Music
An in-depth chat with Kamakaze, grime’s most versatile player
As the Leicester wordsmith returns with new project Royal Blud 2, he talks branching out his sound, juggling a music career with professional football, and where grime goes next.
When people in comments sections go on about Kamakaze being underrated, it's partly because this Leicester MC doesn’t yet seem to have received the respect he deserves. Partly, though, it’s because Kam – real name Matt Robinson – seems to excel at pretty much everything he turns his hand to.
Whether you know him from his intense, lyrical grime and hip-hop freestyles on platforms like GRM Daily and JDZ Media, for his fiery clashing on Red Bull’s Grime-A-Side 2016, or for his football career (when not on the mic, he’s a midfielder for National League club Dagenham & Redbridge) it’s plain to see that whatever Robinson does, he does it to the highest of standards.
All this is clear from a listen to Royal Blud 2, the sequel to Robinson’s 2017 project that again pairs him with his producer of choice, MassAppeals. Hopping across moods and genres – from the euphoric UK garage moves of Last Night to the dark, introspective hip-hop of Sick – and boasting Leicester talent including vocalist Morgan Munroe and Grime-A-Side alumnus Jafro, it’s a typically versatile set that across five tracks, never puts a foot wrong.
So what drives this intense work-rate – and where might Kamakaze go next? We sat down with him in Red Bull Music Studios London to talk Royal Blud 2, his brush with poetry, and the unexpected similarities between a career in music and a career in football.
Royal Blud 2’s lead-off single finds you turning your hand to UK garage…
A couple of people told me they didn't think it was the right song to release this time of year – it’s a summery kind of vibe. But I don’t think there's a bad time to drop a song with that kind of feel to it. It can replicate the feel of summer, lets you reflect on memories. If you can bring that to people in the winter, that's a nice thing. It's an ode to my friendship group, and a summer that we had together – a tune to party to, with your people.
With the Royal Blud releases, it feels like you're showing off your range a bit?
Definitely, and that’s something with Massappeals. A lot of producers of grime – and I mean this in the most respectful way possible – their background is strictly grime. Whereas Daryl's background… he's played in a lot of bands, he's played instruments, he sings. His ear for different sounds is definitely a lot more cultured than other people. If you put an idea to him, it's easy for him to articulate into something that sounds like what you want. That's a relationship that's hard to find, between an MC and producer. He knows how to bring out the best in me, and he challenges what I wanna write.
There's a song called Alone on this EP which initially I was skeptical about, but he said look – this is what I think it should sound like. If I have an idea, he's not shy to put his twist on it. On the release there's different genres, different feels, moods and tempos. It's something that I'm quite proud of.
Watch Kamakaze and Massappeals remix Last Night live in Red Bull Music Studios London.
Are you still doing a lot of freestyles?
The most recent was the JDZ freestyle, which I think holds a bit of traction. The ones I've done in the past have really pushed me into view, so I've made it a thing to do every year. I do it for me, really. I try to do a better one every year. I think some people would say that I haven’t succeeded – people have that nostalgia towards the first one. But I feel like each one has been better.
You've got a lot of bars. Some MCs come out with the same bars over and over. Is it an ambition to always be coming out with fresh stuff?
As an MC to a degree you need perfection in repetition. For a set, you need the bars that everyone knows, because that's part of the culture – the ones that get the reload. I have that to a degree, with The Weatherman. But definitely, that's something I do – working and working, always writing new stuff. For me, writing, it's all very representative of how I feel at the time. There’s a verse of Royal Blud 2 which was written and recorded a couple of days after we did the Weatherman tour, and it really reflects that time. The song Sick is really quite twisted and dark. I wrote it while in a dark place. There had been two deaths in my family within about a week of each other. I went to studio and said. I feel a bit dark bruv – a bit creepy and a bit low. You'll hear it and you'll know which one it was right away.
Grime should have had more success stories – more Stormzys, more AJ Traceys
It’s plain that one thing you live is wordplay – you’ll write a line and then flip it into something else.
Within grime my favourite artist is Kano. He's one of the first on a mainstream level to challenge lyricism like that – the way he comes in and out of patterns, uses metaphors and similes and puns. I used to listen to a lot of hip-hop and it's easier to do that when you’ve got a lot of space on a song. I love Big L, Mos Def, Common. I listened to a lot of Andre 3000, Outkast. That sort of complexity is displayed on what I do. But one thing I really admire in lyricists is saying a lot, while hardly saying anything. That's why I like The Streets so much. Mike Skinner is pretty frank in what he's saying, and a lot of the time he finds a way to say it in the fewest words. It's fucking hard to do that, do you know what I mean? Many lyricists, they be thinking how can I get this into a bar and make the rhyme pattern work? But if you concentrate it down to what it needs to be, and you do it well – for me, that's the best kind of lyricism.
4 min
Eyez and Kamakaze live in Red Bull Studios
The two standout stars of last year's Grime-A-Side who brought their respective teams, Derby and Leicester, to the finals.
Mike Skinner’s music has a poetic feel, and that’s something your music has too.
When started up I did hip-hop, and it was so hard in Leicester to get gigs. I used to go to open mic poetry nights – one in Camden, one in Leicester that was on every three months, there was another one in Elephant And Castle. I used to go spit my songs without the beats, and people received it a lot better than they might have without beats, because sometimes that way people get lost in the bop of it. Some of it, I'd get – not standing ovations, but everyone clicks [snaps his fingers]. That really built my confidence – the sense that that people do understand what I'm doing, and it is appreciated.
Right now you’re doing things 100% independent. Would you consider signing to a label?
I've thought about labels, but I've never really had concrete offers from a major label. I've had talks with labels. But obviously with the football it's difficult for me to commit time. They'll say, we need you to do x amount of days in the studio and come out with this amount of songs. And I'll say ‘I'll be there at 2pm, after training’. Or they'll say we want you to go on tour with blah blah. And I'll have to say no. One label asked me, what will it take for you to step away from football? I said, I've got two years on my contract with football. If you pay me up front what they're going to pay me I'll leave, and this will be my new job. That was hard for me to say – and to be honest I knew they'd say no because that was a quite lot of money. But I put that challenge to them. I'm in a privileged position, because I still love football, and I'm still committed to what I do. If you want a serious answer, drop a serious offer.
At the Big Zuu show I saw AJ Tracey, and I said everything you do is commendable. A lot of people have labels behind the scenes, but he himself, he doesn't have to front – he's genuinely indpependent. Bugzy Malone, too – he's the blueprint of what you should be. He’s like: I'm in Manchester, I'm the King Of The North, I'm making clothes, I'm buying cars, I'm doing it all myself. No one can so oh you got lucky, or someone else co-signed you – all that shit that people say when you make it. When you do it independently, no one can chat shit to you. I think that's something no one can ever take away from you. And that's something I'm trying to do for myself.
Juggling music and football must keep you busy. What does an average day look like?
On a day where it's busy for me, I'll get up in my missus’s house in Stevenage, leave at half six, get to training half eight or nine cos the traffic's mad. Then it’s train, go home, eat, have a bath, leave, get on the tube, maybe come somewhere like this and do an interview. Then in the evening I'll have radio – for example Reprezent or Rinse. I’ll go there, get the tube, finish the set about nine, go get food, get the tube to Chadwell Heath, and from there back to Stevenage, to bed at 10 and start again. Games at weekends, games on Tuesday – the other week I had a week of studio time booked in here at Red Bull Studios, and we had three games that week.
Are there similarities between a music career and a football career?
They link in the way the structure works – the hierarchy, the infrastructure. You might get the big move, sign to the big label but you need to impress this guy, this guy. And they take up the same bit of the brain – the stressful part [LAUGHS]. The bit that receives stress. but the one thing that i have tried to do recently is to cut down the things that I consider important in my life. Being concerned with things I don't need to be concerned with – I don't do that anymore. I have five things in my life that really matter, and if you're not part of those five things you don't get priority. My family, my friends, my girlfriend, music, and football. For me to give energy to things when they're not beneficial to me – those are things I try to cut out.
There are a few Leicester names on Royal Blud 2.
I said to Mass that we could get all sorts of features, with people who are probably more high profile. But I think we should get attention for people who deserve the attention. Like Morgan Munroe, who’s on Last Night. She lives in North London but she's from Leicester – I've known her for 10 years, we was friends before we made music. I thought, I need this melodic chorus, so why would I headhunt someone else? We can build it better together. Same with Jafro. There were other people we thought about having on it, but at the end of the day I said: Jafro's voice is good, he can spit, he can do everything for me this feature needs to do. Again, it’s like Bugzy Malone – he made people proud to be from Manchester, and that's part of his draw, his charm. You have to build an identity for your city.
There was a lot of discussion last year about “Grime is dead”. Is the sound still exciting for you?
I think one thing that should have happened is that there should have been more Stormzys, more AJ Traceys coming through. More success stories. Out of the batch of talent that came through – that era when MCs was doing radio every week, when Red Bull was doing Grime-A-Side – all of those MCs should have elevated. I think one thing that halted it a bit was an older generation of MCs, who saw that grime was back and popular again.” Oh yeah, grime's back, I've never left, I'm still here.”
Grime isn't dead. It's never going to be dead. It's ours, and unless we're dead, it's not dead
They put out their music, and it overshadowed the new generation of people who were doing it. Don’t get me wrong, they have every right to – they're the forefathers, the Godfathers, whatever you want to call it. They have a right to exploit its popularity. But I think certain avenues of elevation for new artists were blocked. I'm not trying to diss anyone – this is just a perspective of someone who was in it. The beneficiaries are the same people who benefited 10 years ago – not necessarily the people who brought it back.
People always compare it to how UK rap's done, how that's the forefront of the charts. But if you look at the generation of UK rap that's around now and really popular, they're the first ones to really do it. Aside from Giggs and Sneakbo and a couple of others who will always be relevant, because of who they are, how good they are, and what they mean to the scene, this us the first generation to be successful from it. Look at Hardy Caprio, DigDat, Headie One – all the trap artists, all the drill artists. Who were the big drill artists five years ago? There was no one. There was no one to take away from them coming through. Now you look at the British rap acts at Wireless, and they're new – NSG or Tion Wayne. They're the next guy, and they can build from that. I've discussed this with other MCs and they don't always seem eye to eye with me. But i say: give it 10 years and see how UK rap looks. See how they treat the next generation of rappers who come after them. My theory would be that it does differ, and that it works a lot better.
Grime isn't dead. It's never going to be dead. It's ours, and unless we're dead, it's not dead. As long as there are MCs making good music – and there are, there definitely are.
Kamakaze and Massappeals
© Joe Vozza
So what’s next?
I definitely want to do more live shows in the summer. Doing them last time, that was definitely some of the most rewarding moments of my life. The enjoyment of going out there with my friends – my friend drove the car, my friend sold the merch. Massappeals and Wax came along, and it was just like: I'm with my people. I've done shows with bigger crowds, way bigger crowds. But this time, they'd all come to see me. And that was really humbling to me. What better reward can you have for something? It's a flippin’ microdream – but it's still the dream.
Now watch Leicester clash Derby in the Grime-A-Side 2016 final.
