? And then obviously she fought about it and she's like, no, I'm going to fight it. Fine. Like, you know, she summoned up the strength and she fought it and then it went and then it came back again. When it came back again, my mum was just like, I'm basically just not going to get rid of this thing, which is, you know, horrible. I can't imagine what that feels like. But thank God, luckily, my mum's all good now. Perfectly fine now. She's super happy. She just told me the other day she can squat 20 kg now, so that's great.

26:35but um that whole saga was very draining because every time i'm outside the house and trying to like achieve my dreams and make things happen and my brother's you know getting his education trying to make things happen at the back of our mind it's like oh my mom might be dying so it's kind of like you know it's hard to chase your dreams when you're worried about what's going on at home and as i told you my mom made sure that our house is like you know a safe haven but it's a bit of a broken safe haven when your mom's not safe at home do you see what i'm saying yes she's been good for years and uh she's thriving honestly i bought her house she loves the house she's got a little garden with frogs in it great i'm so happy and relieved to hear that aj i appreciate it thank you you write this amazing track on the new album third time lucky yeah and one of the lyrics is about the house you bought yeah you say it's your proudest moment it is for sure it definitely is because we grew up in labbergrove you know lovely area beautiful community but unfortunately you know there's some crimes that go on there and it's not the safest area and my dream was always if i make some money from music i'll buy my mom a house and you know she'll be safe we've never had a garden you know we've lived in a little flat in larver grove and she has a massive garden now lovely house you know she put us around decorating and whatnot she looks after her garden no one else and it's just beautiful for me that she's got her own place and she don't have to worry about paying rent whatever you know the bills it's all sorted it's done so that is definitely my proudest achievement for sure even if i like crashed out of music and finished and like no one wanted to listen to me anymore the fact that i got my mom a place to live and she's safe is really like i've done what i needed to do you know did you do it as a surprise how did you tell her actually this is so funny so when i told my mom yeah like so i didn't tell her i'm buying a house what i told her is okay mom you gotta move like i don't want you to live here anymore you know everyone knows where we live um my notoriety is you know going upwards and it's not safe for you to live here she basically said no she was like no i'm not moving so i was like well you have to move she's like no i'm not moving so so i said okay cool so i went and got my older brothers and i was like guys you're gonna have to come with me to my mom's house we're gonna have to sit her down and tell her like no you are moving so we went we sat down and she just started crying she's like i'm not moving like i love the area i love the community you know my mom's a youth worker so she knows all the local kids and she's been helping everyone out there for a while and um yeah she she basically said i'm not leaving and i said okay cool so if you're not leaving what are we gonna do because it's gonna help me mom for you to leave but But basically she said in the end, look, I'll leave if I can still come back to the area and go on the Grenfell march and do all these things that I love doing.

29:01And I said, yeah, deal, no problem. We just won't move too far away. So I moved there. She's still in West London. And when she got there, when she got to the house, she was like, oh, I actually love this house. Like, I'm glad I moved.

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29:58While glamour raved, it's the year's funniest and most heartwarming new comedy series. FX's English Teacher. All new, Thursdays on FX. All episodes now streaming on Hulu. When you talk about your childhood and all of the great positive influences you had, I'm also aware, like reading in between what you're saying, of the amount of responsibility that you also carried. Oh, for sure. A lot of responsibility. Because your dad wasn't... He wasn't around, he wasn't around. He wasn't an absent dad, so to speak. My mum and dad were together when I was younger. They broke up and they were kind of... I knew they were going to break up because they were kind of arguing all the time.

30:38And then my mum tried to hide it from me. But I said to my mum, like, look, you and dad are going to break up in it. Because I can see it. Like, I was young, I was really young. I was like eight or something. but I could see, you know, they weren't getting on and it wasn't how it used to be. So I was like, what's going on? My mum said, yeah, I think, you know, we just kind of might have to go separate paths. And then I thought it was going to be like my dad and mum break up, but, you know, half of the time I met my dad, half of the time my mum's. It wasn't really like that at all. It was kind of like, sometimes I met my dad, sometimes he can't be bothered to have us, honestly.

31:05Like, you know, my mum was mostly taking care of us. We needed a new uniform. My mum had to do it, you know, everything. My mum had to do everything. And being a single mum is not easy. obviously I've never experienced it but I can see from her experience it's not easy and kids are expensive kids are noisy and having two boys you know like we're quite boisterous we used to fight and stuff it's like it's not easy is it so but I think a lot of the time me and my brother would like want to fight and just not fight to just not stress my mum out you know like we just not do it even though we want to we're just not gonna fight because stressing my mum out wasn't that angle and then um the weight of like financial burden started weighing down on my mum you know she can't afford certain things blah blah blah she's working really hard she had a good job actually as well she was um the head of youth work for a couple boroughs and she was doing really well but it still wasn't enough you know i'm saying and it i can't imagine how hard it must be to feel like what you're doing isn't enough and what she was doing was enough actually just unfortunately the person who should have been helping her out wasn't you know so the responsibility of being like the man of the house kind of fell on me and that's okay though i took that with like open arms i was called to do that i didn't mind I think my little brother needed a good role model and someone to look up to and I hope I did that so it was fine I was actually happy to do that job honestly because if no one's going to do it I'm happy to step up and do it it's fine we did get it done do you feel older than your years?

32:28for sure actually yeah it's weird because I feel like now I feel old only because I don't go clubbing or anything anymore I'm kind of like a grandad now but when I was like 25 I already felt like 30 so when I reached the age of 30 it didn't feel any different because I felt like the level of responsibility I've had all my life has been consistent to be honest since I was like maybe like 20 like 18 19 20 from then I was like I gotta be a man I gotta bring some money in I gotta be a man you know yeah yeah do you look forward to a time when you don't have that amount of responsibility is that one of your goals kind of no not really actually I enjoy the responsibility because it gives you something to like you know something to live for it gives you something to to work towards you know like when you have people to look after you constantly have to make sure that they're good and that's something I enjoy to be honest I relish it actually I like looking after people that's like my love language looking after people is my love language I'll be honest you're such a nice person thanks I appreciate it thank you um one of the other lyrics from third time lucky is about saying to your mum that you'd found money on the floor yeah yeah yeah but it wasn't it wasn't on the floor no it definitely was from selling drugs for sure okay but like even that it's like when when my mum found out what I was doing she was like distraught because obviously she's been working so hard to keep us away from all that stuff and then here I am just kind of just doing it but it wasn't actually her fault as I say there should have been someone else helping my mum out of all of this and because that person wasn't there I just took it upon myself to try and make things work but also I wasn't doing it for like you know to be cool or to be whatever I did it because I needed some money needed to give my little brother some money help with the rent and at the end of the day it you know I'm not here to advocate for what I did but it was a means to an end you know it was a means to an end and as soon as i started making music and i had some money coming in i stopped straight away like cut everything out police never ever came to my mom's door thank god i did that's my worst nightmare police coming to my mom's door was literally my worst nightmare because like yeah she's a youth worker so you know she'll be like cool so i've helped all these other kids i couldn't even help my own kids didn't want her to feel like that and she never did so great perfect so one thing that comes across loud and clear is the amount of love that she gives you to this day and that's your bedrock for sure was she also strict no not at all actually she wasn't strict at all she kind of just said to me look like i don't want you to take drugs but if you do here are the side effects here's how you're safe because she's a youth worker so she knows you know if you tell your kid like whatever you do don't smoke weed then when you come across weed you're gonna be like hmm i'm gonna try because my mom said not to so i should you know but for me it was more like i didn't smoke weed like majority of my life i've smoked weed loads of times now but like at the time i didn't smoke at all until i was like 19 20 i I didn't even smoke weed once because I just didn't feel the need to.

34:59All my friends did, but I was just like, it's nothing special to me. I know what that does. I'm good, you know? And that's because my mum, she did well because she said, look, I don't want you to, but if you do, here's how to stay safe, which I think is a great way of parenting, I'll be honest. So yeah, man, I think my mum was sick at parenting. She would tell you, if she was here, she'd say, I wasn't the best mum, but I think she was actually the best mum, honestly, because most of my morality and like how I feel about life and my sense of justice just comes from my mum. Do you think she could tell how scared you were when she was ill?

35:25Yeah, definitely. Yeah, she could tell for sure. But I kind of like held it together for my little brother, because I think the most important thing is that, because he's highly intelligent, I just wanted him to make sure he could get all his grades done. And he's got a great job now, by the way. He's doing really well. So big on my little brother. But we just wanted to make sure that he had the best chance of achieving greatness. You know what I'm saying? So even for me, when I became a rapper, it was great for me, because it was like, I wanted to be a lawyer originally. I went and studied criminology as you know but it kind of just wasn't clicking for me and I was like hmm I don't want to be like the one in the family who you know my cousin is doing really well and everyone's doing great and then I'm like the letdown I didn't want to be the failure so it was great for me that you know people listen to my music thanks appreciate it You also had this moment which you've described in the past as like the heroin switch going cold turkey from your old life and that's when you changed your name professionally it is indeed i'd love to know more about that name change you know um some people say when they want a fresh start they cut their hair yes it's like that it's like it's just a fresh change i changed my name and it was like i can let go of the old name the connotations of the old name whatever it is i did to make ends meet i can just kind of move forward with being a professional adult being a professional man and just doing things by the book and making money and achieving things and being successful i think the name change was needed to kind of start fresh you know clear the slate and I moved out of Labra Grove I moved to Fulham and I like kind of just broke away from some of the bad influences that are around me and yeah and just allowed me to crack on with life and just be an adult do my own washing your mother named you Che she did after Che Guevara exactly how big an influence has Che Guevara been on your life yeah big actually very big because you know his story is a great one and I always believe in standing up for the little guy you know that's important I think that's a theme in my life that I always try to do and whenever I'm in a position of power I try to speak up for people who don't don't have a voice you know so I think a massive influence and big up my mum because she basically said I named you Che so that you couldn't ever be like a far right politician you know I'm saying like you have to be some sort of at least if not left like left leaning because your name's Che Guevara so you're not going to really get away from it and yeah she did well I'll be honest why did you choose AJ Tracy good question so I chose AJ Tracy because one it sounds like an actual name rather than like a street tag you know so it's easier to sell records as aj tracy than as if your name was like i don't know whatever you know something a bit more hood it's easier to sell records and i just thought this is going to give me the best chance of selling a product legitimately like if i want to sell music to kids it's not going to be the kids buying it it's their parents buying it so as long as it sounds like someone they could be buying their kids music you know aj tracy doesn't sound the same as 50 cent or whatever it just sounds a bit yeah more you know you know i'm trying to say yeah so that's that's kind of why i did it um and i think actually it did help a lot it helped a lot because when people meet me it's like there's no connotation they don't think of anything negative when they hear my name it just sounds like a name it could be anything you know but that's kind of why i changed my name it's got a good rhythm to it it does yeah it's a nice amount of syllables yeah yeah i agree i agree uh so do you think there's a a separation between chay and aj so at home are you chay yeah at home i'm just chay honestly i'm just at home when i walk into my door i don't want to talk about music i don't want to talk about shows i don't want to talk about jewelry cars nothing i want to talk about life and just be normal and it's nice for me because i can um take like the mask off and just be myself and i think it's very important that artists have a separation between their stage name and their actual name because at the end of the day when i go out in public i'm gonna have to be aj tracy because that's what people know me as and they don't know me as chay but amongst my family and friends i can still just be chay and and they don't have to feel any pressure of treating me like AJ Tracy, which is great.

39:08Because I'd hate to be treated like, yeah, any different to anyone else amongst my friends and family. So when you go on stage, do you adopt the AJ? Yeah, it's a mask, it's honestly, it's a mask. Before I get on stage, I kind of like, not meditate, but you know, I calm down, do some breathing, and I'm like, cool, I'm AJ. Because if I'm having a bad day, imagine I'm having a horrible day, I could just, you know, argument with the missus, whatever, my little brother's annoying me, whatever. I don't want to take that on stage. that's that's i shouldn't bring that into the music realm because people who came and paid for a ticket to see me they don't want to know about what i've got going on at home and who i'm arguing with and they don't want a bad attitude they want to see they came to see a good show they came to enjoy and a lot of people who are in that crowd you know it could be their first ever show could be their last ever show you never know you know so it's important for me to put my best foot forward and i used to when i was younger i used to drink before i go on stage for a bit of confidence i'm quite an anxious person but obviously i grew into it i don't drink before stage anymore because is a bit unprofessional.

40:02I don't want to be drunk and forget my lyrics. I want to give the best performance I can and then I can get drunk after if I want to. You're quite an anxious person. I am. I am quite an anxious person. I just get anxious over everything, to be honest. Do you think that's partly because you're a perfectionist? Partly, partly because of that. Also partly because of where I grew up and it's just like, when you get news, it's usually bad news. So they say, you know, no news is good news. So any news I get usually, I'm just a bit like, ah, what now, you know? And do you get any help for that? I don't.

40:30I probably should get some help to be honest, but no, I don't. I don't. I think I mostly manage it. I mostly manage it. I think even when I'm anxious, I'm quite a logical person. I live my life based on logic. I'm very aware that you mentioned your mum not wanting to move from the area because she wanted to go on Grenfell marches. That was one of the things. Very important to her. I'm not surprised. It must have been such a traumatic and defining tragedy in all of your lives because that's just around the corner. All of us in the area, for everyone, you know, everyone who lives in Labrador from the super affluent to, you know, the unfortunately impoverished people, we all have to deal with it.

41:03And at the end of the day, from my mum's front room window, we used to live on Cambridge Gardens in Labrador, which is right by the train station. I don't know if you've been to Labrador. I know exactly where that is. Perfect. So out of my mum's back window, we have, you know, the flyover. And behind the flyover, you can see Grenfell. So my whole life, that's been the backdrop of my life. So when it was on fire, unfortunately, my mum could see it. She could see it on fire, you know, from the window. So it's inescapable. And unfortunately, I lost a friend in the fire. I'm so sorry thank you a lot of people in the area lost friends and family in a fire and it was avoidable this is what really makes everyone upset because it was avoidable if it's unavoidable you know it's easier to to get past something it's easier to grieve and accept something when it's unavoidable because there's nothing you can do about it but when there was something you can do about it this is when obviously the pain comes because it's like why didn't we do something about it and I think not to make everything about you know social economics and race but it is partially about that and I think if the block was full of rich white people that probably would have never happened but unfortunately because it's full of you know immigrants and impoverished people then people don't care too much as are the claddings flammable we don't care let's save some money cut corners i guess it's an impossible question to answer because people lost their lives and so there can be no retribution for that there can be no peace but what would but what would um help rectify the situation first of all taking that cladding off any building that it is on in the uk and probably in europe because there are other buildings that have the same cladding um second of all someone needs to be held accountable i think it's very important someone or a group of people or an entity needs to be held accountable because how is no one just in like no one's been in trouble for that it just doesn't even make sense how has no one been held accountable it makes really no sense and then you know we have the inquiry into what's going on and if you want my honest opinion obviously nothing was ever going to come of that of course like you know if me and you are mates and you've done something wrong and someone tells me yeah tell her off of course i'm not going to so It's just like, you know, you're not going to tell your mates what are you?

42:58So just nothing was going to come of that. I just think it's really nice that people still go on the march. It's nice that people still bring attention to it and that we don't forget about it. And I think the best of a bad situation is just making sure that it never happens again, to be honest. At Sierra, discover great deals on top brand workout gear, like high quality walking shoes, which might lead to another discovery. 40 ,000 steps, baby. Who's on top now, Karen? You've taken the office step challenge a step too far. Don't worry though, Sierra also has yoga gear. It might be a good place to find your zen.

43:31Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. Before we get onto your final failure, I want to ask you about when you played your mum third time Lucky for the first time. What happened? Oh man, okay, so I was wondering how to do this and basically I didn't want, I wanted her to experience it with everyone else. That's initially how I felt. I wanted her to hear it as it comes up. I didn't want to let her know that I was making the song but then I felt like because my mum's also a little bit anxious let me give her a little bit of a heads up and I sent it to her just before it came out a couple of hours before she might argue me and say it's an hour before but I'm sure it's more than an hour before so she watched it and then I called her and she was like look I like the message of the song but I feel a little bit ambushed because obviously my life's kind of just out there now and I said look as I told you I'm a very logical guy and I said so look mum I love you but I know that you can confirm this you'll be alright and it's going to help loads of people this song will help a lot of people a lot of people will be able to relate and it might give them some power to be hopeful and i really think that there's more pros than than cons to releasing this song and um she just had to sit with it for a bit because the next day she came to my house she gave me a hug and she's like yeah i love the song like thank you so she's all right now but of course you know it's her private life and it's out in the public now so yeah it's not easy but it's my lived experience as well as hers you know just quickly where are you at with your dad now yeah he's cool we're cool we're cool um a couple years ago i just called him and we reconciled i just said to him look you're getting older i'm getting older there's no point like you know harboring any hatred or anything i love you at the end of the day it's not easy being a parent i've never been a parent so i don't know how it feels to be a parent and i'm 31 my dad had me when he was 23 so obviously i'm way past the age that he was at when i was 23 i was still quite immature so i just said to him like i forgive you you know i'm saying just you know let's have a good relationship going forward and yeah we're all good now do you want to be a parent do i want to be a parent yeah i'd love to be a parent actually obviously work i always dreaded the thought of like having a kid and then having to like there's nothing wrong with a nanny i'd have no problem having a nanny you know for some occasions but i want to be a present parent and i think that it'll be quite hard for me to be present if i have to tour all the time and i also wouldn't want to make my partner just you know have to deal with the kid all the time that's not fair either so i kind of just wanted to wait until my schedule frees up a bit which then again could be never it could be never but um yeah hopefully sometime soonish i hope it's not only up to me obviously there's two people in that decision but yeah at some point i think you'd be an amazing parent i appreciate that i think you already are such a big brother figure for so many people not just your actual i hope so yeah i hope so yeah like whenever for me the whole point of being a musician and having this kind of platform is that you change people's lives honestly like some people would say to me like bro you're a rapper like why do you think you but i do actually change people's lives people message me saying like i really appreciate that you've done that song or your music got me through a hard time i've had like soldiers in the army like in the military message me and say oh you know when i'm on tour like i'm listening to your song where it keeps me like reminds me at home keeps me grounded and that makes me feel really good honestly it makes me feel amazing that like cool it's great making money it's great you know doing shows or whatever i'll be on tv but when people are telling you it's changing their lives like that's very valuable and it means that you're leaving a mark on the planet so yeah man amazing so your final failure is football and failure it is what i love about this is i'm able to now speak about my football team and the failures that we've had in a positive light yeah it's great for me this is great it's the best time for me to do this great so I supported Tottenham my whole life my dad grew up in Tottenham so it makes perfect sense before anyone says oh you're from West London because Labra Grove is right next to Chelsea and QPR so why do I not support Chelsea and QPR because you unfortunately support whoever your mum and dad support they just tell you this is your team you have no choice I don't think I could even speak when he put a Tottenham top on me so I couldn't say no I wish I said no no I don't wish I said no I'm joking I love Tottenham but basically Tottenham's been through some hardship I'll tell you that we haven't won a trophy in 17 years but before obviously I'm 31 so that's most of my a good portion of my life my dad though however when he supported tottenham when he was younger tottenham were doing really well they used to win the fa cup all the time had amazing players played really good football a lot of the england team were from tottenham amazing yeah so he kind of said cool i'm gonna give my son this uh you know this life path unfortunately for me that's when it got bad so i was like okay great i'm stuck but football's funny because you know it's quite tribal and once you're with a team that's your team and when they lose you lose you you feel bad.

47:46When they win, you feel good. And you shouldn't let it affect your mood, but it does. It just is how it is. I'm a season ticket holder. I get down to Tottenham every weekend, every other weekend with my little brother. And that's like our bonding time because he's busy working. He's an important guy now in his job. So I barely see him, but I do see him at football. And, you know, we have a beer together and we hang out. It's really nice. The thing that I could wish for the most, yeah, out of my whole football journey of Tottenham is like, I just want to see Tottenham lift the trophy with my little brother.

48:12And I'm glad to say I've now done that, which is amazing. brother said to me we might be up for a trophy this year because europa's possible for us to win the path was like quite easy so he's like i'm gonna book my ticket to spain at my hotel i don't have a ticket but we'll see what happens so zoo's water company drip sponsors the tottenham women team so zoo's able to get a few tickets here and there so my little brother said to zoo if you could sort me out and he did he sorted him out we went to bilbao watched the final we won amazing real tears came out of my eyes the real tears and yeah celebrated with my brother had a great time And I was middle of tour as well.