Mad, Sad and Bad with Paloma Faith - AJ Tracey: How The Government Is Failing Our Young People

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

AJ Tracey is rapper and producer notably from Ladbroke Grove; he's also an incredible voice for younger generations and social justice so obviously, I couldn't wait to have him over to chat... AJ and I discuss being cheeky kids, how having ADHD would get us into trouble and how our mums have supported our careers - from giving us an example what it is to work hard, to buying our music and tickets at full price quite late into our careers. We also talk about how the rising price of a pint is killing our British culture and we're joined by a *very* special guest, who has some important questions to ask AJ... This conversation was everything I hoped it would be, deep, authentic, and great fun!#AJTRACEY #PALOMAFAITH #MADSADBAD—Find us on: Instagram / TikTok / YouTube—Credits:Producer: Jemima RathboneAssistant Producer: Magda CassidyEdit Producer: Pippa BrownEditor: Shane O'ByrneVideo: Jake Ji & Grisha NikolskyVideo Editor: Josh BennettOriginal music: BUTCH PIXYSocial Media: Laura CoughlanMarketing: Eleanore BamberExec Producer: Jemima RathboneExec Producers for Idle Industries: Dave Granger & Will MacdonaldSenior Exec Producer: Holly Newson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Paloma Faith and this is my show. Each week I welcome someone fantastic into my home to talk about what makes them mad, sad and bad. Roll recording. Hello, hello, hello. Hello, welcome to East London. Sorry I had to bring you to them. Shoes off, shoes off.

How you doing? You're all right? Yeah, welcome to East. I know it's hard for you. My favourite. To you, he's a much-love rapper and producer, So famously from London's Labbrook Grove, he's an advocate for young people

and speaks out against injustices here in Britain. He's made music with the likes of Skepta, Dave, and more recently, Nelly Furtado. 2025 will see the release of a new album, his first in four years, which is very exciting. I'm looking forward to finding more about. But to me, he's a voice for change, for influence and for good,

lifting the lid on the white-wash media portrayal of issues faced by a dated and dysfunctional system and in many ways I hope for a better future for generations to come. I'm so pleased that I get to talk to you today. It's AJ Tracy. How are you doing? You good? Yeah, I'm so happy to see you.

I've like been reading up a lot about you to do this and I saw that and that I was quite astonished by the fact that you made like a Forbes under 30s rich list and I was like he's not making that money in music. How did he done that? Oh, that's funny. I remember, like, visiting people's houses when I first, like, I was a decade into my career and being like, obviously my house now's really nice because I was like,

what the hell? I haven't made enough money for a house like this. How have you got a house like this? And so I was just wondering, are you like a good, are you good at investments or something? I'm decent. I'm decent at investments. I'll be honest.

So, you know what it is? I think it's where, For me, the way I see music is like when I started making music, when I first started making music before, like I got much attention or anything, there wasn't much money in it. There wasn't too much money. People who had come before me, like rap-wise, they hadn't made that much money,

even the ones who have performed at such a high level. You know what I'm saying? There just wasn't the money in it. And then when I eventually broke through, it was like at the perfect time. There was a whole load of like a new wave of music, like funding coming in. So, like, obviously Spotify became a thing.

Apple music became a thing, blah, blah, blah. So there's more money in music now. Like, for me, I'm 30 years old. but people who are like 19, 20, who are doing their thing in music now, there's even more money in it now for them. Is that if you're independent? I think so, if you're independent.

I think that's the key to it. I think that's the key to it. Obviously, big up everyone who has a record, it's like different courses for different horses. Yeah, well, I came from that generation. Yeah, whatever works for whoever. I think some people have more success, you know, having a big team around them

and helping them for a little bit of guidance. And some people have more success when they have to, like, try and, you know, carve out a way through trial and error. And I feel like in the label system is harder to make an error. because there's people kind of like on you like, yo, we can't afford to make these mistakes.

We're scared. Yeah, scared as well. You take that risk. You know, we're all scared. Even as an independent artist, I don't want to make a mistake. But if I do, then I'm okay with it. I'll just drop another song next week or something.

Do I'm saying? Or maybe not, but who you know. That sounds liberating. It is, no, it is, honestly. It actually is. Also, you chose to study criminology. Where did that come from? Have you always been really clever?

Or too clever? You know what? I think it just came from my love of, I love literature and all the, like, for me, during education, because I have ADHD, um, education was just like, I enjoyed being at school, but I didn't enjoy being in class, if that made sense. So I liked what the teacher was saying. I liked learning, but I just, after about 15, 20 minutes, I just turn off.

And it's not like, I don't want to turn off. I want to listen. I just didn't have the ability to lock in for more than like 20 minutes. So for me, school was a little bit difficult, but I managed to get some decent grades. I was always clever. I always listened, despite people thinking that I'm not listening. I am always listening. Yeah.

And I'm insane because I've got ADHD. Yeah, so. Yeah, we fidget it. You're not present. You're not present. I'm like, yes, I'm listening to this. And 20 other things at the same time. I'm thinking about what I'm doing tonight and tomorrow.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But I just always love literature and I think like history. It was one of my favorite subjects. And so was English language, English lit. So I just thought, what can I do? I originally wanted to stay in the sixth form in my secondary school, but they didn't let me.

So cook says, I don't know. They just didn't like me as a student. I don't know. They just didn't really rock with me. I'll be honest. They just thought I was a nuisance. My grades were okay, but they just didn't allow my behaviour. Because you were probably, I mean, if you're anything like me,

I think ADHD people generally dance to their own rhythms. So it's like you find it difficult to conform and then you appear like you're not behaving, but you are. You're just a bit like, how can you justify this rule to me if it's not affecting anyone's health or anyone's life? So I don't understand why I'm doing it. very hard to like stay in line and do what everyone. Exactly.

Yeah. Confirming is not really my thing. I'll be honest. Not our thing, is it? That's why you are who you are and the way you are. So yeah, yeah. But I just loved, I just loved English and I just loved history and learning. So I thought criminology would be a good route for me to go down. Because I wanted to be a lawyer initially.

And I'm like, forget being a lawyer. Let me just study with like the history of law and like criminology. And I enjoyed it, to be honest. What do you think led you to wanting to, I think people who are neurodivergent anyway have a strong sense of justice? I think so. In my core, that's how. how I, all the people I know have. I believe that.

So it must be that what do you think it was that made you think criminology or being a lawyer initially? Obviously, you change your mind. I just thought that two things. I thought, one, I love arguing. I just love arguing. And my mom and my missus always told me how much they hate that. I love arguing.

But I love it. And not in a negative way. I just like arguing a point. But it's stimulating. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I love the mental stimulation of it. So I love arguing, but then on the other side also,

I love just that. the correct outcome being, you know, like going forward. Like, so for example, I love when, if someone does something wrong, I hate it when someone gets away of doing something of it, like, underhand, you know what I'm saying? And then someone who was like being nice, like gets off with a short straw. I hate that. I really dislike that, you know what I'm saying? So I just thought if I was a lawyer, I could just go in and use my arguing skills to kind of just be a superhero.

Would you say you're quite political? Do you go on, like, do you have your own ways to be an activist? Or do you go on marches or do you, what kind of thing? I go on the Grenfell March when I'm here. If I'm here, I go there. Obviously, I'm from Lab of Growth, so that's just something I have to be. My mum goes every time. Even if I'm not there, my mum will be there.

It's a duty. Yeah, it's a duty, definitely. But in terms of being political, I think everyone's political. I think people try to distance themselves from politics, but politics is in everything. Well, even apathies a choice. Yeah, exactly. And for me, it's like, I love football, so I'm heavily into, like, you know, I'm a match-stay-go-a-away-go-a with Tottenham.

I love Tottenham. So I'm always over there. But I see a lot of people saying, leave politics. out of football, you can't. How can you leave politics at a football? That politics is entwined in everything, in my opinion. So when people try to say like, oh, I don't want to talk about that,

I don't want to talk about this, you know, it's like, well, you might not want to yourself, but someone might need you to speak about that. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, so how do you think that politics and football are, like, connected? First of all, I'm going to start by saying, yeah, that there's a problem in the UK right now, which is that some people think that it's like different races against each other,

but that's not actually what it is. It's a class war. It is actually a class war. I know. I'm there. I'm there. With you, Danny. And it's also a thing where, like, I can see that, you know, racism exists.

It's a thing that exists. It's not always at the forefront. Sometimes there's other issues. The problem is, as well, as a black person, I do say to people that, like, if you make things a race issue that, that aren't a race issue, then when things are actually a race issue, which I really hate, because it takes away from that. It takes away from how serious it is when it is a race issue. So that's important. So then I'll just quickly go back and say, so with football, the most blatant one is, you know, like, if people say,

if people say things like, oh, you know, they don't deserve to earn a certain amount of money, yeah? And I can understand that point of view. My mum always used to say to me growing up, I don't understand why football I would get, you know, a couple of hundredk a week and a nurse gets barely anything.

Yeah. I completely agree with that. But also, it comes down to a thing where footballers get paid based on, you know, how popular their entertainment is. You know, if people are going to the stadiums and investing and spending all their money, there's money for the players to have those wages.

And I'm not saying it's correct or wrong, but that's just what it is. And I think people need to, like, divert their focus and be looking at like, okay, so why isn't the government paying nurses more? Enough for nurses. Because that's their job to pay the nurses more. You can't like take it out on a football and say, oh, because you get so much money. You know, it's about taking a step back and being like, instead of me blaming the face

of something, let's look at what the root causes behind it and try and tackle that. Do you know what I'm saying? 100%. So I think it's about what you're saying is what I 100% believe about systemic problems, which is what I was saying in the intro, is like, they're so ingrained. and also used by media, by politicians and people with power to deflect from their actual causes, like the stuff they're doing so that we have like intercultural fighting.

It's easier if we fight down here. Yeah, let's just watch us. Exactly. Exactly. Talk to me about something mad. And do you think that's angry or do you think it's crazy? Do I think mad is angry or crazy? I think sometimes they cross over and they blend, they mix and blend, I think.

But I was going to say something that made me, that makes me mad is, uh, I believe once you have a platform, I think that it's not, I don't think it like, it's a, try and follow me here, yeah, I always say this to people. So if someone says to me, oh, AJ, I like the way you spoke up about, um, Palestine, for example, I'll say like, yeah, I appreciate that. Whatever. And when they, and then if someone says, yeah, I feel like people like you, like you, like if you, like you, like, if you have a platform, you should be using it to speak out, yeah. Now, the thing is, I agree that, you know, we should be forwarding, you know, you know, agendas that matter to us, yeah. I do think that's important, but also I don't think that the role models of society should be like the rappers, the sports players, etc., etc. I just think that they have that platform

because they're good at music. It's a choice. It's a choice. It's a choice. And the choice that I hope majority of people choose to make. You know, that's a choice I hope they make. But also, I don't feel like it's right

to be annoyed at someone for not making that choice. That's also an opinion I have. And I think that at the end of the day, if someone's made their platform, they've carved it out. You don't know how many years of work went into them,

getting to the point that they're at. If they don't want to use it for that reason, I might not agree with it, but also it's not up to me because it's not my platform. Do you ever get annoyed when people or journalists or people like me come and ask you

to be the spokesperson for a certain set of people or whatever? Do you get like, oh, why is it always me? And it's because you've chosen at times to show willing to do that, but some days you might not want to talk about that. I'm never annoyed at someone asking me to do that.

I might not want to do it, but I'm never annoyed at someone asking me that because it's for good reason, you know? And we need spokespeople and we need allies and we need people who are going to fight for us. So if there's far and few between and someone's standing out saying, I will speak for people,

then it only makes sense that they're going to go and ask that person, would you also be a spokesperson? I get that. That makes sense. That makes sense. But sometimes, you know, I'm a human and sometimes I'm having a rough day,

rough week. There's other things on my plate and I just might not have the mental capacity to speak about every topic, you know? Yeah. So I kind of pick and choose just things that are close to me and things that I feel like I can have an impact on. So, for example,

Like, I just believe that as someone who, you know, some, some, not everyone, but I'm sure some young people think I'm cool. So if you think I'm cool, I'm going to try and make issues that seem uncool, you know, a bit cooler, do I'm saying? Yeah. So when I say on my story, like, okay, you know, cool, there's been a ceasefire. I'm happy for the ceasefire. Or like, you know, free Palestine, whatever. But when I put these things in my story, I'm not doing it for like some PR reason. In fact, it's probably negative PR in terms of branding.

I'm sure a lot of brands don't want to touch me of a barge pole. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. So it's not for any of those reasons. I just do it because I feel like I should speak about it, but I just don't like it when people tell me that I have to. Do you know what I'm saying?

It should just be a choice of someone's like, okay, cool, they want to speak about that? Then they do. Because I can't touch on every topic. But I just think that there aren't enough people or as many people doing it today as there was, maybe if you look at music in the 60s and you think about people back then

were basically the spokespeople for politics. Definitely. And we're kind of just coming out of a phase where all it's, been his political apathy and music and art. And now people are starting to say, oh, actually, I want to say some stuff about this, this and this. And actually, that's quite a positive thing, I think.

No, it is. It definitely is. But I agree with you. It's not anyone's responsibility. How's that maddening, though? I think that's maddening because for me, like, I don't like the interactions of people saying, oh, AJ, you should speak about this.

You know what I'm saying? That does actually matter me. The pressure. The pressure, because it's like, it's also like, you know, you don't know what else I have. If you've not taken the time to do your research and go and see, obviously not you, I'm saying people in general,

but if you've not taken the time to go and see the good that I do actually do and the things that I do speak about, if you're not privy to that, for you to come and say to me that I should be speaking about this thing over here. You don't know what, I could already be speaking about that. I might already have something in motion to be trying to tackle that and aid that cause.

So that is maddening for me. I just feel like sometimes I'm only human just like everyone else. Like I'm not any better than it. You've only got a certain capacity. Yeah, literally. And especially with ADHD, your ability to process things and make decisions, like decision making, it runs out.

Like you have a tank. Eventually, at the end of the day, I get to a point where it's like, someone will say, what do you want for dinner? And I'll, whatever, I don't know at this point. I can't be able to make a decision.

Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, you get burned down. Exactly, yeah, exactly. What about how do you deal with anger, like, as a thing? Like, forget this, because this is like a sort of speculative thing. But like, if you ever feel anger, do you think you're good at it?

Are you, how do you channel it? I think when I was younger, I wasn't as good at controlling my anger. I've never been like a violent person, but I just do get upset though. I'll just get upset, you know, and I just need my space when I get upset. What do you do, sulk? Yeah, I used to sulk. I used to, honestly, no, I did. I definitely used to soak.

But it would be a sulk of, like, feeling sorry for myself and I'll just go and, like, try harder. It was a good kind of sulk. It's like, I'll sulk and I'm upset about this stuff. So let me work harder in the gym or let me go to the studio. You know, it's productive soaking, if that makes sense. Yeah, it turns into something. Exactly. But now, I'll be honest with, like, having a public profile, I have, like, a duty to set an example. So I don't, in public, you rarely see me get mad. It's going to take something, like, really crazy to get me angry in public.

Because I just would rather not get angry in public and go home and be angry or be angry in private, you know, because I just don't want to, like, let anyone down. Have a headline. Yeah, have a headline as well. It's like, you know, if someone comes... Do you feel a responsibility to set a certain example because you're in the public? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Of course. And who, what group do you feel you feel? you're representing and trying to steer away from... Honestly, three groups.

The three groups are like black or people of colour. And then rappers also, actually, because not all rappers are like... Agree. What people think rappers are, yeah. What people think rappers are, we're not all like that, you know what I'm saying? So I'm trying to like represent for the chill rappers,

rappers that are like normal people, do you know what I'm saying? That's not everyone, but that's definitely a few people. Peaceful. Peaceful rappers, exactly. And then males as well, actually, males, honestly. I don't want, like, I see a lot of toxic masculinity being promoted online and I don't want to be part of that group, do I'm saying?

I don't want to ever be looked at as like, oh, he's one of these guys that just, you say the smallest thing to him, he's going to lose his head. I'm not like that at all, do I'm saying? So, yeah, if someone annoys me in public, usually it's a deep sigh and I walk away, usually. Not you're quite a personable person, like quite chill, but then you get more angry about things that are more distant from you.

Yeah, to be honest, yeah. That's what's coming across. Yeah, do you know, like if someone wants to call me a rude name or something, I really care about that. I get that regularly in my DMs or under pictures or whatever. I get that all the time. But if someone says something about my missis, my mom or like, I don't like it when people hurt animals,

I know that's random, but I don't like that kind of stuff. It's not random. But that stuff, you see all of that stuff. I don't like any of that. But when it's me, I can, like, I'm six foot free. I'll fight for myself. I'm all right, you know what I'm saying? Just leave them alone.

Like, me, it's all right, but just leave my people alone. That's funny. It's like, I remember, so when I was younger, I became my sister's legal guardian when I was. 26 and she was 16 and it was because we've got we've got different mums but like so our dad was kind of out of order to me most of my life and then until he did something to her did I step up to him so it's the same thing it's like if it was to me it was fine and then as soon as it reflected badly on her I was like right I'm taking her in and that's it I'm exactly like that yeah we can do all

for ourselves. Yeah. But when it's someone that we care about, it's not, yeah, it's too far, exactly. It's interesting. Okay, so tell me about sadness. What's something that's made you feel sad? Something that made me feel sad.

I'll tell you the most recent one. I could list, unfortunately, this topic, I could list a million things, but I'll tell you the most recent one. The most recent one was, for Christmas, I had my mum, my younger brother at my house, and then my Mrs. had her family at the house as well, and it's the first time that my mum's met her parents. But boxing day, like 7 a.m. I had to leave to go on tour in Australia. And the thing is, again, obviously, I'm very privileged to be able to go on tour. Like, I love it. I'm grateful. But also, it's just something about I was leaving my whole family. I was just looking at them in the doorway. And I was like, yeah, I got to go. Like, I didn't even get to spend, like, the next day with them, you know what I'm saying? And I don't get to spend much time with, like, family in terms of downtime.

Do you feel like you're naturally inclined to take work when it comes irrespective? of the sacrifice, like, because of your background or whatever, do you think, oh, I can't say it? Because I always have this overriding feeling, like, I'm privileged to be able to do this, so I could never say no, or I could never say, you know, like diminish the privilege of being able to have that opportunity. Exactly. I think you know that that's nailed on the head pretty much.

I do feel like sometimes me saying no to such an opportunity feels a bit selfish, even though I know that it's not, like, as a 30 year old, I understand now that life, it's important to enjoy your life and have a balance, a work, life balance. But unfortunately, just from being, you know, how I grew up and just, I sometimes feel like me saying no to certain opportunities is selfish. And I know that it's not, but sometimes it just feels like that still. Or that someone else would come and slip in and take the, take the, for me. For me, it's less about that. I don't mind.

I would be happy if someone, in fact, it'd be easier for me if someone was able to take that one because then I could have stayed home with my family, you know what I'm saying? But also I did feel like an obligation for the fans. Like I don't want to let fans down, especially in Australia. Like if you're all 22, 24 hours away, then you know my lyrics and you're buying my music and supporting me, then I should also be able to like sacrifice a couple of days for you. I do you know what I'm saying? But sometimes it just feels like my whole family's here for once.

I haven't had them here for it ever altogether. And I just have to leave at 7 a.m. So I just got kind of like one, two days of Christmas. How do you think your mum sacrificed things when it came to work, making ends meet and stuff. She sacrificed everything to be fair. So that's what you saw and then you're like, I've got to. It's pretty much, to be honest. She sacrificed everything. She was working herself to their bone, literally, just to make sure that me and my little brother was alright. So that's where

I learned it from, to be honest. She set the example. And it's a good example. And obviously it can also be detrimental. It's not her fault, though. The detrimental side of it isn't her fault. She was a single parent. She has to work at the end of the day. She has to make ends meet. our school uniform was expensive, et cetera, sar, et cetera. So it's a good example because it taught me that I need to work for, you know, if I want to have nice things and I want to enjoy life and I want to bring nice experiences to me and my loved ones, if I want to have a girlfriend, it's not cheap, then you need to... It's an expensive girlfriend.

It's expensive having humans alongside for the journey is what I will say. She's not a particularly expensive person, but, you know, even a dog's expensive. Everything's expensive, especially in this climate. So if I want to be able to, you know, give her what she deserves, which is nice days out and, you know, be able to create experiences together, then it costs money, you know what I'm saying? And if I want that, I've got to work hard. And I think it's rewarding when you work hard

and you get to see the fruit of your labour. But unfortunately, sometimes you get into like a toxic work cycle where you're like, no, work comes first, I've got to work, blah, blah, blah. And I'm a victim of that sometimes, I'm being honest. I am. Yeah. But I think I'm terrible that I've got it. And all my family are like, you're an addict, you're a workaholic.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Do you feel proud of being a Londoner? Yeah, I do actually. being a Londoner, honestly. Me too. I do. I love being a Londoner. When you were coming on, I was like, yeah.

I love that, yeah. No, I love being a Londoner, man. I think we're the best in the world, actually. I do, honestly, you think that. Some of the things we were talking about before, about the class war thing, I think what makes London very different to most major cities that are visited

is that we have always lived side by side. So rich and poor, same street. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, it might be, I don't know, in my street growing up in Hackney, like 50% of the street was council, 50% was bought, it was all mixed. And I don't know whether you think, like, my observation of that is that, like, other major cities have different experiences interracially as well as, like, into class.

For sure. I think the problem is nowadays with the UK is that, like, the things that people used to love about the UK are slowly evaporating. They don't exist anymore. What kind of things? Well, going down the pub and having a pint, that's British culture. That's a UK society. staple but when a pint is so expensive now,

it's like you're already trying to make ends meet at home and then you don't have time for extracurricular pints, you know, it's just not a thing you can do anymore, but before it was cheap enough that you could go and enjoy yourself, everyone can meet up at the pub, see loads of different faces, colours, races and everyone's having a pint, you know, but you can't do it as much. Well, talking about their differences is the main thing.

I feel like conversations gone because everyone's so separated by money. And once we're separated by money, it's like all the different things where working class people would meet each other and mingle. We can't resolve. You can't do them. All the little niceties that we used to have are kind of evaporating. And even for young people, youth clubs, there's barely any youth clubs.

I don't know where the youth clubs are. They're just gone, you know, the parks are dangerous now. So it's not like kids don't want to, if I had a kid right now, I wouldn't be letting them play at certain parks, you know, like. But when I was a kid, I was out all the time, it was fine. My mom was like, yeah, just be back on time. Enjoy yourself, you know, I didn't even have a mobile phone. It feels a bit different now, you know, I'm saying.

And then with all the political agendas that be, they're all pushing, like, you know, everyone, that we want everyone to separate and be against each other. And it feels like it's working, to be honest with you, because the country feels like a bit dark right now, no? Yeah. I kind of feel like it is in a dark place. And it's only when I go to like,

I'm from Trinidad. I haven't been there for a minute, but when I'm over there, everyone is really happy of just like, they don't really have too much, but they're just happy of community vibes and helping each other out. And I feel like the UK used to feel like that when I was younger

and it just doesn't feel like that anymore. I'm going to throw in quickly, obviously, every time I do talks like this, it's easy for people to point out and say, oh, well, you guys sit in here. on the sofa, you lot make a lot of money now. But it's not about that, you know, that's not the point. But even just that idea is also, like, if we weren't doing it,

then nothing would ever change. Yeah, and at the end of the day, for me as well, it's like, when you're a musician, I can't speak for every musician, of course, but, like, for me personally, I love music so much that I'm just happy to be able to do this job. Me being getting paid for doing what I love is a dream for me, you know what I'm saying? And I'm grateful every single day. It's never something I take for granted.

Like, I'm not just like, yeah, I'm a rapper. I can just do whatever I want. It's never like that. Like, I'm grateful for every. day that I still have in music, you know what I'm saying? I also feel like as well though that music industry is still, to this day,

full, full to the brim of people who come from privilege. So if you're somebody who doesn't and you've got this platform, you've got a voice, then it is actually brilliant to be able to come and have these conversations and go, oh, the way I got here was not

because mommy or daddy gave some money or knew someone who worked in the offices. It was literally because of your talent. And in your case, like the community projects, the studios that are available through the youth clubs, all of that. Which is, if it's going, then what happens to music? Do we only hear the voices of privilege? Yes, it's sad.

And it's sad because where's the next, like, AJ Tracy from in Labra Grove? Because if they don't have access to a studio, how are they going to nurture their talent? You know what I'm saying? This is a good moment to bring Zurel on, I think. An extra special guest? Yeah, I've got a special guest. I've got my goddaughter here. He's called Ziriel.

And she is, just to give you a little intro for her. So Ziriel, just to contextualize, was in state school. And then her mom, who's one of my good friends, also in my band, decided to take her out of state education and homeschool her because she felt that the system was not, like, it was so stretched that it wasn't able to give her the attention to, like, harness her particular, like, fortays and stuff and like pull out of her her own talent and her bubbliness and she could see her shrinking and she also felt as well that like at times when dealing with like race issues

and stuff in state education she felt let down by the way those things were handled. That's a shame. So she has taken her out. She's now homeschooled. Today we're calling this a media lesson. Okay. Good media lesson. Yeah, she's going to come and do a little mini.

interview with you. So Ziriel. Okay, so this is Ziriel. That's the meeting. That's what you two. How old are you doing? How old are you? I'm nine years old. Well, nine and a half. Okay. Nine and a half's important. Yes. And do you love being homeschooled? Yes. She's an advocate for it. And you've got a few questions for your media. Yes. Okay. I've got a few questions. The first question is how would you say someone like me can get started with music? How would I say someone like you can get started with music? Let's see. Nine and a half. That's an important age. I think I started writing lyrics a little bit younger than you, but I wasn't ready yet. I had to practice, you know? But what opened the door for me was the local youth

clubs in my area. Do you have youth clubs around here? Um, nice, you know, that's a shame and that's what we're talking about. Exactly. It's part of the problem. Because me going to the youth club, there were kids in there doing music and everyone, you know, singers, rappers, like all different sorts. And I got to just try my lyrics in there and learn how to use. And, you know, a studio, which is my first kind of taste of music. My second question is, do you think music has the power to help my generation and how? Yeah, definitely. She came up with these herself.

These were your questions, really good questions, really good questions. I think it definitely does. Music is very powerful. And I think music is a place that you can communicate with everyone on one level. I think it brings people together. And I think it's a place that we can share our experiences and try to teach and help each other. So I always think that music's one of the best places to do that because if you perform in a stadium full of people

and you're all sharing one moment of love and happiness, it amplifies it. It's a great place to share emotion and messages. So I would say yes for sure. My third question is, I'm only nine. What can I do to make a difference at my age? You're only nine. What can you do? There's so many things you can do to make a difference at nine. First of all, you can behave for mummy

because that's going to make everyone's life easier. I'll be honest with you, yeah, that's very important. I think that's maybe the most important thing because your mum's making sure that your life's in order, you know what I'm saying? So you can help her by behaving, that's important. Getting your work done, that's also very important because we want to finish homeschooling with a nice education, you know what I'm saying? Make it look like it was a good idea.

Yeah, definitely, definitely, definitely. Definitely, yeah. Make your pay off, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Another thing you can do is you can recycle. That's very helpful for the environment, it's helpful for the animals, just make sure that you put your rubbish away. I'm sure you do anyway.

to tell you that, but just make sure you remember, yeah? There's loads of things you can do. There's loads of things you can do. Help other people if they need help. It can be as easy as helping Mommy with the shopping, helping God Mommy with the shopping, helping with the interviews, whatever you can do. You know what I'm saying?

But just always be on the lookout for things that can be helpful. It's important. Do you want to make a difference? Yeah, how? Like, supporting people. Like people that, like, that are really good at stuff, but they don't get, like, enough.

like money or like attention because there's some people that I know that have really good talents but nobody wants to give them any like attention or credit or something just because of who they are. Well thank you for sharing that with us. And the questions are really good.

We appreciate them. Yeah, thank you. My last section is about bad. Now obviously I'm aware that this word is open to interpretation. I'm not sure how good it is for anyone to think it's a cool bad. But have you ever, what's bad? What's bad? Have you done anything bad? I've probably been bad in all senses of the word, to be honest. So we'll start with that. Any of your regret? Any regrets? Not really, I'll be honest, I don't really regret much. I don't know. I think that's maybe my superpower. I don't really

regret much. I do things like with both feet, you know what I'm saying? Like I jump into things and I'm like, I wanted to do this. Whatever it is, I'm like, I want to do this. You forgive yourself for this. Yeah, because I find it easy to forgive myself. I find it hard to. forgive other people actually. So I hate delegating because when I delegate and then someone makes a mistake on my behalf, I find it really hard to like forgive them for doing that to me. Whereas if I do that to myself, it's fine. It's like I made that choice. I have to live with the results. It's fine. You know what I'm saying? So being bad, let's see. What examples can I give you? I give you a traditional one in the sense of the word. I guess like getting

nicked is being bad. You know what I'm saying? When I was younger, I got nicked a couple times. But did you get nixed for your, did you do something to get nicked? I mean, usually you have to do something to get Nick, to be fair. I'm not going to take any blame away from myself, but it wasn't anything crazy. It was like stolen mopeds. I didn't steal them. I was on a stolen moped. It was never things that hurt people. I never, growing up, I never done anything to her. Just not, little naughty. But like, obviously, naughty to me and naughty to the police is two different things, you know what I'm saying? So, unfortunately, it's not legal to always be naughty. But at school, everyone thought mopeds were toys, didn't they? Yeah, exactly. It was like stealing someone's

toy. Exactly. But you know what it is? It's just like, it's just a thing. It's just in the estates, you know, in the culture. It's just like, someone came out to me. I've been on a stolen moped. Yeah, it's not, you know.

It's just part of growing up in London. We would say, see, we would say that. I just didn't get Nick for it. See, we would say that. But then obviously, if you got a policeman sit on a podcast, they'd say like, no, that's not normal. Don't be driving around stolen beds. I remember when I first got my car, I was like, I feel 17, 18,

because neither of my parents can drive. So it's a big thing. They were like, we'll just invest in you drive me. Yeah, straight. Makes sense. And then I took my car to Halford's, like the car thing, to get a new stereo because it wasn't working properly. And he pulled out the stereo and he was like, all the wires in the back. He was like, who fit this for you?

Who did fit it? Just someone at school got me one for like 20 pounds. Don't know where it came from. Fair enough, fair enough. Fair enough, yeah, fair enough. It was all held together with like sticky tape. And he was like, this is just some amateur. Some botchrome.

Yeah. But it's that thing. So, yeah, there's bad and there's bad. Yeah. So you would say that you're never, you don't think you've done anything that was particularly awful to anyone. I don't think I've done anything particularly awful to anyone.

I'm sure there's people out there that will probably disagree and say that I've done something also. I mean, look, I can sit here and list things that I think people would say are bad. For example, when I was younger, I'm sure they're like girls that might have been a love interest that they thought it would be more serious than it wasn't. It wasn't.

I'm sure I've done that before. Yeah. In music, I suppose, like, being bad is like me not dropping I barely drop music so I guess that could be considered bad I guess

So you feel bad about not being music out but you've got something coming out soon haven't you? I do I do I have an album coming this year I have loads of new singles coming this year I've got some festivals and then am I allowed to say that yeah there might be a cheeky tour on the way

exciting so everything everything literally everything back in action you get me my lecky money's done so if you could please buy that album that would be great safe But what about being branded like a naughty kid And also like there's this thing of being stereotyped

As a young black male six foot free And like you know the idea of like the police They kind of I know in this In London particularly like they might earmark people Or like go Or let's get someone for a random line up Where they've got an alibi Just constantly getting standards

Someone matching my exact description Is always on a lot of line up on the radio, yeah, yeah, my exact description. They look at me and say, someone wearing a, what you got there? What socks are you going? Yeah, those socks, someone wearing those socks has been seen it. I'm like, yeah, sweet. So what do you think about this racial profiling and like branding someone bad? How do you, if you're being branded as bad or expected to be bad, not become bad? I think, look. Because that's really difficult. All right, cool. I'm going to start with the profiling thing. I'm going to say that. To be

completely honest with you, I don't get profiled that much. I'll be honest. Like, I'm more of a victim of the silent racism than the obvious one. Like, it's less often that someone says to me, calls me the N-word, or I don't get anything like that, I'll be honest. And I'm not a rude person. I don't want confrontation. When they're looking for a reason to be angry, I don't ever give them a reason. And it's something that my dad taught me.

My dad basically said, look, like, you're black. Your consequences are going to be like times two for anything. So you need to work twice as hard just to be regular. So I took that in. I like, I digested that. So when I was younger, I was profiled a lot more than now. I'll be honest with you. Like, as a grown man, I'm 30 years old.

At the end of the day, I was safe to your belief. East officer broke, 30 years old. What do you think I'm doing out here? What do you think I'm doing? I'm loitering around causing trouble. Of course not. I've placed this to be, but I got responsibilities. You know what I'm saying?

But when I was younger, I was loitering around, to be fair. I was just trying to make money, to be honest with you. That's it. What is it about trying to make money fast that some people have that idea, like in their head they want to get quick buck? Yeah. Why is it that some people feel like that? I think for a lot of us growing up how we grew up,

I think it was a thing where like we see our parents struggling with the bills. Same stuff. Every house I go to, we're all living in the same environment. And so it's all of us wanting to just like change our parents' lives, not necessarily like put them in a mansion instantly, but just be able to like let them have some money to play with, you know, not putting like hand to mouth, like actually being able to spend some money on some stuff.

Have you been able to do that for your mum? Yeah, 100%. My mum, like, thank God, like through music and whatnot, I got my mum at house. Like she doesn't want for anything. She's happy. And she still lives, like, almost the same way we used to live. She doesn't want to spend any money.

She doesn't like me spending money. Won't ask me for anything. I'm not joking. She'll like save up, like, my mum bless her. Yeah, I give her like a little bit of money to get her hair done and stuff every month, yeah. And she'll like, I asked her other day, like, she has a personal trainer

and she works really hard in the gym, but she said to me, I was like, oh, how comes you ain't done your, I can't remember, like, her nails or something, she wanted them done. She didn't do them. And I was like, why hadn't you done it? And I was like, why ain't you done?

And I'm like, what's wrong with you? And she's like, oh, well, basically, I used the money for the hair stuff for my personal trainer. And like, I was like, mom, you don't have to make ends meet with the funds I'm giving you. Just say you want to, like, you want to, your nails done, I'll just pay for it, you know what I'm saying?

We're not living like that anymore. Thank God. Like, for me, my mom's one of my main priorities in my whole life. Like, anything she wants, I'll just pattern it, you know what I'm saying? She sounds amazing. My mom's my favorite person. I remember I found out quite early on in my career, I think, not that early, but I had one or two albums out.

And then my mom, I found out after ages that my mum was, the reason why she was at my gigs was not, she wasn't on the guest list. She was buying tickets. What a legend. No, what a legend. What a legend. Such a legend. What the hell?

I just thought, I thought... It's nice, though. That's so nice, though, no. And I was like, Mom, we're fine. Yeah, you ain't got to do that. Yeah. But I appreciate the sentiment. I definitely appreciate it.

You're trying to make money. I'm not going to exploit that. And I was like, Mom, you go back to me. I wish everyone was like that. I wish everyone was like that. Yo, bro, I bought your merch, by the way. Like, I bought a CD. I love that.

You don't have to you. I would have sent it to you. I appreciate that you did that. It means a lot to me. It's humbling. Yeah, it is. It is hum. It is hum.

Big up mum, though, man. I love that. Mom bought tickets. I know. She keeps doing it. We love that. We love that. What a legend.

Quite often, in my experience, bad things I've done or bad things that have happened to me have led to good. Yeah, sure. 100%. So I embrace badness. For sure.

I think every time I get bad news, you know, they say bad news comes in freeze. Like, after the third one, whenever the third one hits, I'm like, yes. I'm like, yes, I'm through that bit because I know the next news I get is going to be amazing.

And usually it is, actually. So I stick with that rule of free one, like three little bits. Even if it's small, little bits of bad news, it could just be small things. I might stub my toe in the kitchen, and then there's no milk, or there's no toilet paper. And then I'm out of gas in my car. I'm like, all right, that's three. I'm done for the week.

That's three. I've counted three. The next one better be good. And then my phone will ring. My phone will ring. My phone will say, oh, yeah, we got X, Y, Z show for the summer. I'm like, yes. Yeah, good.

Perfect. Which leads me to glad. So to end on a high, what makes you glad? What makes me glad? I don't want to be super soppy and emotional, but what makes me glad is that. You can be super so beautiful. Perfect. glad is like I'm not super religious but I do like waking up and feeling like I have another day

like at my disposal you know like that's that's a lot of people in the world aren't waking up or going to sleep knowing that they're going to wake up tomorrow you i'm saying so for me waking up and being like wow i'm in a house that i purchased myself i don't owe anyone any money i'm very very grateful just for another day each day i'm grateful but also little things like um all my friends are healthy happy safe when i speak to the man then when i call my brethren's that i grew up with and we've been like through hard times been nicked together together, like lost people together, you know, and I speak to them and they're like, I'm like, what are you doing today? And one of the men will say, I'm grabbing a coffee and

I got a meeting. To me, that's like, fills my heart. I'm so happy. I just got goosebumps. Yeah. No, genuinely, but it makes me so warm and happy. Like, okay, like, I can enjoy my day because all my friends are safe. They're all like making money, doing well. Thank, thank God, yeah, happy, initially. I'm so happy for you. And also, I'm really proud of your mom and you for being the people you are to know that sort of gratitude and to like be doing. I'm behind you. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much, AJ. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me.

It was a pleasure. Important person. I appreciate that. Good chat. And please have me back soon. Never boring, especially with ADHD people. Thank you. See a lot. Bye. One, two, three, four. Wasn't that great? All of the links of everything we mentioned in the show can be found in the episode description.

Oh, and while you're there, why not subscribe and follow the show too? See you all next time. Eat us potatoes.