Kairo Keyz on Growing Up in London, Falling Out with Central Cee, Doing UK Drill with Druski & More

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0:41Storm. Good energy in, good energy out. Energy for life. No Jumper. Coolest podcast in the world. And today, I'm having a sit-down with one of the hottest rappers coming out of the UK. Cairo Keys, how you feeling? Good, my boy. How you? Excellent, man. What brings you to the States? This isn't your first time out here, right? That's not my first time, but just working, bro. It's easier to work over here, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. But you were just at a ComplexCon? Yeah, that was lit. What were the highlights? The highlights of ComplexCon? Just all the people that were there, bro. Just showed me how far the journey's coming.

1:12Yeah. Damn, so you were having a significant amount of fans coming up to you and everything like that? There was a few still. I was shocked. There was a few. Nice. So you run into anybody that you look up to or were excited to meet? You know like you got the OGs Jim Jones Joe Santana You know he was there There's a few people still Yeah I didn't go out there but I was I was kind of wondering because I've been to Complex Cons before Where it's like you're kind of mixed in With all the big names And then I've also been to shit like that Where it's kind of like everybody feels super segregated Yeah yeah yeah It was a good time?

1:49Nah it was good bro Nice So okay for those who don't know Let's go through the whole upbringing story and everything like that. Tell us a little bit about exactly where you grew up. I'm from South London, Creighton, to be exact. Yeah, well, that's where I'm from. What's it like over there? Any hood, any trenches, especially Creighton. Yeah, just like any normal hood, any trench. Okay, so what about your family situation? Did you have both parents around? Nah, I had my mom. Then when I got to, obviously I saw my dad, my dad lives in Toronto. So I got half of my family in Toronto and half my family in London.

2:31Okay. And then yeah, when I, more when I got to like 15, 16, connected with my dad a bit more. Okay. Even I always knew him, but started going over there. But he moved to Toronto at some point or your mom and him somehow? My mom met him in Toronto when she was younger because I also had family on my mom's side in Toronto okay so when she was younger she was going over there with the family and then she met my dad oh okay nice so okay one parent household but uh how many siblings one in that household and then one for my dad okay both sisters nice yeah and uh were your parents uh or was your mom like real strict or what was her parenting style yeah my mom was definitely she was strict like but in terms of like being able to live my life and go outside and she was cool with that maybe because I was a boy child.

3:19But other than that, like when it come to that schoolwork and just having manners in the house and stuff like that, she was strict. But being outside, I was always outside though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like in the UK, there's a lot of that where like the dudes I talk to like around their parents, they have to keep up impressions. It's not like here in America where you might be smoking weed in front of your parents or anything like that. But then once you're outside and that's why you're craving to be outside is because you want to be able that have some freedom. Can't do that shit in the house.

3:49Okay. So are you from a quote unquote estate or what? Yeah, originally I was from a state. By the time I got to like, you guys call it high school. I was in a house. That was when I moved to Croydon. But yeah, originally from an estate though. Okay. Yeah. And like, as a kid, are you like going all over London? Like, are you seeing like, you know, the fancier, nicer parts of town or are you just kind of segregated off in your own little world? Nah, nah. I'm always around, you know, like I only knew about like South London and Croydon area. And when I got to 16, I went to a college in Westminster.

4:28Okay. That's more like West. When I went up there, that's when I started thinking, yo, people are moving different up here. Like the West London people are a bit more different and Northwest, they're a bit more different compared to where I'm from. Like they're more about money and, you know what I mean? And they dress better and shit like that. So when I was up there, I just started connecting with more people up there. And then from there, I've just been all over, outside of London, wherever. Definitely. Yeah. And wait, so your dad was a rapper? Yeah, he used to rap. Okay. Do you know, like, how far he got in the game?

4:57He definitely did his thing, for sure. He's met a majority of good people back then, like, people that had status and stuff. Yeah, he did his thing, 100%. So are you, like, growing up knowing that you have a dad that's on the other side of the world, sort of, and he's a rapper. Are you kind of fascinated by that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I was young, I didn't really, I don't know if I'd say fascinated, but I knew what was going on, though. When I was really young, I knew what was going on because he used to send photos of the rap stuff and videos and letters and stuff like that. He went to jail, so yeah.

5:37So he was in jail a lot of your childhood? No, for the first few years of my, when I was born. Okay. Yeah, after I was born, for the first few years. And did you decide you wanted to become a rapper independently of him? No, no. I never thought I'd be a rapper. Okay. Yeah. But when you look back at it, do you think that knowing about your dad being a rapper kind of made you drawn towards it a little bit? Yeah, like when I hear people talk about it, because my dad rapped and my mom sang. So it's like a whole family full of music. So maybe naturally, but I never looked up to what they were doing and thought I was going to make music.

6:12So it was kind of just random. So what music do you remember being played around the household when you were a kid? Hella R &B. Yeah, like Chris Brown, you know what I mean? Just all the R &B stuff, and then the rap stuff was more the commercial side of it. So obviously I was listening to 50, Lil Wayne, Kanye. It was only just now the other day that I realized my mom was listening to NWA and all of this, but she didn't want to play it in the car. You know what I mean? But yeah. Yeah, that's always a problem. When you have kids, like for sure, 95 % of rap is like, nah, I can't really play this around my kid.

6:50Even the nicest, most conscious rappers, a lot of F words and whatnot. But, okay, so at what point does it kind of click in your head that you have like an above average interest in rap and you might want to start doing it? Kind of the moment I started, you know, literally I started when I was 16, 15, 16. Mom I started I was locked in anything. I kind of start just get locked in. It's been locked in ever since Yeah, so like 16 you started like was there anybody who actually kind of showed you the way or are you talking about? Just rapping like with your friends. Yeah, well get in the studio or anything.

7:27Yeah, I had one of my close friends Lynch He was rapping first from when was in school young So because he already had connections to studios that when I went to rappers that I just went to him because I've already been going to the studio with him and all of that. So, yeah. Were you like, are you knowing at that point about all of the sort of local London rappers? Yeah, everyone. Yeah, we listen to all the people from my area. Yeah. Is this like post-grime? Like were you? No, I was after the grime. Okay, so grime is like some old head shit at this point. Nobody's talking about that anymore? Yeah, when I was young and I was rapping, there was, there weren't really a grime thing.

8:05But the grime people, they're still around there. They've been doing their thing They started this shit Right Did Drill like Take over Literally like the year after I started rapping Really It was Drill Cause I started rapping Cause like Chief Keefe and them But then like A year later is when The Drill We had our own Drill Type beats Right Like 2014 From what I remember Definitely And did that Kinda Take over Like your style of rapping as well Like were you super influenced by that Didn't take over Cause I was doing Them times I was doing like Melody Like wave The auto-tune stuff um but still was rapping so I did a one two drill songs but it weren't really my thing at the time yeah okay um and then when you like start getting a little bit of positive reinforcement you start to realize like oh people around me are going with my talent when do you first start to get some positive affirmations it would happen bit by bit every year but I'll say by the time it got to like 2017 I had one song called Roadman at a time and I got like my first like 100 hundred thousand views so I kind of started making noise them times oh and then 2019 is where I made the most noise hmm I just kept going up then 2021 and then now yeah yeah damn okay so at that time 100 ,000 views probably felt like 10 million views now right that was lit so did that kind of change everything in terms of how people are treating you around the neighborhood and girls and shit like that or kind of not not not too much yeah a little bit like people just endorse your music more like you're even your own friends that it turns from you just showing them your music to them like you're linking them and they're already playing in the car now yeah I mean it was shit like that girls that's always been that's only changed really now I've always had you know I mean I've always had girls but now at the level I am now.

9:58It's gone up higher. So you feel like you need to like get affirmed by the masses in order for even like your friends and the people locally to sort of become supporters of your music? Yeah, kind of. Either that or your music just needs to get better. I'm not going to say I'm cap and say my music was the best. You know what I mean? I've been through stages where it's got better and better. Right. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Okay, and so I know you and Central Sea were making music super early on. Was that, like what year did you guys start making music? We linked up like, oh, 16 I think, around then, oh 16 or 17.

10:37Like when I was telling you when I was going up to those sides, like West, because he's from West. So when I was going up to those sides, we kind of linked from there, we linked to one of my cousins called Recy. Okay. He was telling me, he was like, yo, bro, these guys, they'll play my music or whatever. He showed them my music, something like that. And he was trying to build a connection. And then, yeah, one of the days I was like, I'm just going to go out there and link them. Went up there and linked them. And then we just locked in from there. So was it like a real friendship thing? Or was it like, oh, this guy seems like he's kind of bubbling up a little bit music wise.

11:10So it might make sense for us to work together. No, no, no. Because I had that at that time. That's when I had the tune. I was on like 100K. Right, right. So it's like man's bubbling. He's already doing his thing. And then, yeah, it just became a proper friendship. Yeah, because, okay, I'm not going to lie. Trap Low Ross' video about Central Sea, which has become kind of a topic of conversation over this past weekend, that was not even on some cloud chasing shit to have this conversation about him. But, like, that was kind of one of the better things I've seen online in a long time because it really broke down.

11:43like look at all these years of his music not really popping off and then it kind of like shows like no these are the songs where everything sort of came together which i honestly think is really valuable for the kids out there the people who want to make it as a rapper because that is kind of how it goes it's like you'll make music for many years that won't be it and then at some point you might just turn the corner and all of a sudden your just works facts yeah in my opinion it just goes it I think it's just a thing of like just being able to sit back and like be real with your career and how things are going because there still is those guys that are making music for 10 20 years and don't get anywhere because they they may not make no changes so when you look at that whatever trap was saying about sent he's made changes whether it says the sound his image you know I mean sometimes you gotta look back and see what you're doing wrong or see what you can adapt to you know I mean yeah because I feel like the worst thing you can do is take you know 10 years of your life and just keep doing the wrong thing wrong thing you gotta like be adjustable enough that at some point you can kind of figure out what's working what's not working and you know the faster that you can do that the more chances you could take the better you are because uh you know if you spend 10 years working on something well you just wasted a decade doing the thing that wasn't gonna work out yeah reason yeah so uh was there like what year would you say you kind of took like a shift away from like the autotune melodic stuff um 2019 yeah that's when i changed my name as well to the name i got now oh what was the original name uh a little k okay i wasn't really feeling at the time and then i went through that there's a thing in the uk called a rated awards grm daily yeah they had a rated awards i won some competition and that that brought me to the awards but i lost i didn't win the actual award that's when i was like you know Let me try and say anything that I was just saying.

13:35Let me try and just change it. Switch it up. I wanted to change my name. Change how I was stepping and kind of update the sound. Did you feel like the main difference was changing your subject matter? Or was it just changing your flow and how you processed it? It was that changing the flow a bit. I was still doing auto-tune in 2019. Even me and Sens at that time dropped something back to back. That did well. But I was doing more Like a bit of rap Bit of autotune Bit of rap You know what I'm saying And by the time I got to like 2021 That's when I just Kind of started doing More of the rap stuff Yeah Do you You still dip and dabble In the melodic stuff Or does it feel like That's kind of not For you anymore Yeah I try But sometimes I feel like it don't work But it's Because I haven't done it In long When I was doing melodic I used to struggle to rap You know what I mean So it's like Now I'm doing so much Rapping That it's easy to man now Yeah Melodic is a bit But I do want to get Back into it though It is kind of crazy.

14:29There's a lot of legendary rappers who, when you go through their catalog, they have autotune shit that didn't really catch on, or that people don't really give a shit about, because it's like a lot of times they just want to hear you rap. And you might have this other side of your personality that you want to get across that's more melodic and shit, but a lot of times the fans just react to one or the other. No, facts. I want to do it, though, because I had views in it before. I've done a few millions in the autotune stuff and melodic stuff. So right again, so you you go back and like delete some of your older stuff or no No, I've kept all the older stuff There's a few from that maybe a few years years back Deleted for whatever reason some channels we stop channels that rap see that used to be on somebody else I deleted You know I mean, but other than that a lot of my shit you can find Definitely um so okay What is were you when you lost your grandfather because I know that was a pretty big thing in your life?

15:24I was at 22 23 yeah and what uh what was your relationship like with him that made it such a thing just locked in bro that was one of my closest peoples to be honest yeah that in my opinion i was just like the only person i felt like i could be 100 myself around you know i mean it was just yeah just fully locked in did he understand what you were trying to do with the rap yeah like he was supportive of it like the rate of the words i was talking about he came it was stuff like that so all these things that I'm doing, he would be there. You know what I mean? Definitely. How'd he pass? COVID. Oh, shit.

16:03Yeah, COVID shit, yeah. That's crazy. Wow. Do you feel like that kind of changed you as a person or as an artist? As time goes on, yeah, I realise. But at the time when you're going through, I never lost no one before. So when you're going through it, you don't really, I didn't realise shit. But now when I'm looking back on it, it's kind of like, yeah, I can see why I was probably acting in certain ways or this and that because because of that yeah i don't know i'm still figuring out today do you think because like you kind of are describing that like around covet is when your music kind of surged in popularity do you feel like there was anything about you just being in the house and be able to sort of focus on the music um maybe and obviously at the time it's like the people i was with she was just going up bro you know i'm trying to say things are just going up for the group that I was around that time so yeah definitely um so okay well like was there any song in particular like what the the gang song right yeah that's what really kind of blew shit up what year was that last year oh that was last year okay so was that that was a song that kind of just took things to a totally different level 100 % yeah last change was there anything in particular about that song that you kind of knew in advance that this was going to be it?

17:16No, I thought it was just, I was pissed when I left the studio, because at that time I was going through some struggles, and it's like every studio session count, you know what I mean? I'm literally trying to, not saying I was trying to get a hit for that level, I was just trying to get at least something to catch the fire, you know what I'm trying to say, make people aware of what's going on, but yeah, when I left that studio session, I was thinking, bro, another one that's not, you know what I'm saying, hitting is good, but it's not hitting. It's not it. But the people, well, I was only with one person, the producer, he knew me.

17:44it was where it was, you know what I mean? And then when I got back, showed up, showed some of my friends and that, they kind of knew and then, yeah, just teased it on TikTok. Does that feel like a distant memory of having to be that conservative with your studio time since I'm sure now it's not a big deal for you to record for hours and hours? It's the same. It's the same, bro. I haven't changed my mentality like I still... Really? Yeah, I still need to, I still need to get it. Because I remember like Juice WRLD, for example, was someone who told me that he was broke as shit when he recorded like lucid dreams and all girls are the same and all these songs that ended up becoming huge and it was like he would listen to the beat write the whole song and then he would buy like an hour of studio time and record multiple songs that he had already put together but he would practice the song hundreds of times before he got in the studio because that you know 100 bucks or whatever it was was like the the end of the world to him so yeah in fact it's kind of like a different mentality when you have to savor every second in the studio that's 100 you gotta pay studio time you gotta pay to travel to get there then you gotta worry about paying for the B if you're gonna release it it's a lot so at that point were you already with a label or anything or you hadn't okay never had no label deals ever in my life until last year so you didn't have anybody like you know kind of helping to bankroll the whole process or anything like that just me how are you paying for all the things that go into being a rapper at that time hustling bro working hard as hard as I can literally just trying to anywhere I could make paper that's what I was doing definitely so that song comes out and is it just kind of immediate or does it take a little while for it to change your life immediate it was like literally I had a song called trenches just before that yeah and then um that made the first kind of like noise you know I'm trying to say so people eyes were on me at this point um then I signed like a a distro deal for like no money up front because trenches made noise but I wasn't crazy like where they were going to start throwing advances and shit.

19:39So they just gave me like a little marketing budget or whatever. And then literally by the second song in, it was Gang. And then because people already saw that I made like a new wave with Trenches. So eyes were on me and Gang was just better. Right. And then when I dropped that, that just took off straight away. So now that it's been some time, can you look at it and see the change musically that was so attractive to people that kind of made everybody just rethink who you were? Yeah, 100%. like um obviously the style of beats for sure that that that changed everything like shout out outlaw that was the producer that did them then um even the way i was rapping like i thought about the process of how i'm gonna rap like i didn't wanna i don't know i feel like some of my other drill songs that i was doing i was kind of like rapping loud not aggressive but just more forceful and i was thinking you know let me just kind of just be easy with it i was just i was just i was lot of like Americans and some Atlanta rapping and they'll just calm on the beat you know I'm trying to say so when I was making these songs at trenches and gang instead of even like standing up you know when you're standing up and you're rapping it's more energy I was just sitting down and kicking back and yeah just changing the style a bit I always think about that when I see rappers like recording sitting down in the studio versus standing up and like if that has a impact on how they sound the does it like open up your body and your lungs more so that you can like rap more forcefully I think so for me it changes yeah it's a difference so you you prefer to just wrap just sitting in a chair however I feel but mainly I cannot these days are you sitting in a chair interesting yeah I feel like that might be kind of surprising to some people or especially when I see footage of like young thug and he's just rapping and engineering the shit himself just there that's kind of nuts to be able to do all that especially as like the superstar in the room who obviously could have an engineer no facts facts facts definitely So wait, okay, so financially, how were you doing around that time?

21:32Because you went through like a stint where you were, I don't know if homeless is the word, but you didn't really have anywhere to stay? Yeah, it was just my family had moved. I was living at home still. And then some issue happened and then they moved. But it was just a thing of like, they moved kind of far, you know, like Birmingham and just past Birmingham and those places. So it was like to travel from there every day to go to the studio and just to do our way to do where I'm from. it would have been long would have made sense at a time that the money that I had would have it would have made sense the money that had needed to go straight into music not into traveling from Birmingham and staying in this place and that place I was like you know I'm just gonna take the risk and stay in the ends but obviously doing that to sometimes sleep here and there and yeah I was never stable right you never had to sleep on the park bench though no I got the car the car the car the car the car to pleasure pleasure little ass cars out there too man they're like out here yeah they had the car still so either the car or the studio yeah sometimes that was the worst it would get not too crazy nah I feel it um so okay like is it just like night and day between like that that era like all of a sudden you're starting to actually have a decent amount of money and shit what era like once you put out a gang and stuff yeah yeah yeah it was like the first two months was just like motion remember I didn't I was in a deal already and I didn't take no money ah yeah right So, because I'm in a deal with people kind of offering me shit, but I can't really take it at this time.

23:01I didn't want to take it anyway because the distro that I was with had a good amount of my percentage and stuff like that. So, yeah, then like a couple months later, then yeah, money started coming in. Okay. So I'm kind of putting this together in my head though. Like Central Sea blew up a few years before you did. Yeah, yeah. But you guys are still on good terms at that point. Or did you guys kind of fall out like right before he popped off? No, no, no. We were still in good times. You were still cool. Those times, yeah, yeah. Okay, and so then at some point, you guys kind of stopped being cool, like, as he's experiencing a lot of success?

23:36Yeah, just, you know how it goes, bro. Like, there's many... So good, so good, so good. New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to 60 % off brands like Rag & Bone, Levi's, Adidas, and Free People. Join the Nordic Club to unlock exclusive discounts Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Friends, not many, but there's a few good friends, even friends I was closer with than him, that sometimes things don't align or people just have their own way how they view stuff, you know what I'm trying to say?

24:18And I just kind of, I just had to distance myself from that. You know what I'm saying? Literally, that's it. Yeah, I mean, definitely a lot of people change as soon as they achieve a certain degree of success but then also like as the dude who's achieving a certain level of success a lot of times your homies can kind of feel a certain way towards you when when you're like all on the same level and then one of you just kind of blows up it just creates a lot of weird tension and that's why like anybody who blows up that is still cool with people that they came in the game with you got to like really hold on to that if at all possible yeah 100 % you've got to appreciate that I'd say advice to anyone that's growing up or in those situation communication is the best thing man like once you don't know how to communicate that's where things go left like even like any other people that I've even fallen out with or if I've gone up and things are making sense I've communicated with them face to face so they know where it is today it will never be a thing with me where I'm not communicating things and I'm moving a certain way and then people are feeling a way.

25:21I always tell people how it is or, you know what I mean? For sure. So now that you're achieving a certain level of success, do you look back on that time period when you guys fell out and do you look at any of the things that you said or did a little bit differently? Like maybe you didn't necessarily understand what he was going through and maybe now you kind of understand more since you've been through more of that stuff yourself? No, I still have the same understanding, obviously, because I know the things that happen in it. So it's like, yeah, they're dark. So I know, I still stand on the same point of view with it, but it's just more of a thing of like, it's not even just to do with bro.

26:01Just as I've gone up, as I've got older, I just handle things in a better way anyway. You know what I'm trying to say? That's just with anything, music or real life. Even though I have never crashed out like that, but I just don't, I don't entertain a lot of, you know what I'm trying to say, negative stuff. But back then when, obviously, I'm younger, like I said, I was going through other things. People that you got love for or whatever, and if they're dealing with you a certain way, it kind of burns you. So, you know what I'm trying to say? You might outlast out in a different way. But that's the only thing I could look back on that.

26:35As I'm getting older, I'm just learning to just make sure I don't really indulge in certain negativity. For sure. Or do you, people say, I've been told that people say that he stole your style at that time. Like when he kind of popped off and maybe being, you know, light skinned and everything. Maybe that he was able to kind of surge past you. Like, did you feel like that was true? Like that he kind of was borrowing a lot of your. I don't know. People say that. But I was just bro. Like, I don't get it. Like when your bros, I'm sure sometimes you have similar traits or similar, you know what I'm trying to say?

27:09Most of the time that's how you become rose in the first place Because you kind of got similarities But I don't know bro I've never said that out of my mouth You know what I'm saying Things people say I've had friends say it to me Like close friends That's weird I don't know I've never seen it Yeah because it's like You know a bunch of dudes who are hanging out Yeah they're kind of getting ideas Close-wise Flow-wise Beat-wise Everything-wise And then to the fans They're not You know if there's 15 friends Like they just sort of take a couple of them and those become the important ones and it's easier for them to come up with sort of simplified narratives about who took so-and-so's style and shit like that.

27:48Yeah, fans and people that are looking from the outside, they're always going to have their opinion. Yeah, definitely. So have you, I mean, you've kind of spoken on him in music, but you haven't like completely jumped out the window. I feel like it's not like 100 % hatred on your end, even if you do have some feelings. Yeah, no, no. Everything from behind, everything's calm, but I'm... Like, there's a lot of times, bro, there's a lot of times people say I'm saying things, but I'm not, like, I've fallen out of people that are closer than I was with bro. You know what I'm trying to say? But it's like naturally, obviously, if I say that, then they're going to link it to, you know what I'm trying to say?

28:25I was doing that because I was hearing you talk about somebody blackballing you, and I'm just assuming you're talking about him. But also, I don't know that. Yeah, so I could be going through anything. Someone could be trying to blackball me through a label or whatever, and then they're going to link it to bro. But at the end of the day, the stuff that I say and it's like, I don't know. No one can't say something about me on a song. If the shoe don't fit, I won't feel away. So it's just about if the shoe fits, then it's on you. So tell me about these dirty utes that you ran into at Wireless. Oh, well, I don't know.

28:56You know, that was a situation to do with some of my guys and another entourage. Okay. I hadn't met before. literally I don't know what that was about that day bro so it was the kind of thing where he has like dudes are rotten for him now and you didn't even necessarily I don't even know if they're with him I don't know I've never met these guys a day in my life wireless is kind of a mixy environment like there's a lot of people backstage from my experience where they can really you can kind of run into each other there it kind of still every time I've gone there it's been easy but that time yeah I think three of my peoples and some peoples that we didn't know something happened yeah because 2019 when i went to wireless is when i got the young thug interview and like a juice world interview and all this shit and it's kind of like everybody was just together backstage in a way that they don't really do that in america like everybody rolling loud backstage like it used to be like that but now they keep everybody hella separate okay because they're scared they've had too many fights they have too much bullshit over the years i feel like they're not trying to get sued for people getting into it with each other and whatnot.

29:58Yeah. But so in that wireless situation, it was just kind of like a little skirmish that popped off, but he wasn't, he wasn't actually there. It was just some people that. Oh yeah. No, no, no. Okay. From what I know anyway. Interesting. Yeah. Um, okay. So what, what is your relationship with like your old neighborhood? Like, do you still feel like you can just fully go back there or is it a little bit? I'm locked in over there. That's my people. Yeah. I'm always there. It doesn't stand out to you as like too dangerous or, No, not my own neighborhood. Do you get it? London, yeah. You know what I'm trying to say?

30:33Because I don't know who don't like me. I'm the one that's my face is out there. You know what I'm trying to say? So I don't know who's on to me. I could bump into anyone. It's an issue. And I don't know them, but they know me. So that's the issue with that. But where I'm from, no. I still go to the local shops where I'm from. Barbershop, this, that. Some of my family's still there. Uncles, this, you know what I mean? Because the traditional advice that I heard, like a million times in the rap game is basically like there's no place that you're more likely to get killed than where you're from do you feel like that's true in the uk as well yeah i feel like it is but it's just for me saying where you're from i would just say london i wouldn't say my actual hood where i'm from but yeah london in general yeah that would be the place i'd say where i don't want to be you know i mean yeah because in that uh there's like a documentary that came out about you maybe like a month ago or something like that i think and in it it's like your team is talking and they're kind of like yeah like we were acting like shit was all good and then something happened and you kind of had this realization that you wanted to be more careful about how you moved around yeah yeah yeah um again yeah that's just like what we were just talking about bro just a friend thing and that some people change those well that situation was just one of my guys tried to set me up really yeah some madness that happened literally yeah to sit like that so you were a hundred percent sure that it was somebody who set you up or was it difficult to put it together yeah I'm hundred percent sure he knows he knows he probably knows I'd say he said it I know damn shit that was mad obvious that's crazy yeah it's crazy that was a crazy one still is that like one of the main friends that you've kind of lost since you started coming up or is there was a good friend still he was around I wouldn't say that yeah he was definitely a member that every video knows where come to my house and I'm gonna say well friends is it the kind of situation where it hasn't really made its way to the internet like people don't know it was to you it was it made it was if it made its way to the internet I'll be there'll be mad it was too like life or death close to life or death situation you know I see so I could even let that hey the net that's crazy but your fans haven't like put the pieces of the puzzle together and I was something that only I know oh shit yeah it was only anyone I think maybe the police at the time me because I had a show at a time and I got canceled because of that it happened the night before my show oh shit yeah yeah so okay your team in that documentary when I'm seeing them talk about your career and everything I'm just realizing like holy shit you have like really strong good people in your corner in terms of like helping you with the business side everything like when did that kind of come together in terms of you just like linking with people that really understood your potential last year really yeah before before gang was just me hmm since the last year means it has been connecting just been building from there mmm yeah that's some people I knew before like my manager I knew him before and then you know like when it makes sense we connect properly is it like you always see eye to eye with what they're trying to have you do or are there times where they want you to do one thing and you don't necessarily agree yeah no there's a lot of times that I don't agree but then I'm always that willing to try though I don't feel like I know everything so sometimes as long as it's not gonna harm my career I'll say you know what I don't really believe in it but I'm gonna do it and then we'll see what comes from that and there's something they told me to do and I've done it and it made sense and then there's some where it's like told you it's not going to make sense you know I'm trying to say but yeah we don't always see it out there but are they like pushing you to make music that might be a little bit more mainstream or palatable to a larger audience since you've had some records that have gone so big yeah 100 % because I feel like that's the type of thing I do anyway now if you could kind of if you compare me to all the other UK artists They're not really They're not all doing like the full I don't know Where it's hitting all these different territories You know what I'm trying to say Kind of more just for the UK I mean Drill is a dead end In a lot of ways Like we all like it Like we all have Tons and tons Hundreds of drill songs that we love But let's be real Like the number of people Who really come up out of that scene And are successful it's like usually they have to kind of pivot into doing other things because especially if your shit is like super violent and everything is about what gang you're from and who's about to get poked and all this shit i mean that shit just doesn't really uh it's not likely to hit a huge mainstream audience no facts i feel that sometimes you just as a rapper it's up to you though people can rap how they want to rap if you want to do the drill thing that's just however you throwing it but if you do want to kind of make your thing go bigger than it is kind of just talk to people like not just where you're from do you know i'm trying to say so a lot of times people are rapping and just talking to people where they're from and then a next man that's in i don't know wherever in the world thailand or something he might not understand shit that's going on in the hood in the drill community you know i'm trying to say so it's that just kind of branch out what you're talking about sometimes i'd say those people go to furthest it also feels like there's an extent to which like i feel like the fans were more interested in drill five ten years ago and now it's like they've seen everything they they kind of get it to a certain extent and i think i'm always hearing people say the streets are dead and i don't 100 believe that but i do think that there's an extent to which this new generation just is not as impressed by street shit as they used to be.

36:25I'd say the exact same thing you said. That's what I've been telling people, the same shit. I feel like the streets are still there. Probably will always be there because there's always going to be people that haven't been raised right or in certain scenarios where they've had to do certain things. You know what I'm trying to say? Until everybody's rich, that's just how it is. But I feel like, yeah, people are not impressed by it as much as we was before. Yeah. Like if I found out that one of the guys that you're with right now can sells 10 keys of cocaine a month i would be like interested and impressed i guess but also like a big part of what i'd be thinking is like wow you're crazy dude like why the fuck you're doing that that's not gonna work out good for you man uh which i think like is kind of the opinion of a lot of people is like everybody kind of gets at this point like oh all these gangsters snitch on each other yeah you're gonna end up in the feds for 20 years like it's just not really it's just not like in the 80s or the 90s where it was like oh he's a gangster I'm just impressed people are a little bit more critically thinking at this point and when you see a rapper get arrested for shooting somebody or ordering a murder or whatever the audience is kind of like oh he's a gangster but they're more like wow what a dumbass he could have made millions doing music and he was doing that and I feel that is a bit more better um what can you call it influencers role models that there's so many outlets these days so it's like more people like when i was in school bro there was no people on tick tock and becoming influencers and like that so it's like nowadays that's like when you're younger it's kind of more easier to say well i'm gonna be a youtuber i'm gonna do this or i'm gonna do that like before it was just kind of whatever you're seeing outside yeah you know what i mean so like i was interviewing a dude the other day who's like gang member did all these years in prison etc and he's talking about his son and he's like yeah my my kid's like 14 and he loves streamers he's watching all these different guys playing fortnight and shit and that and he just like to him gangbanging is some old head shit yeah he's just not really that fascinated by it but then that guy that same guy was like that kid is kind of a exception to the rule you know like more often than not the kids are still like crashing out trying to be on some crazy shit but you know it's it's pretty good if like a nice chunk of society is not necessarily as impressed by that shit not facts facts do you think uh like getting on tiktok kind of like made you realize how big the world was in a sense because your homies that you're around or from your neighborhood or whatever probably do listen to the cool drill rappers from that area or whatever but like once you get on tiktok you realize like oh it's a whole world out there of people.

39:09For me to do the transition that I did, because I was never using TikTok. Like I said, when I had that kind of come up in like 2021 and I was doing the drill stuff and that, I wasn't doing no TikTok. Like people were telling me to do it. I was like, nah. And then when I had like a little down period and I was sitting back trying to study this shit, I was just like, you know, I'm going to take the TikTok route. Like, because at the end of the day, I know who I am. So it's like me jumping on TikTok doesn't make me a TikTok rapper. I already know what I've done all these years. And then, yeah, just jumped in that and made a difference still.