Fanta Jarjussey caught-up with Grime stalwart No Lay to talk about dancing, going mainstream, having fans in America, that beef with OG Niki and a whole lot more.

We’d planned to meet at Ealing Broadway and No Lay’s an hour late. I’ve got a bottle of Rosé waiting for her, which I fear will find itself resting in my liver as I start to contemplate departing without the interview I’d hoped for, before she turns up. Apologies are made and we have a quick girlie chat before starting the interview…

I haven’t seen you in like a year! Where have you been and what have you been up to?

Is that how long it’s been? Oh my God.

Yes, it has been a year! Tell me what have you been up to?

Is that how long it’s been? Oh my God! I’ve been up to so much like obviously when you was seeing me I was just coming back into the game. Took a break for a little piece obviously I’m a real person innit? So a lot of personal stuff was going on. I don’t really think you can do music to the best of your ability unless you squash certain burdens. All my burdens are squashed now.

Amen to that!

I’m back innit? Officially back in this game. And it’s hard; a lot of artists can’t really do that, like step out of the game for that long and be solidified so…yeah man.

Since, Unorthodox Daughter it all kicked-off for you, to this day people still go on about that track what happened back then to you and the rest of the crew and how are things different now?

Basically, there was a lot of creative differences between us yeah, a lot of creative differences. I mean when you’re a crew, you all have to take a step forward at the same time. You can’t like…do you know what I mean like if one person is stepping forward and then some people are lagging behind or whatever? Sometimes it causes friction and errm…Silver went away a couple times, you know what I’m saying it just got to the point where I was like Unorthodox, Unorthodox, Unorthodox and I repped Unorthodox so much that I forgot to rep myself do you see what I’m saying? And it just got to the point where I had to spread my wings and I had to fly. I still respect them, I still talk to G.Kid umm…I don’t really see Silver these days but I still respect him, I think he’s one of the greatest to ever do it out of the male spitters and I’m just solo baby, you know? But it wasn’t no big fall out.

Why did you start spitting in the first place?

Do you what it is? My dad is Jamaican and Cuban and my Mum’s Greek Cypriot. My mum grew up on…the kind of stuff my mum used to listen to was like Paul Weller, Duran Duran and that kind of stuff and my dad obviously Reggae and those kind of things but umm…I think like putting words together and my wordplay started off in secondary school with poetry like English and Drama were my favourite lessons but basically just putting words together, like it’s a bit deeper than music, like it started out on poetry, like learning how to put together words and I always used to smash that in class! Then after that I used to go to the youth wing, it was like a youth centre, I was around fourteen/ fifteen and just used to spray on DnB and stuff like that. That’s what I started on, like a lot of people will say yeah Grime or whatever, obviously Grime was what I came out on and that’s what people saw me on but I started spittin’ on DnB and Hip Hop and then obviously Grime but I spit on any genre, like I love all genres. If you look in my CD collection, it’s quite eclectic it has a lot of variety. I like Rock music, I like Hip Hop, I like grime, alternative music, everything but yeah started out Hip Hop.

You’re a dancer as well aren’t you?

[laughs hysterically]

No listen, I know that No Lay’s a dancer and I would like to see it…

Right, basically, I used to do ballet and tap [laughs]. This is so embarrassing.

Why is it embarrassing? Because you’re seen as a hard, tough, spitter?

It’s a bit different like anyone that’s on my BB they might have seen pictures of me like with my leg up in the air and all them things, like doing some mad poses but ballet and tap. My mum used to send me to a dance school, my dad used to dance with Charlie that guy that ran Pineapple Studios and Bonny Langford. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Bonny Langford but my dad used to dance for her before he fell ill and that so I really get it from my dad’s side. My dad used to do everything like break dancing and everything but obviously I’ve progressed now…I don’t really do ballet and tap. I got the flexibility of ballet but it’s more of a street thing now and…

I’m sure men will appreciate your flexibility of ballet…

[laughs] I’m sure my man appreciates it! But yeah, obviously as time goes by and I’m able to grow more, start doing mainstream videos, I really hope one day I’ll be signed when I’ll be able to do mainstream videos, I will incorporate the dancing into it.

So are you are going to surprise us with it and save the best ’til last?

Yeah! And because I sing as well and obviously I was singing before anything else.

A lot of people don’t actually know you can sing…

I know, but you’ve heard me.

Yeah of course I know that you can sing, very well but people out there haven’t heard a track where you’re singing.

Do you know what it is? It’s because I used to sing in church and that, I was singing before I ever started spitting but I came out of my comfort zone.

How old were you when you started singing?

About twelve but I’ve always loved to sing. Anyone who knew me when I was younger would tell you that but I started spitting and it was so hard, I was out of my comfort-zone with the singing side of things, I didn’t know how to incorporate it because the singing is so [pauses] when you hear me sing, it’s like the voice is so sweet and nice, it sounds totally different to when I rap. So it’s just about bringing the two together, but obviously that comes with growth. On my album, they’re gonna hear a lot of that, but I’m not a person that just wants to start singing and totally forget about rap. That’s not me I would like to do like more like a Lauryn Hill rap my verses, sing my choruses.

You love Lauryn Hill don’t you?

Yeah! I love her Because I think that she [pauses] a lot of people think she should’ve practiced what she preached, basically as in, she talks about don’t let man wreck you and she let a man wreck her. On her The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill album she wasn’t preaching. She was saying look what’s happened to me. She was telling a story. That’s not preaching, preaching is don’t you do this and don’t you do that. She was saying learn from me girls man, because I’ve been messed about. To me that’s not preaching and I love any artist that can get on a song and bring tears to my eyes, to me that’s a real artist, forget all the hype and everything around it. Make hype tunes, I’ll love you for that as well, but can you take it to another side that you can touch my heart and bring tears to my eyes? That’s why I love Lauryn Hill.

If you had gun to your head and had to choose, who would you compare yourself to?

If I had to, I would say Nas and the reason why I say that is because I feel like he’s very lyrical and everything but he was underrated. That’s how I feel. Even though he brought out mainstream albums, he didn’t do a Jay-Z; do you understand what I’m saying? Then that’s how I feel right now, like I’m gonna be a Nas, do you understand what I’m saying? Like I might not be…I might not do what Jay-Z’s done, I’ll be a Nas and for me he was better innit? And that’s how I feel and I feel that the scene or whatever they suck onto girls and that that ain’t as good as me but sometimes it’s too real for them…sometimes and I just love stuff that he says like people fear what they don’t understand and hate what they can’t conquer and I feel like that all the time so yeah I’d have to say Nas.

The States seem to love you. Aside from all their tweets saying so, I remember last year, there was a pilot for a TV show being made and you were the artist the Americans loved the most. Has any of it made you think to yourself, fuck it, America are showing me love why am I staying here?

Basically, I’ve done the New York Times, It’s madness, basically I think it all started from the MySpace days, I used to get a lot of people messaging me from Brooklyn, now they tweet me…like they don’t even call me No Lay in Brooklyn, they call me the future [laughs]. That’s what they call me in Brooklyn basically and a guy called Body Bags; it’s craziness. Even when I put out the diss, it hit WorldStarHipHop and it hit The Source and I had so many people tweeting me it was a madness, but even before that people keep asking me Will you come over?. New Orleans, that’s another place that really like my music. It’s madness.

Tell me about this New York Time’s List you were on. How did you end up on there?

That New York Times was done like from the Run The Road days like Chantelle Fiddy sorted that out. I love her. To be quite honest Chantelle Fiddy has been about since, I’m talking early days like Unorthodox Daughter and she’s always shown me love, do see what I’m sayin? I feel like a lot of people forget about Chantelle Fiddy and what she’s done for the Grime scene. She did a lot for like me, Kano, Skepta, PR-wise, magazine-wise, she believes in me. She used to send me CDs of like Jean Grae. But yeah, I get so much people from America talking to me; they ask me constantly if I’m coming out. That show you were talking about earlier they chose me out of all the girls so I’m sure that says something innit [laughs].

So has it made you say hold on I’ve got love in the UK but America want to show me love so let me pack my bags and go?

If I had the means to go over there…

You’d pack your bags tomorrow?

Probably yeah.

Okay, an artist that recently reached out to you on a not so positive vibe is OG Nicki….Tell us what happened.

I’m gonna tell you. Basically what happened with her is someone tweeted something to her and said OG Nicki you are not the realest, No Lay is realest so I ReTweeted it and wrote at the end what’s wrong, why are you mad? Because I’m thinking, why is my name coming up? Then I’ve left it, not said nothing and the same girl who Tweeted it in the first place turned around and said don’t say nothing about No Lay, she ain’t said your name. That made me curious as in why she said that so I went and checked Nicki’s timeline and she was going off at the mouth. To be honest I don’t fear no one in this scene and she was talking about followers, I don’t know if you’ve seen that advert with the little boy who’s little brother bit his finger, that got millions of views now this girl is sitting on Twitter going I’m better than No Lay because of my twitter following and 700,000 views, but what I’m saying is your argument shouldn’t be with me it should be with the girl who Tweeted that you ain’t real No Lay is. She started speaking about how hard she is, this and that and all that crap and when I said listen, when it comes to this lyrical ting, I’m better than you, she said I will annihilate you when she said I will annihilate you…

That was it…

That’s it now. I said alright then, the proof’s in the pudding at the end of the day. If you’re gonna annihilate me let’s go to Semtex or something, let’s swing it out, no one was turning around and contacting us to do it and then I got a phone call from Jammer saying you lot can do it on Lord Of The Mics 3 so that’s where it went. He never started it, it was never a thing where we sent for her, she said that she will annihilate me, I told her to back her Tweet, it’s as simple as that. People wanna say Why you clashing her for? Because she’s young, no one said she was too young to shot her body, do you understand what I’m saying? So I said, Okay, let’s do it. We was supposed to do an interview yeah, all it was meant to be was an interview, so I’m hearing that she spat 16 bars for me in the interview, you’re trying to cheat now! You’re not waiting for Lord Of The Mics now, you’re trying to cheat! But when I heard that she spat 16 bars for me, I went home and wrote my bars and then I spat my bars for her, but jammer stopped me half way through, I didn’t get to finish it.

Jammer came late, if I was him I would’ve wanted to stop you from the first two bars alone but what happened after?

[laughs] It was gonna get documented anyway, whether it was radio or Lord Of The Mics, people were saying Jammer why you putting No Lay up to this? He didn’t put No Lay up to shit. She said she will annihilate me and I said prove it. In this game at the end of the day you can’t just say that especially her with her no ratings. I even said to her, Listen don’t indirect me and she said I’ll indirect you if I want and I was like That’s it! And another thing I wanna say; if you type into YouTube and make sure this is written in the interview OG Nicki disses, about ten gyal or so will come up that are dissing her. None of them made it to WorldStarHipHop, none of them made it to The Source and they’re all cussin her off. Why? It’s not nothing to do with her giving anyone a buzz. I laid it down properly and spoke the truth.

It did make it on The Source and World Star and it all kicked off.

You know what? It just got out of the hand. The video come out and the views started going mad, I got more views than her and then she tried to Tweet something about I took her off her high-horse, obviously she started to get vexed because people were Tweeting her. I had just over 4,000 followers at the time and she had like just over 20,000 something. Now; shouldn’t it be a thing where I get harassed since she’s got so many followers? It went the total opposite way. I started to feel bad for her and my brother said Don’t feel bad for her she said that your career’s dead, you’re dead and all this, she was running up her mouth.

How did you feel when Jammer came over and said No Lay I’m not letting you spit no more?

I feel like it speaks for itself at the end of the day. Why did you stop me?

Why do you think Wiley supports OG Niki?

I think that Wiley is a very smart guy and that’s all I’m saying.

How so?

Because You see Wiley, I’ve had my conversations with Wiley and I know what he thinks of me so it’s alright. Wiley Tweeted me and said for me not to clash her. Someone BBM’d me and said have you seen Wiley and jammer’s Tweets, where Wiley was saying to Jammer How you letting her clash her? And I said But Wiley when small prey try it with you, you skin ‘em because that’s what Wiley does. He’ll come when they try it with him and he’ll spin ‘em and then he Tweeted me and said to me I hear what you’re saying but I’ve got to try and save her from this, I don’t think that is good in the name of God NoLay and everyone started ReTweeting it and laughing.

So what’s next?

I dropped the I Am Legend free download mix tape in April, He Said, She Said: I Am Bad my EP of six tracks is basically a warm-up back into the game. The tracks have a radio vibe because everyone’s like Yeah No Lay’s a hard spitter but can she make music for a mainstream audience? And obviously I can so watch this space…

Follow No Lay on Twitter: @No_Lay

Words by Fanta Jarjussey

Tags: Grime, Hip Hop, Jammer, Lauryn Hill, Lord Of The Mics, Nas, No Lay, OG Niki, Wiley