Kojey Radical: Complete artistry - studio, stage & screen - EP2

0:03Let's get into it. Who are you going to be presenting and discussing today? Yeah, it's me. It's me this week and we're doing Kojey Radical. It's layered, isn't it? He can rap, he can sing, he can do spoken word. Sometimes it's beats, sometimes it's full band, sometimes there's orchestra, sometimes there's BVs. And it's like, the guy flipping does it all. It's everything.

0:30we're back at it again all right before we kick things off today let's go we're gonna start with why are you smiling so why are you grilling so much why are you so happy jesus i was trying to go straight in all right yeah so before before we begin uh our little informal chat and all that that we did did last episode we're gonna start with vitals this this week right yeah so it's my turn i've brought it my vital of the week yeah grand reveal d 'angelo brown sugar so um yeah this is one of my favorite albums i would say uh i love a bit of neo soul and that so d 'angelo is probably like one of the pioneers of that sound um and yeah so i thought i had to have it obviously i've got quite like classics in terms of my vinyls you go quite new and i've kind of gone old so we're gonna have a nice little balance every week and that um yeah man just big tunes cruising brown sugar uh i think ladies on here as well um it's a pretty the actual vinyl itself is pretty basic just like yeah this you can see the back cover as well um nothing inside just the disc itself yeah so that's my vinyl of the week man fair what were we saying comments to that good edition or yeah definitely definitely a good edition not hating not hating not at all not at all I was what I'm thinking as I'm looking at it is show the show the cover again yeah I feel like I feel like what year is this do you know off the top off the top of my head I don't 90s yeah it's gonna be 95 okay ooh but yeah D 'Angelo's only got three albums So I will make sure I have all three.

2:26And what number is this? This is the first one. This is his first album. They're all very good albums. He's like multi-instrumentalist. He composes, writes, does everything himself. Doesn't really feature in a lot of songs as well. He does keep himself to himself. But everything he does bring out is always very, very good. so yeah this is this is the first one um yeah it's probably probably i'll probably say it's my favorite as well so yeah man i had to get it the point i was going to make with the asking about the year is like yeah i was thinking i feel like maybe it's a genre thing with sort of like r &b-esque yeah um but i feel like artworks are so good at like portraying how it's gonna sound almost and I don't know if it's a styling I don't know if it's like that kind of almost sepia tone type thing but I feel like you look at it and you know straight away like how this might and what he's about he's a smooth guy he's a smooth guy somewhat pensive but also yeah just yeah very smooth yeah so yeah that's my man of the week great choice favourite track off the album I'd say the first song I heard of D 'Angelo was Cruisin' and that's a cover of a Smokey Robinson song which it's like literally just cover for cover but his I would say D 'Angelo's version is actually better and yeah so that was the first but I would say Jones in my bones is probably I've got a Jones in my bones so that's probably my favourite song that was when I was like yeah this guy like this guy's cold because i think yeah cruising and then brown sugar because they're the two singles of the album is probably the ones i've heard first and then when i actually listened to the album as a whole jones in my bones is probably it sounds like ridiculous on that but but yeah listen to it if you haven't i hardly haven't listen to it and then you'll be like yeah it's just cold it's like he's got a very like jazzy sound as well so and yeah I love myself some Neo Soul and if you listen to Neo Soul I feel you have to listen to this album at some point and I think this goes well with like your vinyl of the year of the week last week with Cleo Soul because she would have definitely had listened to this and had like this would have had major influence on her crew as well because she's very much in that bag.

5:12So yeah, that's me, man. Cool, great choice. I do remember when you first got your record player, this was one of the first that I saw you, that you had. Yeah, 100%. It's making sense. I've got a list of about, it's probably near 100 now, of albums that I need to have on vinyl because they're albums that have a lot of replay value. Yeah, and this was on the top of the list. sweet all right let's put it in its rightful place go for it man awkwardly stack that out there then we're good to go then we're good to go here we are episode two episode two how did you think uh episode one went yeah i think we're getting there yeah slowly but surely not without like teething issues and stuff but yeah we recorded a good good chunk of stuff good chunk of conversation yeah what's your favorite part of episode one uh can you remember it i can't remember my favorite part per se but i would say yeah just having a good discussion around k1 i think was interesting just different um different sort of like size of the coin in terms of like it's interesting to hear other people come across stuff because i feel like it's so easy if someone has like a viral record or something which is obviously so much more common nowadays to be like oh yeah we've both come across it at the same time because they weren't really notorious before yeah but someone who's been like on a bit of a steady trajectory it's interesting to see different entry points and all of that um so yeah man i guess that sort of conversation was cool yeah i hear it like yeah i think my yeah listening learning about k1 and kind of her background and how she's kind of was in a producer bag um previously and stuff it's always cool to hear um yeah it's cool to hear artists go from bedroom producers to like full blown artists so it was good it was good man so what have you been what have you been up to since then it was my birthday ooh la la how did we turn we turned 30 bro oh my god whole new decade what an old man it's crazy what did you do for your birthday how did it go well so on the actual day I was asleep on the sofa because I was just finished and I was like a previous Harrison would have been like I've got to power through and randomly dose up and be like just papering over the cracks but I think I'm a bit better now just realising when my body needs to rest and so I was like the quicker I rest and even I rest my brain I'll recover quicker so I just spent a couple days on the sofa and then I was back because yeah basically I had plans on the Friday this was like the Tuesday and I was like I need to recover for that so So, yeah, man, did that.

7:58Had a little shindig on the Friday. Well, I had a day off on the Monday, actually. Yeah. I was with one of our friends. We went to a place called Soho Farmhouse for the day off. Yeah, I've got a bone to pick with you about that. You didn't get any invite. Don't even try it. Don't even try it. I'm not happy about this. I'm not happy about this. For the flip sake. I kept it in and I thought, you know what, save it for the pod so I can vent. What an absolute snake, man. These, man, I went to Quincy's, he had an event on the Sunday. One, one. Let me start this first. So I don't get invited to that.

8:34Let me wheel it back. Just so you're cool. So our friend Quincy and his friend Marley, they run motions together. Oh, that one. Oh, right. Now you understand. so they do they do regular events like they do it around Europe they do it in London London and stuff so they had one in Shoreditch I was actually not going to it originally so I just because I had I was mad tired and stuff and it was on I work on Monday early Monday mornings they often have events on Sundays and stuff so I was like I might give this one a mess lo behold on the Saturday I get a message from you saying oh yo you're gonna go to motions on sunday blah blah blah and i was like yeah i was thinking i guess if this guy already wants to go i'll roll with him in it so i was like yeah cool let's do it let's go sunday comes you message me i don't know like i don't know i'm not feeling great we've just got back and give a hell of excuses i'll let you know so by then i already knew you weren't you weren't coming but i already had a conversation with quincy the day before okay i was on the phone with him and obviously i already told him i was going now yeah so i i don't like to back out of things i'm not like some people if i say i'm gonna go to something i go to things so i go to anyway so that was one thing so i had to go to this thing obviously i didn't know anyone there what a chore going to a party it was obviously i didn't know anyone there and stuff i was just kind of like in the corner luckily they always have very good vibes over there so part of the music and stuff was good and stuff it was a great night but I did go to a motive just on my Jack Jones um and then I yeah I saw Quincy there and he was like um he was like oh where's Harrison blah blah I was like oh he's not feeling too well so he's not gonna be able to reach and whatever and then he was like oh really he's like oh I'm seeing him tomorrow I was like tomorrow you see and he didn't tell me he didn't say anything he didn't he didn't elaborate he was like yeah i'm seeing him tomorrow i was like that's interesting interesting you're scratching your chin okay you're seeing him tomorrow cool cool cool and then the next day obviously all it's a monday i'm just working on that have a lunch time before let me flick to my phone i see these man doing up pictures on instagram story hella farmhouse enjoying life looking at animals and stuff and i was doing up friendship like trips out and stuff i was like and yet and she had met like my wife she's messaging me or not she's talking to me saying oh everyone's at farmhouse like what's happening and I was like I don't know no one told me about it she's like oh okay I was like yeah we didn't get an invite let them be enjoying it so I'm glad you guys had a good time I'm glad you're glad but obviously I was a little bit I was a little bit oh okay just dude up moments about us so yeah yeah so it's cool it's cool it's cool it's fine but you finished yeah go on go on you say your piece you i invited you but how i let you say your piece go on go on i invited you and i but i told you holo quincy because i'm not a member at this joint and i therefore can't be out here dishing out invites so beyond my jurisdiction so you try to invite me i told you holo quincy so you You literally just said, you can't invite people outside your jurisdiction.

12:08So you didn't invite me. You told me you're going and like basically you said, maybe you could go as well. That's basically what you said. So you wanted me to hold out the host of this thing and be like, oh, my house is going. Can I come too? Like, no, I'm not doing that. I do have like some pride. He's about to do it up homely motives without me. But it's cool. I would have said no anyways but it's the principle because I'm pretty sure I spoke to you and you were like oh yeah because obviously we took all of our annual leave at the top of the year I don't even know if I can do that I've got like 16 days of annual leave I've got 16?

12:47I've plenty of time to use still bro don't worry about me I would have said no if you invited me I would have said no to be fair I'm not really about this but it's you know it's a thought that matters you know is what I think but I don't want to go with you guys it's fine I'm going to go with a whole group of people put it on Instagram say we'll have a time of life with my best friends oh yeah and we'll see we'll see that's outrageous it's fine it's fine he told he told me he was going to invite a couple like there was a lot of people yeah a couple of men I wasn't a partner a couple of men I didn't meet the requirement bro I didn't meet well that's for you to pick with a queue because yeah and he told me he was he must yeah we don't make excuses When we bring him to the pod, we'll, he'll have some.

13:32Yeah, you can, you can, you can have things to answer directly and that's it. Anyhow, we can fast forward a couple of days and then I recovered and we had my birthday on Friday where all of our friends were present, right? Yes, yes, I was present at that. And that's what made it worse because everyone was like, oh yeah, we're so hot. What do you mean everyone was two people from this guy? Not even two ones, neither can even make it. It was so great, blah, blah, blah. And then, then I got the, like the petty invite then as well. it was like oh yeah next time you should come and all that i was like yeah yeah there's not gonna be next time no i don't want to come so uh yeah yeah but yeah so though you had a party and stuff well i had a yeah i had a little had a sit down meal as well a couple a couple people stuff uh always like to do stuff around food um and if i'm being completely honest i was like i know my friends have poor punctuality so i was like if i do a party i have to be there from the jump in it I'm not trying to make a grand entrance.

14:31You're not about the little get the photographer grand entrance, come at midnight, big music for the walk-in. No, bro, it's not a boxing match. What am I doing? Yeah, but it's time to be a star, you know, sometimes. Well, when you celebrate your birthday. Yeah, I'm not celebrating my birthday. So, yeah, I was like, this is a great way to mitigate this problem by having a cluster of people there already. So, yeah, that was what we did. And then, yeah, man, I had a DJ come through places and tunes. Yeah, it was cool. People from different walks of life. Nice. Yeah, man, coming together. It's quite, man, yeah, I feel old, bro.

15:10You know when you say, like, you and Quincy were my second, like, longest-standing friends there, and then there's one that trumps it by a year. I've known someone, have a friendship with someone for 20 years, which makes me sound hella old. that's a yeah 20 years and we're approaching the same with you guys as well that's crazy but here we are far too long so yeah we did that yeah that was fun I feel like the night went past very quickly but I guess it's just how it goes innit did you go out after you're trying to have a dig I'm just asking I'm asking if you went out after because I obviously I left you when like the the party finished and stuff yeah I was doing up chauffeur like I had a group of people so yeah so obviously I I can't but I know you you guys were planning to to go out so I'm just asking did you?

16:07it's such a leading question go on did you go out tell me yeah bro briefly we were in Shepherd's Bush and so we went White City House for a bit made sure it was literally like a stone throw across the road yeah it was quite quiet actually for a Friday night I had a DJ play and I think it was it was one of the guys from Ezra Collective which I didn't know that they were that way inclined but yeah one of them was DJing quite an eclectic mix of stuff and yeah it wasn't that busy to be fair but yeah we were there for maybe like 45 minutes or so not crazy but yeah wanted to give it a go see what you were saying shake a little leg you know yeah that sounds good sounds good what about you what have you been saying I've actually been listening to like a lot more new music recently now i don't know if it's because i'm conscious of what we're doing here and stuff and i'm like oh i've got to make sure i'm bringing something to the table or like i don't know sometimes i just stumble across an artist and then it leads me to just like listen to a bunch of new stuff like in similar vein and that so yeah i've just been doing that um and yeah obviously we're doing this like pod thing from scratch and stuff so we're like learning how to like video edit and deal with random like file sizes and storage and stuff and yeah so we're dealing with all of that which is always interesting yeah it's a whole thing but it's good um and that's it really man keeping it keeping it quiet we're all keeping it quiet so when we started this pod journey we got a little bit excited and we started going for like logos and like names and stuff like that and then we started doing a bit of merch and that we've got a couple uh went for oh yeah some cue cards and that that's right so there you go got a little n for 95 and there that's right but we didn't really think about what we were going to use them for we're just like yeah yeah cue cards man surely surely just get the branding everywhere uh so yeah obviously we're going to do some recent rotations of what we've been listening to recently and I've decided, well, we both decided to write them down to use the cue card and I guess, well, to be fair, if you asked me off the bat, I'd probably go and say like a throwback tune just easily.

18:30And because I probably did listen to it. So this time I have got one old song in there again, but I've got two newer songs as well. Okay, well, let's start with the old one. You want me to go first? Yeah. so yeah so i'm gonna do old last i'm gonna go to noon the first yeah i'm not gonna do what you just told me to do that's such a contrary i don't care what you're telling me to do i've written it as the oldest one is last i'm gonna go one two three i'm not gonna show show my handwriting because it's i can barely read it looking i can't write but whatever so number one is uh A song by 27 Delhi.

19:12Who? 27 Delhi. Daddy? Delhi, Delhi. Oh, I was going to say thank goodness for that. So 27 D-E-L-L-Y. Okay. Called No Drill. It is a very, I think, I want to, he's American. I want to say he's from New York, but I don't know. Again, he doesn't have like a huge, huge following. But I think this is his most popular song. and it is just very funky like bouncy but like it's got a very like 2000s um like hip-hop feel to it um so yeah definitely give that a listen to uh two is uh a song called something real by jaymin how do you spell it j-a-y-m-i-n and i think he is gonna be like a new i'm putting out of it so he's very R &B I keep using this as a comparison I keep saying Trapsoli but the beat itself sounds like it could also sound like almost like a K1 type of style genre of R &B and yeah it's just yeah very very very good so I think something real came out maybe maybe like in September end of September oh like just a couple weeks but I'm new bro I'm fresh you're on the post bro how are you how are you coming across this 27 Daily came from Spotify just like a random yeah like mixed in with one of my playlists or if I went to Spotify Genius or whatever whatever it does Jamin was from Instagram somewhere like someone who was I followed quite a few like music not platforms but like influencers that suggest music or whatever and he was in there and I was like this is actually pretty good to be fair so I put them in there so that's my second my third is I'm going back I'm going 1980s I'm going Janet Jackson from the album Rhythm Nation which is like one of her most popular albums so definitely give it a listen to Miss You Much is the tune that I'm listening to it's like proper like Jack's new jack swing kind of vibes um the janet jackson i feel is one of the artists that doesn't get enough respect today in in terms of like the numbers that she was doing and how popular she really was i think part of that is because like a lot of her music is very current like it didn't it didn't really i don't think it retract well if you like if you to listen to it now out of nowhere um whereas other artists are kind of more timeless i would say because she was like her producers for example was like jimmy jam and like terry lewis and stuff who were like the forefront of those types of sounds um but yeah i just went back and i was like yeah this is this is beats bro it's bounce it's like fun um like yeah yeah so they're they're my three so two new and one old but yeah give it give it a listen to and give it a try i'll have to what have you got mate um quick question before we get into my end yeah when with the janet one you were like oh yeah i've been listening to this specific song yeah so is it how does it how do you consume stuff like if you suddenly you re come across or rediscover something or you feel it will you like bump that same thing on repeat yeah like i've got favorites and albums in it So I think I was probably listening to some MJ and stuff recently and listening to some songs that I like.

23:07And then that kind of led me to listening to Prince and stuff. And then that leads me to listening to The Time, which is Prince's band, which Janet Jackson's producers were a part of. And I think that's how I started listening to Janet Jackson again. And then that's probably one of my favorite songs on that album. so I was just like bumping that tune like I think yeah for all like albums that I like they're definite like favourite songs in that album so I might not listen to like I might not listen to the Rhythm Nation album as a whole but I'm like picking little songs or I'm just picking the Horizon artist and I'm like ooh I like this song I like that song and I'm just like going through it that way but nah I can't yeah so that's why there's like particular old songs that I like to listen to.

23:57So come on, tell me what you got. What you got? So it's interesting to listen to your process, how you go through like, this leads to this, leads to this, and then that is a periphery to this song now here. Yeah, because sometimes I just want to like, if I want to go back as well, I'm like, I want to listen to like a whole genre or like the full kind of history of it kind of thing. Interesting. I don't want to like, I'm not going to listen to like if I'm listening to like 70s stuff well I'm not going to listen to just like 70s just decade it will be like something it will be like a genre within that kind of thing so and yeah so yeah it was very Minneapolis New Jack Swing kind of vibes in the last couple of weeks which like led me to Janet Jackson and she's the one bro she's yeah very much slept on I would say like disrespected a little bit i'll say definitely definitely but she's maybe because she's a jackson maybe and like yeah but she's an icon in her own rights 100 cool nice great selection thank you i have to check out 27 delhi bro listen to that dude i that's probably the song i've listened to the most out of the three and it's one of the ones like i've just replayed like rewinded it like you can just wheel it up like a few a few times to be fair i'm gonna check it today yeah i'm not like stupidly so to be fair check it out check it out and uh trust me you'll like it cool all righty so mine i've got one artist to highlight today and that is tendai okay um he's put a new track out called explain uh which come out uh very recently and yeah that's just sent me back into a whole of his catalogue to date, to be fair.

25:44Which, to be fair, only dates back a couple years. But yeah, he's got some very, very good stuff. Yeah, I'd say he's got a project. His longest project is called The Rain. I'm trying to think. I think that's 10 tracks on there. And then he's got a... He did two three-track EPs. One of them is called 3-2, which was the second iteration of that. That one's very good. And then he's just to call out another specific track as well. He's got another track called Pressure, which is cool as well. Yeah, just very bouncy, good vibe. And yeah, he's just super talented, produces, writes, performs all of his own stuff.

26:27Yeah, just one of those kids. And in episode one, we were talking about Elam. He was one of Elam's alumni as well. and yeah when so when he did the brain the sort of like campaign around that it was all black and white so like all of the videos were black and white all of his like social content was black and black and white and what he's been sort of like his new world I think the language he's using is I've been sort of thinking in colour more recently and so the roll out for this has sort of been yeah it's really intriguing visual of him like painting abstract colour strokes and stuff on a canvas basically and the new music being the soundbed for that um and some other stuff with him playing the piano just yeah he's just a super talented kid and yeah there's more music he's been teasing to come so i'm excited to see the next sort of phase of him and this new record has been sort of like sending me back i guess um and i feel like a lot of modern makes me sound old but some of the recent music within the last five years i I feel like we've seen a shortening of tracks around the two to two and a half minute mark.

27:40And Tendai, some of his stuff is shorter like that as well. But I do like it because it's sort of like, A, it has repeat play value because it's short and you're like, I do just want to hear that again. But also, we're not getting into three verses and a bridge. You hear this sort of sonic world that he's built for this moment in time and then it sort of moves into something a bit different. And I like the fact that it's a bit choppy. like that um so yeah that that's one artist that I'll call out and my second one um yeah it's not necessary it's more of a you know we talked about mood based listening last time and I have recently got back into running uh after years of being out of running yeah because I've had insufficient footwear for it and I've been like oh I wonder why I wonder why I can't run because I don't have footwear and so strangely my feet have been giving me grief so what what footwear have we have we gone for then so i have recently purchased the nike vermero 18s okay um and they're treating you out after much research yeah um the segue into this is like so i've been listening to dj mixes um so i've only been doing like 5ks in the first instance just to get build up my pace again really um and because it's a short sharp burst essentially 5k like kind of segwaying from the 10 day conversation I don't really want to be listening to full songs which sounds very maybe privileged or whatever but like so I listen to DJ mixes because yeah it's just I don't know why I needed to consult that because it's just like quite choppy and I are you sure there's not any more of your feelings on that on that actually yeah a bit upbeat upbeat okay cool yeah just I want it to be choppy I want to not know when the next song's coming but I want it to be keeping me on my toes and keeping it like keeping it moving and I like variety and I feel like I don't know there's something in I feel like I get energized from people mixing and from hearing music go together and so I feel like that's the perfect way to help me stay focused and energized when I'm running especially at the minute when I'm running on a treadmill because that is a very stiff thing to do like i'm got a tv like on the wall in front of me with no subtitles and no audio and it's the news i'm like this is not stimulated in in in the slightest so having a dj mix going on the back is something and it's a great way for me to like a listen to other djs and their talent and what they're doing but also see what's like the sort of music that's any going off in the clubs at the moment as well so is there any particular dj mixes any dj like do you go for a certain DJ or you just is it more of just a search and then yeah actually let me take this minute to shout out one of my friends his name is DJ MVA okay he's one of my boys I used to work called Marcus he started putting mixes on SoundCloud a while ago he plays out a lot and stuff but yeah posts his mixes like shares it to like Insta story and so like the vibe that he puts out is something that I enjoy yeah so for me like it's just like do you know what if I hop on the treadmill and then I'll certainly be searching for ages the right thing so at the minute he's just a good go-to I can slap that on and just get straight into it and we're away yeah I think I need to give that a go then because what I do I like I'll have like playlists on my Spotify already and I'll go from there and then I'll like change the queue and then add songs in and I'll be like that's half an hour worth of music you should be okay or I'll get like 40 minutes and I'll have like a buffer so then I can skip like if I'm really on video or whatever but I think yeah maybe DJ Mixers is the way to go because that's how my like I'm not I'm never that meticulous but that's how my brain works as well like often I'll go on I'll jump on an editorial playlist like Spotify or Apple or whatever I've created and then I'll look at the whatever's in the top view before the break and I'll be like what's the first five seven songs and I'll make a judgement based on that but then I can be there for ages thinking nah not that or that and then just all of a sudden I'm 10 minutes into not working out and I'm still just stood or sat and I'm like this is just ridiculous so I would once you either find DJ or find a mood like the apartment life ones are quite a nice vibe as well also shout out Mike O 'Leary yeah bad boy DJ great taste more R &B to be honest so if you're working out it's not necessarily the go to but he does his coffee shop like Sunday Sunday cleaning series which is very very good um so we'd recommend that for like sunday vibes or chill vibes okay and uh yeah i'll definitely give a listen to what was it dj mba nba yeah okay yeah i'll give i'll check them out check them out and go for the runs and that cool all right so week two we're getting into our second spotlight artist obviously last week i discussed k1 after scrupulous research and this week it is your turn so let's get into it who are you going to be presenting and discussing today yeah mate i've actually done some work this episode i've brought a vinyl i'm bringing the artists to the table so i'm feeling pretty good about myself you should we love to see it because people might be thinking this guy is not doing anything i'm dead weight so yeah it's me it's me this week and we're doing code you radical let's go so we mentioned him in the last episode obviously he went to his album launch party that's right um and that's kind of one of the reasons we're bringing him up as well because albums just come out uh don't look down um and then yeah yeah we're just going to talk about him and see see where the conversation goes and that so i've got yeah obviously i did a bit of research to look at his timeline looked at a few interviews and stuff I've tried to do some digging and that.

33:41So yeah, I think, I guess the first place to start is kind of where we both first heard of Koji. Yeah. So for me, it's actually difficult to pinpoint. He's one of the artists. Similar to when we mentioned Cleo's soul last week, where it's like they feel like they've kind of come out of nowhere and then just always been in your life kind of thing. Koji, radical, is like, I've always kind of known of him being the guy and being like this kind of completely different artist and having his own lane almost um but I couldn't I can't like pinpoint the song I think it might have been um for me like you know I'm like it's about it's about time we brought this up yeah like i'm a bit of a hater when it comes to like a lot of uk like rap and stuff and music in general in it like i'm i'm very much like more us than uk you are and it's taken like i've had to work and try to like more like uk but one of the one of the first artists for me that that i liked was jay prince yeah that was probably yeah it was probably like the only uh uk artist at the time for me that i could i listened to and i like straight off the bat i didn't have to try to because he sounds american yeah because his beats are very like very hip-hoppy and like like quite us and stuff but um yeah so i i'm pretty sure i heard of koji through um jay prince because they collaborate quite often and i i think it might have been the song love is which um was off of one of jay prince's albums um i think it was the album that followed um late summers but i can't remember what that was called um but that's yeah 2018 but that seems quite late i feel koji radical was about like for quite quite a time before that still um so i feel I might have known him before but I can't I can't pinpoint it what about you yeah it's interesting I can pinpoint it quite well yeah for a good reason which I've come into I think he's been around since 2015 I want to say but I didn't have I wasn't aware of him then yeah before you get into the competition again I'll go for the timeline straight off the bat then there 2014 is his first EP oh really it was an EP interesting yeah Yeah, weirdly, and you wouldn't think this, this is only his second album.

36:20Yeah. Which sounds insane. I did know that, but that's mad, isn't it? That sounds insane. So I thought Cash My Tears was his, not even his first album, but I thought that's not even an album. Yeah, so that's like an EP project, yeah. Which is crazy. so you're saying 2015 is when you no so I first same as you 2018 so I I actually went to an event it was with YouTube actually YouTube put the event on and they had various artists performing and he was one of them and I feel like I had heard of him at that point but I don't know how or where or why and he performed that night and it was the first time I'd seen him of course and he was sick like he like yeah just I was kind of captivated by that moment it was like quite intimate room and it was largely like industry people so there was every reason for it to not feel like a rave type thing but he bought mad energy was in the crowd and like just was super super impressive and so yeah it was that event that probably got me into him and then I was like I need to check this music and so I I remember it was like, the tune specifically, it was like 97, If, and Water with Mahalia.

37:43He's one of those artists, he's kind of like an enigma kind of vibes. So like, you know of him before you even hear him and you know kind of what he looks like and stuff and you know everything about him, but you don't know his music. It's weird. I think it's also, it speaks to his like, he's just a proper creative. yeah he's just got that aura about him doesn't he like he's done presented fashion awards like you're taking my facts he's done he's presented the fashion awards two years in a row oh is it oh yeah okay i didn't know so consecutive yeah off the bat bro so yeah so yeah um yeah he's done he's done that with i think he did it with my agenda on both occasions um he himself went to London College of Fashion as well.

38:32He's got that background but I think he did illustration. When he was first thinking about what he wanted to do in the future he wanted to be a storyboard artist and go into illustration in that way. It was only through I'm not sure if you remember when everything when there was a big spoken word movement in in london especially like with george the poet and artists like that yeah he was kind of in in that movement as well so that's kind of where he first started started and he's always thought like what what is this thing that can make like have an edge on everyone else and he started doing more music attached to it and that's how it wasn't through like traditional means of like being like a grime mc yeah i want to do this that and that it was more like an artistic approach which kind of speaks to the artist that he is.

39:27And he's very artsy. He's got a whole, everything that he does, it feels like there's meaning behind it. There's a reason for it being there. So yeah, so that's, yeah. So he's very, very much rooted in fashion from Day, which is quite cool. So do you, well, I've got another question for you here, mate. do you have a favourite EP or album you can include this this one as well the Donut Down yeah I think Donut Down is brilliant yeah like I yeah I think it's such a cohesive body of work I don't know that can feel a bit of a buzz sort of phrase if you like but yeah like genuinely listening listening from it from top to bottom like it's 45 minutes long and it's just it feels like such a natural piece of music and you know sometimes you've got like singles and stuff that's very standout um and feels maybe distinct from the other other music so i would say that yeah i think that was really really brilliant and musically something that he and the uk music scene period should be really proud of producing yeah um because i think yeah the musicality the features everything on it is brilliant but i think the three that i mentioned before i think because of they're quite all quite special to me because it was the first time of my of me really having like um an awareness of him and and seeing how they translated live i think it feel like meant quite a lot yeah and then when i listened back to them like it was even more impressive when you like that was great and then hearing like the full mastered version in your ears loud yeah i was like oh this is really really good this guy he translated it really well on stage in like a without a full balance so yeah this guy's not mucking about like he's doing it proper yeah i think for me my favorite album is still cash well not album ep still cash it is um which came out in 2019 um and that's i for me i think that was probably the first album again that i because by that point now i've listened to him and i've listened to his singles and stuff that was probably the first album where I was like waiting for him to release and I was looking forward to it.

41:50And it just, it delivered like the, the actual single cashmere tears, big, big tune. Sugar is probably my favorite Koju song, I would say. Yeah. And it goes in like, he's, it's weird because it's hard to, cause he can, he sings and he raps. Like I don't really know where to, what, what to put, what pigeonholes are kind of you can't fit the pigeonholes one of them like I can't compare him to anyone else and that's why I like him so much and going to going to your point like he's an artist that really cares about like body of work like actual project rather than just the songs by itself so he's done like a the whole kind of don't look down thing was all about like insecurity and kind of fear of like failure essentially and you can hear that in a lot of the songs and stuff and it carries through um so i think yeah i think it's really cool do a question for you again do you like are there what other artists do you think are kind of like that in the way that they release projects like an album in its entire that you can listen through and it has that like continuity yeah like for me in terms of like rappers and stuff like dave is definitely one for me um and that's why i'm looking forward to his album coming up now um because yeah the project as a whole it's just like you can just listen to the album it like isolated yeah and it's just good like you don't have to pick and point and say i'm just gonna listen to the signal i'm just gonna listen to this um so do you think there are any other artists in the uk scene that kind of like that yeah it's a good question i i would say wretch yes personally i think his latest album home is very much like it's it's conceptual and therefore he's been able to sprinkle like that throughout um and it's cohesive um and there's different different points that touch on different things and it can be vibes and it can be deep and it can be all of that but i think he's good at being able to stay rooted in the theme of something that he's trying to communicate yeah dave as you say and i think um yeah storms his third album this is what i mean i think even the title of it is like sitting out his shop like intentionally from the start and i think that was quite again it's got like some heavier rap songs on it but it's also got some like love songs and ballads of heartbreak songs and i think it's interesting hearing it's not even a juxtaposition but how the two like the fierce rap and the heartbreak like almost sad boy like yeah yeah retrospective like songs can kind of coexist because it's like those two emotions are things that can coexist when you're going through stuff like that um and he's yet another one who takes a great deal of care and pride in the craft of what he's putting out um i would say though yeah the three that we've mentioned are probably some of the main ones yeah so a point that was brought up um in an interview that i i watched uh recently with koji radicals is is is he preferred by his peers than the actual fans because i think he's one of those artists that like every rapper or every person in the music scene that knows of him is like yeah koji's the guy he's the guy he's in his own world kind of thing and he like everything he touches is amazing but it doesn't seem to translate well it does it obviously is very successful it does like he tours well and stuff but is he kind of where he should be or where we would like him to be commercially you'd say yeah that's a really good question i would say i think of it myself and i'm like all right cool when i was how did i first get into like uk rap and it's obviously growing up in london you were around it um but it's also what people are playing in the playground what when you're at the right age shows people are going to and why people go into those shows because someone's popping and why are they popping yeah more often than not it's because they've had a hit record um and i feel like koji's an artist who hasn't in the traditional sense like had a hit record um that's been like you know one that reaches the charts and those sorts of measures and that's by no way to take away from how great of an rst is but it's just like a general consumption measure and so i feel like so many of these like hit records can be signaling factors as to why people should care about someone.

46:46And it would be like because of the numbers that it's put up or because of maybe something that's travelled based on, not necessarily like a contentious lyric, but something that's like really sparked conversation amongst, like chat out in the school gates or whatever. And so I feel like that is such a great catalyst for bringing in fans en masse. and I feel like where we live in a more instant world now, some people might not quite have the time or attention span to take in albums where he's an albums person. And I feel like, yeah, I would say no, he's not where he should be in terms of respect and in terms of success because I feel like so often success is measured based on those sort of more vanity metrics or commercial-based metrics.

47:39but it's like the success of his music and the success of him being able to translate concepts into beautiful pieces of art that are like, as you say, transcend genre. That's wildly successful, in my opinion. Cash My Tears came out in 2019. And then obviously it started kind of gaining some traction and then COVID hit, which basically you couldn't tour that release at all. Right. Which I feel, again, going back to like, he got signed in 2018 as well, I believe. So I think that could have been his kind of chance to kind of get the ball rolling. Yeah, to the snowball. And he kind of had to start again, almost.

48:27Which is weird because, again, in my head, he's an artist that's been about already. And he's already had these, like I thought when I was listening to Catherine Matisse, that was me being late to listening to a full project of this but that it necessarily wasn't really in terms of the label um so i think that that did muck him up a little bit as well i think that's such a good point because as i said like it going back again to like my introduction to him like live just wins you over in such a in such a big way and hearing like so much of his music is like stuff that could be full band setup and like all of that stuff but it could also pop off with PA because he obviously has like whether it's 808s or like synth bass or bass lines it still slaps either way and so you're going to come away a fan whether you've liked it or not so having being prohibitive to tour is like so detrimental and that's crazy I hadn't thought of it like that I think if he had maybe like an album before and he had managed to tour and stuff it would have been a bit differently but I just I just assumed that that would already kind of happened yeah because he's he's him are there are there artists that are similar to him in style do you think or is he just on his on his own in terms of the like the uk and the music scene like is there is there anyone you can kind of put put with him or or i guess a different question um are there artists that you want to see him collaborate with that kind of fit into his world i feel like it's it's interesting your because i would have said j prince yeah on a similar level and you've obviously mentioned that already so that's an interesting one yeah like when i was looking back into his timeline listening to like him speaking interviews a lot of like the artists that he mentioned that he's kind of in the same world with um like j prince and like mihailu and stuff like that it makes sense like i necessarily didn't didn't know, didn't know it off the bat.

50:28But like, now you say it, I'm just like, yeah, that like, it makes sense that you guys are like friends and collaborate and stuff. Like he wrote, um, Mahalia's single, the Burnaby tune from her last, was that her last album? What, Simmer? Yes. Is it? Yeah. So he wrote, I didn't know that. Yeah. So he, he's got a, a writing credit on that as well. I didn't know that. Um, cause yeah, they're just, they're just friends like that. Like, which is crazy I remember we went to Jay Prince yeah and then he brought out Mahalo as well that time as well so it's like it's nice to see like a like a it's a proper world isn't it close knit circle like supportive artists and stuff so yeah interestingly enough in this album Odile was supposed to be on this album and I think they recorded the song but I don't think it made the cut but that's because that's an artist that I would have put him next to put him next to yeah I would love to hear that yeah so hopefully they I've released that separately or they kind of link up and do something else again I feel like it's hard to put him like it's hard to put him next to someone based on what you said before when you're describing his music like you can more describe like it's hard to describe genre wise you can describe feelings of songs but I think the best way is like just to explain like it's layered isn't it he can rap he can sing he can do spoken word sometimes it's beats sometimes it's full band sometimes there's orchestra sometimes there's bvs and it's like the guy flipping does it all and not many people occupy that space where they're audacious enough to do that and for it to still make sense cohesively so in that regard he's probably one of the few that sits in that sort of pocket as i say we you know we've spoken about rich and he's not dissimilar yeah i need to give it a listen through a few more times still like still still pretty fresh for me um but yeah it's good i think and i i definitely will be looking forward to him doing this live i think it will translate translate very well um yeah that's that's that's all i got my research have you seen i don't know if you've seen that he's announced that he's going to be doing performing at the Royal Albert Hall next year oh is he?

52:51yeah so he's announced in line with the album release so I feel like it's a nice marriage of venue and Sonic for him I feel like it's going to be a special night yeah he seems to be doing a lot of like interviews and stuff doing the whole kind of media media tour I guess to get this album out and hopefully it gets the traction it like it needs just to be deemed successful to to labels and stuff and so you can just keep him pushing I think he's one of the he himself has said he's one of those artists that labels don't seem to bother him too much in terms of getting music out because he just does everything internally and then just chucks it out and says this is what i've got because he was independent for such a long time he's built a team around him that do that does everything right so um so he they do everything as a team then they bring it the label and the label kind of just chucks it so um so he's one of the again one of the few artists that seem to not be held back by like labels and stuff like that um so he seems to be benefiting from it quite well i think it's a what you alluded to before a testament to his peer group in it like you know a lot of artists uh especially if they're younger and are relatively knew will be like i don't know the who's who whereas he's like got probably one of the best black books of like british music connections ever yeah and so he there's he has so many friendships where it'd be like oh we just was in the room with all the people that's on the album like eminique swindle jazz caris like the guys from ezra like and so it's just like it all makes sense then he's like he knows how he wants something to sound and therefore he knows who are the people to bring that to life which is a unique position to be in all right so to close us off um don't look down any like favorite songs off of that for people like if they if you don't have time in your busy life to listen to the album listen to this and then you'll be you'll be in yeah Eddie anything off the bat yeah I got I got three oh flapping out but they're all for different reasons okay so there's a track called Rotation okay which is like just good rap record energy from the jump and just get straight into it yeah there's a record called Comfortable which I really like like it's kind of it's got a happy and bouncy sort of feel to it and he's a bit more singing on that as well one of those ones where I was like oh this is Koji yeah and then the final track on the album is baby boy yeah still a rap record but like one of those more sort of like reflective ones so something for everyone on the album for real um and would definitely highlight those three as some sort of like personal favorites okay my favorite is i mentioned it last last week uh last episode is the planet geyser tune expensive it's just uh got a nice bounce to it I mean your your songs are a bit a bit more thoughtful I think but mine is just like yeah it's just got nice vibes and it's just like cool nothing wrong with that but yeah no the album as a whole was very good so yeah people should definitely give it a listen to sick episode two done done and dusted how do you feel that went yeah it was good thanks for your your research on Koji that was good well you seem to have more information than me unfortunately so next time I'm gonna I'm going to dig like deeper and have all the random golden nuggets of information.

56:32But yeah. That was good. I learned some stuff too as well. And also you brought up the boy D 'Angelo as well. Come on. Taught me many a thing. He had to be brought up at some point. So I thought I'd get him in early. Sick. All right. Well, we should probably knock it off there. Anything that people can expect from episode three? Well, a lot more of the same, but a lot better. We're just going to get better. We'll get better every time. That's the hope. So maybe you might see a cheeky cue card. Might see more branding. You never know. More recent rotations. A new vinyl of the week. Yeah, we might have an artist spotlight again.

57:11We might not. We might have a different segment. We'll see. So they'll have to tune in and find out. They will. Cool. Well, we've been 95. Stay locked. Hope people have enjoyed listening to this conversation. And that's episode two. Done and dusted. Peace.