Music > Interviews

Big Narstie

25/05/16

South London’s Big Narstie is a long term playa in the grime game. Outspoken and often controversial he’s been putting bangers out since 2003 and we’re due an album later this year..that is if he can find the time in between hanging with Craig David on Kurupt FM’s R1 Extra takeover, doling out advice on love and life on the Grime Report YouTube channel and following his acting career. I had a chat with mandem himself to find out more.

What music did you listen to when you were growing up?

Ragga, slow jams and jungle.

You’ve been part of the grime scene pretty much since the beginning. You started off as part of the N-Double-A crew back in 2003. What was the scene like back then?

It was much different to now. More hardcore and it was more youth centre based because that’s where we were all hanging out.

You’ve won the Urban Music Award for Grime three times, beating the likes of Skepta and Lethal Bizzle. That’s a massive accolade. What was it about your music that you think made you win?

Just the meaning behind the songs really.

Speaking of awards you spoke to Channel 4 about the lack of diversity at the Brit awards earlier this year. Why do you think UK grime and hip hop are so consistently ignored by the music industry as a whole despite their huge popularity?

Cos we’re outside the field of traditional music of England like house, pop and indie bands. English rap artists and grime artists haven’t needed that much money and haven’t broken records for the main industry people to recognise us. But even though we haven’t broken a lot of records we’ve made a lot of money for ourselves without the music industry being involved. We’re independent. So the £160,000 you spent on putting someone’s single out, we’ve done it for £6,000 and then done shows for the whole year.

Your new single BDL Anthem has just come out. It stands for Base Defence League - what does that mean to you?

A new way. The old school, politically correct way of doing things has gone. Look at it like this – you might really like to smoke weed and walk around the house in your underwear, cos that’s your real life. If you’re at work you have to be something you’re not. Imagine if you could do all the things you wanted, be at work smoking a spliff in your underwear and still making money! It’s possible! If you listen to all these fuckers they’ll make you believe that following your dreams is too hard, but you have to keep it real. Unity power, people power man! We control it, and we can all start it. It’s basic.

Which fresh new faces in grime are you enjoying at the moment?

Izzie Gibbs is doing really well, bringing the beats, yeah man.

More recently you and Craig David released a single When The Bassline Drops which came out last year. How did you meet each other?

We met on the Kurupt FM takeover on R1 Extra and it just went from there.

What are your thoughts on People Just Do Nothing?

They’re wicked man, I owe them so much. If it hadn’t have been for them I wouldn’t have met Craig and we wouldn’t have made our tune together!

You starred in Dubplate Drama and have been acting on and off since then. What do you enjoy most about acting?

I love film. I’d love to be in Game of Thrones, or I could be a fat Conan the Barbarian!

Can you tell me about how your agony aunt show came to be featured on the YouTube channel Grime Report?

My brother Lordie runs Grime Report and we linked up in 2005. The bromance happened from there man.

What has the support of Charlie Sloth from R1 Extra meant to you and the grime scene in general?

A lot. It’s all about platforms, you know what I mean?

How do you see the grime scene progressing in the future?

It depends where people’s faith is and how the scene moves. Look at the new grime scene as the English football team yeah. Until English football clubs start promoting English footballers and taking kids from deprived English estates rather than looking for them in Brazil or other countries across the world, take that talent and train them from youth and in years to come something decent will happen. If people look at grime as it stands now, it’s doing really well, and if they decide to swarm it with big commercial Americans what happens to the English grime scene? Where will it go?

If you have piece of advice to anyone out there looking to make it on the grime scene, what would it be?

Grow a tough skin and get used to hearing the word ‘no’ a lot.

What can we expect from your show at Open next month?

A fucking zoo.

Big Narstie plays at Open on 18th June along with Izzie Gibbs, Tee Vish, Oblivion and Unreel. Tickets available from ueaticketbookings.co.uk. This gig is 18+.