Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
Here we are again thank you for joining me for episode fifty six of Midnight Chats. The date today is October the eleventh, twenty eighteen, and that means nothing, doesn't it, because you could be listening to this at any point in the future, but that is when this podcast is going up. We do these once a week, and we're currently in series six of this. I think we've got about another six to go after this one. In series six.
I hope you've been enjoying it so far. We've had some great people and there's some good exciting news podcast news that I've just remembered, which is that if you're listening to this podcast, well wherever you're listening to this podcast, should I say, you can now also listen to it on Spotify. That's something that only happened yesterday. So yeah, all of our episodes are on there now and all
new ones will go up there. So if you are a Spotify person, as I know a lot of people are, then you can now search Midnight Chats on Spotify, and I guess you can follow it. I think I'm guessing that something that you can do, but you can certainly search it and find all of our previous episodes and all of our new episodes. That's my plug, my big plug for today. Obviously I always do a little plug for Loud on Quiet Magazine, which is the magazine that
we produce as well as making this podcast. Please do check out our current issue of that. It's got Yoko Ono on the front cover and lots of new bands inside, and that is Landanquir dot com is where you can get all the information that you can order a copy or you can find your nearest stockist. All right, let me tell you about this week's guest.
Now.
Ray Black is a young singer from Catford in South London. She's currently twenty five years old, and she came to our office to record this episode a couple of weeks back. We've got some building work going on outside directly outside our window, which is hell and they behave themselves until I think it's probably about twenty five minutes into this podcast. If you start to think that what you can hear is thunder in your headphones, it's not. It's people with
cranes moving containers around. But that is on the recording, So don't think that you're going insane apologies for that, there was nothing we could do about it. Hopefully it won't ruin the enjoyment of the podcast too much. I don't think it will, because Ray black Back is a very fun, funny and charming person, as I found out
when I met her for this podcast. We don't tend to do many edits on these conversations, as you've probably realized, but we do generally have to clear up a few bits, and you know, we normally maybe cut it down a little bit here and there, and we tied it up this podcast, I have not edited at all. What you will hear is exactly as it was, and that's the first time that's happened. And it's because essentially Ray is
just a very just a good talker. She's very good at it, and I had a really good time talking to her. She went to the same university as me, and we do get stuck on that point a little bit, maybe because I'm a bit too keen to reminisce about my university days. But it was at Brunell University where she recorded her first mixtape. It was a mini album called Dirt. You can check out both of these records
still obviously and from Dirt. She was the first artists to win the BBC Sound of Poll as an unsigned artist, she didn't have a record deal, she didn't have any money behind her pushing her or you know, big budgets, and she still managed to win that pole at the beginning of twenty seventeen. As I say, I really enjoyed recording this episode, so please do enjoy it, and thanks to Ray coming by the office. And hey, if you love Spotify and you can't get enough of that app
in your life, then we are on there now. So basically, we don't care where you listen to this podcast, but if it makes it easier for you because it's on Spotify, then that's nothing but a good thing. Please do check back next week. We will be here again next Thursday at midnight. It's completely irrelevant because you can listen to it at any point afterwards, but hey, it's called midnight Chat, so we have to we have to make something of this.
Enjoy this chat. Thank you very much for listening. Until next time. Here we go.
I starting my own podcast. This is yeah, it looks fairly simple.
Jesse Ware has got a good one where she cooks the meal with her.
Mom, yeah, I've heard of that one.
Yeah, I wish I'd come up with that idea.
It's very cool.
That's kind of the idea I want to go on. That's why you should be going on, because then you get and here, we don't even have hot chocolate for you.
It's not it's not great.
How are you doing? How's things going? It's good, exciting times, new music. The first thing I wanted to talk to you about, though, was we went to the same university.
Yeah, Shane told me.
Yeah, I got. I only found this out yesterday googles. I was doing my googles and I got quite excited because no one ever went to my university. It's very rare you meet someone that went to Brunelle University or do you meet do you meet people?
If I don't meet people who have been there, then I meet people that know somebody and then oh yeah, my friend, my cousin. Okay, it's just basic cool.
Did you what campus were you? Were you in the Oxbridge campus? Yes, yeah, there's another one. There's a pretty one, right, And I found this out in my third year or something when I went to DJ at the other campus. And it's it's in osterly which is which is basically it's kind of sorry near. It's really like their campus is like got all the beauty and our campus just got concrete.
So what's there.
It's they've got this massive run in track they've got it's like an old building and it's like looks like like a red brick UNI like somewhere. It's just really, it's just like the nice one. It's not the seventies.
One, right, Yeah.
We should explain to anyone. Yeah it is. We should probably explain to anyone listening that doesn't know Oxbridge Brunel University. How would you explain our campus.
Basic like this issue. There's nothing to it. It's not like the building doesn't look exciting. Do you know what? Actually it looks like offices. You could just be like, oh, some office is there. Yeah, it doesn't really look like a UNI campus. There's just loads of walking space, some statues oddly placed.
Yeah, it's really it's where they filmed The Clockwork Orange.
Okay, have you seen that film.
It's basically it's like a Stanley Kubrick film from the seventies. It's pretty fucked up, but it's what they thought the future was going to look like. In the seventies. Yeah, and I think the films, the scenes they filmed at our university are the scenes where he's in a mental institution or prison.
Accurate, very accurate.
So I hope that will give listeners a good indication of what it was like to go.
To definitely felt like prison. Sometimes, what were you?
Were you in the posh halls? There's ten years between us, so it might have changed lots by the time you were there. But were you in the what what halls of residence were you? I was?
I was in the ship place, say ship on the Yeah, I was in the ship place. I was at mill Hall. I think that was. Yeah, duty like mill Hall is actually disgusting.
The thing is, I was about to say to you, I was in the posh ones. I was in Millhall when I was when I was there, that was the that was.
That was. I was trying to escape Mill Hall to go to someone called Girl Braith. Everyone was trying to escape, like I kept trying to ask to get moved. You just make up some sort of thing like, oh my drains blocked, blah blah, I think there's a murderer in here, like anything, make up anything to try and.
Get out would work.
Like nothing.
So when okay, maybe it must have changed a lot. When I was there, Mill Hall was it was the posh one because we had our own bathrooms, right, and some of them this is showing my age, some of them they didn't. You know, you had to share a bathroom with five other people and a friend of mine who went to my school and he came to the union at the same time as me. He was in one over the other side of the campus and it was his block where they filmed the prison scenes and
that was where he had been dumb. So I felt quite lucky. But fine, I'm guessing it's changed. Have you been back since?
No, I haven't, you know, I haven't. But I can't imagine sharing bathroom five other people. I saw that on the application. I was just like, who's doing this? Like, who's picking this one to share with? Like five disgusting, horny eighteen year old gross?
Really gross? Did you enjoy it though? How was your unique experience?
Mine was really average? Like so average. I feel like everyone's got stories, particularly of their first year of like getting drunk, catching the first year flu or whatever they call it, fresh as flu. I don't even know what and just like their wild experiences and mine was so dry because I foolishly got a boyfriend before us started JUNI, and he just had me on lockdown like I wasn't doing I wasn't going to any part, Like I didn't make friends.
So did you spend a lot of your weekends back like away from camp?
No? So heat, And I'm really still angry about this. He would spend every day at Miuni that he would come and stay at my home, okay, but he would
come and stay at my whole. So the thing is, like I asked several times, like can I just get a bit of space, like I'm new, I'm not making any friends, blah blah blah, and he would either like break down into tears or make up some ludicrous story, the worst of them being when I said, okay, I've had enough, like we need to break up because like I'm very much my own person and you're just intruding in my space. And he made up that his friend had cancer.
Oh my god, So I couldn't break up with him. When did you find out he'd made this?
Ye? How do you do that? A year later?
So you stayed with him four years?
Clearly, I was a much nicer person back then. No, Like I felt so bad. I felt like such a horrible person. So I had to stay with him and then eventually I just kind of got comfortable with it. But like that was the worst mistake ever until so I asked him, like, hold on, what about your friend that you said like lived in Manchester And he was like what, what's like the one with cancer And he was like, oh, yeah, he's good. Like also the cancer just disappeared cancer yeah, wow.
Yeah, And so that was the final straw where you like, you've got to go now.
Yeah. I think like two months after that we broke up, but you're still much I was comfortable.
You're like, this is an ideal, but I mean it's easy.
It's easy, Like I'm getting dinners, you know, getting looked after. He's not that bad.
That's such a shame. So I know there were there were a few people, like there's always someone who's got a boyfriend who comes and stays, yeah, and it's hard to like become Yeah, that person does end up not being as like part of the gang as much, which is weird, which is a shame, Like, yeah, did you get to go to enjoy any of it.
Yeah, but like eventually I made some friends. But I think actually it was a gift that I had a boyfriend at the time who was taking up space, because they turned out to be dickheads. Like I'm I'm very much a girl's girl, so I've got a very tight like friendship group of girls. But they were like those girls that people talk about, like mean girls, Like they all chat shit about each other and they're jealous of each other, and this person wants to have this person's boyfriend.
So I just got out of that group quite quickly after anyway. And then I'd say I started enjoying my unique experience in my final year, which is the year you shouldn't be enjoying UNI. Yes, when you're meant to be focused. And I didn't do my dissertation. You didn't do it until No, I did it eventually, but five days before it was dish was when I started to Because you were.
Just having a good time, Yeah, Like I was.
Living my best life. I was hanging with Stormsy, was like doing shows and stuff. I was making a mixtape. I was going out partying and making friends like in the music industry and stuff. Yeah, so I just wasn't bothered. And then also I felt like everyone's working too hard. I don't know. For some reason, I felt like it's not that serious, Like if we're doing English, it's not like we're not going to be doctors. Fine, did you doing.
That final year? Were you living because you would have been living off campus by then, Yeah, were you really in close? Still? Were you still in the Uxbridge chet?
It's just so funny. So my friend and I were illegally sharing a campus room, so you put it, we put it on someone else's name, and we were both like part time living in the room and like splitting the money career. So yeah, that was like the chill room, Like oh yeah, if you want to hang, you want to sleep there, if you want to bring a boy over whatever like that was yeah, okay, Yeah.
I feel like it's been quite good your Uni experience. I don't think you miss having been to that university. I don't think you missed that much. I did have a good time, but as we say, there was so much concrete knocking about. It was quite an oppressive place. Yeah, you were studying English, English literature. Had you always been a big reader ever since you were like a small kid.
Yeah, until I started UNI. Then I hated it because then it became a chore. But I used to love reading all the time. I was never like nerdy or anything. I just really enjoyed reading. It was just like a good past time for me. So I don't know if they still have them these days, but they used to have like a mobile library, yeah, those buses. Yeah, so I would always like be waiting at the window for the mobile library to come so I can run and switch my book. And I remember at the time, I
was obsessed with a series of unfortunate events leimonies. Oh yeah, yeah, so I was just like waiting for the next one, like ready to switch it up. So yeah, I just love to reading.
Who are your favorite writers? Do they change over time or do you?
Yeah? They I don't know they change over time. I don't I've never like followed an author, like read all of their books or anything, but I currently maybe like chim Amanda Adici, just because the experience is that she writes about I've experienced and I can relate to and it's about my culture as a Nigerian.
Is that what you did your dissertation as well?
So my dissertation was on postcolonial literature. Yeah, and the loss of identity in Africa. So one of her books, I used China Bay's books. Yeah cool, Yeah, sounds really serious.
It sounds really academic. How did you do in the end, what did you get? A good?
It's fucking good, like as in I don't understand good. Like after I got results, I was like, yo, Unie's fake, Like I don't understand why people make it out like UNI's this really hard struggle and stuff, because I was very much a last minute person, Like eighty percent of my courseworks were handed in a day late, right, so you know, like gets tapped whatever. I was just like I wasn't gonna get an A plus in the first place,
it's not all that serious. And then in the end I ended up getting a two to one and like a distinction on my dissertation that I did in five days, and I felt I found it so funny. I kind of gloated a little bit because there was this one Boffing used to like talk about and gossip about me and my best friend Abby Girl because we used to both like slack all the time, and she like gave us a proper Helen off because we went to see Beyonce on the day. On the day our courseworke was you?
She asked us like, oh, you've done your coursework? Is it the date was due? And we were like, well no, and she was like, oh, what are you going to be in like the library doing it all day? Like, no, we're gonna go se Beyonce today. So she was livid when she found out that we got the same fucking grade. She got the same as well, work smart.
Yeah, I feel for her. In our house at UNI, there were three of us and I was middling. I was like, I got two one, but I got a two to one. You know, what is it sixty five or something you need for a two one? I think that's still a two one.
Clear.
My one of my friends worked madly for a first. He was one percent in a two to one, and my other friend slept in his shoes. He was one of those guys. He could have been woted to get undressed to get into bed, that's how lazy it is. And he snuck inside the two one and we all got exactly the same grades. And I felt for my friend Rob because he's like he deserved, like he wasn't like a square he still had fun, but he he
was like. I was like, man, I'd be so mad at the guy who slept in his shoes last night right now, because that's unfair, because James life fat. He was bad. He works in that bar, a bar in town called bar Rouche. I don't know if that's still there, but like it's a weird place is in elkxwidg because there's no like student vibe if you go into the town.
They hate the students that it's not like you're in a university town and London's so far in London's like an hour away on the tube, so you're kind of stranded in this weird like campus and there's.
Really not much to offer in terms of places to eat, places to shop, so we all end up wearing the same clothes all the time because we're all shopping at that top shop with the limited supply and eating at the same place all the time time. And yeah, it was, it was weird.
Yeah after Uni, did you move back to Camford?
Yeah?
Great, still that you're you're there now?
Yeah no, no, no, I've moved now, But yeah I moved there. I think like two months after my friends and I decided that we were just going to party at UNI, which was stupid because the party and was done.
You were just getting into it. As soon as it's empty, You're like, okay, exactly, like, no, no, I've got too much, Like, no, come on, I'm just getting into.
That, Lily, I'm finally free. But yeah, I moved shortly after. And then and then I worked in PR for a bit.
Okay, yeah, what was that in music PR?
No, it was in corporate PR, which was really dry, and I hated everybody I worked with, and I hated the campaigns I worked on. I just hated everything about it. And I feel like that was what gave me the drive to get into music, because I was I was working from what like eight o'clock till five o'clock or six sometimes, and in the evening, I was going to the studio, so I'd go straight from there to the
studio and i'd be there for like two am. Like I feel like that those six months, I've got no more than four and a half hours sleep every night. But I just had to get out of there. I was like, I have to make this mixtape and it has to be it has to save me because I can't be here anymore?
Is this your first mixtape?
No? So that was Yeah. My first mixtape was while I was still at Uni. Then when I came out, I made my first sorry mini album. I called it called Dirt. Yeah, so I was making that and I hadn't signed anything yet, and I was just like, I just need to sign a publishing deal so I can get out of this hell hole.
So yeah, and you did it amazing. The first one was Hammersham, which you did whilst at Unich. Yeah, and was that just what kind of had you ever thought about it? Because you love books and novels. Have you ever thought you were going to be a novelist or a writer? Or did you? When did you think I'm going to make music?
Now? I think like I had always been making music from when I was really young, so I always knew I wanted to be a singer and songwriter. I considered being a novelist, but I just don't have the attentions fan like, I can't I can't be dedicated to something like that for so long. And I feel like writing a book is really hard. Yeah, it's not easy, like
it's entertaining when you read it. But I realized very quickly, because once I tried to, I was like, I'm going to start writing a book, like I can do this. Wrote the first bit and I was like fuck, like where does it go from it? Do I write twenty four more chapters? And the rest of this chapter? Like it was just it was too much. So I never thought i'd do that. I did thought. I did think, sorry, that I would do journalism. I thought maybe I could be a music journalist. Yeah.
My my wife's a massive book riches, loves books, big reader. She's an academic, but she as when she was younger. She when she was a kid, she'd try to write books and she'd get bored instantly and think, ship, like where's this going? So she'd just kill everyone in the book. But everyone was done. Yeah, everyone just dies and then then that's the end. But the books like three pages long. Yeah that started off. Really, it starts off with all
these great intentions and it's beautifully descriptive. It's like, oh, this kid's really got something, and then they all die in a car crash.
And I mean, I'll give her some credit. It's a short story.
A short story accounts cool. So you so when you started making your Habersham. Were you just doing that in your in your mill hall, your your door.
Yeah. Yeah, for the most part I was writing it in my in my halls to the nuisance of my housemates, just like stop singing at two am. See. I was writing it there and then recording it, luckily not for actually in Wembley. So I met Stormsey I think the year before. Where did you meet him? At a like a local talent show. So my best friend, the one I met at UNI, she when I told when she found out I could sing, she was like, oh my god, like there's stuff going on in my ends. She was
from Croydon. She was like, you have to start coming with me. So she took me to this like local talent show thing and I think Stormsy was judging that year and that that was one of her clost friends. So she introduced us and yeah, we just knew each other from there.
Did you did you win the show?
I did enter? I did enter? Did I win? I didn't? And I entered for like a like an open mic section of it, So I wasn't like in the competition. It's like an open mic type of bit anyone here want to sing? That kind of vibe. Yeah, and then he had he was making his first EP at the time, Dreamer's Disease, and I asked him, like, where are you recording? And so he hooked me up with this engineer called six who was in Wembley, which was perfect because that
was so close to Brunel. So I was recording that there at the same time.
And then that EP ends up to him really well, and you're still at Union at that point when you put it.
On nine Yeah, and.
What was that, like, what was the what was the initial reaction? Like, did it instantly just go?
You know, it felt It wasn't instant, but it felt instant. So like obviously in the first like two weeks, three weeks, I was just getting like a couple hundred listens, which to me was amazing. Yeah, oh my god, two hundred people have listened to my song.
Like it wasn't you refreshing?
Possibly I was just like, wait, I don't even know two hunding people though, so they're not even just my friends. Yeah, So that just really that just really guessed me. And then bit by a bit it just started growing because I started like hanging out in certain groups that I like, so people I was listening to on SoundCloud. I noticed that they were doing the same shows, like in Hoxton or Shoreditch and these like underground venues, mostly at like birthdays.
There was this place called Soulful Sundays or something at Box Park and Shoreditch. So I just kind of started going there and meeting people and telling them like, oh, yeah, I sing, like here's my link, listen to my songs, or like sending it to people at magazines and stuff and being like, oh, like please write about my song if you like it, and then like it started getting attention. So it was it was really quite organic. I say, did you.
Have any help with that? Did you have like someone managing you or even a mate helping out or was it was just you.
Just well in terms of the creation, all of my friends like helped with that, as in as soon as I said, like, I want to be a singer and I sent them one of my songs, they were like, oh my god, you're gonna blow. Like you know, friends, just come up, You're gonna blow. So they all put money together and like help pay for some of my studio time and help pay for me to do a shoot, to get my cover art and the person who made that and and yend was just really supportful and came to all of my shows.
That's good, friend. My friends don't do that. My friends have even read my magazine once we made one hundred and twenty eight.
Get some new friends, man.
Esus, I need your friends, that's all.
We're all.
That's amazing though, that they do that for you, just on on, just to support you. That's quite an amazing thing.
Yeah, they're amazing.
Wow. So then it kind of takes off. Then it takes off, then you get your job in so this pr job whereabouts? Was that in the center of town?
That was in Hoven?
Can you are you allowed to say anything about the brands that you're working on or anything.
I was working on like Vauxhall, no Volkswagen. Sorry that big big brands like soap brands.
How do you how do you prs soap brand? Honestly, how do you get people to write about soap?
Do you know? I learned a lot while I was there. I realized everything is fake, Like everything you read in the news and all of that, like it's all fake.
Because so basically how you get pressed for a soap brand would be we'd get some random scientists somewhere some universities looking for a quick buck and get them to do some research about how I don't know, like if you wash your clothes with a particular type of soap, then you're less likely to have cancer, like something that ridiculous, you know what I mean, Like, oh, the pearls or the granules in this thing is actually bad for you because it means more children will get chicken pops or
whatever if you wash this, if you use this to wash your children's clothes. So we'd get them to do that, then we would basically sell that piece of material or try and get that out to newspapers and say, you know, this is the new discovery we've made, because that sounds like a big headline like so and so, Yeah, so and so causes cancer, do you know what I mean? And then there they'll slide in the brand that we're trying to sell to be like so and so brand
actually doesn't cause cancer. And that's how you do pr for stuff like that, and then people will end up buying that like idiots.
Having worked on that, has it made you when you read the newspaper news stories like that, it made you just think I don't believe anything like this is all I know exactly how this works. And while they're saying this, it's just nonsense.
Like a little while ago, there was this thing about bottles not using the same bottle for too long. Yeah, yeah that water bottles don't use the same bottle for too long because it builds up too much bacteria and you'll get sick and stuff like that. And I was like, they're just trying to sell more bottles, like I just want you to buy a new one. They realized, Oh, people are just refilling the everyone with tap water. Now let's tell them to buy more. Like that's what I felt anyway.
Yeah, it's true, but so many people. Yeah, full for that. Maybe everyone needs to go and work in pr. How long were you there for?
Six months or seven months?
Okay, long enough?
Yeah? And then.
So after that, so you did make dirt And then is that when you left? Did you leave off the back of that? Is that what enabled you to leave that job? Or did you just have enough and just think I've got to get out of here and then I'll work it out when I got out.
No, so so do It actually didn't come out until the year after I left so I think that was maybe like that was twenty fifteen when I was there and I was in the process of making Dirt, and then I signed a publishing deal before Christmas, so in December, and once I knew like it was in the works, I was basically like deal six, Like I am out.
My lawyer's handling this, so it's really happening. This isn't because it was like we're talking about it for a while, and for like two months I was there, like when people would like give me a heat load of work on my desk at six o'clock when I'm meant to be going. In my head, I'm like, I don't need to do this shit, Like why am I still here? I've got something in the pipeline. But I just had to firm it and just stay there until it was like really happening. And then I think like a week
before Christmas, that's what I was freed. Yeah, I was like I'm.
Out, I'm out here. So how does the how did your publishing deal come about? Did you have a manager by then?
Yes, then I had a manager. I had I met the manager I think like two months to when I finished UNI, like two months before and then he started getting me in studio sessions I can make the project, and just taking meetings with publishing labels and some record labels. But at that point it was way too early to sign a deal.
Yeah, were you already being offered deals at that point?
Yeah, not like anything concrete on the table, like in paperwork, but from from like when I released Havisham, like the first two months of it being out, labels were reaching out, and I think I found out from that that you
never know where your music is going. Like for new artists trying to be seen and heard, you think maybe no one's taking notice, but like there are scouts at labels who their job is to just go through SoundCloud link after link and YouTube and watch this and go to these random shows where only twenty people are there to discover unfound talent. So from really early on, labels were reaching.
Out, but you didn't. What I think it's amazing is that you didn't sign a deal early on, And yeah, it was actually quite a while until you signed a deal because you put dirt out yourself and then you won the BBC Sound of Pole as the first person that was unsigned to win that pole, and that's at the beginning of twenty seventeen. Yes, And at that point did you then go, well, first of all, let's talk
about that. I mean, that's like a massive pole at the beginning of the year, which kind of sets the tone for new music for the year here in the UK. What was it like to win it? Like, did you have any inkland Does that kind of thing just pop up like one day you just find out or so?
I didn't have an inkling that I would win, but I knew that I was. I was going to be like Top five because in the run up to the announcement they start doing like filming with all of the people who have made like Top five. So I knew from the amount of like stuff they were asking me to commit to, like oh, can we film in your area on this day? Can you do a performance? So then my team knew that, oh, you'll probably do like you'll be on Top five. So I was like, okay, dope,
But that's all I thought would happen. And my team actually knew a whole month before that I had won.
No people the keeping stuff from you, I don't know.
I guess it was a good surprise, to be.
Fair, so that they obviously did a good job. If did you have you had no inkling, So they did a really good job of keeping that to themselves. No time he walked into a.
Round, I remember my radio person as well was asking me like, oh, who do you think will we And the conversation was very much like a regular like not me, Like she didn't say me, I didn't say me, and she was like, yeah, obviously there's a lot of hype around this person, blah blah blah. Obviously like Rack and bone Man. At the time, I had like a number one or two whatever whatever, so it was like, oh, yeah,
probably Rack and bone Man. Yeah, and that was it, And like you knew the whole time this conversation I had one. Yeah, it was. It was a really lovely surprise. Yeah, such an honor.
Yeah, and I'm guessing the day that comes out, did you just go and get wrecked? What did you do?
Oh? My life is so dry? That just sounded really cool. I was thinking, why didn't I do that? Why did I even think of that? No, Like I just went home and had dinner with my mom, like nothing else.
That is much cooler. That's a much cooler reaction. I'd be like yeah, that was it.
I remember crying in the street though, well when you found out. Yeah, So like when I found out, I was just really overwhelmed and it didn't really sink in and I was like, wait what I think it was? Oh, I can't remember his name. One of the big presenters at like BBC News with this massive like TV camera. So I was trying to keep it together, like I'm not going to cry on the news, Like me hold it down. And then when I got out, I phoned my mom and I had told her about the whole
process and everything was gone on. She's like, oh, okay, cool, cool. And I had told her as well about like the alumni and that like Adele and Sam Smith, Jesse j had won all of that. And my mum is very she's very, very supportive. She's one of those moms that are like, you're going to win everything, Like she thinks you're the best of everything you do. So she was like, oh, you'll obviously win, and I was just like here we
go again. So when I got out and I called her and I told her once, she was laughing at me being so emotional because I was like crying, and I was like I just can't believe it, like this is insane, and she was like, I told you were going to win. That's that's my mom.
Like did she cook? Did she cook your special?
She did?
Yeah?
So sweet, that's nice.
So then after that, I imagine this question of like should I sign a record label deal? I'm guessing at that point did you just get overwhelmed with offers and yeah? And did you get taken out for all the ready posh meals?
Yeah? Went to the nobs? How many?
How many meals did you tell? How many meals did you get?
Quite a few, Yes, quite a few. I remember going to Nobu for the first time for a label and to being like, ship, this is how these niggas living like y'all living like this, like it's crazy, like the bill coming to five hundred pounds, and I felt so bad. Yeah, I felt awful. I'm good, I'm rinsing these people. But my manager was lapping it up, like, next time we need to order more.
That's nothing.
You didn't have enough drinks.
We only hit five hundred?
Yeah, exactly?
Is that the out of the places you were taking to, is that is that the one that was like what was the best? Was the best, the best meal you got out, probably.
Nobody, because like, so I liked Japanese food already, but I've never been to like an expensive Japanese place. So going there and being like, oh my god, this is what black cord is meant to taste, like like this is crazy. It melts in my mouth because I love food, love food so much. That was like, oh my god, I've never tasted anything this. I remember. I was telling my friends about it for a week, like listen, we need to try this.
You need to get a record deal so you can go, so you can. Have you been to Japan at all?
I haven't. I haven't.
I went a year and a half ago for the first time. It's any time I've been. And that was one of those moments where we did a feature with a guy called gold Panda and he he's from the UK, but he lived in Japan. He speaks fluent Japanese. I went on a little too with him for a feature we did, and it was amazing because he could order everything off of the menu and he could read all the Japanese and stuff. But what it made me realize was that the Japanese food we get here is not
it's not it. It's not real at all. It's all hard and cold and refrigerating. I'm sure you found this when you're in Nobod that you tasted, you know, and you're like, oh my god, I've been all of this stuff I've been eating. It's not it. I'm sure you're probably is a trip to Japan on the card. It must be at some.
Point at some point, definitely, So this is this isn't in or near Japan. But I've got quite a big following in Taipei. It's really random, so yeah, go to Asia. I have no clue. It's literally like UK or London, New York, Taipei, right ho, then Birmingham. It's really weird.
Take it. So you ended up signing to Ireland out of is that did they take to? Were they no?
Else? They didn't? That was I'm thinking to my name.
And shape, Where did Iland take?
You didn't take me nowhere until like later down the line. But with Ireland they were actually the first record label I went to see that was the first one, and that was during Havisham times, so no one had heard the newer content like how I had progressed or anything like that. There wasn't a music video and darkest the President actually gave me like fifteen k, like no strings attached, to get things started for myself.
Wow.
He was just like, I really see potential in this. And obviously I know you won't want to sign a record deal right now, but I just want to show you how committed I am. And here's some money. Make your first music video, get some pr you know, get things off the ground for yourself. And he actually left me alone. You know, most of the times like something that's you'd think you owe them something, but he actually left me alone.
Did you ever felt like, speak of fifteen grand that's yours? Yeah, you don't have to ever call me again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it would be like I'd be like this guy, yeah exactly. Catch it's going to come deck collector in five years. No, Like I just he didn't make me feel like that. But anytime I would see him, he would always say, when you're ready to sign, please come to me first. Like, when you're ready, just come to me first. That's all I asked for. Just let me let's have a chat. Yeah. And I came back to him and I did the rounds and I went to different places and ended up at the first place.
Yes, that is a fifteen grand world spend.
Yeah.
Really, he knows what he's doing.
Is he does know what he's doing. I remember when I signed, he clutched the contract and he was like, I won, I beat them are It's very competitive. He's a very competitive He's.
A guy you want on your side. Yeah, for sure. So then your debut album, is that going to come out this year? We'd have to talk about that at all.
Yeah, So it's not going to come out this year. This year, I'm releasing what I'm calling a project just because I don't want to. First of all, it's only eight songs, so for me, that's not like an album. And also, I feel like I've progressed so much from these songs because last year when I actually wanted to, when I was meant to put out this project, there was just a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, like I changed management, I went through a really rough
time personally. I was on the road a lot, and I always believe in like I believe in God, so I believe in God's plans. I think it just wasn't the right time. So these songs I've actually lived with for quite a while, and now as an artist, I've progressed a lot from these songs, so I felt like, you know, I could just add a few more new songs to it and chuck it out and be like, here's the album, but this isn't who I want to show myself as like a debut album, So I'm kind
of just calling it a project. I know people will listen to some people will listen to it maybe and call it an album because for them it feels like that, which makes me happy because I always feel like, even if it's an EP, you should always be trying to put out album worthy music. Pardon me, Yeah, but it's a project and then album will come next year.
Nice, feeling good about it all. Everything seems to be going well.
Yeah, I'm feeling very good. I'm feeling really positive, and I think it's just because I've got my like a bit more of my self confidence back. Last year winning a soundpole, as amazing as it was, it really knocked my confidence to it.
Yeah, get the pressure of like what do I do now? They don't have to live up to the fact that people are saying I'm the next big thing.
Exactly exactly that, and it just started to make me question, like, am I actually that good? Have I tricked these people? Like for legit? For a long time, I was like, they're going to realize I'm a fraud, like and they've given me this thing and I don't deserve it, and I'm actually not that good. And I just for a long time just had this self doubt and just felt
like I'm not good enough. And I felt like every show I was doing, because I knew that people like in the industry and stuff were coming to see me, to be like, who is this sound Pole winner, I felt like it was always a test, like I'm being tested and I have to live up to this expectation. And it was just a lot of pressure, and I
just I just didn't believe in myself anymore. But I feel like after a while got over that, and it took a lot of like growing and changing, but I'm now in a place where I found myself confidence again and confidence in my writing and my music.
Was there any one thing that kind of got you out of that? Was it just time you just had?
Not? You know, it was God. For a lot of people, they can't relate to that sore not religious, but I really feel like I was brought back to a great place because I was just praying a lot, even like I did a fars so for a week, I wasn't eating until like six pe and then I was praying every three hours, and I just felt such a huge change in myself and my way of thinking. I think for some people who maybe don't believe in that, they'll
see that it was more of like meditation. But yeah, it just changed me as a person, Like I was just a lot more like lighter, happier, more myself, whereas before I was like really grumpy and I used to be really negative about everything and being a positive person before. It was just such a shift and being able to go back to that person where like I can now enjoy my job again was just really amazing. Like I just put it down to that.
Yeah, and what did you spend the fifteen grand on it? The video for fifty fifteen?
Yeah?
Was it? Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, it was a video for fifty to fifty and radio and press. Great.
Yeah, it's a great video.
Thank you.
It's still a great video. They're all your friends in that video. They the friends that helped that would be like hit somebody from studio time.
Yeah, some of them, Yeah, some of them my title, I've got like four best friends, so we're all like in a group together. So yeah, they're all in the video.
That was kind of a bit of a little bit of a turning point, right that video. The video was like the moment when people are like, right, black, check that out. Who's this amazing? Could you see the money?
I know?
Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it unless there's anything else. No, have you felt about the good Yeah?
Yeah good.
It's not quite a meal around Jesse Ware. I mean, next time it's okay, I meant not even for me. It's time we're hooking up some Japanese food. Yeah, very much.
Midnight Chats is a loud and quiet podcast. Music courtesy of gold Panda. Search Midnight Chats on iTunes for more episodes and to subscribe. For more information, visit loudanquiet dot com.