Ep 118: AJ Tracey

West London rapper AJ Tracey talks to Stuart Stubbs about his beloved Tottenham Hotspurs, fine dining, gaming, Japanese art and hip hop, of course.

 

Takashi Murikami's An Arrow Through History exhibition

 

'Reasonable' video

'Thiago Silva' video with Dave video

'Ladbroke Grove' video

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Although each is my guy, I have to say he's
not great a few from sorry each. I smoked him
too many times for him to claim he's good at
fee from sorry, but that's my guy.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello and welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of informal
interviews with musicians we love, posted weekly at midnight to
suit these very casual conversations. This week's episode is hosted
by me Stuart Stubbs, the editor of Loud and Quiet magazine.
On tonight's show is West London rapper AJ Tracy, who

(00:31):
I met up with at the end of May of
this year, twenty twenty two, and I really enjoyed myself
talking to him. We spent about an hour chatting. It's
pretty much all there in this conversation. Didn't feel the
need to cut much of it out.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
I trimmed back a little.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Bit where we went down a little bit of a
football rabbit hole, but there's still a lot of football
chat in this one. That's because Aj Tracy, whose real
name is Shay, he is a massive fan of Tottenham Hotspurs.
Talk a bit about that. We talk a bit about
his mum, who is the person that named him Shay
after Shaker Vara. She comes out of this episode very well.

(01:09):
She sounds like an incredible woman. We talk about his
most recent album, Flu Game, that came out in twenty
twenty one, and one thing that we mention and explain
maybe a little bit, but on listening back, maybe not.
It's not fully clear is the reference of that name.
The name of the album is Flu Game, and it's
named after a particularly legendary basketball match between the Chicago

(01:33):
Balls and Utah Jazz in nineteen ninety seven where Michael
Jordan got food poisoning, but he still played and essentially
won the game for the Chicago Balls. It's a legendary game.
If you've watched the documentary The Last Dance, which we
also talk about a little bit in this episode, you'll
know exactly what I'm talking about. But if you don't,

(01:54):
and it's a bit unclear because we kind of dive
into that subject and don't fully explain it. That is
why the album is called Flu Game. As I say,
it came out last year. It is AJ Tracey's second album.
He's a completely DIY artist, which is nuts when you
go and look at some of his videos. I've linked
to some of those below this episode. Including his most

(02:16):
recent single Reasonable. What else do I need to clear up?
Two other things? I think the artist that we talk about,
Mura Kami, is a Japanese artist called Takashi muror Kami.
I've linked to the exhibition that Shaye talks about that
he went to in New York. He's a massive fan

(02:37):
of Murakami's work, and he also mentions at other points
in our conversation Vergil. That is Virgil Ablow, the fashion
designer and founder of Off White who became the artistic
director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection, the first African American
to do so, sadly passed away last year. That is

(02:58):
the Vergil that Shaye refers to. He was a friend
of his. So I just wanted to clear that up
because we don't do it in the conversation. I think
that is as much as I need to clear up.
It's very hot here in London at the moment. I'm
in a sealed room to try and get this recording
sounding okay, So I'm going to stop. This is number

(03:20):
one hundred and eighteen Midnight Chats with AJ Tracy. Thank
you very much for listening. So how are you domming?
How's your week been?

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, good man, chilling, wasn't enjoying the weather. And today
I just had a gym installed at my house. I
saved up my money and built a gym in my
back garden. So I've been getting in the gym now. Yeah, okay,
so that's that's my new venture. What of what what
equipment you got in there? I'm gonna start sounding like
I'm flexing. Ow, well, I'm not flexing at all. I

(03:51):
genuinely saved up to get this. Like it's not off
the cuff. But basically I made the gym because the
reason why I to see for this because I wanted
it to be like insulated with an air gone in
there so that it's fully functional.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
So when you say it's in your garden, it's not like.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
It's like a separate building. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, And it's quite big because my garden. Luckily, when
I bought the house off the old people, they had
purchased the people adjacent to like a third of their garden,
so their garden is massive, and I was like great,
it was in a rubbish state. It was horrible, but
I like fixed the grass, got the green fingers out,
the shears out. You know I'm saying, fix everything, but yeah,
I got all the quimen and rowing machine, treadmill, bike,

(04:29):
leg leg extensions, rope machine, bench press like everything. You
know what I'm saying, You've got it all all ready
to get fit hopefully.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Before that, were you like a member of a gym.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
I was a member of a gym before I moved
into my new house. When I lived in Chelsea in
a flat, I was a member of a gym. But yeah,
obviously now it's like there's no gyms around sow.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
So when you like build a gym in your garden, Yeah,
do you need someone to do that?

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah? Of course, of course you don't just do that yourself. No, no, no,
of course no, of course not.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
I contacted you know what I'm saying, the correct people
and made him do it professionally. It did cost a lot,
but also it's kind of an investment because if I
do choose to sell my house, it's like, cool, it's
got a gym, like up to date twenty twenty two
brand new spanking gym, so like it adds value.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
To the house.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
And think how much you're going to save in that
gym members.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Of course, of course, and even just the motivation, you know,
being able to wake up and go downstairs and work out,
as opposed to I have to get in a car
petrol drive day. I can just go in and no
one can disturb me. So it's actually really good.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, you're gonna put pool in next No?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
No, no pool, No pool.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
They actually when I was fixing the garden, the people
who are like landscaping said we can put a pool
with if you want, and I was like, I'll live
in the UK. I'll get to use the pool like
two weeks out of the year. It's not even worth it, honestly.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, that needs to be inside as well.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, definitely one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Nice Nice says that that that been your main thing
this week.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, that's that's That's it the gym right now. But
I've also I'm going to start I do twitch like gaming,
so I've been like setting up my man cave, preparing
it for when I'm ready to stream, which is almost done.
I'll say it's like eighty five percent done. Sure, just
need to get the guy to come in the handyman
to fix the sofa in there and put the TV
up on the wall, and then I'm ready to go.
And I'll be streaming again, so that's cool. I've just

(06:05):
been trying to sort out everything aside from music, because
the music's okay right now. I'm kind of ready to
go with my music, so I'm just sorting out all
the extracurricular things, all that extra stuff.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
I know I knew that you were a big gamer.
Then this is something that's totally out of my comfort zone. Okay, okay, right,
but so so what games do you play? And once
your what's your setup? Do you have like the chair
and yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
All of that stuff. All of that stuff to my
missus is beane. She really like, you know it is.
It's that I like to delegate time to game, like
actual put time aside the game. So I'll be like, cool,
We'll go on date night and that's that's our evening.
Then the next day, for half the day, I'm gaming,
Like that's that's me now.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
So you can say mainly at nighttime gaming.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's half half.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
It depends like if my missus isn't around nighttime, I'm
gaming all night.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
I'm talking like until four ams, I'm gaming.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
But if she's around, then I don't like to like,
you know, not spend time with her and wasted evening gaming,
so it'll be fifty to fifty. I'll say sure, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but daytime gaming is not really a go. But because
you know, I have things to do. I have a job,
so I can't always do it. But yeah, I love gaming.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Man.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
My setup is like a dark room. I've got a
neon that says aj Tracy. I've got like my little
bear bricks and like collectible figures on the wall. I've
got some like Tottenham Memory Vidia, some England Memory Vidia
and some other shirts I've got. My setup is just
like a metal desk and then I have a curve
the monitor on it, and then I have vertical monitor

(07:25):
monitor as well for discord and like when I check
my NFTs and my stocks and stuff. And then yeah, man,
I got speaker set up, like obviously I'm a musician,
have to have speakers. Yeah, headset the whole malarkey. And
my PC actually is a beast. It's a super beast.
Like it's crazy. It's worth like twenty K. I didn't
buy it though, it was a gift from Call of Actually.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
This is serious. So you're going to say, like I've
got two controllers, No, no, no, no, no, yeah, I'm
serious on the gaming.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
I play like FIFA. Is that your main thing? One
of my main things? Yeah, FIFA, Call of G four, Nite, Valorian,
loads of different games. So I'm just I'm in there man, GTA.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Actually I love GTA, Okay, I love GTA and you
stream it on Switch on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
I used to like a year ago, and I took
a break, like during COVID. I was streaming like two
three times a week, but because I moved houses and
I had to reset up on my staff and my
house had loads of building works to doing it, I couldn't.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
I couldn't stream. But now I'm nearly ready.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
So yeah, yeah and you and you're like your fans
play against you, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
I get all the fans in. I'll like go on
my Instagram or whatever on Twitter and say, yo, if
an he wants to jump in the lobby seven pm,
like I'll be on that's my game attack and people
just join and like we'll just be in there having fun.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
So yeah, that's so cool. That's sick. It's actually sick. Genuinely.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
I'll be in GTA and like you can have obviously
like tens and tons of people in there and they
will all come to my house, like I have a
house in GTA, and you can like go in the
cinema and everyone can watch the same thing on the screen.
You can like gamble with your friends and stuff like
it's fun. It's good fun.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Is that how you know Deli Ali? Because he's a
big right.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
That's That's not how I know him. But he is
a big gamer as well. Yeah he might be better
than me at FFA. I've seen that he's nice on FIFA.
I've never played against him, but yeah, he he's a
big game as well man, and so is I know
James likes the game as well a lot of I'll
be honest. I think I feel like it's just a
mutual thing. All the footballers and and rappers are just
gamers like dB, young ads and them. They're big gamers.

(09:12):
Money is a massive gamer, young and big gamer. Avelino
h although h is my guy. I have to say
he's not great at fIF I'm sorry, Age, I smoked
him too many times for him to claim he's good
at FIEF.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I'm sorry, but that's my guy.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Who do you who do you play at faith?

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Then?

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Who do you do you? What's your team team sick?
Do you just sick?

Speaker 1 (09:32):
I don't pick. I be honest, I don't pick. I
play my team. So you know, when you pick your
you make your own team. But currently, because I've got
to the end of FIFA and like I've got all
the best cards and stuff, I've got pel and all
these people. So what I do instead is I've made
a past and present Totenham team. So I got like
bail and their modica, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
Yeah, So yeah, that's what I've done.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Now, are there any guy? Okay, let's quickly. You mentioned
you've got like in there, you've got some memorabilia.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what have you got?

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Can you tell me?

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I've got an Enemy Award which is like a middle
finger like this.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yeah, I've got that, which I love and it's really cool.
My mom loves that one. It's very rock starish.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Did you get that this year?

Speaker 1 (10:07):
I've got twenty ninety, twenty twenty. I can't remember the
years of all merged, but it was it was for Labrago.
It was the best song Glabrago sign. So I got that.
I've got surprisingly Actually I've never had a number one single,
but I've got a number one chart whatever thing because
I was on a song with all these massive artists
who are way bigger than me, and it was just

(10:29):
like a super no brainer, easy number one. But the
thing is it was for Cherry. What song was during
COVID is it was it times like these like a
cover okay yeah yeah. It was like du a leap
shormpool loads of like massive people and I was just
little AJ Chase was on the track and they were
all singing and I just wrapped like an eight bar.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
So you got that trophy that's like the two.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, yeah, middle yeah, exactly, I got that.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
And then I've got so many plaques that's not even
a flex Like I haven't ordered them. I can't fit
them in my house, so I just haven't ordered them genuinely.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, put them in the gym.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
There's no not enough room. I'm not even joking. There's
actually no room.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
There's like I think I need to order like thirty
something blacks, which is just not gonna fit anywhere, and
they're expensive as well.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, so I'm kind of black.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
I think one night, one night, but if you think
where it's like one night he is for me. And
then my manager's gonna won one, yeah, and then the
producer wants one obviously, and then everyone else, like the
mix and master and the engineer wants one. And then
like you know, I'm saying, then my friends are gonna
be like, yo, let me get one. So it's not
really one night. It's like, let's call it five hundred
per certification, and then you get the silvers.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
That's five hundred.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Then you get the goals and if hopefully he goes platinum,
Labrego's double platinum but out to be triples.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
It's just like, I'm not ordering all those blacks. I'm
not doing it.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
I might just order like one of my favorite each
and just not tell anyone and just like put them
in my personal game is faced. That's yeah exactly. But yeah,
I got those loads of random little bits. I got
like a basketball from Virgil. Virgil sent me a basketball
because of flu game before he passed the piece. I
got a basketball from Tiffany, just random, really random stuff.
Murror Karmy, loads of Urakami stuff.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah you're a Murakami, massive.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Fan of Fammy.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
I'm really into Likejapanese art, so I got just loads
and loads of artwork tons of artwork, like too much
for the wall.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
So yeah, bro, that's basically it.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
What's the what's the Tottenham memory there?

Speaker 3 (12:09):
You got?

Speaker 1 (12:09):
I have a shirt from Kane say it's to aj.
I'm saying thanks for your support. I'm saying, Okay, I
got that, which is sick. I got not totten the
memory there, but I've got a Reece James England shirt okay,
which is fire and he got the whole team to
sign it for me. So that's the sick one as well.
I've actually got a Benz on my shirt, a current one.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
What how did you get that?

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Actually I can't I'm not allowed to say, but very
very nice gift, great gift. I've got a Tottenham shirt
which was signed by the whole team the year that
we was in the Champions League final, so I got
like belet and all them people in there, which is fire.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
I've also got I've got loads.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Actually, I got a shirt I got the other day
I went to the Hall of Fame induction with the
Premier League and I've got Vieria's signature on the shirt
with shearers, Ian Rights and companies on one shirt, which
is quite cool.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
That's yes, that's a rare. Yeah, exactly that that's not
on any other shirt.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
No, literally, that's just one of our kinds. So I
got that. That's got my name on it as well,
which is fire. And I actually, you know, I got
for my birthday the other day. My mum and all
my family everyone like chipped in together and got me.
It was really hard to find. They got me a
Lucas shirt, Lucas Morris shirt from when he scored the
hat trick. It's not the one he wore, but it's
that shirt, you know what I'm saying. And they got
Lucas to sign it. So that's a great present. I'm

(13:28):
not gonna lie.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Firsts fan, like, that's amazing he got it.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Oh, this sounds like the best, like man Cave.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
No, the man Cave is serious. I'm not gonna lee.
I'm just missing. There's two shirts I really want. I
need a Ac Milan KAKA shirt. Yeah, I need that.
That's like, he's one of my favorite players.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I used to have an Ac Milan shirt with his kid.
That was like they're a classic. Yeah the opal yeah,
hard hard. I got my name on it.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
That's the best one. Yeah, that's the best, the best
one for sure.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
And I loved it because when I was like, we
were just talking just before we started. But as an
evidence fat yeah, yeah, you know it was. Actually when
I was a kid, it was really hard to get
an evert and shirt, was it? Yeah, really hard because
I'm from Essex. Oh yeah, of course, so to get
it down here, get down there, it was impossibly impossible.
But I managed to get this eight milan shirt and
I felt it was the coolest thing ever. But it
didn't quite fit me. I was it wasn't quite right.

(14:16):
It happened too big, it's too small as it was
too big as all right, but too small as yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Peak, yeah it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
It wasn't. It wasn't so good. But I loved that shirt.
I used to love all of those, all of those shirts.
I used to like collecting those shirts that you still.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Do, Yeah, I still do. They were really classy.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
I feel like, like the new shirts are cool, you
know what I'm saying, But the old shirts are like
unbeatable bros.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
So nice.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, they're so nice. The sharps or oil glass, all
of them, like they're all hard. Obviously I would never
put a Chelsea shirt in my house, but you know what,
this came. Actually, if James gave me his shirt, I
would put that my house because he's my friend. In general,
I would have in general.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, that's I think that's a good You've got to
draw the line somewhere.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
And you know what, Arsenal shirt, if it was a
personal on reshirt from Henri, I'll put in my house.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Apart from that, it's not happening. There's no other impossible.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
So with the gaming, is there any game like, are
there any games you like to play? You might not
want to answer this. Are there any of that are
like that you don't tell people about? Actually that's not
it's not cool.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
Do you know what? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (15:16):
The only one is League of Legends. I play League
of Legends. I don't know if you know what that is?

Speaker 2 (15:19):
No, what is that?

Speaker 1 (15:20):
It's a massive game, but it's not that massive in
the UK, but it's massive in general. It's like it's
more of a Korean game. Koreans play and it's extremely complicated,
Like it's not, but it is to play at a
high level is very complicated. You could obviously just jump
in and play, but yeah, I play that. It's basically
a game where it's like a board and you have
to basically just defend your base and you can't let

(15:40):
them advance on your base, and if they destroy your base,
you lose. But your character has loads of different moves,
and it gets complicated because like the character you pick
might counteract the character I pick, and I can't really
beat you. But then I'll make my teammate pick someone
who countteracts you. You'll make your teamate picks on the
characters him, and it just becomes very complicated. So yeah,
it's basically like that, and it's all the nerdy stuff.
You kill dragons, you get bonuses and power ups and

(16:01):
blah blah blah. So that's that's what I play a
lot of the time, like every other day at least,
and each game is like twenty to forty five minutes,
so you've got to have patience. Many times I have
rage quit and turned off my PC. Yes, a hundred times.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
What does it?

Speaker 2 (16:18):
And so when you're on Twitch, when you're streaming, and
how many people are watching that.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
I don't remember how many views I used to get,
but it was quite a lot, Actually it was a lot.
I was surprised how many people were interested in watching
me play games, because even when I wasn't playing games.
Even if I'm just talking, there'll be a couple of
thousand people and they're just chilling, which I really appreciate
because I fall out my fan base is it's very
rare nowadays to have like a solid base, like for
your fan base, like a cult following, because me, I

(16:44):
built it from like pirate radio and showcasing who I
am and you know, getting into politics and talking about
inequality and loads of different things. So I've got this
pot of people who just really rock with me as
a person, which I really appreciate because nowadays it's like
with TikTok and stuff. I have nothing against TikTok. I
think it's really platform and like I'm trying to learn
how to use it. I'm a bit old for it,
but I'm trying. But I feel like with TikTok everything's

(17:05):
quite flash in the pan. Yeah, Like you know, people
just want microwave meals, so to speak, like they want
it ready right now, being consuming done with it, you
know what I'm saying, which is not kind of that's
not how to operate.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
I'd rather give you.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Something long lasting and put like a single wort for example,
and work it for a while and have it everywhere
and have you hear it wherever and you digest it,
rather than take this and take this and take this in.
Here's the next one. I'm not really on that. Yeah,
I didn't get into music to do that. So yeah, yeah,
I would say with my fan base, I'm really grateful
because when I go on Twitch, they're just there for
the ride, man, They're just here to hear what i'd say,
which is cool.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, I really genuinely appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
So is it true that you did you start wrapping
at six?

Speaker 3 (17:43):
I did, just sick. I did. That's that's that's a fact.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
And the thing is six as well is like me
rounding up because you're younger than that. I used to
try and put rhymes together, but obviously you can't really
formulate a rhyme scheme before six.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
You know what I'm saying. You probably can, but it's
not going to be whatever.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
So my dad used to just help me in rhymes
from like four or five, but six is when I
was actually writing you know, coherent boss and spitting them.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
So yeah, because your dad was a rapper, right, he
was a rapper?

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, he was?

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Would that have been the first, the first time you
heard like rap music or someone rapping, would that have
been your dad?

Speaker 1 (18:14):
No, it was actually from my mom because my mom
was a DJ. She was a jungle d Yeah, she
was a jungle DJ. So she used to play like
jungle house, like old school NWA, all of that stuff.
She was really cool, so she introduced me to rap.
I think the first couple of rap records I heard
were like, I don't know which order, but ll cool
J was one of them, for sure. There was no
British rap. Oh, actually skinny Man, you know, yeah, it

(18:35):
was actually skinny Man. It was LL cool J, skinny Man,
Mob Deep, And then I used to listen to a
lot of Michael Jackson and James Brown as well. Those
are like the first couple of rotations because my mom
had all the vinyls and I used to just put
them on the deck and play them.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah, and she used to get pissed because.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Obviously they're really expensive technic decks and I was just
like scratching the shit out of records and that I'm
sure her thriller record, I've you know, told.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
It absolutely worse. Yes, yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Feel say for the first one, at least she's on
an NWA record, like the first edition, unopen, and I
didn't touch it. I knew from the plastic I'm not
meant to touch that, so I just left it. She's got
it sealed.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, she has too. She bought one to use. Yah,
I wanted to keep.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah does she still DJ now?

Speaker 1 (19:13):
She for fun? I guess at home, but not like
obviously not making up. But yeah, she loves it. She
loves it and she's good. She's actually good. She could
sketch mixed everything so sick.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
That is cool.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
But yeah, my dad wasn't the main influence, but yeah,
he's the first person I guess I saw actually penning
down bars and like the process behind writing lyrics. He
would be the first person. Yeah, for sure. And my uncle.
My uncle used to rap with him. They all had
like a rap group.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
So yeah, I guess at what point did it get
like start to get more serious for you? Like how
old were you bothered?

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Like when I wanted to take music seriously?

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, kind of when you were like, yeah, what point
did it kind of step up?

Speaker 1 (19:46):
There's two different points in my life. One is when
I actually started taking music seriously and one is when
I wanted to take it seriously. So when I wanted
to take it seriously, it was like year ten, So
I guess I'm like fifteen. Around fifteen, I think I
wanted to take it seriously around then, but also not
trying to give you a sub story, bro but obviously
I grew up kind of broke, you know what I'm saying,
and like single parents and stuff. So I understood that

(20:08):
for me to chase my dreams was a little bit
selfish because I have a little brother, my mum obviously
need money. I need to get a job really so
it kind of like my morality taught me from like
focusing on music, you know what I'm saying that. And
on top of that, it was like I wanted to
be a lawyer, and in my head, I'm like, I
can definitely be a lawyer.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
I know I can't.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
I'm literal enough, I'm smart enough, I can I love arguing, like,
surely I can do that. I was great at history
and I'm saying history in English from my two favorites,
So that was what I was going for. But then
it's sad because my like I have ADHD really bad,
and my just me messing around and being really fidgity,
I would have said I was a bad kid, but
I used to you know, throw pencils and just squat pain,
just do like childish things. Yeah, I never hurt anyone,
but doing that stuff kind of got me in a

(20:46):
lot of trouble in school. And then I used to
be late to school a lot. And you know, my
mom used always say to me, look like because she
used to get me up on time and send me
out the door, so it's not her fault. I used
to just you know, mess around on the way to school,
be late, go tell skills whatever. So because of that,
she was like, come on, like, you need to go
on time because I'm going to get in trouble for this.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Like it's not you who they're going to look at.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
I're going to say, it's your mum who's not you
know what I'm saying, which is true, and it wasn't
her fault. So I kind of tried my hardest, but yeah,
I got internally excluded.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
You know what that is, right? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Cool, got internally excluded all of that stuff. And it
was looking like I was going to get permanent excluded.
But what I used to always do is which used
to really annoy the teachers. I would like, mess around,
get on report, get in more trouble, get more trouble.
When it gets to like the final thing, I'll be
an angel and they have to take me off report,
and the only way to kick me out is to
put me back on report. So I just keep writing
and repeating basically. But yeah, because of all of that,
I kind of put the music to the side. I

(21:37):
wanted to go to the sixth form in Holland Park
and they didn't let me in because obviously my grades
weren't good enough, which is really sad, because they made
me take the low you know in English you can take.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
The low example to high.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
In my original writings and my like Shakespeare and stuff,
I got like a stars and a's, but they made
me take the lower exam because of my behavior, which
is really sad. But I took it. I got four marks. Obviously,
everyone the whole school knew I was going to get
full marks. I got four marks, and then I said
to my teacher, like my mom said, like, why do
you do this? Because if you knew he was going
to get full marks, why not give him the higher paper. Yeah,
because full marks on the lower papers a C. But

(22:08):
you know, if even if I got lower marks on
the higher paper, I would still get a SE so
like you might as well give him a chance to
you know what I'm saying. They were like, oh, school
policy is behavior blah blah blah, which I personally think
is a really bad way.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
To teach kids.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
They were just punishing, basically punishing me with my future. Yeah, yeah,
it's crazy a point just to make a point. And
what's worse is if they had a nurse in the
school who like was like cool, so he's obviously got
ADIOSD like I'm gonna treat him as such, it would
have been fine, you know what I'm saying, That's how
it should be pastoral care and whatnot.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
But the school was not great at.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
That was this a time like did they know that
was the case of that they knew?

Speaker 1 (22:40):
They knew that, they new, they knew one hundred percent,
they honestly knew they knew. And like a lot of
my teachers were saying to like we call it the
leadership groups, so like the heads of years and whatever,
the head teacher and stuff. They were saying a lot
of my really nice teachers, my ri teacher my history
teacher and my English teacher.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
I love them to bits.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
They were really nice to me, and they used to
go and say to the higher ups, like, yo, he
clearly need some help with like concentrating and he gets
very easily distracted by his work. Is great if you
look at his work. His work's great, but like he
just gets distracted.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
And it was like, we don't care. So here's what
Isn't it is? Or it is?

Speaker 1 (23:09):
But I think those teachers there can be happy that
they paid. It played the part in me being successful
because they kind of like motivated me that there's people
that care even when everyone else doesn't. You know what
I'm saying, everyone else can you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah,
But that was That's the point when I wanted to
take music seriously but didn't. And then when I did
take it seriously is when I was in UNI doing

(23:30):
criminology and I didn't get into the union I wanted
to get into, didn't get into the college I wanted
to get into, but I just kept going because I
was like, I need to do something for my mom,
you know what I'm saying. I just kept trying and
I got into London, met big up everyone who goes
there and education is better and not having one, but
it's not the greatest union at the end of the day.
It's like, you know, a little bit dangerous. Everyone's like me, honestly,
if I can speak freely, I was just going there

(23:52):
to sell drugs. I'll be honest, bro, I'll go in
there and everyone just be like, yo, who's got X
y Z? So I just figured out why am I
coming here to learn? If I can make my you
know what I'm saying. So I used to come, not
even go to my lecture, just link people and be
like yo, who needs what and then cut not even
go to my lecture, And I still passed my first year.
I actually got my certificate for my first year because
I did the work. I always do the work, because
that's the thing about me. I'll always do the work.

(24:13):
Maybe not on like your timing or how you want it,
but I'll definitely do the work.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
So yeah, Then in Union, I'm sitting at the back
of a lecture one time and like, you know, the
Eureka moment. I was just sitting there and I used
to like just write bars and just listen to music
at the back and then I just thought, broth all
these rappers that are out right now and doing well,
I'm better than all of them. Like, honestly, I'm better
than every single one of them. Why why am I
here doing this? It doesn't make sense. And I just
sat down and I'm like, nah, bro forget all this.
I'm gonna go like chase this. I'm actually gonna chase this.

(24:39):
And I left the lecture all my life for like
a movie like, I left the lecture just blank zoned out,
just ignored everyone, walked out, went home. I told my mom,
I'm like, yo, I'm gonna chase music. I can't bother
for this anymore. This unique thing is not me, Like,
I'm doing it for you, Mom, I love you so much,
but give me a little time period to try. And
she said, look, I'm gonna give you a year. I'll
pay for you for the whole year. I'll look after you.
If it doesn't work out in a year, I need

(24:59):
you to go back to union, which is fair enough.
And if you past your first year, you can put
on whole jump saying and go do the rest. So
I did that and a couple months after that, everything
just literally started taking off. Everything just fell into place.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
So in that first year, was there like something that
you needed to like it got to the end of
that first year, what had happened in that first year
for your mom to be like, I consider this as
a success.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
She you know what it was. I'll be honest with you.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
It was easier fast than it could have been because
I started getting bookings and stuff towards the end of
that year period, and I came and I just showed her.
I said, look respectfully to my mom, she's amazing. She
works really hard, but she wasn't getting paid enough for
her work and her mom's wages. I was getting per booking,
and I was sending her, look like, I can do this. Now,
I can actually do this. I'm going to give you rent.
I'll sort the rent. I'm saying, I'll buy the food whatever,

(25:44):
and let me just go make this music. She was like, yeah, cool,
So you did it. Do it, in it congrets, do it,
and I sit and I started going. But the thing is,
I've always been confident because of my mom. Yeah, because
she always said to me from when I was young,
she was like, listen, if you decide you want to
be Muslim, you want to be Hindu. If you think
you're gay, if whatever, I'm gonna love you the same way.
I don't care, Like whatever you do is irrelevant to me.
I'm still gonna love you. So that gave me like

(26:06):
the core confidence to go do whatever I need to do,
you know what I'm saying. It felt nice that I'm
not gonna be judged by the main person that I
care about for whatever I do. So with that, I
used to tell her everything, honestly, everything that I used
to Obviously it's not great, but it's the life that
I was living. I used to go outside of a
knife sometimes for my own protection. And I remember telling
her one time, I was like, Mom, I can't lie
to you. Yeah, if you hear that I got stabbed,

(26:27):
or saying it's not for no reason, like I had
a knife for me for sure, Like it wasn't you
know what I'm saying, don't think that people are bullying
me or jump saying like I'm just the nicest kid,
because I'm a good person. But like I'm not a victim.
I don't want to be a victim. So she knew
all about me. So but I made sure she knew
that if someone comes to the door and accuses me
of something that is not in my character. She knows
that's not my son, you know what I'm saying. Cool,

(26:47):
he caused the fight out a football game or whatever. Yeah,
I believe you that's my son, or you know he
done something disrespectful to women, that's not my son, Like,
you know what I'm saying. And they sure she knew
exactly who I am. So yeah, man, that's when I
started taking music seriously. I remember I went to my grandma.
I went to her house. She lives between here and Trinidad,
so she came back to England for a little bit
and I went to her house and my dad was

(27:08):
just adamant that I have to tell her that I
left UNI. So I didn't think I'll be honest with you,
I didn't think it was any of her business. I
didn't really need to tell her, but it's cooled to
update her anyway.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
So I told her.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
She obviously wasn't happy because you know, coming from a
Caribbean background, you know, they just want you to finish UNI. Yeah,
be a doctor, I'll be a dentist, be a lawyer
or whatever. So I told her. She just wasn't having it,
and then I said, okay, look and I showed her
like my booking fee and I showed her that I
got a book for like a grand and a half.
She was like grand and a half for what? And
I'm like for me to wrap, and she's like, for

(27:38):
who's listening to you? Who wants to listen to you?
For a grand and art?

Speaker 3 (27:41):
I was like, trust me, if people want to listen,
it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
And then she she basically just said yeah, like she
accepted it off she saw the money because it's very
like I don't want to say it like that, but
with my like you're you know, sometimes your you're ethnic
side of your family. You got to proved to them
you're capable of making money because you know we need
it obviously. So if you're just doing this for fun,
what's the point because you could be doing something you
know of value. So yeah, she understood after I show
her the money, and she was like, yeah, cool, go

(28:07):
for it. She doesn't know the content of my lyrics,
neither will I show her, but it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
She has she ever listened to.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
My dad played the one song and I was pissed
at him.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
I was so pissed. I told him why are you
doing it? Because I told him specifically, don't show grandma
my music. My grandma on my dad's side from Trinidad
and my nan on my mom's side from Wales have
never heard my music as in from me, because it's
just not for them, you know, I'm saying, do.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
You think do you think they have listened to it
on the sli and just not?

Speaker 1 (28:32):
You just think they have no idea they've heard it
now because my nan saw me when I was on
Top of the Pops like every time on Top of
the Pops, which my nan loves Top of the Pop,
so sure, bless her little Welsh woman, Like I'll tell
I'll ring and say stick Top of the Pops on it,
and she'll watch it and really enjoy it, which is fine.
I don't mind that because that content as well, the
songs I picked for Top of the Pops, not the
songs that I don't want her to hear, so it's fine.
Whereas like with my grandma, she's a bit more inquisitive,

(28:54):
like she'll dig, but she'll dig, but she also respects boundary.
So if I tell her like chill, she will chill
because she's got that kind of respect. But my dad
went and played her song like just out of nowhere,
and I didn't like it.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
I'm not gonna lie. I told him, don't do that again.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Do you know what track it was?

Speaker 1 (29:07):
I don't remember, but I didn't ask because I didn't
even want to know. I don't want to know what
you heard. Just forget it.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
But forget this ever happened exactly exactly that, like back
when you were like you know, when you're going out
of the house with a knife and stuff like that,
and like you and your mum knows, Like how worried
was she that?

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Extremely? Yeah, she hated it, of course, Like I don't know, man,
you know what it is. I see my mom cry
so many times that I eventually just got to the
point where I was like, I was gonna do everything
I can to remove us from this area because it's
a catch twenty two. It's like, cool, I don't want
to make you upset, but also I have to protect myself.
If you're selling drugs, you could not just walk around
with no weapons because someone's just gonna rob you. And

(29:44):
if you rob me, then I have nothing and I
can't pay the rent. So it's just like a catch
twenty two. There's nothing you could do. I had no choice. Genuinely,
it sounds you know when you explain to people like
that the kids today, they're like, oh, they just roll
around with weapons, and they're not usually rolling around a
weapon to target someone. They're rolling around a weapon in
case someone targets them. That's what it's actually about. Yeah,
And people don't really understand that. And it's like they're like,
why don't they get a normal job? I mean, like,

(30:05):
have you tried applying for a job nowadays? This is impossible.
You got kicked out of school, Now you're trying to apply
for a job. Why would we take you in? This
person over here's got an education. Yeah, you know, you
know what I mean. But that's not an excuse for everyone.
It's not a blanket excuse. But you know, growing up
being poverished, this is hard. And for me, I never
did anything I didn't have to do, and all my friends,
all my friends and family can attest to that as
a fact. I never committed any crime or did anything

(30:27):
I didn't have to do. I only did things I
needed to do to eat and to pay rent. And
you know what, I'm saying. I never did, like something
to get a Gucci belt, you know what I'm saying,
Or something to buy a new sneakers or whatever.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
I never did that.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
I did stuff to pay for the rent and look
off my mum, my little brother, and then the extras.
Obviously I'll buy a chains or whatever. But like, I
did it for a purpose. It wasn't just jugging. We
call it jugging that I'm not jugging for the sake
of Gucci and stuff. I would never do that, God forbid,
you know what I'm saying. That's ridiculous. And the reason
why I'm really proud of myself is because I stopped
at a time and I didn't ever get caught with

(30:58):
any drugs on me or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
So I'm able.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
I just came back from New York, like I'm able
to go to America and it's all good, like everything,
I got my visa, I'm good. But it could have
been very different because a lot of the friends around
me are not able to go to America, and I
just thought about my future. I'm like, yo, I really
want to go to America. I want to tour, I
want to go to Australia. And I can't if I'm
getting caught up in this stuff. So yeah, man, as
soon as I didn't have to, I put all of
that away, and yeah, move my mom out the hood

(31:23):
straight away. Before I even had a house on my own,
I was like, my mom's the first priority. Got out
of the house. She would not leave, kicking and screaming.
She did not want to leave Labrico by any means.
She was staying. She's like, no, I'll disown all of
you and I'll stay here on my own. And I
was like, it's just mum, it's just not happening. It's
just not happening.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
How did you convince her?

Speaker 1 (31:40):
She basically said, because she speaks a little bit of
Spanish because my name is Chay off the Chago Our.
She loves Cuba, We've been here loads of times. She
learned Spanish off her own back. So she wanted to
move to Spain. And I just said, you're not moving
to Spain, mom, like me and my little brother. Like,
my little brother's not little, he's three years younger than me.
But you're not moving to Spain like we need you here.
You know what I'm saying. You're not moving to Spain.
And then she was like, cool, can I can I

(32:01):
just go there for a little bit of thing? I said, no,
there's no Spain in this equation. There's no Spain. There's
gonna be something.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
Can I go there for a little bit? She just
thought to come back exactly. I'm like, Mom, they'll try it.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
But anyway, she she got over it, and she was like, okay, cool,
if I can stay in West, like near Labor Grove,
then that'll be fine.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
So yeah, she compromised. Yes, she compromised. She's near West now,
she's near Grove.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
That's fine.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
She's just not in the hood, which is just the
key thing because obviously, growing up, everyone knewhere I live.
We all went to each Trather's houses with local game
members everything. Everyone knows whereveryone lives. So I just didn't
want my mom to ever be a target because if
I'm a target, I can deal with it. You know,
if you kick the shit at me, brother, I'll live.
You know, I'm saying hopefully anyway i'll hear when I'll
be good. I'm up for a fight. I don't mind.
But my mom, if you're target my mom, then I

(32:43):
have to literally throw my career away. And go and
do something I don't want to do, so I'd rather
she's just out the way and I can chill, ye,
which is how it is now.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
So she's good.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Your mom sounds extremely cold. She's a legend, bro, She's
a jungle d cha. Yes, she names you after shake
of Art.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yes, with the purpose of not allowing me to be
right wing. Right. Yeah. Yeah, if you've got your name,
that's it. It's impossible.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
You cannot be at all.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Impossible yet exactly. She she used to she used to row.
She used to be rowing, and she she actually used
to train with If I'm not mistaken, I don't want
to miss her. But she used to train with TGB,
or she was training for TGB something like that. She
also earlier than that, wanting to be a pilot, So
she was studying to be a pilot.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
She used to drive a big Triumph like. She's just
a G to be honest.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Shen Spanish, Yeah, she wants to.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Spanish, exactly, has an nw A first edition. Yeah, just
a G.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
But I like her because she's very accepting. Her Her
job is she's a youth worker. She spent her whole
life helping you know, black and impoverished kids in Brixton
get jobs and turn the life around back. She wasn't
paid that much for it. She just really wants to
help you. That's just who she is. So great person,
nice one.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah, the I mean she must clearly be super proud
of everything, super super proud. I think like one of
the like one of the things that you know, people
seem to every now and then think like, you must
have signed a big record, right. That's the thing is
They've been saying that for years. That's the constant around

(34:12):
AJ Tracy. But but I mean you haven't. No, but
like does that. I can see why people think that
just because you've done and like the videos you make
and the and the and the way you do things.
But the fact that you've done it all yourself is like,
is incredible?

Speaker 3 (34:28):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Has that always been important to you to keep it that?
Because you must have had the offers and all of
that stuff.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
It's definitely had loads of offers. Man, Like you know
what I'm saying it it fluctuates. Music is very fickle,
you know what I'm saying. You can like, I can't
tell you how many times in my career I've been
like going through a quiet period, like and most of
the time it's funny because it's by a choice. I'm
not like just falling off, like I've just chosen to
not make music. It's not you know what I'm saying.
It's it's usually a conscious decision. When storms he deletes

(34:54):
his Instagram, no one's forced him to do that. He's
just decided to do that. Ye know what I'm saying.
If theyve goes quiet for a little bit, he's decided
to go quiet. It's what we do. But people fans
for some reason think, oh, he hasn't dropped the song
in ages, he must have fell off. But if you
go look at my monthly listener says seven million, So
like you know what I'm saying. But it's just people
don't They don't look up stuff. And if you look
to research, you can see I'm not signed to anyone
that I remember. Someone tweeted saying something like AJ says

(35:16):
he's independent, but it says Ada at the bottom of
his thing. Yeah, Ada is distribution, bro, I've signed nothing.
They're just distributed my music like distributed. It's taken.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
You have to have. That's distribution.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
You have or you can't get your music out because
the DSPs don't deal with individuals. They deal with you know,
corporations and people in groups and people who have like
a roster for example. So I had to go through someone.
And now if you look with my last album, it
says Revenge Records that it's going through me. Now the
distribution as well is going through me and my manager.
So there's no anyone anywhere now. It's just ask which

(35:46):
is cool. But I always say this, I'm not against
a record deal at all. I'm not against it. It's
just no one's come forward and offered me anything of significance.
Like I've had the massive money offers, but you know,
for example, they are like if they offer me x
y zx millions, I'll signed for that, but now I
owe you that money.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
It's like yeah, and also a debt.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
It's a debt, and it's like it's just an up
forward lump sum because I would have made that money
anyway eventually, maybe not as quick as right now, but
I will get eventually and I'll make more and have
to give away less.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
So if you're using your head, then you can do
some simple maths. There's no point really, man, It's more
about the support. I'll be honest, like a record label
saying to me if they said, look, Aj, we really
want to sign you. We've wanted you for ages. This
is the plan. We want to do this if you
in America, this in Japan, this in Nigeria. You know,
I'm saying, this is our plan, this is our step,
this is our blueprint, and this is the team. This
person specialized in this and they've done that. It's not

(36:36):
that hard. If you came to me of a plant
that I'll be swayed. I could be swayed, yeah, but
no one's ever done that. So it's not that it's
just money. It's just take this big lump summer money
and I'm good.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
It's so rare, you know, like what I think like
that source of you know, people talk about DII music
and DI culture, and a lot of the time when
they talk about it that they talk about kind of
grunge bands and like and bands, you know, like that's
that sort of punk thing, and that definitely happens. There
are definitely bands out there who are one hundred per
ye why but I feel like, especially in like British
hip hop, it's like on another level, like it's truly

(37:09):
like the way that boy Better Knows set up and
delivered all of that, like like early on, like that
was so and what you've done.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
That's that's that's like the blueprint. What Jamie did, in
my opinion, is the blueprint, to be honest. It's like
that inspired a lot of like me Zoo Big Zoo,
like a lot of us inspired us to like go
and be our own entity rather than like just going, hey,
I'm talented, just let me sign here and you can
do whatever the hell you want to force me to
make music I don't want to make yeah, which has
just never been an angle to be honest.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
When you were in this in the States recently, we
plan shows.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
I know shows. I was just chilling. Actually I want
to see Mirkami. Oh yeah, yeah, I had dinner with him.
Actually did you fire?

Speaker 2 (37:45):
That was that's the exhibition at the Kosian.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yes, that's actually it.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
That so like I know, I know, think think that's
the vers Impressed. That's like a virtual one but but
virtual and real. It was a mix. So okay. So
to anyone listening that doesn't know, like like explain to
me this up because this is an artist's called exhibition

(38:09):
it's on Madison Avenue, right, yep. There's two buildings yep,
and what you go in What can You Lives.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
So yeah, it's their real life, but one one half
of it is like virtual and on your phone you
can you know, see works of art and it's like
very interactive, immersive, and one side is physical.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
So they had two statues.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
I'm not going to go super nerdy art geek on you,
but like sure, there's like a classic one called Lonesome
Cowboy that he made. There's like a rendition of that,
like a chrome one, and there's a female one. And
there's Artifacts who make clone X, who are a group
of guys who make NFTs and stuff. Their logo is
like a lightning bolt. Nike acquired them, so that's now
a logo of Nike as well. And Takashim re Kami

(38:50):
actually made two custom Murcami lightning bolts, that big massive ones.
One was for sale and I actually met the guy
who bought it, and one is just for displaying in
the in the gallery.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Sorry, but yeah, it was. It was so sick, like
I was really sick.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
I went there because so random how life works, bro,
So basically, rest in peace Virgil.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
I told him.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
I told Virgil when he took me to a show
in Paris one time. I was sitting like, Bro, I
was sitting with all these people that like I really rate,
like I really really rate.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
I was sitting like.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
One behind front row around like Ghana like FuG like
asap mob, like loads of really sick people.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Yeah, And I was just there like, what the hell,
how am I here?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I'm not even signed?

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, literally, and.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Virgils come up to me and he's just like, yo, bro,
like I hope you're cool, You're comfortable with everything, good
and really loving guy, like genuinely just wants to help people,
you know what I'm saying. And I was like, I
was looking at the plethora of people that are there,
like the variation of celebrity and how big they are,
and I'm not just downplaying writing, but honestly, I was
one of the least known people in there, and like
He's come over to me and been like, Yo, you're good,

(39:54):
You're cool, because that's how much he cares, you know
what I'm saying. He knows he's not good, but he's like, yo,
you're good, and I'm like, yeah, cool. And then when
I got up after the show. I was like saying,
your congratulations. This show was fire. I loved the new collection,
blah blah blah. And then I see Muraccarmi walk past
and I was like, oh my day, he's Mirocarma. I'm
a big fan. He's like Camro. He introduced me like
Murcarmy doesn't speak great English. Yeah, but he was just
like yeah, like basically would you do kind of thing?

(40:14):
I explained what I do, and then he followed me
on Instagram, which is fire. And obviously I was already
a massive fan, but now I'm like ten times a
fan and then my friend, so then this is crazy
as well. When when I was like twenty one, twenty two,
I'm twenty eight now. So a while ago, I was
on a plane to like Maley or IP for. Actually
I think it was IB for Look how the World Works.
I was actually goes a ib for and I was
on a plane with one of my best mates's ands

(40:36):
was like to me, he's like, bro, this guy got
on the plane and he's like look at this guy.
He's like look at his mask, and he had like
a custom LV mask. You know that way before COVID
people were like he was like making masks that custom
you know, like Mortal Combat masks. Yeah, yeah, exactly, out
of like LV fabrics. And he pointed at me. He's like, Bro,
this guy he's fired. Like the things he does. He
makes that custom mask, costom training six six stuff. You

(40:56):
should hit him up because he knows I love that
kind of stuff. And I don't know if his male
ego pride, embarrassment, I don't know, but I didn't want
to say to him he's getting on the plane, yo, bro,
like let's connect.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
I didn't want to be that guy.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
And I'm saying, yeah, yeah, that's understandable. Yeah, yes, I've
got that kind of role.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah yeah, you know, yeah, I don't mind speaking to you,
but I don't want to like ambush you on a plane.
And Yo, you know what I'm saying. He was with
his mates and stuff. So I just left it. But
it's funny. I'm gonna wrap background to what I just
said there with me not wanting to approach him.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
So I left it.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
But I DMed him like a week later and I
was like, yo, bro, saw you on the plane and
he's like yeah, yeah, I saw you, bro, And then
I was like cool, let's connect. And he started like
sending me trainers and stuff and get me and rolled
the void does that is now one of the co
founders of Artifact, who makes the NFT who connective roc
on me. So he invited me out to New York.
And it's crazy because he was living in growth obviously,

(41:41):
so the whole it's a really crazy like connection. But anyway,
he said to me at dinner the other day, because
he took me there. We're sitting at the table when
he was like, bro, do you remember on the plane,
like when I saw you. I was like, oh, so
he saw me on the plane. Yeah, and he's like, yeah,
but I didn't want to ambush you on a plane.
He said to me. What I basically was thinking. I
was like, it's funny how the world works. Broa, we
could have just right then and there just hands have

(42:01):
been like, yo, you know what I'm saying. It's crazy,
But yeah, it was sick, man, I was so sick.
Like the room that I was in at dinner. It
was Tagashi's favorite restaurant in New York and I can't
remember what the name of it is, but it's underneath
the Gogosian right it's a sushi place, right.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
It was fight. It was so nice, genuinely not gassing.
It was so good.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
And you're a you're a big food fan, a massive foodie,
bro massive because one of my favorite like what one
of the things I love about your music and I
love about all like British hipub especially is like the reference.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
It's like the little.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
Points and the little things that you and and like
the little London like kind of thing that I know
what that is. Yeah, and one of them is in
Jackpot you shout out to Bob Bob Rakhas Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and that is That's got to be the only song
that that restaurant.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
I had so many people saying what is that? Like
what is that? But I'm just like both you know.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
That restaurant is like I took my mum there for
a nice she doesn't want to eat anywhere else now.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
It's so nice and I've never had quisine like that
before all it was different, which was cool.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Yeah. I like the interior is really nice.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, it's really like, how would you describe it to
someone that's not been to that restaurant? This is a
restaurant in so Ho, We should Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
I described it like I said to one of my friends,
it looks like a very fancy train carriage.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
That's exactly what I say. It's like being in I
always said it's like being on the orange.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
I imagine exactly exactly. That's it. That's right.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
And there's a did you press the champagne?

Speaker 3 (43:27):
I did pressed the champagne. But I had to press
the champagne.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
But there's a button on every table, that champagne, and
you pressed that.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
I was.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
I was amazed by that. You took me postly, who
runs your okay, he took me. Yeah, he took me
for dinner and like he said, yeah, press the button.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Bro.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
Cool if it's on you because your treats.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
It's a really cool place. And then like you also
like then you also shout out to like Novikov.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
I've said a lot of that's on the new record.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
That's on Anxious, Yes, Anxious.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
And then uh, little more love. I'm talking about strougging
off the food references whatever.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
End.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
He was one of my food and football is by
me the most Okay, they're your thing, they're my things, man.
But this this sushi restaurant was amazing honestly. And I
sat down on the table and I was I sat
down with this guy. He goes by Zaptio. That's like
he's online tag. So I sat down with this guy's
zapp and he was like talking to me, talking to me.
And then these two guys, I would say if I
had to guess how they were, I'd say like mid forties.
They were quite young for when you find out what

(44:26):
they do, very young for what they do. So they
were like, what do you do? And I said, bro,
I'm just here for the ride.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Me talked to this guy and then I put it
at zapp and then like what you do? Yeah, I've
run off effective blah blah blah called the chopping U
chopping up.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
And then I said what do you what do you
guys do?

Speaker 1 (44:39):
So the one time I left us in that kind
of like a suit, like an open shirt suit, like
just got off work vibes, and he had two massive
diamond rings on. And I know about jewelry, bro and
these rings are worth a lot, massive rings. Yes, So
I was like, would you do and he's like oh,
And he showed me the rings and I looked at
it and it was you're the Bucks logo.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Yeah. So I was like, oh, you work with a box, like, yeah,
I owned the.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Bucksh okay, that's something else.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
And he's like mid forties. He looked like mid forties.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, but I could be listen if he's older than that,
and I'm just being complimentary, great, yeah yeah, but he
looks honestly, to me, he looked like early forties, genuinely
mid early forties. So then the guy next to him,
I was like, so what would you do? And he's
like and the Bucks guy started laughing. He's like, oh yeah,
he owns the nets and I noticed you wear the
nets hat. I'm like, this is crazy. Then I realized that, like,
who's in this room? Jeff Staple behind me, who owns

(45:27):
a Staple, you know, pre cool so stable by me.
You and Ambush was around somewhere, just loads of cool people,
really really cool people. So I'm just in this mad
room and I'm like just saying to everyone, but people
coming up to me and saying, oh, Tracy that while
go on, I'm like, this is mad.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
That you even know me. It's sick. It's sick that
you even know who I am. Like sick was it?

Speaker 1 (45:46):
And they were saying yo, because in the NFT space,
I feel like a lot of rappers are just kind
of a company will pay them to use that n
FT as their provar but they don't care or know
anything about n FTS. And I'm really like immersed in
the space.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
You're up on it? Yeah, I'm really up on it.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
So I feel like a lot of people just respect
that I'm taking time to learn about it and get
involved in it. So, yeah, it was. It was a
really nice trip, man, really really nice trip. I took
my girlfriend. She loved the exhibition. She got loads of
little moroccaromy plushes and stuff plushes. Okay, yeah, it was cool, man,
it was. It was fire. It was really fun. It
was really fun.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
That's cool, man. And how do you find like when
when you were out there when you like you've played
shows there though, yeah, ye, when you when you because
some of those references are so nice. Do they like,
how does it translate in the States or do they
just love like the easter eggs in there They're like
trying to work out.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
I think they love the easts, honestly, I think that's
what it is. And for me, it's like in America
over the years of like gained more and more respect
out there because I go there a lot. I don't
just wrap from the UK and send it over to America.
I'm actually there in New York. Like I'm there on
the ground level with people outside, you know what I'm saying.
So I think they respect that a lot. And when
I went this time, when I went on tour, because
I came off to a AMENI like a couple months ago.

(46:52):
We was in New York for two nights and we
killed it, Like AMENI is an amazing performer, and really
grateful we had me on there because you could have
took an American artist who's bigger than me in America,
but he just you know what I'm saying through me
the alub So I was out there and in New York,
I was walking to like stores and bodega's and like
shopkeepers are recognizing me, people stopping me in the street,
and I was like, this is crazy that how do
you not know who I am? Obviously don't get twisted.

(47:13):
I know some people would know about for it to
be frequent enough that I'm walking around and people stopping
me is crazy, you know what I'm saying. Because New
York's a big place. There's a lot of people there.
But then when I went this time again, even more
people were that stopping me. So I was just very
very flatted out, to be honest, very grateful man. But
I dropped a freestyle when I was out there, which
is doing really work saying that freestyle. Yeah, it's on
a Jersey club beat. Yeah, and obviously Jersey club out there,

(47:34):
if you know, if you know about, you know about
I'm saying, it's really cool, really fire the genre of music.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
It sounds a little bit similar to like footwork and yeah,
man aspout that being people expected me to spill on
the drow beat, so I think I just called them off.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
God.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Yeah, I see a lot of people saying that, oh
this is the AJ. We liked the old AJ Tracy.
But the thing is that there's no old AJ Tracy,
because what depending on where you found out about me, is.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
What you think the old AJ Tracy is.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, yeah, someone might I met me off the Butterflies
and you think I'm a dancer artist. You might have
met me at Labra Groth, which a lot of people did,
I'm sure, and you think I'm a garage artist, or
you met me when I was on radio sets with
you know boy Better and Whatnot and Storms and Zoo
and all the man, then maybe you know me as
a grandmachist. Who knows if you knew me before that,
if you did, which I doubt, or but if you did,
then you know me as a rapper because I was
rapping before that.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
So it's whatever. You know what I'm saying, that's whatever.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
So I don't really take any of them comments too
seriously because I could ask like five different people from
the comments, what SNA did you find out about me
listening to it? And it'll be like grime, rap, trap,
like droll, like you could be anything. So I'll already
take it that serious. Bro, You've got to give fans.
My producer Night has told me this and it stuck
with me forever. He said before I made Pasta, he said, listen,
don't give fans what they want. You have to give

(48:43):
them what they need. And I've stuck with that forever
because that's just such a fact. Before I've done Labragoth,
people are like, we don't care about garage, right, do
you want a garage song? And I was the highest
selling garage song ever ever, which is just mad. But
like you didn't want that before.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
You need to get you need told that plant.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
I'll get it eventually, I'll get if I do get it.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
I'm not already in tending them like my friends gon
f man, I'm not buying telling them.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
It's just so long.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
But yeah, honestly, man, with the music thing, I love
being very fluid and just the independency he comes into that.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, because I can just make wherever I want. Gratulations
on Flu Game, Oh, thank you appreciate. I love that
it's named after that, that there's that reference to that game,
that Michael Jordan game. Did you know about that game already?

Speaker 3 (49:26):
Yeah? Of course before the did you want to?

Speaker 1 (49:28):
I knew before the Last Chimes, but I didn't know
enough in depth about it before the Lost Times. But
everyone knows that if you're sneak ahead as well. There's
like Flu game sneakers and stuff like you know about
the reference. You know what I'm saying. My dad was
a massive Michael Jordan fan. He's just a black icon
in it, so yeah, yeah, it's just default for us
to know about him. But I didn't know like in
depth until the documentary.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Which documentary is incredibly.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
One of the best ever. Yeah, one of the best
documentaries I've ever watched ever.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
And I thought he comes across like it's interesting. He
comes across brilliant in it. But you know there's that
bit where he gets gets a bit upset because the
others are like saying that he was like would shower
at people and stuff, and he gets to like a
you see like this little kind of really human Yeah, exactly, exactly,
It's really nice that fit.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
You know what I always say to people. I always
say this to everyone.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
My girl is a massive Beyonce fan, like die hard,
massive die hard fan. Yeah, so like she thinks she
can do no wrong. You know what I'm saying. She
just floats and just you know what I'm saying. So
I just told her that I said. A lot of
people think about me is they think that I'm very
like hard headed and like I don't like taking criticism
and stuff. But the thing is, actually it's not even
about that. It is that for you to be at

(50:32):
the top of your game, it requires a certain level
of harshness, Like you have to be cold sometimes because
you expended and giving out your energy and want to
everyone just you're not gonna get anything.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
You're not gonna achieve anything.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
So with people like you know, Ronaldo, people say, oh,
Ronaldo slap the fan, the fans phone out of his hand. Listen,
I'm not condoning that at all. I definitely do not
agree with that. Would I do that probably, I'm just
being honest. That's just me being honest. You know, like Viera,
I'm sure I would do that too. I'm not gonna lie.
I said that last night like ten seconds and he's
just ignoring the bro and it's obviously you're a human
starting snaps and he I'm gonna kick him.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, I would kick him. I would have kicked himay
before that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Yeah, that's just me. But I'm just saying. You know,
when people celebrity do these things and people are like, oh, like,
you're a bad person because you snapped it, Like they
don't snap ninety nine percent of their time, but because
you hold him to this high standard when they do snap,
it's the end of the world, you.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
Know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
I don't know, man, I just think with Jordan, like
a lot of people say, you know, he was horrible
to all the other players.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
He used to shower everyone.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
And Okay, I hear you, But think about how he
is on himself as well, Like he's the same way
with himself, Like he will put himself through the gym
every day for hours grueling training. I'm saying to make
sure he's the best he could be. So I mean,
as long as there's one rule for everyone, that's my rule.
As long as you're doing the same for everyone, it's
fine in my opinion personally. So yeah, man, but I
love that documentary. I think he came across well. But

(51:47):
he gave me an understanding as to like what it
is to be a winner. Yeah, at the top level.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
Like that that there's that section where he talks about
how he would kind of he doesn't really specially talk
about it, but the others will talk about it. How
he would kind of create a beef with someone to
give him drive him, giving that extra thing to win,
Like he's essentially tormented himself to win. That's how much he.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
Wants to win. He's like, that's a real thing, bro.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
It's kind of trolling himself.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
That's a real thing. That's a real thing.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Thing about that, you know, even when you see I
don't know if you've noticed it, but people who pay
attention to football can really see that, Like you know,
Holland and in bape they're kind of trying to force
a rivalry. But like it makes sense because without Messi,
there's no Ronaldo about Ronaldo's no message.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Need someone to push you.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
And if they're competing saying, like you know, they take
little not digs at each other, but they say little
things to reference each other. You know, like someone might
asking Bapey who's who's the best young player in the
Champions League right now and he's just like, obviously me,
there's no one close. But you know that Halland said
yesterday that it's him. And you know what I'm saying,
there's obviously a little but you need that because then
when you play, you're like, not only am I doing
it for me, I'm actually doing it to batter my

(52:53):
rival as well, Like I've got a point to prove it.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
So you get extra glory with the extra torment.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
It's extra glory because then people gonna be like, on
top of that, and you've done in Hallan, I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yeah, so everyone needs a nemesis. Everyone needs a nemesis.
Talking of like sports, documentaries. Yeah, you've seen have you
seen the Tottenham one?

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Which one the the one that they make abou Arsenal
and the Amazon thing?

Speaker 2 (53:15):
No, yeah, the one that came out during.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Lockowes, Yes, with Marino and Delli. Have seen it.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
I've not seen that.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
You gotta watch. It's great entertainment. Was a neutral? You
will love that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Yeah, what are the big what the big takeaways from it?

Speaker 3 (53:30):
The big takeaways for me is that there's.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
There anything you learned in there that you were like,
I wasn't expecting that and this is shown me. This
is showed me something I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yeah, kind of kind of not to be a football snobbyer,
but like because I love Tattenham and they really get
me involved with the club. I've been in like the
tunnel a halftime, heard what they say to the ref.
I've heard everything. So I wasn't super shocked, but it
was funny to me that, like the way the manager
speaks to the players shocked me a little bit. Like
obviously it's Marinho. Marinho is a different kind of manager
and I love him personally. Loads of people hate so like,

(54:00):
don't kill me for that, but I love him. I
think he's great. He's really passionate, and he cares about
what he does. He clearly loves football, which matters to
me because some managers don't know football. They're just there
because they can manage. So when he was talking to
like the team and he said, none of you played well,
none of you were good enough. No, it's just no,
I don't like it, Like if you don't play better,
then you can just go, I don't care about you.

(54:21):
Like for me, that's needed. I think that's needed personally.
But everyone was like, that's so harsh. You can't say
that to your players. But bro, it's like, you get
paid so much money.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
That's the thing. You get paid so much money to
do this job.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Surely you can't just walk around your head down for
ninety minutes like these people travel like you just said,
you go all the way from from Essex to Liverpool, Like,
surely we didn't make this journey for you to put
your head down for ninety minutes. Like I traveled to
Spain to watch tournament, the Champion League final, and I
was so gassed. I've never been so gass in my
life because I didn't mind losing. I swear to God,
I didn't mind losing, but also not in that fashion

(54:54):
like I wanted to lose that.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
You know. We tried really hard with yeah losing. Yeah, bro,
I can't lie to you.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
That's the one thing that I always say, Like, as
long as you're giving it you all, then it's all right, honestly,
genuinely in everything you give it you all, then it's whatever.
No one can you know, you can't have any regrets.
Just start have any regrets. You left it all out
there on the pitch or in the booth or on
stage or whatever.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
You're good.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
No one could comment on your team, like, and people
can see when you care and you're trying. Like when
I come on stage and I'm I'm soaking with sweat
and like I'm like i've been I've performed loads of times.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
Ill you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
I got I get allergic, askma sometimes so like I'm
dying on stage, I'm not fit, and I come off
and I'm dead and I'm just quiet for forty five minutes,
sitting in my little green room, quiet and people say
that you know what I'm saying. Look, he's the steam
coming off him. He gave it everything. Whereas some artists
go out there and they're just here to collect the check.
There's a backing track playing. They're not even spitting their balls.
They're just like stabbing their lyrics.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
It's a shame, you know what I'm saying. It's just
a shame.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
But yeah, man, that take away, my takeaway is definitely
the way the manager spoke to the players.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
I've never seen anything like that. Never. Never.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
I thought he'd be a bit softer, you know, like
man management is meant to be a key point in
being a manager. You got to look after the players individually.
Everyone's different and when I different needs of course, but
he just blanket said, yeah, bam, all of you are
whack man up, Like yeah, fair enough.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
It is what it is.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Man, I could talk to you all day black. I
understand that you know, time's getting on, it's the weekend.
Is there anything like we is anything you want to
get in that we've like that we've not touched on.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Not really, man, I would say I would just like
to say, like, obviously I hope people are considering things
like Grenfell and it doesn't slip their mind that not
to take it super political, but that the government just
don't really care about issues like that. It happened, everyone
knows what happened, and they've just let whoever did it
get away with it. And it's a bit of a shame.
You know what I'm saying, doesn't really set a good
example for the rest of London. It's like saying, you know,

(56:39):
if poor people live in this block, black and Muslim people,
we're just gonna let it happen. But I know if
that was a rich, white, you know, expensive time block,
they'd be well, they wouldn't even be cudding on the
block for a start. Yeah, but yeah, just things that
I just want to say. Yeah, I hope everyone's attention
is on things like Saturday, you know what I'm saying,
nice little football game for charity for Grenfell and yeah, man,
just just spreading positively and mental health is a good

(57:00):
thing to be aware of. Yeah, check in on your friends.
Just trying to cramb in some nice points here.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
This is good.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Yeah man, that's that's about it. I'll be honest, that's it.
And yeah, I spurs man.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
For previous episodes of Midnight Chat. Simply search your podcast
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For more information on the music magazine that makes this series,
visit Loud and Quiet dot com. Anyway, good night,