How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S16, Ep5 How To Fail: Big Zuu the Bafta-winning TV cook on being the child of a refugee, his ADHD diagnosis and racism in football

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

Big Zuu is a double Bafta winning TV cook who presents Big Zuu’s Big Eats on Dave. His former guests have included Jimmy Carr, Katherine Ryan and Mel B. He's also a grime MC rapper who has released four albums. He joins me to talk about the impact of his upbringing - his mum arrived to a West London council estate from Sierra Leone when she was pregnant with him and it's an extraordinary story of resilience and survival over adversity. We also discuss his ADHD diagnosis in adulthood and how it's transformed his life, racism in football and how he learned to channel his energy into the right things. This was such an enlightening - and funny - chat.--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpodBig Zuu @itsbigzuu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned

from failure. Big Zoo is an unlikely multi-hyphenate. It's not many grime MC rappers who can also claim to be a double BAFTA winning TV cook. In fact, it's only one, and he's my guest today. Born Zuhair Hassan to a mother from Sierra Leone and a dad from Lebanon, he grew up on the Mozart estate in West London. He started cooking, he says, because he grew tired of his mother making him boil pasta for 15 minutes

rather than the requisite three. Soon he was making meals for all his friends. As a teen, he joined the MTP collective along with his cousin, AJ Tracy, and released his first EP, Big Who, in 2015. In between recording demos at his local youth centre and studying for a social work degree, Zoo started posting videos of his kitchen skills to social media. Soon they gained traction and his fresh, utterly authentic and hilarious style caught the eye of Dave's commissioners. He now presents Big Zoo's Big Eats on the channel along with best friends Tubsy and Haida. The trio also have a weekly radio show

on Kiss Fresh. On Big Eats his former guests have included Jimmy Carr, Catherine Ryan and Mel B. On Big Eats, his former guests have included Jimmy Carr, Catherine Ryan and Mel B. Alongside his burgeoning TV success, he released his fourth album, Navigate, in 2021. I never imagined being where I am now, he says. My school just told me I talk too much. Big Z, welcome to How To Fail. That was an incredible intro. Thank you so much.

Oh, it's a pleasure. Did I get it right? You got it very right. all on point it's all sounding it's sounding journalistic thank you sounded professional is that true that your school told you that you were too talkative did you get into trouble all the time all the time they told me to stop saying this on stuff but i said i say all the time in my yearbook they said what we remembered for and i put disrupting the learning of others and i don't know why they let me put that because they had to approve your quote yeah and I said disrupting the learning of others because that's what my teachers would say to me all the time did you get bored at school what was it that made you want to disrupt I mean I'm older

now so I know I have ADHD when I was younger I wasn't diagnosed so I know I have ADHD. When I was younger, I wasn't diagnosed. So I just have intense ADHD. That's all it is really. I can't blame it on that, but that's what I have. So when I was in school, the problem was that I would talk a lot, but then I'll get my work right and get it done. And I was in tops of everything. So as much as they wanted to keep me out and get me I put me in like detention and get me like they couldn't put me in in as much trouble because I was smart so it was like a paradox I'm a teacher to go through continuously and because I was in higher sets

with people that were like the more intelligent people in my year they're less likely to be the talkative people that are like incredibly annoying so I would be in a room yeah with not all my friends from my year not all the people that I'm used to being with and I'd get bored because it's boring when did you get diagnosed with ADHD literally this year really yeah it's so interesting how many people have come on this podcast who were incredibly successful creative at the top of their game, super smart. And who have been diagnosed with ADHD as adults. Yeah.

And it's transformed their understanding of why they are the way they are. Was that your experience? Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. It's like, you don't want to like blame everything on the fact they have ADHD. But like, the more you understand ADHD, the more you understand like your patterns and your behavior so like I'm older now so obviously I'm gonna have more control of like how I express myself or how my mind kind of is but in terms of the dopamine in my brain for focusing it's not there in it so all the times that I'm not focused all the times

that I like hyper focus with adrenaline that's that I'm like hyper-focused with adrenaline, that's what you normally rely on if you have ADHD. Well, obviously it affects people differently, but that's how it affects me. Like I have intense adrenaline to help me focus. Like when I'm filming or when I'm doing music, that's why music was so fun for me performing live because I would zone in on what I was doing

because my adrenaline would just be so high. And it'd be like, that's the only time that I can really shut out everything. Like I can have a million people in front of me, I don't care because I'm focused on my performance, on making sure that I'm hitting the right notes or saying the right lyrics or my breathing or how I'm engaging with the crowd.

When I learned about like ADHD, it made me look at like all the time I did like music and I was like, that's why whenever I would spit bars, or be in a room on radio, or if I'm performing, I'll be super in it. Like when I perform live,

I'm a different person. Like I'm very chilled. Like people probably don't think I'm chilled, but we think I'm super loud all the time. But this is how I speak. I'm very like relaxed. Yeah. When I perform,

I'm in the sky I'm jumping all over the place I'm not moving like a fat man I'm even like I'm the lightest man in the world you're not a fat man do you think of yourself as a fat man I'm definitely a fat man I'm a big guy I'm a big guy I've always been a big Ute from when I was young that's why I'm called Big Z so who gave you that name I just came up with it i was like i was thinking of a rap name i was like where can i go everyone calls me z because no one can pronounce my name did i pronounce it yeah you said it right you said it right i used to always be like just call me z just call me z yeah just please just call me z and then when i was thinking of a rap name i'm named after my dad so i was like

i'll call myself big junior because it's an oxymoron and i love like lyricalness i thought i was so lyrical so i put a song and called it big junior and someone's like to me that's the deadest name in the world i was like that's true so i was like bro you're called zoo like why don't you call yourself zoo so i was just gonna call myself zoo then i was like no you know what let me call myself big zoo i googled big zoo and nothing came up. Like zero search results. And I was like, surely if I'm the only Big Zoo, then every time you search B-I-G-Z-U-U, it's just me. Whereas I had friends who had names that were like different kinds of things that if you searched them,

they wouldn't, like AJ Tracy, you mentioned him. I was about to say, yeah. He was called Looney before because he's a crazy guy. He was called Looney, but then he made his name AJ Tracy, which is like, he liked AJ at the time, Armani jeans. And then he just thought a random unisex name like Tracy was cool. So he just called himself AJ Tracy because no one was called that. So it kind of influenced me.

And I was like, well, I'll call myself Big Zoo. You know what I'm saying? And like, that's it. Big Zoo was born. Can I check where this cab is yeah so big zoo has to check with his mom because he's getting a suitcase delivered for her yes hello mom um wait let me come off the phone all right go down now he's gonna be there now yeah he'll be there now all right bye nice and easy my mom called me we love you big zoo's mom i love her so much i mean she

sounds like such a legend but before we get on to her because i've got loads of questions what's it like winning two mafters in one night oh god that was it's very unexpected i felt very blessed and i felt it was a big moment not just for me but for a lot of people and it really proved that what we're doing in terms of television in terms of the change in terms of people trying to like have more representation xyz is gonna have an impact eventually yeah and a lot of people feel like things are forced there's probably people that think that i got the baptist just because of the skin color i am or the class that i come from but i feel like what really happened was the second award is what what spun me because the first

one was like we was nominated for that the year before for our first season of Big Eats so we was already like really content for the fact that it was nominated two years in a row for a show that is our first ever tv program we've ever made my two co-stars have never been on television in life they've never done any form of presenting we was already happy so if we if we won that one we would have felt great the second one was best entertainment performance I'm against Alison Hammond against like Michael McIntyre just all these incredible people like Graham Norton like Sean Locke RIP like just and Joe Lysett like just people that are like known by the whole entire country. People who are, like, renowned in their jobs.

People who've been doing it for many years. Millions of followers online. To win it against them just really made me feel like, no, what I'm doing is right. Because I put a lot of work in this year on telly. In the past few years, I've done so much little appearances where I've come up here. few years I've done so much little appearances where I've come up here and I've like whether it's a Sunday brunch or a soccer AM or Jonathan Ross or a Graham Norton I've every and every time man's gone on these things I'm always performing do you know what I mean it's never like I'm just coming out and I'm like hi I'm here to promote my book or my show which is what I'm doing in

a sense but every time I come out I'm performing and i felt like when i won that award it was like if you know what i've been doing you would understand why i've won it if you don't know what i was doing you'd probably be super baffled and think what the hell is going on that's so interesting though because you come across so real and so yourself thank you but i also relate to that idea of having to switch it on you have to sort of switch an energy on yeah Yeah, of course. It's not like you're assuming a persona. You're still you, but you switch up the energy. Is that right?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, when you're on live telly and you do telly, you only get one chance to come across well. Every time I work, I'm always working with incredible people who have been doing it for me. Like, I remember when I did Stand Up To Cancer, I helped did the after show, after the live broadcast.

I came out to do a link to let them know that after the show finishes, I've got a show on where I'm talking to people backstage who were on the main show. And I was with Davina McCool, Maya Jamar, Alan Carr,

and I think Josh Whittaker. And like, I was just looking around, I'm like, this is crazy. Like, I'm here for a crazy cause, live on telly with all these incredible people like this is not what i ever thought i would ever be doing do you know what i mean but when i do these things people love it people always be like

who's that random guy why does he talk like that why does he look like that why is he fitting in because every time i've done it the conversation's never been oh i shouldn't be there conversation's always wow he's doing all right there like even I went on strictly the other day and I did the terms and conditions and people were absolutely mental like oh my god you do strictly because it's people aren't used to seeing people like myself in these places so I never knew how important it was when I did everything that I'd done but now I get it and I feel like that's where the bastard comes from and like I knew that in my heart when I went up

and got it but the kind of like shock the gas everything that's why if you watch my first speech I'm kind of angry

I'm not smiling I'm like I'm vexed like in my tone if you know my tone you can hear me I'm like I'm like

big up my mum yeah alright cool let's get into this let me say why I should have won this you know what I mean I'm not like thankful like oh thank you guys I'm not I'm angry why am I angry because it was like I knew we deserved it but I knew I had to tell people why we deserved it and I shouldn't even have to say why your second acceptance speech I'm actually about to quote

back to you because I thought it was so powerful you were talking about your mom yeah she came to this country four months pregnant from sierra leone during the rebel war yeah hyder's family come from kurdistan which is not a recognized state tubsy's family are from iraq and iran they were in a war when he was born man comes from humble beginnings i thought that was so powerful thank you and really goes to the heart of everything that you've just said can i talk to you now about your mom yeah of course so what's her name aisha aisha her stage name that's her that's her like that's like a like her english name every african person has their english name yeah my mom's real name is isa too okay so isa too that's her so she came over here four months pregnant yeah why tell me the story

of well that it's it's a long story but basically when the Sierra Leonean rebel war started because mom was pregnant with me she was with my dad and it was a lot of politics and the best thing for my mom to do was to leave Sierra Leone that was the best thing for her to do. And she got a visa to come to England. But my dad, because my dad's Lebanese, he was affected by the war in a different way. The rebels weren't really trying to kill Lebanese people. They were trying to like work with them.

So my dad being a white man in Africa at the time, which is what he'll be perceived as, but my dad is an African man. He was born in Sierra Leone. His family was born in Sierra Leone. But when the war started, the Lebanese people were affected in a He was born in Sierra Leone. His family was born in Sierra Leone. But when the war started, the Lebanese people were affected in a different way to the Sierra Leoneans. So my mom's family, it was very tight for them.

It was very sad for them. A lot was going on worse for my dad's family. It was more, they had to hide from what was going on, X, Y, Z. So for my mom, the overall situation was, the best thing for her was to leave, but my dad had to stay. So when my mom came, it was just her.

She was pregnant with me and she just had to kind of like get on with it you know back home a lot of stuff going on the war kind of ended around like the early 2000s so up until the time i was probably like seven eight the war wasn't done my mom was like going through her family being in war, not being with my dad. My dad and my mum probably split up by the time I was like two, three. So then by the time I was two, three, my mum stopped getting support from my dad and was like a single mother in the country.

She didn't really know the language of properly, but she's a strong lady. You know, she made it work. How did she make it work? My mum was a chambermaid when she first started. so she was like cleaning hotels like every single refugee foreign person does when they come to this country the easiest job to get is to be a cleaner because they can make things off the record it's normally cash in hand a lot of people when they come over that's the first job they do they even get into cleaning or if you're a man you get into like construction handiwork so

for my mom she was cleaning stuff. She always had a gift in the gab. So she got, she started doing other things. My mum had a lot of jobs, done a lot of different things. So I think by the time my dad stopped supporting my mum, when I was like three,

four, it was more just relying on help from the government. You know what I'm saying? In terms of housing, in terms of benefits, X, Y, Z.

And it was that, that was what we lived off, you know i'm saying in terms of housing in terms of benefits xyz and it was that that was what we lived off you know got put into council housing my mom had a private house when we was young when i was like two three she had a house she used to rent a room to a lady and then when my dad stopped helping us that's when like i can just remember my life completely changed my mom we lived in like a bed and breakfast for about two years, which was like, it was like a lot of, a lot of different like refugees lived in this place. I talked about it a bit at times,

the place called The Hotel. It was in Swiss Cottage. So it was one of the like old mansions that on the road going up to Hampstead from Finchley Road, it was a converted mansion that had like little rooms, which were just filled with family. Some rooms had like five people in were just filled with family some rooms had like five people in one room me and my mom just shared a room but then a couple people like I know

they had like four or five people in one room and I was there for two years then we got temporary housing in Fernhead Road which is where I probably like that's why I say I grew up because by the time I was like five I was like five. I lived there till I was about 14. And how would you define your youth and that experience that you had growing up? How do you feel about it? What were you like? It was tough.

Like I knew it was tough. I knew what I was going through wasn't normal. I didn't have, like we had no family here. So just me and my mum. When I went to that hotel, that's where I made a lot of friendships. A lot of the people that I've met there were my friends for a long time.

Obviously I rely a lot on like school friends and stuff. But then when you're growing up in a place like Howard Road and you're in an area like that, everyone's going through the same shit. So it's like, I never felt sorry for myself. There was times I'd be like a little depressed boy, like wanting all the toys or wanting all the new games like every kid does

or wanting all the new clothes. every kid does or wanting all the new clothes but like around me no one else was more well off do you know what I mean yeah so for me it was like this is normal we just gotta get on with it and just have a lot of fun that's why we laughed a lot me tubsy hide off from when I first met them in secondary school when he was 11 all we do is laugh because I feel like that was our way to like get away from our reality so your mom clearly has many skills is it fair to say that at that time cooking wasn't one of them no she could cook okay i could cook just couldn't cook western food right and growing up going primary school going secondary school going to people's houses you're eating all these like sugary, oily things.

Like you want to eat oven chips with a bag of ketchup. You want turkey Twizzlers. You want pizza. You want Chinese for dinner. You want cream cheese. Yeah. You want all the stuff. Like even just like when people used to get a kebab,

obviously things have changed. Like it's delivery. People probably don't, you are not used to how it was back in the day where you could only get two types of a takeaway, either Chinese or Indian, or you have to go to the high street and get a kebab. That was it. That was your only choices. And growing up, not having a lot of money.

My mom wouldn't do that. My mom would always cook back home food, okra soup, stew, all these kind of things that I did like. But by the time I'm like five, six, I've had it my whole life. Then I'm going to my friend's house, having like all these lovely lovely things like what would you mean cake and custard after we have dinner what that's crazy so by the time I was like eight nine I've started experimenting in the kitchen just to try like have different flavors and then I remember reading a tortellini packet my mom used to boil it like it was it's fresh pasta mum used to boil it like it was, it's fresh pasta. My mum used to boil it like it was dry pasta.

So I told her, mum, you don't want to pack it. It says you should boil for two, three minutes. She said, no, what are you talking about? It's not going to be cooked. And this was around the time my mum was pregnant. So she was doing less cooking around the house. She was a bit more tired. So I just said, cool, I'm going to do it and see how it goes.

Boiled the tortellini for two minutes. Heated up the sauce in the microwave. Put some cheese on top. Gave it to do it. And so it goes. Boiled the tortellini for two minutes. Heated up the sauce in the microwave. Put some cheese on top. Gave it to my mum. She was like, this is not cooked. I said, mum, it's cooked. It's al dente, mum. It's al dente.

Just try it. She tried it. And then I took the packet out of the bin and I showed it to her. And she said, okay, you keep cooking that one. That's fine. And then from there, it just kept going. So she must be so proud of you now. Yeah, definitely.

It's been weird because obviously I did music first and I dropped out of uni in my second year to pursue like being a musician. And when I dropped out of uni, my mum thought my life was going down the drain. But then, I mean, the more things kind of picked up, before I even got into telly, the more like music picked up and the more things started happening the more she just believed in me so but when I transitioned into doing stuff on television she was like already my biggest fan so then now it's like she listens to all my music she watches all my stuff on YouTube she was coming

to my headline shows and then now it's like wow I'm watching my son on telly I never thought she used to see me on telly if I did something music related. But then it became like I had my own show out of nowhere. And like, I remember watching Big Eats, it was in lockdown. So when Big Eats first happened, it was in lockdown and I had to watch it with my mum. And me and my mum just couldn't believe that. Like, I'm on telly, this is crazy.

I'm cooking for Jimmy Carr. Why am I cooking for Jimmy Carr? You know what I mean? Before we get onto your failures, I want to ask you about your most recent album and the title, Navigate. And I wondered if part of that came from having to navigate so many different worlds.

Yeah. Like music, TV, like the broadcasting world versus where you grew up. Like, is that, do you feel like you have to assume lots of different guises? Yeah, one million percent.

That's what Navigate was about. It was about me just going through all of that. Navigate is an album that I built over the last like three years. I never wanted to make an album. It just happened. I just had all this music that I've been building. I was like, go on, let's put it out.

When people make albums, sometimes they get into like this creative process for like a week, two weeks or a month where they create all this music in this one time whereas Navigate was built while I was transitioning from music to TV while lockdown happened all that stuff so when I put it out it was kind of like it was weird because I put it out at a time where it was like my first proper album I had other albums out that were like collations of music and stuff but in terms of like Big Zoo album that was my first album

but I never thought I'd ever pull it out how I did because I pull it out and stuff. But in terms of like Big Zoo album, that was my first album. But I never thought I'd ever pull it out how I did because I pull it out and then I didn't tour it. I didn't do as much as I would have done with it. Whereas if music was my only thing that I would have done, my album would have been completely different. But because I was doing so much, that's why I called it Navigate. It was kind of like a soundtrack to what I was doing.

And I feel like I'm really happy with what it done. Like I'm really happy with what it done like I'm really happy what it represents what I was able to do with it like I'm known as a grind MC if you listen to that album I'm singing I'm rapping but I'm spitting bars like there's I was able to have so much fun of it and the only reason I was able to have fun with my music is because it wasn't my only source of income yeah do you know what I mean yeah so there's less pressure on it yeah I was able to

just have fun with it but it's like a gift and a curse because I wasn't able to kind of do all the stuff I wanted to do in my album but then I was able

to put out any music without fearing a label telling me yo you owe us this xyz I licensed my album to a label so I got paid

to put it out and then they kind of made their money off it for xyz and then I get my masters back so yeah Navigate was a weird one Navigate was weird Navigate is never how I thought my first album would ever turn out but I listen to it and it's just like a soundtrack of my life and it's beautiful so I feel like the next piece of music I give them will be very like very different to Navigate. For like, Navigate is my last time I make music

as like a big zoo, just like feeling. My next music will be a bit more calculated, a bit more like, not, I'm not trying to make music just for money, but you have to make decisions with music where you're like, are we doing this for the art or are we doing this for the music?

Because sometimes people like, you know like when a song is a hit i feel like people discredit the art of it and there's art in making a hit 100 do you know i mean i know what you mean in the books world okay yeah it's like if a book is commercially successful then it's somehow not literary no it's the same kind of measure and i feel like i've done so much where i've put my heart into stuff. I've tried to be real. I've tried to flex my pen. I've tried to do everything I can do to push myself lyrically

and what I'm promoting. And I've never just made a song to go, you know what? I love singing. Why don't I just do like a singing song? Or I love this. Or why don't I just do that? Everything I've done has had so much meaning

and I'm proud of that. And I feel like now I've done that, now I can go do some other things with music. Like do a little ballad. You're like Picasso now i've done that now i can go do some other things with music like yeah like do a little ballad you're like picasso you've done the basics it's a great it's a great it's a great basics before we did all the cubist yeah that's what i'm saying how old are you i'm 27 okay yeah that makes sense because i feel like 27 is meant to be an age of like shifting saturn returns all of that sort of stuff.

And it's like the first phase of your life. To me, it feels delightfully responsive and reactive to opportunities that have manifested themselves for you because of your talent. And maybe the next phase of your life is more planned, more strategic. Yeah, that makes sense. That is, no one's ever broken it down like that. But that's exactly what it is. Excellent. can't exactly i'm excited for the next phase thank you let's get on to your failures yes these are all very funny failures yeah because it's not for me thinking of fate i i'm so positive yeah if something goes wrong i'm like no no no no it

was supposed to happen like that i hate putting negative thoughts in the air. I hate it. When my friends do it, it pisses me off. I look at them like, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Don't get me wrong. I have my depressed moments where I sit in my house and I let things get to me.

I get on my phone, I look at the world, I get really upset. But nine times out of 10, anything happens, I don't look at it like a failure. So when I got told about we're doing this and it was like,

you need to think of some failures, I was like, nah. But you know, that's the whole premise of this podcast is that actually failure means you're learning of course so actually it's a way

the tagline is like how to fail actually means learning how to succeed better so we're on the same page I feel like sometimes like I suppress my failures and act like they wasn't ever a failure

I was always meant to be yeah I'm like that too so when I'm like what was a failure i was always meant to be yeah i'm like that too so when i'm like what was a failure it's like well nothing was yeah do you know what i mean but then when i sit down and when you sit down you have to get into it it's kind of it's like a dark space thinking of what your failures are well i'm grateful for my failures because they've got me here yeah so yeah so i got divorced and i'm so i mean thank goodness quite frankly but at the time it did feel like a failure. And also socially,

there's a concept that it was a failure, even though it isn't. So I think it's anyway, I'm excited to hear about yours. Yeah. And I'm excited that you really, it clearly like really thought about it. Oh,

1 million percent. So we're not going to go to a dark space. Don't worry. No, no, no, it's not, it's,

it's, it's not dark. It's just, sometimes it's like you have to put yourself in that mind state of when, when did I fail? When did I feel that failure yeah because sometimes you you bury them in it yeah you bury them with what you for your form of what acceptance is i feel like i accept all my failures i probably don't but i feel like i try to well it's really interesting speaking about your mom i mean she had to accept stuff that was

completely beyond her control she had to leave her home her family her country because of something that was totally that wasn't her fault and she had to survive and get on with it and i'm sure that that mindset has probably informed how you feel about oh for sure because if that never happened i would have never been here yeah and i would have never done what I've done for my family for my people so that would have to happen for her to have a better life

but it's yeah if the war never happened I'd just be some young young Gene Ceylon living my best life so yeah

it's this but yeah like he said yeah but your first failure is about you and the school football team. Yes.

Tell us about this. We love football. We loved it. Like football was everything to us. I've grown up, I grew up playing football every day, every weekend without fail. Yeah.

Very lucky to have a recreational ground in Maida Vale. It was opened by the government and the lottery. And it was, back in the day, you could go to sports centres and you could play for free. Now everything's privatised, it's run by this every day something or this fitness that or da-da-da-da-da, and you have to pay a membership. When I was young, you could be 10 years old, you could go to a football

cage and you could play football and you don't have to pay. That was what we used to do. We loved it. Like we'll play football so much that we'll have to bring change of clothes for when we'll play football at lunchtime when we go into lesson that's how much we loved it but for some reason when we would play other schools it just never clicked never and i was our school goalkeeper so i spent many many hours standing on a random field in Regents Park, freezing, being destroyed every week. Every other week, I would go home. I'd pull my hamstring. I'd pull my quad.

I'd put my life into it, covered in mud. And we just never won. Never. Year seven, what's going on? Year eight, no. Year nine, no. Year 10, it just never happened. What was funny is that other schools,

because we play football in the area, would see them like on normal days when we're out of school and they'll know us. And I know a lot of people from my area that didn't go to my school. We play football with them normally and we'll beat them. But for some reason,

when we came together as a unit, it just never clicked. And I blame Mr. Reid, our coach. He lives in Kenya now and he's a great man. I still stay It just never clicked. And I blame Mr. Reid, our coach. He lives in Kenya now and he's a great man. I still stay in contact with him. But I blame Mr. Reid. And then when we got to year 10, I got a mad injury. I dislocated my hip and cracked my hip bone.

Ow. It wasn't good. It was because of football. Was it on the pitch that it happened? Yeah, but it wasn't in a football game. It was when I was playing like on Saturday with some friends. So I said said I'll become manager my first match we won and I thought yes I'm here to it's a revolutionary year I'm gonna

be the one that does it then our next game we lost like eight nil and all the lads lost faith in me and it was just that was like I was really young I didn't know what I wanted but I just I didn't know what I wanted to do in life but I was really good at I didn't know what I wanted, but I just, I didn't know what I wanted to do in life, but I was really good at getting people together and galvanizing people and kind of like leading people. That's what I do in my life now. Out of all my friends, out of all my people,

they all know when it comes to stuff, I'm the one that says, yo, let's do this. Or we should go here. Or why don't we do, like if we're going to order food, I'll be like, let's order food. We should eat from here.

Should I order it? Oh my gosh, you're my dream. So when I did it, I thought, yeah, this is the moment. But then I failed should I order it oh my gosh you're my dream so when I did it I thought yeah this is the moment but then I failed I lost I mean and I'll never quite understand why but that was my first real understanding of like you can have all the intention you can have everything but sometimes it doesn't work yes and did you apply that to other aspects of your life then when you grew up like for instance could you apply it to relationships like sometimes you can try your hardest and it's just the vibe isn't there one million percent that's what happened with me and my ex I was with my ex for a long time we

were with each other for six years and from when I was like 18 on and off like things happened but when we come towards the end of our relationship she was complaining about me not seeing her enough so I was like cool I'm gonna make an effort to see you all the time and I did it and then it wasn't good enough so I was like to her maybe this isn't working and then when we broke up we was both really happy because we were like yeah it wasn't working so sometimes it's like you have to understand when like when your where your energy is needed and I feel like what what happened when I was we was young is our energy was in the wrong places. We loved football so much. We loved how we played. We loved everything. But we never channeled it into the right things that we needed to work on.

Instead of spending time in our training or spending time, all we wanted to do was play. So all we did was play against each other all day. But how are you going to grow as a team if you don't practice drills or know each other's best foot forward? All you want to do is be competitive and I feel like sometimes that's how

it is with relationships sometimes as men like we get into this state where we're like everything I'm doing is right no everything I'm doing is correct I'm so right

in everything I do but it's like no sometimes if you don't have a conversation and listen to your partner sometimes you might be doing everything you think that is right

but it's all the wrong things and it's not because what you're doing is negative because I feel like sometimes that's what we do we go well if what i was doing was positive but it's not making you happy then i can never make you happy yes that's wrong that's obviously you have to have a conversation and we never had that convo with our school football team okay that's i think that's the best way for me to loop it back. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding.

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And me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise.

Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the W wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts watch new episodes on youtube or listen to let me say this ad free by joining wondery plus in the wondery app or on apple podcasts and then when you left school was that the end of the football team yeah yeah yeah we still played football as lads yeah i still kept it going so out of my friendship group like i said i would plan football every week yo let's go man that me and my friend heidel that does big eats as well yeah he was like my

second coach we me i would be like head and he's like the assistant and we'll rally up the troops and we'll play every first day we used to play we used to play every sunday who's on it and then now i'm a bit older we've kind of slowed down but sunday our first session is back in so i once interviewed malcolm gladwell for this podcast and he talked about his failure at running competitively because he used to be a super gifted runner at school and then at one point he realized he was never going to make it and he just gave up. And then in his middle age, he started jogging again, but he was only ever mediocre.

And he said, but my challenge was to find joy in the mediocrity, to find joy in just doing the thing that you enjoy rather than doing it competitively to a certain level. 100%. And I'm sure you're brilliant at football. But it sounds to me like maybe that's where you found your joy.

Yeah, 100%. Like, one thing about me is I'm not the best baller in the world, but I've got a good left foot and I've always had a good left foot. So, and I've got

a good footballing brain. And where football's taken me is crazy. Like, I've done soccer aid. I got to play in a sold-out Etihad in front of thousands of people. Played with Roberto Carlos, Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney. Like, stuff that I never thought soccer aid i got to play in a sold out etihad in front of thousands of people played with roberto

carlos paul scott with wayne rooney like stuff i never thought i'd ever do i played in old trafford i played at anfield played at wembley there's things that people wish they could have done within football i've been able to do and it's like i feel like we're in a time where your hobbies can really become your work yeah and I've been able to really capitalize off that but like football is always a thing even if I don't get paid a penny like you said it's just what I find fun so Sunday I could go do xyz but I've talked it off and said no two o'clock let's go play some football just because it's coming up because we were talking about relationships and I realized that we've spoken a lot about your mom yeah can I ask you about your dad yeah of course so what's your relationship with your dad like it's a bit weird when I was

younger obviously he wasn't in my life so I didn't really talk to him a lot he would check in once in a while him and my mum are very cordial they would love each other forever so like they will have ups and downs I never really got involved so up until I was about like 18 19 I had no real relationship with my dad I've met him probably like two three times when I've gone back home I've gone went back to Ceylon twice when I was younger so apart from that I had no real connection with him but then by the time I got to like 18, 19 I said you know what let me start reaching out to him I'll speak to him on whatsapp and stuff so by the time I was like mid-20s me and him would talk all the time and now I speak to my dad every day on like. I check in, how's the family, how's things going?

And my dad has other kids. So obviously my brothers and sisters, I got a lot of love for them. And now, because I'm like, I do what I do, he loves it because he's back home. And when it was a Champions League final, I did a video with Peter Crouch about it being in France, eating croissants and stuff.

And my dad was watching the final at home and the VT that me and Peter Crouch did came up. And my dad seen me do a hell of things. He's very proud of me. But I remember him being like, I'm watching African football channel. Yeah. And my son is there.

So the whole of Africa that's watching the Champions League final is seeing my son. That's So the whole of Africa that's watching the Champions League final is seeing my son. That's crazy. Yeah. He never thought that. He never thought that my mom would leave the country and we'll go and do that. So for my dad, it's like, he's very like proud of me.

And he's kind of like, my dad is my connection to where I'm from. Even though my dad's not with me and my dad didn't grow up with me. My dad is me in it. And he's over there and he is a big part of who I am where I'm from so even though he didn't help me a lot growing up wasn't there for me I don't hold it against him do you know what I'm saying because that ain't gonna get me nowhere so don't get me wrong there's definitely times where I'm definitely upset about what's happened and I wish it was different but it made me who I am made my mom who she is and it

gives me and my dad all this scope to like build a different type of relationship and I've spoken to friends before who like cut off family members and I've told them about my relationship with my dad and some of them has inspired them because they're like right he really did your mom dirty like he didn't he effed up like you have all the right to say nah I'm not going to give you anything but what do you gain from that anything happens to my dad I'll be like i missed out on that whole opportunity of being able to develop a relationship with him and yeah i think i think it's really tough because i've got a lot of friends who have related relationships to their dad that are really bad and they've got

siblings and members of family like that they're not close to because of one disconnection people say family is not as important as you make it out to be because at the end of the day sometimes your friends do more for you than your family but i'm a big believer in like like if we if we share blood and like we're from the same place i should have your back in it you know what i'm saying do you prefer lebanese or sierra leone's food okay so sierra leonean so sorry it's fine anyway sierra leone's food okay so sierra leonean so sorry it's fine sierra leonean food is definitely my favorite but lebanese food is more everyday in it i yeah i mean i love a lebanese like an aubergine stew oh yeah yeah lebanese great food okay thank you so much for that. Your second failure is to do with your song, Manual.

Yes, Manual. Yeah. Well, so I wrote this song. It's called Manual. It was on my first EP that I put out electronically. So I had my first EP, which was Big Who, which I put out on SoundCloud and stuff. My first EP up on iTunes was a thing called Big Zoo EP.

So I'm not very creative with the names. I went from Big Who to Big Zoo. Now we just have Big Poo, the next iteration. Big Poo is the final one. Put out Big Zoo. And when I was putting it out, I wrote this song called Manual. And the chorus is very simple. It goes, Manual, control this thing like manual.

I'm in the top gear, that's manual. Then my beginner got a draw for the manual, yeah. So I just said different things of what a manual is literally I thought so lyrical and I never knew what this song was gonna do so when I wrote it I said I need a singer I want someone to sing that I can sing but like the high it's a bit high I would rather have someone who's got a cleaner voice to sing it so I hit up Deneo who's a legend he made a song called Party Hard which is like one of the greatest funk house songs of all time. DeNeo's massive. He's been doing it for years. But me and him was cool. Like I met him a couple of times. He saw what I was doing in music. He showed me love.

So I said, yo DeNeo, what you saying? I got this song called Manual. Can I get a chorus? Showed it to him and he was like, ah, he's like, brother, you're just not there right now. You're not, it was 2017. He's like, it's not big enough right now. I was like, are you sure? Like in my mind, I was like, I've got to be cool because I don't want to seem sour. But like in my mind, I was like, bro, like what me and my friends are doing right now is legendary.

Like we are changing the game. We was new grime MCs. We had a new flavor. We was doing massive shows with people across the UK, across the world. We was the new wave. So I was really surprised when he didn't do it. And then he ended up making a song with an artist that was in a similar kind of place to me. I was kind of like, you know what? You'll make a song with him, you won't make a song with me. In the

future, we'll see where he is and we'll see where I am. And I'm never a sour person, but that moment there, I was like, I just felt in music, it's always, it's very important for the older artists to support the younger generation. Because when the older artists don't have their time anymore, they can rely on the younger generation

to give them that. But then what they give the younger generation is kind of like a stamp. It's like a cosign. You always see it in music. Every form of music, whatever genre it is,

older artists always put on for the younger artists. And I felt like growing up in my scene, I never really got that a lot. When I got older, yeah, people like JME, they tapped in, P Money, XYZ, a lot of artists that have been doing grind for a lot of years. But when I was on the come up, I never ever had that like, you know what, you're sick, come, let me help you. I never had that that but then what happened with manual was so beautiful i performed it at my first headline show and i was like wow it wasn't a single it was just a song on the ep it's like yo this is they like it like it has an energy it's like a mosh pit song it

starts has a mad intro it builds up and then the drop comes in boom and i start going crazy and then it comes down the chorus is a sing-along. All they have to say is manual. So it had all the keys to be like a very successful song for live performance. 2022 now, I perform manual across the world. America, Africa, Australia, like 90% of Europe. Like I've performed it across the world.

And every time I perform it it's so mad mad mosh pit people going crazy people that don't want a mosh pit will mosh pit to manual because I've done it so many times that I know

when I press play I go yo can I get a big fucking mosh pit in the middle of the room please no no no we can't start the song until the mosh pit start so once the mosh pit goes

then the song starts people have never heard this song before and they'll musk it to it and it's beautiful because i'm like i own all the credit no dineo have you spoken to him since no okay i ain't spoken to him i ain't seen him in a long time i wish him the best yeah but i'm so happy he hasn't got that song because then he would have got all the clout and when the chorus came in I would have to say big up Daneo instead big up me

what did that teach you about rejection? first it was like you won't make a song with me but you make a song with them I was like it made me go on my own more yeah

it made me focus on my choruses more as well more because I said you know what he's not going to sing it how am I going to sing manual so I'm really proud of how manual sounds if I play it for you now the chorus is so it's mixed so well it sounds so clean it sounds beautiful but i'm a rapper like i'm not supposed to be able

to sing like that so i mean yeah so some people are flattened by rejection and some people are flattened by criticism and they take it really personally and they think oh well i must be rubbish so i'm not going to do that anymore it sounds like you're the opposite that you use it as fuel yeah yeah that's i've got a lyric that says your bad vibes fuel the fire make it burn like love it it's just it's that's what it is that's what if i let me not get in the future from him, I really, don't get me wrong. At first I was like,

bro, is the song not good enough? Yeah. Then I said, nah, let me go to the studio. Did it? And it's one of the best things I've ever done in my life was,

do you mind you on my own? Get rejected by Dineo and be told, no, I'm not going to give you that chorus. And then go on to performing it across the world. It's one of the best feelings ever because for me, it was like, I could have really been like, no, the song's shit. I shouldn't have put it out.

And imagine what that would have done because that song is from 2017 and I'm still able to perform it now and it sounds fresh. Do you get abuse and or criticism online for being on TV? Not really, no. I mean, obviously people have,

there's underlying tones in how people speak to me. There's definitely, it definitely is more from the creative side rather than fans. Rather than fans saying, why does you not make music anymore? My fans are very proud of what I've done. I've got fans that have been listening to my music

since 2015 who were like, can't believe you're on telly. Then I've got people who are like, oh, we wish you would do more music. But the conversation's never, why are you on telly? Why are you not making music? I think that's just a weird thing to say, but creatively, that's the conversation I get all the time.

I'll meet like creative people and they're like to me, like friends or not friends, but people that I have and I know through the industry who have seen me do music for years. They're like, yo yo when are you gonna make music again well i can use whenever i want do you know i mean like if i've gone and made a tv show that's free series and gone and done xyz1 all these accolades boom boom boom surely you should know that right now what i'm doing is all right so you telling me why you're not doing music

it's a very loaded like comment it comes from like before that there is a underlying tone that if you are such this creative musician and I stand for a lot as well I stand for like social change I stand for young people to like transition into the very like mainstream television media you kind of lose your essence and that doesn't come from the fans because the fans are not that deep they don't really care don't get me wrong there might be someone in their house who's like no you should rap more but it's more the creative people who always say to me it's all about music what are you going to do with your music oh so what is it hard for you to make music is it hard for you to transition boom boom boom and i'm always out to them you should know if you look at america most musicians transition into doing other forms

of entertainment whether it's elvis presley or if it's justin timberlake it doesn't matter who it is like beyonce at the height of her career was acting. She's not the greatest actor in the world as well. She's kind of dead as an actor. Sorry, Beyonce. Love you. I can't believe you just criticized Beyonce. Beyonce's a dead actor. She is not a good actor.

Don't say it. I'm sorry. She's a great, great singer. But that's what I'm saying. It comes from, I will always respect what she did. Like Dreamgirls is a sick film. All that kind of things. But like, even like, that's why I love Jamie Foxx so much.

Because people always told me he's one of your biggest role models i always say jamie foxx because he's not the biggest actor in the world he's not the biggest musician in the world but he has great things that he's done he's killed it now when you say he's your favorite artist of all time you might not say jamie foxx when you say he's your favorite actor of all time you probably won't say jamie foxx but i love ray oh Oh, it's such a good movie. I love Overnight Celebrity. Great song. I think that's so interesting. And not that I want to relate everything back to myself.

Of course. That's how you internalize things. Yeah. I really relate in the sense that I am an author and I write books. And I did that before the podcast. And then I started the podcast as like a passion project. And it's become, ironically, the most successful thing I've ever done. And it's brought me to this whole new realm of audience and listenership

and I'm so grateful for it. And there are people in the books world who are quite dismissive of it or who feel that it takes away from my craft as a writer. And it's so irritating. And I think it's because in this country, we want to categorize people. One million percent. We are terrible,

particularly if you're not a white man, that you're not allowed to do multiple things. Yeah. You have to sit in one box. Yeah, one million percent. It's, as I've been many, many years. America, they're used to it lady gaga could go make a massive film and get nominated for an oscar it's completely fine like

over here we don't have that transition i feel like entertainment is slowly getting there but in america it is paramount how much musicians like drake was a was an actor before he made music in a little show called degrassi which is like super random but it's amazing to see like people do different things like and have different passion projects as well like there's so many artists in the uk now who express what they love through different things you know i mean yeah but why do you think we're worse in this country at embracing that? Because we're very like, I'll use football pundits as an example.

Most pundits, ex-players. Are ex-players the best journalists, presenters? No, because it's not their job. But the reason why they're on telly is because I listen to him. He played football for 20 years. He might not be able to articulate himself, say the point properly. He might not be good on camera. He might not actually be good at his job,

but because he's great at football, I'll listen to his opinion. And I know him. I know the look of him. He looks familiar. Compared to someone who might be incredible at presenting, have the most knowledge of football in the universe, just never played football.

You wouldn't listen to them because he didn't play football. And that's how I see it it's really it's like what I love now is you've got pundits coming through that are different that are not the best footballers

of all time we've got Micah Richards you're my brother I love you yeah but he's not a football legend not in terms of like scope

in terms of in football don't get me wrong he's done incredible things like I'm not discrediting Micah Richards at all but Micah is not Roy roy keen but the reason why him and roy keen are so

well on camera is because michael's a bit more personally a bit more he's a bit more like vibrant so now we're a bit more accepting of people that are like you know what michael you're good at your job you could be a pundit you might not have won 15 champions leagues and won every single trophy like Roy Keane, but we love to see you on telly and you're different. Yeah. And that's what I feel like

England is slowly transitioning now. We've always been very used to like, if you're good at that, that's what you do. But now it's like, you see, look at like... Or if you look like that, that's what you do.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, obviously, yeah. Representation in terms of aesthetic is very important in terms of us. That's what we're're changing we've seen it happen in telly the point i was gonna give is that you see like flint off mr freddie flint off yeah going and doing things like top gear and that like that back in the day that was a bit random now it's like that's normal now like you see like jamie redlock doing your league of their own and he's hilarious jamie's

so funny him and harry have their own little spin-off show where it's about a father and dad relationship so I love to see people get into different things and have different fun because it works both ways because people want to enjoy different parts of their life but because we're so used to putting them in a box they don't get to like if a footballer does some other stuff we'll be like no no you should focus on football but then it's like you're a human being so you're talking about your your world it's like i feel like with art it's a bit more critical because people will be like you what you produce is not good anymore because you do xyz yeah it's a bit more pretentious yeah yeah i'm also a pro footballer though i haven't told you that deep down deep down but now i feel like we're getting more like now people like used to it i get on

telly and it's like I'm a chef but I might make some music or I might go present some shit well talking of football that brings us on to your third and final failure

oh yeah this is a deeper one okay yeah explain it to me it's to do with a video at the end of a Liverpool match so Liverpool played Man City last year

very important game the away ending Man City is very small for the Liverpool fans. So not a lot of Liverpool fans get the pleasure of

watching them play in the stadium. I got a ticket from Nike because one of my friends works at Nike. Got my ticket, went to the game.

I put up a video. It was 2-2. At the end of the game, we was huddled into our away end. We couldn't leave because they had to wait for the home

end to leave. I did a video. I said, yo, man's here, Liverpool. Man with a liverpool man then real liverpool gang shit i said gang shit because that slang means like my people our gang but they thought people thought i meant gang shit as in shoot you with a gun and sell you some narcotics gang shit so when i put the video do you mean you put it out on Instagram? I put it on Twitter. And what happened was, is that a couple of narrators were created.

The first one was, how come I get a ticket when diehard Liverpool fans who've been going all season can't get a ticket? Why am I saying gang shit? Because we're not a gang. Please leave your little black people gang stuff in London.

We're from Liverpool. We don't represent that, which is what I was being told. And the other thing was, a lot of people can't get tickets. We're from Liverpool. We don't represent that, which is what I was being told. And the other thing was, a lot of people can't get tickets. As I said, there's a thing called touts. They'll get a ticket

that's worth 70 quid and say, well, if you want to go to that Liverpool-Mind City game, you've got to pay a grand. So people are saying these celebrities get money

and then they raise the ticket price. So I'm getting all these things online. I'm like, I was like, what the, bro bro i just went to a liverpool game like why are you not going crazy started going farser retweets people saying

disgusting things about me saying just a lot of people attacking my character because they're upset at these three things that i've explained how did i combat it i've come out and said listen you don't need to cuss my character but if you're going to talk about me because of my race and give me these racial connotations like saying gang shit needs to stay in London these southerners

with their little with their little all this stupid north-south bullshit which made no sense to me I basically said if you're upset that I'm in watching a Liverpool game

because I'm a young black man from South London you're a fool I basically just called them all out. Your players are from Africa. Your board is from America. The club is not Liverpool. Liverpool is international. If Liverpool was only to be represented by Liverpool, then all the players should be from Liverpool. Salah shouldn't play there because he's from Egypt. Mane shouldn't play there because he's from Senegal. Firmino shouldn't be there because

he's from Brazil. And that was what my main anger was. It got a bit worse now. I've gone to another game. People were complaining, why did I get tickets? I thought, you know what? I'm going to give away some tickets for free.

So FA Cup semi-final, I've done a tweet. I said, I'm giving away two tickets for the Liverpool game for the FA Cup semi-final. The only condition is you can't be from Liverpool and you can't have gone

to a game before. They went absolutely crazy. Oh, because you said you can't be from Liverpool. I said you can't be from Liverpool and you can't go to a game. So you've met, it has to be the first game.

Yeah. And it destroyed them. They went absolutely mental. They're like, look what you're doing. You're ruining it more. Because it kind of already started. So I was like,

you know what, let me double down on this, which people weren't happy that i did but i did it on purpose because my thing is football is not supposed to be a thing where a lot i was getting a lot of tweets these are the main tweets that i was getting i've been going to liverpool games since i was xyz it's not fair that you get to go to this game it's not fair that you get to go to liverpool city it's not fair that you go to get to go to the fa cup final i said. It's not fair that you get to go to Liverpool City. It's not fair that you get to go to the FA Cup final. I said, well, it's not fair that people

never get to experience that because you lot buy all the tickets and you don't want to welcome anyone new into our atmosphere. So what I'm going to do is counteract it and give away my two tickets to someone that's never

been to a game before. When I did it, sent him into meltdown, disarray. I said, you know what? I'm going to do it again. FA Cup final comes around I tweet

I said retweet this tweet if you want to win a ticket to the Liverpool final don't get me wrong I'm definitely getting PR from it it's boosting my name it's da da da da but I'm not doing it

because of that I'm doing it because I'm pissed off at people being racist to me online yes and I want to counteract them by pissing them off a bit more it's not the best way

to react to things but sometimes you have no way to react getting a ticket to a kid that was disabled you've got a lot of retweets a lot of people said by pissing them off a bit more. It's not the best way to react to things, but sometimes you have no way to react. Gave the ticket to a kid that was disabled. We've got a lot of retweets. A lot of people said, you should give it to him. You're going to do all this shit.

Even fans that were against me were like, might as well give it to him. Gave him the ticket. And someone tweeted saying, isn't it funny that the person that wins the ticket is brown and Muslim? The kid was disabled and that's what you're going to tweet. And it just,

it summed up the overall energy around the whole situation. It was, it was very sour. It was one of the worst experiences I had. It made me fall in love with football a lot. But what basically the overall conversation was, is that I come from a single parent background.

The first time I ever went to a Liverpool game was, I was 22. It's because I could afford it. So fortunately, not all of us have a dad that are gonna pay for us to go to a Liverpool game when we're young and a lot of people are like why do you support Liverpool unfortunately I didn't choose the team I support when I was young my dad supported Liverpool because when he was in Africa they were the first colored team with a red they were red and they liked red and they won a lot so I was breaking down a lot of conversation

and it basically led to the inclusion and diversity head of Liverpool reaching out to me

saying we've seen your tweets we've seen what's going on how do we counteract this I told him what was going on I told him what I was receiving he said can we please get tweets

of people being racist to you? I said, no. I'm not going to screen munch them and send them to you. Use your brain. Go look at what's going on. Develop a conversation. Now,

I'm working with the club on getting more tickets for people from normal backgrounds that have no access to football clubs. And whether it's getting them to matches

or just getting them to do stadium tours's getting them to matches or just getting them to do stadium tours or getting them to come to away days or doing more like inclusivity with the club that's what I'm working on now

so from all of the backlash yes it's led to something good amazing yeah it's a lot it's a long story no thank you

I also didn't know that it was going to go there and it's actually a really profound failure. And it's not yours. It's a failure of football fans and a failure of society, really. And football has a racism problem. Of course.

But do you think now we're in an age where it's fan generated? Like it's not necessarily within the game itself. It's about the atmosphere around it. No atmosphere there's two sides to it so there is definitely football there's institutional racism with football 100 because you have 20 managers in the prem one is black so that's instantly from the top down most of the directors most ceos of football clubs are not diverse in any way in terms of gender in terms of race it's in terms of thought pattern. But the main thing that was, what pissed off a lot of Liverpool fans

is I did a tweet calling them racist. When I said the people that are treating me badly are racist, they said, that's not racism. How dare you call us racist? I can get up on my phone, thousands of tweets, because it was a bad time for me.

I read most of the shit. People talking, all the debates, all the back and forths. My manager was begging me to I read most of the shit. People talking, all the debates, all the back and forths. My manager was begging me to get off my phone, but I couldn't because I was so invested.

I was like, why are you guys attacking me? I love you lot. Like, to give you more backstory, a couple of years ago, I went viral over a Liverpool rap. I did a rap about

how our season was going. Then I got to meet Jurgen Klopp, meet Henderson, interviewed the team. After that, I'm like, one of my freestyles played on Match of the Day. I became like a massive Liverpool fan. So a lot of people resonated with me in the club.

So when this negative stuff started happening, when I called it racism, they were like, how dare you? We love you. We, we, da, da, da, da. But you getting tickets is not fair. Then you have obviously all the people that are still being racist, X, Y, Z. And it became such a thing where it was like, it was people telling me what racism is. you getting tickets is not fair. Then you have obviously all the people that are still being racist, X, Y, Z. And it became such a thing where it was like,

it was people telling me what racism is. And it's old white men telling me what racism is. And the amount of people, what was hilarious is that it started debates. So you have people replying to them, telling them why they are racist and why they're da-da-da-da-da. And it just became, I started getting threats.

Don't come to Liverpool games, blah, blah, blah. And I swear to you, towards the end of the season, I went to every match. And every time in real life, all I would get was groups of men staring at me. Oh my God. But it wasn't intimidating. Because while that would happen,

little kids, people come up to me, take a picture, love. So real life, there was love. Online, there was hate. And I really learned that you have to block it out. It's not real. I stood for something, got a lot of abuse. It's ended up to turn out to a beautiful relationship

with me in the club. Oh, I'm so proud of you. Thank you. And do you have systems in place now for dealing with Twitter so that you protect yourself and your own mental health? I've been asked to not do anything

like I did with... So the one thing, one thing I have traded now to work with the club and to do stuff to go forward is I've said, I won't do what I did again.

Okay. Because I was riling them up. I knew what I was doing. I was riling them up, saying I'm giving away tickets but you can't be from Liverpool. As a Liverpool fan who's having to spend

a grand to go to the final in the cost of living crisis it is upsetting but sorry that I'm making a chance for someone who's never gone to a football match to go to a game I don't see the harm in that I don't see the harm in me giving it to someone who's never been to a game compared to me giving it to someone who went to 50 games a season you went to 50 games congrats yes you didn't go to the final game of the season that's sad but people are telling me how much they spend on travel how much they spend to go to games so that gives you the right that no one else should be able to go to that match apart from you then football should only be watched by a couple people it feels like the thread throughout this interview is

diversity of opportunity and equality of access like everything you do feels as though it's guided by that yes are you still on twitter you know twitter's basically on the way out anyway that's what they're saying yeah i mean i love twitter but you're an incredible person what you just said there is the root of me i'm battling that and i never thought i'll battle it in football because i'm not a footballer i'm just a fan but my presence wasn't liked what's the undertone if i was daniel craig it wouldn't have been an issue but because i'm big zoo who said gang shit it was a massive issue and they no one wanted to accept that was the truth no one not the people that work around me not liverpool no one wanted to say you're right this is wrong they're racist no one wanted to say it you're right. This is wrong. They're racist. No one wanted to say it.

As soon as someone said that, I would have stopped all my shit. But because no one was trying to agree with me, I kept going. I kept going. I kept going. Liverpool asked me to send them receipts of the racism. Said, I'm not doing that. Use your brain. Think about it.

Young black man doing a video, get abuse. Where do you think the abuse comes from? It does not come from all this other stuff it comes from what we think it comes from but like I said it's my battle it's my battle

with the BAFTAs it's my battle with music it's my battle with football it's the battle that I will always have and I used to think

my battle was just for black people my battle was not for black people my battle was for working class people and my battle is I'm not against people

from the middle class I'm not against people who are born rich because we need diversity of thinking so i'll never create a space where we exclude people like that but i feel like the focus needs to be more on giving work-class people opportunities within the world and that's what i want to be the beacon of whether it's through music entertainment sports or just life gang we've got there in the end. I mean, that is the perfect place to end. But before we end, I want to say that your presence is so vital

and your presence is so welcome. And I'm so grateful to your presence and your passion today because your story is big and successful, but your story, Big Zoo, is bigger than Big Zoo. And I appreciate you for taking that on because I know it's a responsibility. But thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on How to Fail. Thank you for having me. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.