Speaker 1: Where are You're out? In twenty nineteen? Are you hot
Speaker 1: or are you cold?
Speaker 2: I'm hot for now.
Speaker 1: George the Poet wasn't talking about himself there, but he
Speaker 1: might as well have been, because you get the sense
Speaker 1: that this is George's year. Maybe you could have said
Speaker 1: that about twenty eighteen to two. That's because, together with
Speaker 1: sound designer and producer Ben Brick, George cooked up something
Speaker 1: pretty special, the first series of their now multi award
Speaker 1: winning podcast.
Speaker 2: You might know it.
Speaker 1: The title is pretty matter of fact. It's called have
Speaker 1: you heard George's Podcast? And if the answer to that
Speaker 1: is no, then, first off, what are you doing? Because
Speaker 1: not only with a conversation you're about to hear make
Speaker 1: much more sense if you go away and find it,
Speaker 1: but also it's just an incredible, moving, thought provoking, innovative
Speaker 1: piece of work, and I'm definitely not the only person
Speaker 1: who considers it a real game change. It's also a
Speaker 1: better introduction to George as a person, his past and
Speaker 1: his future intention than any interview probably ever would be.
Speaker 1: But that certainly doesn't stop me being extremely excited to
Speaker 1: introduce George and Ben Brick as my guests on This
Speaker 1: Evening's podcast, The timing is good because on Monday, the
Speaker 1: fourth of November, the first batch of episodes from series two,
Speaker 1: the brand new series of Have You Heard George's Podcast,
Speaker 1: will arrive. You'll find them on the BBC Sounds app
Speaker 1: first and then on other platforms. They're going to be
Speaker 1: broadcast on Radio four and Radio one Extra as well.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week I went to the studio in North
Speaker 1: London where they made still are making in fact on
Speaker 1: the podcast, and there's loads of chat in there about
Speaker 1: what you can expect.
Speaker 2: From season two.
Speaker 1: So thank you to George the Poet, thank you to
Speaker 1: Ben Brick. Please enjoy tonight's episode and as ever, if
Speaker 1: you do like what you hear from Midnight Chats, please
Speaker 1: consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to Loud and Quiet magazine.
Speaker 1: We ship all over the world and all the information
Speaker 1: is at Loud and Quiet dot com slash subscribe, where
Speaker 1: we will post you our next nine issues of the
Speaker 1: magazine for is little as three pounds per month. It
Speaker 1: helps keep our independent magazine in print, it helps us
Speaker 1: make this podcast. We're in Benbrick's studio just to sort
Speaker 1: of set the scene for listeners. We're in your studio
Speaker 1: in North London, and I'm imagining that given that season
Speaker 1: two of your podcast is about to come out, you
Speaker 1: have spent some seriously long hours in this room, most recently,
Speaker 1: What's what's the day to day been like working on
Speaker 1: season two of Have You Hear George's Podcast?
Speaker 3: So we're trying to get a lot more done in
Speaker 3: the time that we have than what was the case
Speaker 3: previously last year.
Speaker 2: But it's great.
Speaker 3: We're doing what we love, building on the learnings from
Speaker 3: the last chapter of the podcast. Benbrick's getting better and
Speaker 3: better at what he does and endlessently motivated, So it's
Speaker 3: all good.
Speaker 1: The way people are going to hear this podcast series
Speaker 1: is slightly different from the first series, which you would
Speaker 1: make an episode, then you had a period of time
Speaker 1: to let that kind of sink in, think about where
Speaker 1: you're going to go next with it, perhaps a longer
Speaker 1: period of time to work on things. This time is
Speaker 1: all going to come in one go So how did
Speaker 1: that make you work differently? Like day one of working
Speaker 1: on the podcast, what did that look like when you
Speaker 1: knew you had to put together ten episodes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's actually coming in two goals, two sets
Speaker 3: of five, and that really shaped the writing process.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 3: It made me approach the overall narrative very differently. Writing
Speaker 3: a few stories in the last chapter of the podcast
Speaker 3: episodes three and eight and other elements across made me
Speaker 3: really curious about story development, character development, character art. So
Speaker 3: I started reading a lot about that last year, and
Speaker 3: I think think a lot of that reading are starting
Speaker 3: to express itself in this chapter. It feels more of
Speaker 3: a continuous journey. And at the same time, I guess
Speaker 3: all of my essay writing from younger years is really
Speaker 3: coming back to me, and I'm starting to think about
Speaker 3: the arguments that I'm constructing and being a lot more
Speaker 3: deliberate and ensuring that they're understood.
Speaker 1: Episode eight of the first series of the podcast is
Speaker 1: one of the most ambitious piece of audio that I
Speaker 1: think I've ever heard. It's effectively this inner dialogue that
Speaker 1: you're having with yourself about your creative process, the tensions
Speaker 1: that are there, the self doubt, the ambition, this soup
Speaker 1: of all these different things going on, so complex and
Speaker 1: like rarely do you hear somebody present it in that form. So,
Speaker 1: first off, how did you find the process of doing that?
Speaker 1: And then on Benbrick I'm interested in your thoughts. How
Speaker 1: did you describe what you wanted to do with that
Speaker 1: to you? Because you must have just thought, wow, that
Speaker 1: I've never had to do anything like this before. Presumably
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 3: It's a great question. So the blessing of being able
Speaker 3: to start the podcast in the way that we did
Speaker 3: was that there were no precedents, blueprints, or expectations that
Speaker 3: meant that I had to be self referential in what
Speaker 3: I wanted to discuss. I looked inward, and at every
Speaker 3: point the biggest challenge within myself seemed like the most
Speaker 3: worthwhile thing to discuss. That's probably a bit of a
Speaker 3: metaphor about life. And I knew, after dropping hints of
Speaker 3: my internal process in episode six introducing the character of Sanyu,
Speaker 3: that the big reward would be to try and explain
Speaker 3: as much about that process that space as possible. So
Speaker 3: we attempted it, and we spent a month on the episode,
Speaker 3: released it, actually performed it live, and I wasn't sold.
Speaker 3: I knew that the reason I wasn't sold was because
Speaker 3: the truth, the essence of that idea hadn't been satisfied
Speaker 3: in what we'd released. Even though Benbrick's work was flawless, impeccable.
Speaker 3: My writing was hampered by everything that I described in
Speaker 3: the episode.
Speaker 1: In terms of the sound design of that episode, did
Speaker 1: you immediately get what George wanted to do with it?
Speaker 1: And I suppose a general question your teammates in terms
Speaker 1: of making this podcast happen, the way it's delivered, the
Speaker 1: way it sounds. Have you always been on the same wavelength?
Speaker 1: Was there a period of time where you had to
Speaker 1: really key into what George's vision was for it.
Speaker 4: A lot of the time he'll record a whole part,
Speaker 4: like maybe two or three minutes long, just audio, and
Speaker 4: then we'll start cutting up the different characters and a
Speaker 4: line in them, and he'll say, oh, by the way,
Speaker 4: that bit's setting a swamp, or that's going to be
Speaker 4: in hospital, or there's a car crash that's going to
Speaker 4: happen there, no, not there, nudge left, no, no, right, right,
Speaker 4: and we get we get these bits aligned, and then
Speaker 4: I can go and embellish some of the sound designs,
Speaker 4: and if George doesn't have an idea for music, which
Speaker 4: she generally does, like this should be like Matilda this scene,
Speaker 4: or I can go and start experimenting with that and
Speaker 4: then it's like that. That's phase one, and then George
Speaker 4: will go and right the next bit, and then we'll
Speaker 4: come back and listen and tweak that first version of it,
Speaker 4: and then we'll have version two. We'll put down the
Speaker 4: next bit, create version one of that, and then tweak
Speaker 4: that and it just moves through the process.
Speaker 1: George, you said that the first series of the podcast
Speaker 1: was a reintroduction to what you were all about, what
Speaker 1: your character was about. This one is a mission statement,
Speaker 1: so you put it. Can you just unpack that a
Speaker 1: little bit for me and how you feel the development
Speaker 1: between seasons.
Speaker 2: One and take So.
Speaker 3: I have been many things across my career, and these
Speaker 3: different things have allowed people various access points to what
Speaker 3: I am. Essentially, I've done some adverts, I've done a
Speaker 3: lot of recorded music. I've done random appearances in spaces
Speaker 3: that you might not have expected, like Formula one or
Speaker 3: the Rugby World Cup, and everywhere I go, I am me,
Speaker 3: but I am giving a fraction of myself. Series one
Speaker 3: was my opportunity to say, this is where that fraction
Speaker 3: fits in the broader scheme of things, this is why
Speaker 3: I communicate the way I do, and this is what
Speaker 3: I would love to be able to talk to you
Speaker 3: guys about series two. Now we have established that foundation.
Speaker 3: Now we're talking. So what are we talking about and
Speaker 3: why are we talking about it? That is a long story,
Speaker 3: and I'm grateful for the form of podcasting because I
Speaker 3: really can't see where I would be able to dive
Speaker 3: into that story if not for this this space.
Speaker 1: And Ben Brick your love of the format, presumably where
Speaker 1: does that go back to? Given that you've worked in
Speaker 1: sound and your career is sound. So before you started
Speaker 1: working on this project, was there a blueprint for the
Speaker 1: type of thing that you wanted to achieve or did
Speaker 1: you feel from the start that you were creating new ground.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think there's ever a blueprint. I think
Speaker 4: me and George both wanted to make exceptional art from
Speaker 4: you know, even when we were both making music and
Speaker 4: coming into contact with each other, we would always be
Speaker 4: talking about the limitations of pop music or even the
Speaker 4: way we were limited by labels or publishers. So there
Speaker 4: wasn't really any blueprint and that was the best thing.
Speaker 4: We could just do what we wanted and you know,
Speaker 4: create an episode, then decide that it wasn't quite right,
Speaker 4: so rewrite the entire thing and the earlier question. We're
Speaker 4: pretty much on the same page, I would say from
Speaker 4: day one. I think it's because we both have so
Speaker 4: much freedom, and we both trust each other's intuitions, so
Speaker 4: we can really run with something and try and create
Speaker 4: some weird, wild fantasy thing, and if it doesn't work,
Speaker 4: we both generally also know that it doesn't work, and
Speaker 4: then we try the next thing.
Speaker 1: There's a bit of a myth that goes that the
Speaker 1: best creativity often comes from some kind of tension in
Speaker 1: the studio, you know, like the kind of rubbing of
Speaker 1: two minds or talents together. You both seem incredibly measured
Speaker 1: and calm. Do you ever debate the details of what
Speaker 1: people are going to hear? Does it get heated ever?
Speaker 1: Or is it always just this very calm.
Speaker 4: I think we both know how important getting each individual
Speaker 4: element is. If one person says, now, that's not right
Speaker 4: because the camera's going to be that side in that scene,
Speaker 4: then you take a step back and you like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: that kind of would look good with the camera there. Okay,
Speaker 4: let's reset everything and try again. But I think the
Speaker 4: tension or the the way doesn't come from us. It
Speaker 4: comes from the stories that George's turner.
Speaker 1: In terms of a preview for series two, then this
Speaker 1: was really you telling your story through the platform of podcasting.
Speaker 1: But equally it was very multi layered and it was
Speaker 1: a commentary on some much much bigger issues as well.
Speaker 1: People really rightfully kind of focused on the episodes around Grenfell,
Speaker 1: for example, that I think struck a chord with so
Speaker 1: many listeners. So in terms of this series, what else
Speaker 1: can people expect? In that sense, what else are the
Speaker 1: things that you were keen to address.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be fleshing out some of my ideas
Speaker 3: about the economy and the position of my community within
Speaker 3: the economy and the opportunities that come with that. In
Speaker 3: order to do that, I'm exploring some new storytelling methods,
Speaker 3: and I'm just trying to be very clear, very literal,
Speaker 3: almost a little instructive to any young creators that are
Speaker 3: following our journey. I just want to show them the
Speaker 3: different ways in which you can make yourself understood but
Speaker 3: also transform your situation, because that really really is needed.
Speaker 3: It's a matter of urgency for a lot of young
Speaker 3: creators from my.
Speaker 1: Environment that stunts a lot of people basically being able
Speaker 1: to flourish and reach the possibilities that you know that
Speaker 1: they could do.
Speaker 3: I do think access to opportunity is a big decider
Speaker 3: in your life chances. However, the opportunities that we're discussing
Speaker 3: today are just the latest in a very long story.
Speaker 3: So without historical context, without some real sociological work, heavy lifting,
Speaker 3: it's going to be very hard. Because I'm not going
Speaker 3: to lie. A lot of the opportunities that have brought
Speaker 3: me to where I am were free. But it is
Speaker 3: a matter of the headspace that my parents were in,
Speaker 3: the serendipity of where I was, and how I felt
Speaker 3: about myself being born in like the blackest part of
Speaker 3: the country. All of these things advantaged me. But those
Speaker 3: facts as a reason, there's not a million George the poets, right,
Speaker 3: and that's that story. Those reasons need a little bit
Speaker 3: of concentration, patience, and unpacking.
Speaker 1: I'd like to take things back to the sort of
Speaker 1: early days of your experience with writing and your love
Speaker 1: of words, and also your love of music and rap
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: You're about fourteen or fifteen when you first wrote, when
Speaker 1: you wet your first rap?
Speaker 2: Right? Can you remember it? I remember bits of it?
Speaker 1: Okay, what did it have a title.
Speaker 2: Did it? Did it?
Speaker 1: Was it formulated as a piece.
Speaker 3: But that's cool because I don't oh, no favors, fingers
Speaker 3: in a lot of pies and tasting different flavors can't
Speaker 3: be sidetracking. I can't be certain, But what I was
Speaker 3: doing was trying to establish who I wanted to be,
Speaker 3: So my lyrics were never like violent. A lot of
Speaker 3: people just gravitated towards gratuitous shock value lyrics because that
Speaker 3: is the tradition that we inherited, or that's what we
Speaker 3: thought we were seeing in the generation above us. I'm
Speaker 3: older now, I understand that a lot. In many ways,
Speaker 3: it's just trauma being passed on. But my early lyrics
Speaker 3: were again a bit of a mission statement what I
Speaker 3: wanted to how I wanted to exist in society, and
Speaker 3: what I believed in and what I didn't believe in. Also,
Speaker 3: having such responsibility over my younger siblings gave me parameters
Speaker 3: of what I wanted to talk about and what I didn't.
Speaker 1: That was a key thing, because you felt that you
Speaker 1: didn't want to be seen to be talking about things
Speaker 1: you wanted to say an example.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I didn't want to lie.
Speaker 3: It was not like I was perfect, But RAP gives
Speaker 3: you that space to just explore yourself. You're sorry, your
Speaker 3: dark side, and your hopes and dreams.
Speaker 1: In terms of you're developing or developed a relationship with
Speaker 1: Center Rafaels and the community that you're from in the present.
Speaker 1: Like I saw recently that you'd made like a promotional
Speaker 1: video to try and explain the situation around the proposed
Speaker 1: redevelopment of the area. Yeah, I mean, this is obviously
Speaker 1: an understatement to say that you're still incredibly like, kind
Speaker 1: of loyal and want and want to represent that area.
Speaker 1: Just tell me a little bit about that and how
Speaker 1: why that remains just such a constant thread throughout your
Speaker 1: work and a huge part of who you are.
Speaker 3: Well, I believe that the person I am today is
Speaker 3: a consequence of the experiences of yesterday, and the ultimate
Speaker 3: yesterday was the hood my estate, Right, So to what
Speaker 3: extent am I really being understood If I am not
Speaker 3: elaborating the conversation around my community and communities like mine,
Speaker 3: I'm always on the lookout for convenient opportunities to do
Speaker 3: that in the most constructive way possible. So when in
Speaker 3: late twenty eighteen, I found out that my estate was
Speaker 3: being considered by a brank council for redevelopment, and there
Speaker 3: were tensions between the council and the community about the
Speaker 3: way information was being shared. It was a perfect opportunity
Speaker 3: for me to make myself as useful as possible as
Speaker 3: a representative slash stakeholder within that thing, empowering my neighbors
Speaker 3: to feel like it's just The council consists of human
Speaker 3: beings who are capable of communication, and even though we've
Speaker 3: had a fraught relationship as for as long as I
Speaker 3: can remember, it is always worth trying to reimagine the conversation.
Speaker 3: And thirdly, I am also on the lookout for opportunities
Speaker 3: to show other rappers how to reimagine their position because
Speaker 3: when I think about the mind, as I talk about
Speaker 3: throughout the podcast, when I think about the money and
Speaker 3: the influence generated by rap, I think there is a
Speaker 3: lot to be gained in terms of the political organization.
Speaker 3: The potential there is unprecedented. You need to know the
Speaker 3: details of how these spaces and demographics operate in order
Speaker 3: to make something sustainable.
Speaker 1: I want to keep talking about music, but Benbrick, I'm
Speaker 1: interested to bring you in to hear a little bit
Speaker 1: about your formative experiences with music. I mean, you work
Speaker 1: now largely in sound design, but music is key to
Speaker 1: have you heard Georgie's podcast? You know we heard you
Speaker 1: know from the very opening moments of hearing of Georgia Smith,
Speaker 1: for example, it's a real scene setter. So can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about your relationship with music,
Speaker 1: if you ever produced music, and how do you see
Speaker 1: the podcast? Relationship with music? Why is that important?
Speaker 4: I played piano from maybe four or five years old,
Speaker 4: classical piano, and studied music and some recording, worked for
Speaker 4: an artist signed to a major label, took my own studio,
Speaker 4: and then started writing with artists and had a lot
Speaker 4: of success writing with artists and sold a lot of
Speaker 4: records around the world. I think the thing that I
Speaker 4: realized was I wanted to take my time with what
Speaker 4: I spend my time doing. I wanted to be intentional
Speaker 4: about it. So when everyone else was writing one hundred
Speaker 4: songs a day, or hundred songs a year, or three
Speaker 4: hundred songs a year, maybe I was writing way less,
Speaker 4: but trying to imagine a way to make those pieces
Speaker 4: of work more useful. When I'm composing the music for it.
Speaker 4: It's like you're not trying to say too much. We're
Speaker 4: trying to let George speak, and you don't want to
Speaker 4: add excess emotion onto the scene if he's already saying
Speaker 4: something emotional. So that's the balance and that's what I've
Speaker 4: been learning about through this process.
Speaker 1: And George people will know that. I mean, you went
Speaker 1: off to study at Cambridge University. After that, your music
Speaker 1: career gathered pace. You are signed to Universal Records, you
Speaker 1: were featured in the BBC sound Off poll, for example,
Speaker 1: as a new artist to watch and things like that.
Speaker 1: When did you realize that the things you wanted to
Speaker 1: say were perhaps bigger than in the format of a
Speaker 1: conventional three minute or four minute song or even a
Speaker 1: forty five minute long album was not the right one
Speaker 1: for you because you needed to you needed another medium
Speaker 1: to basically express your ideas. Did you know that all along?
Speaker 1: Or where's there a sort of penny drop moment?
Speaker 2: Didn't know it all along? I didn't.
Speaker 3: I got signed to Universal Music shout out to everyone
Speaker 3: at Adding Records five weeks after I graduated. And in
Speaker 3: that year, as I explained, I've been in operating in
Speaker 3: a lot of directions. I was doing corporate addresses just
Speaker 3: writing poems about sustainable development, and I was doing random
Speaker 3: TV things that had never you know, all credit to
Speaker 3: the creative agencies that I was working with. Someone might
Speaker 3: have seen me at an event and thought, I think
Speaker 3: that guy can write a poem for a whole you know,
Speaker 3: ad campaign. People started approaching me with that, and that
Speaker 3: was before I got signed. That's important to note. So
Speaker 3: when I was signed and I found myself in the
Speaker 3: machine experiencing a lot of the things that Benbrick just
Speaker 3: described in terms of slightly formulaic approaches to content generation
Speaker 3: content creation, I was able to understand it and work
Speaker 3: with it to an extent, so it was quite pragmatic.
Speaker 3: It's not like I had a master plan before then.
Speaker 3: The plan was vaguely to raise my profile and put
Speaker 3: my core concerns at the forefront of my career, of
Speaker 3: my celebrity. So as long as I am getting famous,
Speaker 3: the issues are getting famous. It was in the music
Speaker 3: industry that I realized if a space is not created
Speaker 3: for that function, then you have an additional job to
Speaker 3: do in transforming the space, as well as trying to
Speaker 3: do what you wanted to do anyway, So there's extra
Speaker 3: work in reassuring all the stakeholders, interpreting what was said
Speaker 3: in the meeting and trying to figure out if that's
Speaker 3: going to lead to budget green lights or problems down
Speaker 3: the road, and managing egos. You know, this is real
Speaker 3: and it's not frivolous work. It's just not the best
Speaker 3: use of my time as someone just fresh out of
Speaker 3: you know, formal education in which all primacy is given
Speaker 3: to ideas.
Speaker 2: It doesn't really.
Speaker 3: Matter how you know, Like a lot of the values
Speaker 3: of the music industry were not shared. I didn't share
Speaker 3: them on entry, so all credit to them because I
Speaker 3: was educated on a lot of other aspects of the game,
Speaker 3: for example, the mechanics of pr generating hype, the logic
Speaker 3: of building an audience through live appearances, people skills, learn
Speaker 3: a lot about myself, learn how to communicate better, learn
Speaker 3: the ways in which I might let myself down, let
Speaker 3: the process down. But ultimately, just two years to shy
Speaker 3: of two years into my stint with Island Records, I
Speaker 3: asked to leave, and all credit to them. They completely
Speaker 3: understood and were very accommodating. We had successes, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, sample and we had a brit nomination my
Speaker 3: EP that I released with them was in talks for
Speaker 3: a Mercury nomination, but because it was an EPO, it
Speaker 3: didn't qualify. So a year after leaving them, that's when
Speaker 3: it started occurring to me because I started watching a
Speaker 3: lot of Netflix. I tried to chill that I'd never
Speaker 3: done that before in my life. It'd been like school,
Speaker 3: responsibilities with the kids, with my little bros, and a
Speaker 3: high level of intensity and the ends and then Cambridge
Speaker 3: and then you know a bit of drama, people go
Speaker 3: and jail, and I'd never just just just chilled apart
Speaker 3: from like five months in Uganda, which is great. So
Speaker 3: watching Netflix that made me realize, I want a serial effect.
Speaker 3: People have to come back, so this one drop isn't
Speaker 3: going to work for me. And then I was chilling
Speaker 3: in Uganda one day and I realized that stand up
Speaker 3: comedy was a much better model for me to try
Speaker 3: and study and emulate, because the stand up comedian is
Speaker 3: one person with a microphone on the stage, and that's
Speaker 3: how I started out as George the Poet. And when
Speaker 3: I was doing that, I didn't really I could be
Speaker 3: on stage. People like wanted me on there for ten
Speaker 3: twenty forty minutes without music, So I thought, okay, what
Speaker 3: does that mean?
Speaker 2: What can you do?
Speaker 3: I thought, okay, it must be about communication and stories,
Speaker 3: and that led me to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you both in a minute about
Speaker 1: the live performance aspect, because I've come to see you
Speaker 1: perform both together live before. But before I do that,
Speaker 1: I know you've had like a hot and cold relationship
Speaker 1: with rap music over the years. So where are you
Speaker 1: at in twenty nineteen. Are you hot or are you cold?
Speaker 2: I'm hot? Yeah for now?
Speaker 1: What's been hot? What's happened this year that you just thought?
Speaker 1: That's moving the narrative on. That's what have you really enjoyed?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I think what we expect of ourselves as performers creators
Speaker 3: is evolving very publicly. You know, the most famous of
Speaker 3: us has two scholarships. You know that he gives out
Speaker 3: to the best university in the world for the people
Speaker 3: from the environment that we're from. Some of us have
Speaker 3: TV shows on the BBC in which we again advance
Speaker 3: the culture, elaborate people's understanding of it. Books have been
Speaker 3: released about what we went through and why. So I
Speaker 3: am trying that the glass is always half full, to
Speaker 3: be honest with Rapp, might be even fifty one percent full.
Speaker 3: It's just that I'm so close to the downsides and
Speaker 3: a lot of the consumers aren't. The majority of consumers
Speaker 3: aren't directly understanding how some of the things that are
Speaker 3: described reinforced in the music are real, and we need
Speaker 3: to move on from that. Can't keep talking about women
Speaker 3: the way we do. SPAD is bad for us. It
Speaker 3: hurts us, you know, like it's it's kind of cancerous.
Speaker 3: But it's like a given, Like the conversation has been
Speaker 3: raging for four years, thirty years in terms of like
Speaker 3: the more gangster content, So it's now there's a lot
Speaker 3: of cynicism, a lot of resignation. Women is just one aspect.
Speaker 3: Obviously violence, obviously crime. There's a lot of resignation in rap.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna be thirty in a couple of years.
Speaker 3: I'm coming to a place where I'm like, I get it.
Speaker 3: I understand it was hard on No one's there for us,
Speaker 3: no one's explaining, no one's helping, and.
Speaker 2: We made it.
Speaker 3: So the economic reward of what we've been able to
Speaker 3: achieve seems like the ultimate vindication. But if I don't
Speaker 3: just sit my bros down and say all right, Let's
Speaker 3: be ambitious. Let's see like how close we can get
Speaker 3: to form in our own government. Let's see what governance
Speaker 3: infrastructure we can create outside of the played out narratives. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel like that's like what I was born to
Speaker 3: be right now.
Speaker 1: And loads of the conversations you have with your peers
Speaker 1: that you know through music channels, obviously storms that you
Speaker 1: know that you're referring to their like had this glasson
Speaker 1: by moment this year, which was just absolutely incredible.
Speaker 3: I just want a generation of Storms, and we're gonna
Speaker 3: get it. It's impossible for the most famous and influential
Speaker 3: wrapart in the country to do that at Glastonbury and
Speaker 3: for that to not have serious generational ripple effects. Just
Speaker 3: the way kids are growing. It's kind of like Greta Thumberg.
Speaker 3: It's like you grow up with that happening in your generation.
Speaker 3: People to this day we still talk about the Baby
Speaker 3: Boomers and the way in which they shaped the world
Speaker 3: that we live in. That is what Stormzy means to me, the.
Speaker 1: Live aspects of what you both do. I've seen you
Speaker 1: on stage together, most recently at the London Podcast Festival
Speaker 1: in September. I'm interested to know your thoughts on the
Speaker 1: type of audience that you've broadcast to previously when you've
Speaker 1: made music. How is that different to the demographic that
Speaker 1: you see, the faces that you see when you look
Speaker 1: out from the stage when you've been presenting what you've
Speaker 1: been doing with the podcast.
Speaker 3: So obviously it's white right now, it's a little bit
Speaker 3: older as well. It's great though, like there are reasons
Speaker 3: why that might be the case, for example, at the
Speaker 3: London Podcast Festival, and I have again a long story,
Speaker 3: but it's kind of part of the plant. It's necessary.
Speaker 3: The brief I gave myself from starting the podcast was
Speaker 3: that you've got to bring the streets and the intelligency
Speaker 3: are to the same table. And the streets I'm cool with.
Speaker 3: I know the streets, I know the rhythms and the sensibilities.
Speaker 3: It's the intelligency that I was keen to be uncompromising with.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: The form that I use in the podcast very deep dive,
Speaker 3: very academic. I'm doing like I'm being too, like this
Speaker 3: is me though I've spent half my life in the
Speaker 3: black working class, just under half of my life in
Speaker 3: the white middle class institutions of my school and my university,
Speaker 3: so I am genuinely both for these things and in
Speaker 3: order for me to make progress, especially with rappers and
Speaker 3: the rap culture, I need to ensure that there is
Speaker 3: a rich understanding on the side of the intelligence here
Speaker 3: on what I perceive as Middle England, a real understanding
Speaker 3: of how much there is to explore. Once that understanding
Speaker 3: has been established, as I feel like it has done
Speaker 3: this year, then we can get to the more. It's
Speaker 3: this conversation is going to get difficult in that this
Speaker 3: is easy right now.
Speaker 1: You talked a lot in the in the live performance
Speaker 1: about how changes needed and change is uncomfortable, change is painful.
Speaker 3: I think for Middle England to really open its heart
Speaker 3: to just how deep the violations against blackness have been,
Speaker 3: it's going to be hard.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: You're not gonna want it. It's like it's like being
Speaker 3: in a relationship. Is the way I, in fact think
Speaker 3: of my think of Europe and Africa's relationship. Europe Africa.
Speaker 3: When he was young and she was beautiful, and he
Speaker 3: fell in love at a time where men could just
Speaker 3: take things right, so he took her, didn't really think
Speaker 3: about what she needed.
Speaker 2: He grew, we all grew, we all grew up.
Speaker 3: Times changed and it became a slight embarrassment, like the
Speaker 3: dynamic slight for Europe obviously on the side of Africa.
Speaker 2: You're now you've grown in a.
Speaker 3: Very abusive relationship that like the most abusive relationship that
Speaker 3: is humanly imaginable, right, And I know that sounds like
Speaker 3: strong words, but I mean fine, So now that we're here,
Speaker 3: I think it's what I see is that a lot
Speaker 3: of people children of Europe are not aware like that
Speaker 3: you see your dad, you know what I'm saying, might
Speaker 3: not be aware of who your dad has been. And
Speaker 3: you know, like the extent to which he hasn't really apologized,
Speaker 3: he hasn't really made amends. He has this weird holdover,
Speaker 3: you know, his former lover, in which he just continues
Speaker 3: to extract and manipulate and hide what he's done.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 3: You know, my nephews came back from school talking about
Speaker 3: Martin Luther King. I'm like, I wonder why we never
Speaker 3: talk about Freddie Hampton. I wonder why we never talk
Speaker 3: about No. In fact, take it over here, like why
Speaker 3: do we not talk about why don't they know about
Speaker 3: the NF you know, why don't they know about the
Speaker 3: presence of the NF and the mutation of a lot
Speaker 3: of these ideologies into different political movements today, and why
Speaker 3: much of the Caribbean community especially is overrepresented in prison,
Speaker 3: Like this is relevant, this, this is us, this is
Speaker 3: your neighborhood. So we have an education system that is
Speaker 3: wildly divorced from information that's most relevant to us. And
Speaker 3: I think that's that is very much the core of
Speaker 3: my focus. Reimagine just setting the conversation, setting the conditions
Speaker 3: for a progressive conversation on how we can have an
Speaker 3: education system that does a lot more to acknowledge the
Speaker 3: uncomfortable realities.
Speaker 1: Bend brick your thoughts on the live show. We've already
Speaker 1: talked about how I feel like the podcast has rightfully
Speaker 1: been celebrated for being so ambitious in terms of the
Speaker 1: way it sounds and the lack of constraints, and when
Speaker 1: you transfer that to the live arena, it's a different
Speaker 1: vibe ale together, it's a room full of people. Do
Speaker 1: you have the same attitude approaching that? Do you feel
Speaker 1: like do you both daydream about how you can really
Speaker 1: extend and push what the live aspect can look like?
Speaker 2: We do.
Speaker 4: We're always thinking about what could be next. Up to now,
Speaker 4: we've kind of been taking the things that we've recorded
Speaker 4: on the podcast and reimagining them for life, taking bits
Speaker 4: out and triggering different sounds, and George holding the audience
Speaker 4: and going from talking into this thing where suddenly you
Speaker 4: realize he's performing poetry and you're like, dah, you got me,
Speaker 4: Like he tricked us all. But we're thinking like whether
Speaker 4: it could be VR or silent discos or stage shows,
Speaker 4: west end shows. Yeah, I think that for the whole podcast,
Speaker 4: we're keen to expanding to as many different areas and
Speaker 4: reimaginings of.
Speaker 2: It as possible.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for have you heard George's podcast the Broadway
Speaker 1: residency that can see.
Speaker 4: It, especially for the grandfel One. I think that's kind
Speaker 4: of inevitable, and we go there in one of the
Speaker 4: episodes obviously, like we're just excited. That's the thing. It's
Speaker 4: not like we know what's going to happen, but we're
Speaker 4: just excited and we're pushing.
Speaker 1: Because the podcast is the story of your experience, George,
Speaker 1: and ultimately that is a story. You were born and
Speaker 1: raised in Britain, it's a UK centric podcast. I'm interested
Speaker 1: to know what kind of international feedback have you had.
Speaker 3: The international feedback has just been astounding. I was getting
Speaker 3: bits of it last year. People just scattered around the
Speaker 3: world Australia, Mainland, Europe, America quite a bit of interest.
Speaker 3: But when I went back to Uganda that was a
Speaker 3: turning point in my life because a podcast is, like
Speaker 3: I said, the most elaborate explanation of who I am
Speaker 3: that I've been able to pull off thus far in
Speaker 3: an eight year career. So to now offer the most
Speaker 3: uncompromising explanation and be received back home.
Speaker 2: Is great.
Speaker 3: Part of it is an extension or as a result
Speaker 3: of lessons that I learned as a rapper. I learned
Speaker 3: that too much slang doesn't work. Too much focus on
Speaker 3: intense lyricism. This is who I was as a teenager.
Speaker 3: It has you know, there can be limitations to that.
Speaker 3: So now I'm a little more conscious of relaxing. Sometimes
Speaker 3: it's as simple as pronouncing my teas. That's another thing
Speaker 3: that I was aware of. You know, from the international feedback,
Speaker 3: there are some things people just didn't catch. Because I
Speaker 3: am started rapping for the mandem, I wasn't thinking anything
Speaker 3: further than my social group. Now I'm like, okay, oh
Speaker 3: you want to you want to. Okay, come, let me
Speaker 3: ensure that you feel included here because I like having
Speaker 3: you in this conversation.
Speaker 1: We already referenced it earlier talking about episode eight of
Speaker 1: the first series where you're talking about Sanyu and the
Speaker 1: internal dialogue that goes on in your head and how
Speaker 1: you manage to translate that into a podcast, and just
Speaker 1: how refreshing and original that sounded. Writing as an outlet.
Speaker 1: Just thinking about that process is such a huge part
Speaker 1: of who you are. If you hadn't discovered that passion,
Speaker 1: that way of communicating with yourself and others, what do
Speaker 1: you think would have happened? Because some people don't discover
Speaker 1: their creative outlet, do they? They go through life and
Speaker 1: it just becomes this sort of knotted frustration in their mind.
Speaker 1: So why is that important to you? And what do
Speaker 1: you think would have happened if you hadn't have discovered that.
Speaker 3: I think the most powerful thing is being able to
Speaker 3: articulate what I am doing, because, to be honest, if
Speaker 3: I didn't have this profession, my creative impulses would probably
Speaker 3: be expressed in other ways. Let's say I was I
Speaker 3: worked in an ad agency, I'd probably be the one
Speaker 3: to come with the wildest ideas, and I wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 3: know why that is who I am. It just so
Speaker 3: happens that my job has allowed me to reflect on myself,
Speaker 3: which has very much influenced my ideas about the economy
Speaker 3: and what is expected of us and what is put
Speaker 3: to us as possible, and how it would shape our
Speaker 3: young people, or our workforce, or our treatment of the elderly,
Speaker 3: or our expectations of the care sector. If people brought
Speaker 3: their whole selves to work, were allowed to be as
Speaker 3: creative and expressive as possible, and in the essence of
Speaker 3: what they did, there was catharsis, There was work, There
Speaker 3: was emotional work done. Where the Sandy episode does so
Speaker 3: much for me, Sanyu actually birthed the podcast. The character
Speaker 3: preceded the whole podcast. But I saw the potential in
Speaker 3: creating an expansive, otherworldly experience in which we just explore
Speaker 3: everything within us, as opposed to looking for external stories
Speaker 3: and stimuli and trying to jump on to the latest
Speaker 3: talking point. What about you? You are more than sufficient
Speaker 3: to hold the attention of an audience.
Speaker 1: Within the podcast, you talk about processes that need to
Speaker 1: change and depict a kind of future, of how things look.
Speaker 1: Do you think you are an optimist? Do you think
Speaker 1: you're a pragmatist? You think you're a mix of all
Speaker 1: those things when you talk about how things need to
Speaker 1: change and have to change, you know, regardless of how
Speaker 1: if there's pain involded that or not.
Speaker 3: I think pragmatist is the best word to describe me.
Speaker 3: There are some things which I'm very you could say
Speaker 3: in person, mystic about things that I want to change.
Speaker 3: For example, I don't see a situation in which not
Speaker 3: a single young person gets killed in the city next year,
Speaker 3: in the win the next twelve months.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can see how I would create the
Speaker 3: conditions for that that to not happen. But again, that's
Speaker 3: why I'm up all night losing weight, because I think,
Speaker 3: you know, I might have a shot, I might be
Speaker 3: able to coordinate some change. And I don't know if
Speaker 3: anyone else sees all the things that I see because
Speaker 3: of that year. It's there's a degree of pragmatism understanding
Speaker 3: all the ways in which things can change.
Speaker 2: Benber Can.
Speaker 3: I do a lot of reading, and obviously that just
Speaker 3: opens your mind to possibilities beyond the immediate, beyond the tangible.
Speaker 3: So I'm always are on the side of optimism, but
Speaker 3: I'm grounded in pragmatism.
Speaker 1: We've talked about what's happened in the past, what you're
Speaker 1: working on now. Obviously you've worked in music, You've made
Speaker 1: bodies of work, album's EPs. At one point you want
Speaker 1: to be an MP. Where are you at now? What
Speaker 1: is the process of having this podcast reached so many people?
Speaker 1: What effect does that had on you when you go
Speaker 1: back to any of those formats or any of those ideas,
Speaker 1: would you see a different path yourself now?
Speaker 3: H So the process of writing the podcast has made
Speaker 3: me think. As crazy as the podcast sounds, that is
Speaker 3: how crazy I have become. So I think in multiple
Speaker 3: directions for different reasons, and because we've been able to
Speaker 3: achieve a lot of different things every single podcast episode,
Speaker 3: it takes less for me to conceptualize how things can
Speaker 3: be built and translated. So things happen quite like extensively
Speaker 3: dramatically in my mind. But at the same time, the
Speaker 3: podcast writing process enabled me to just play with time.
Speaker 3: There are times in which I will like the Grandfell
Speaker 3: episode was a kind of operational challenge because I'd never
Speaker 3: written a short story, especially and I'd never expected that
Speaker 3: a short story can have such emotional potential. Wasn't really
Speaker 3: into shorts, but I just learned about or I intuited
Speaker 3: my way through story beats, and then after writing that episode,
Speaker 3: I read more and more about it. So now as
Speaker 3: we're talking, I see time in like three scales simultaneously,
Speaker 3: Like there's the moment, Then I would say, there's the season,
Speaker 3: who like who you.
Speaker 2: Were at this time? Who I was?
Speaker 3: What was what were our recent experiences in this room
Speaker 3: that we that led to this conversation? And then I
Speaker 3: guess I see the universe. You know, all of these
Speaker 3: three scales are happening simultaneously, but if you can respect
Speaker 3: all of them, you'll find answers and respite on every level.
Speaker 3: And that just keeps me optimistic.
Speaker 1: Anyway, good night,