Street Journalist may be a name that some are familiar with but after hearing him spit a couple bars, it will be a name you will have no choice but to remember. Bringing a brand new energy to the face of UK hip hop, Street Journalist combines jazz, poetry, vocal melodies and live acoustics to his music to create an unusual yet original sound. 

Music can sometimes have that repetitive feel: same melodies, same beats, same hooks, same sound, so this is why it is so refreshing when an artist is unique and can bring a completely different edge to the standard musical trends. It is not just Street Journalist’s creativity, style and colourful flow that has already got people talking, but also the way this hip hop journalist explores real life issues and transforms them into imaginative vivid stories that can play over and over in your mind.

With the underground release of his mixtape, ‘Strictly Unrelated’, and a very busy schedule ahead, The Situation grabs a quick chat with Street Journalist to find out what he's all about.
 

The mix tape is finally finished and has been released on the underground scene. What inspired you to call it ‘Strictly Unrelated?

I’m not big-headed, but personally I think what I’m doing right now in the music scene is strictly unrelated. I think Street Journalist is strictly unrelated. I’ve listened to a lot of UK artists and there are people who come close, but I don’t see anyone doing the exact same thing, especially in the UK. I have mad respect for all the musicians and artists in the UK because everyone is doing their thing and it’s not easy. Personally, I feel that I’m doing something else, and if I do blow up I will be the first of my kind and who else comes after is coming after. I’m looking to open a new door to a certain type of rap, hip hop in the UK.

Would you say this is because of your own style? Every good artist has their own musical trademark. Tell us about your style and your particular trademark?

I think that my style is still developing. I think the way you develop your style is by looking at no one - just do your thing; you need to let yourself go. For example in a club, have you ever tried to dance with someone who can’t dance? It puts you off! So don’t watch no one and do your own thing because you can’t go wrong. Someone can’t say, ‘No, that’s a wrong style’. If you’re trying to do someone else’s style then they can say that but if you’re doing your own then it’s yours. You can have the message but if you don’t have any style or delivery then it will just be boring. You have to have style and delivery and entertain people, otherwise you won’t get any play. You can talk about the deepest things but you still got to bring some style into it as certain rhyming signatures definitely work. I try and make my style as colourful as possible like Slum Village’s style, old school Slum. In their first album, ‘Fantastic T3’, had some dirty style. He messed around with it, he weren’t looking at no one - he was just doing his thing. 

We are beginning to sense who you like in the music game. Who are your musical inspirations?

I get inspired by everyone and get inspiration by everything, not just musically. Most of my inspirations are away from music, its life, people I know, where other people are going. My family, that’s where my inspiration comes from.

Musically, people who have inspired me about my choice of subjects, my approach on how I choose to attack people’s ears are people like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, BlackForce, Little Brother, Slum Village.

When it comes to just general inspirations, it’s gotta be world music, like Bosa Nova, I just love their stuff and they are just so professional with their music - I just wanna be the same way. I do truly believe a lot of musicians work harder than a lot of artists. People like Miles Davis worked hard, but because these hard working musicians don’t have a voice even though they worked hard, their instrumental albums will never do as well as an album with vocals. They are not heard enough but I know how hard they work and I wanna be an artist to work as hard as a hard working musician.

When listening to your tracks, you can hear the passion and the emotion. They all sound like they come from a personal place.  Where does your song inspiration come from? Your own experience or others?

Both, my personal experiences and what I’ve seen in my surroundings. I take a journalist approach to it or I might write an account on someone, what someone else went through or what someone might be going through.  I might put myself in that position or sometimes I even build a story off the smallest thing. It could as small as someone saying something like ‘I might be pregnant’. I may write a story track about after the baby’s born and so on. It’s just an inspiration, different inspirations causes me to write different things. It just kicks something off in my mind then my mind just goes with it. I’ve got a big imagination. I also do scriptwriting and with this, my imagination just goes wild. Sometimes I’ve got to make it alright for the ears of the people that’s listening but I love to write. I get free when I write. There’s nothing better than just turning off your phone and just writing. I don’t just write bars, I script write, I keep a journal and a journal can get deep sometimes. I feel that writing is exercise for the brain and I see it as very time consuming, but it’s cool.

What projects, musical or not, are you involved in at the moment that has been keeping you so busy?

For the past two months I have been recording the mixtape, but I also act as well. So as soon as the mixtape dropped, I got a big acting job and it’s a world tour. The first stop is Berlin and I’m leaving with [the] theatre. So because I’m leaving next month and I just recently dropped this mixtape what I have had to do is record a couple more tracks and have revisits [for the mixtape].  It will be counter-promoting the mixtape as well as getting loads of radio plays. It’s hard to explain, but it’s the first time I’m trying this out and I hope it’s gonna work. But I’m not gonna be here for the movement of the mixtape so that’s why recently I have been so busy. Also why I am so busy is because I do my music, writing and acting as well, so you have to juggle them around.

It’s quite interesting that you are involved in acting. What made you want to go down the acting route?

I like acting; it’s another form of expression of creativity and art. With my acting side of things, script writing is where I’d like to end. I don’t wanna be acting forever I wanna write my own stuff, write plays, write films, produce films, documentaries. I wanna be the right hand of a lot of this more than just music. I would like to expand myself to more than just writing tracks, I also song write and a lot of the stuff you hear on the mix tape, the singing other than just mine, I wrote as well. Tracks like ‘Damaged Goods’, Szjerdene and I both wrote a verse for that. On ‘This Little Light’ featuring Natalie Walker, I wrote that verse, but expanding from music, I do want to write films.

You tell stories, with a message, through your music and lyrics but also make it entertaining. What about when you perform, what approach do you take to your performances?

I try and make my performances personal, as personal as I can and all of my performances are different because I try not to make them seem repetitive. Personally, on the UK scene I know who I like and certain people that I do like I may go and see them perform again and then they do the exact same thing. I can’t see that three times and so I try and switch it up every time I do my performance as well as making it personal

So what is your view the UK hip hop scene at moment? There are a lot of talented UK artists but some do try and imitate the Americans…

A lot of British artists spit in American accents and personally I don’t think that flies and a lot of people think the same thing - it just don’t run. If I wanted to hear an American artist I would put on an American artist. I wouldn’t put on British artist who sounds American. I see that as acting. If you wanna act then act but if you have to put on an accent every time you have to rap, it doesn’t make sense. I think every British rapper should spit in the same accent they speak to their mum and dad in, otherwise its not rapping.

I believe that a lot of dudes in the UK hip hop and grime scene, they want the life, they see the life then they just go for it, whether or not they have lyrical ability skills or not or even love for the game. They just say ‘Okay, yeah I wanna be an MC, alright cool, I’m gonna pick up a pen and start rhyming and put out a mixtape’. They are not serious they are more like the lazy MC who I do refer to in the mixtape and that’s why they hustle forever. I don’t personally believe they want it want it and that’s why they might not be great, because they don’t have the passion for it.

But me, one thing I give kudos for in certain UK artists is the ones who have done their research and who have been listening to real hip hop for time, or grime artists who have been listening on point to garage from day [one] and they know about their stuff, about music before jumping into it. It’s just not just a one morning decision, not ‘I woke up and then I wanted to start rapping’. It’s not just like that, you can’t just do that. You can’t just make a decision like that - it takes a long time. It takes time to develop your style, it takes time to get your own style. You may be spitting a certain way for time then you find yourself, where you’re comfortable. I’m not hating I swear, I just think there is less true hip hop artists in the UK than you think. I respect everything they are doing, because they are trying to do this but I have high standards in regards to music and I do know what’s good and if you’re not cutting it then you’re not cutting it.

You seem more mature than your age, and it’s evident when listening to the mixtape. You also make a few references that people often refer to you as young - how do you handle that?

I have been asked the question, ‘Oh you’re only 19 so how do you write the way you write?’. Experience does come with age but experience also comes as it comes. Sometimes when you are 18 or 19 you might have experienced a lot of things, that’s just how life is. Myself, I feel like I don’t have to experience certain things, I see other people going through it and I feel their pain or I feel what they are feeling and I can just write about it. I actually feel like I have experienced a lot of things but a lot of people do not believe I’m 19. I just think no matter how old you are, do not let age rule you, don’t let it define your ability. Being after my brother, he went school and then college, After college he decided ‘I want to have my own media/production company’ and it started from there. My parents were against that but he started doing his thing and he is a graphic designer now, photographer and videography and he has his own production company and he is at the age of 23.  I also have dreams myself and personally I don’t feel like going to university. I think that would slow me down right now. I’ve got to do the things I wanna do now and go through it now and I feel I can do it without going to university. I thought when I was 18, ‘You know what, I’ve gotta make moves right now, I can’t wait till I’m 22.’ I know you uni guys work hard because I know a lot of people who are at university, it gets tough. I will always make sure that I’m never below that level, if anything I’m above, I just work hard and I guess with working hard comes maturity.

Where do yourself in the future?

I wanna release albums; production albums, I wanna release live albums, I love live music. I’m in two live bands, Yoka and a band called Jazz Hop Collective. I would love to release live albums even maybe even as revisits to the proper albums. I would also like to put out some compilation CDs. Still thinking about it right now, putting together my own collective of artists, not many - maybe seven, but artists who are on top of their game and talking about the right things, standing for the right things. I’m not too picky but as long as they are at the top of their game. It don’t mean that they have to be known, or acclaimed. They could be so underground but if I feel like they have that then I would call them to my collective and see what they say. Hopefully in the next couple of years I will be done with that. Just a small group maybe about seven heads, and would want to put out some collective CDs. For example, you know Sound Bomb, like Mos Def talent - that’s the kind of vibe I wanna get and maybe even start my own record label.

Street Journalist’s mixtape ‘Strictly Unrelated’ is out now. For more information, please visit: www.myspace.com/streetjournalist or www.streetjournalist.co.uk