Artist: Wiley

After hearing Playtime Is Over it’s obvious Big Dada have made a huge signing. Eskiboy passes through Hattie Collins` house for tea and biscuits but more importantly to talk the truth on Dizzee Rascal, that third LP, War Reports and his daughter Leah... Interview by Danny Walker/ Hattie Collins Images by James Pearson-Howes

Ok, so he’s running a tad tardy and we’ve eaten his biscuits – don’t say anything but I murked the bourbons way before he was even scheduled to arrive (you-know-dem-way-dere). Finally, an apologetic Richard Kylea Cowie settles on the Ikea-wannabe seating arrangement and we board the train, first stop Press-ton!!!

DW: You’re late, but we’re amazed you’re here! Do you agree that missing press has hurt your career?
Yeah, cos you’re meant to do press from the start, to the end of your time. It’s only now I’ve realised what a journalists’ job is. Dizzee used to be like ‘I don’t wanna do press cos all they ask is, ‘Did you get stabbed?’ I used to agree, but I shouldn’t have been looking in that direction. I should have been focused on me.

HC: How much effect has Diz’s success had on you?
It made me get off my arse to be honest. And today, I listen to him and I think, ‘Yeah, I’m good now’. I think he has lost it. He’s lost that hunger.

HC: Explain the line from Letter 2 Dizzee ... “It was hard to back you, but I did.”
Let’s be honest, he pinched a certain girls’ bum and we got into stuff and could have died on the island; when he got attacked, I got attacked with him. I was there risking my own life as well, so that was me saying, ‘You got hurt for yourself and I got hurt trying to help you.’ I can’t even go into it, cos it wasn’t just Napa.

HC: Do you think you’ll ever be friends again?
He’ll have to be about 30 first.

DW: On P***yhole, he refers to you as the old man...
He means this; he looked up to me, he thought I was Superman but I didn’t pretend to be Superman. Dizzee thinks, ‘I’ve got money, I’m a millionaire. I’m the best.’ But he’s not; Scorcher, Ghetto and Kano are better than him. Money has turned him, maybe? I don’t know. It turns everyone... slightly.

DW: A few people would say this is all just jealously from your part... Dizzee has got to that height...
[Cuts in, slightly aggravated] Got to where? I don’t think Dizzee is better than me, you know so...

DW: Well, he’s crossed over on a mainstream level...
Nah, everything that everyone thinks he is, I don’t think he is.

HC: Having been stabbed, can you give some insight into how it actually feels?
See, when you get stabbed, you can’t even feel it, until it is healing in the hospital, which is when you are in pain. Getting stabbed is not funny and too many kids stab people. So many kids are on the stabbing thing these days. But the ones who are like, ‘I’ll stab you, I’ll stab you,’ they ain’t been stabbed, or they have and that’s why they’re doing it. But I think if you’re a stabber, the day will come when your one comes. And when your one comes, that’s when you will learn. Everything I’ve gone through, I’ve done it already. So when it happens back I think, ‘God, it’s happening back.’ But then I’ll wake up tomorrow and think ‘Get on with it. Get past it cos otherwise you’ll be on revenge for ages.’ You have to just get out of it.

HC: How can this all stop?
It can’t Hat, cos war is the way of the world.

HC: But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything?
Yeah, but they’re dumb. See a 15 year-old kid, to buy a gun just to shoot someone just so everyone says ‘Rah, he’s a badman’ - that is silly. I just don’t know why people do that. Maybe it’s a lack of love in their home, I don’t know, but all I know is that my brain won’t pick up a gun and go shoot someone for no reason. I don’t know why you’d go and shoot someone if you was 15. Can you imagine a 15 year-old shooting someone and then going to school? It’s madness.

HC: Due to the recent violence, don’t you think you and Diz working together could set a good example?
Like, do a show? That is what I’m trying to say, I’m so adult, I am open to suggestion.

HC: Is there a part of you that would like leave the street drama, like Diz has done?
Yeah, definitely. Sometimes I look at it and think, ‘Sh*t yeah, maybe he did do the right thing.’

DW: While in New York, you went on the RWD forum - what are you doing as a 28 year-old man arguing with 14 year-olds?
See I didn’t know they were 14. They talk to me as if they are 20.

DW: True, some of their ages vary...
I’ve read the forum for so many years, people say what they want. So if you’ve got an opinion on me, I’m allowed to have an opinion on you. Otherwise don’t say nothing to me.

DW: You called someone’s nan, ‘a lorry driver’...
[Laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was just a joke place and I was thinking alright hold on... then I started to see serious people. And they were like, ‘Come on Wiley you’re 28, grow up’.

DW: [Room laugh] The forum is a lot...
You see, I love it. Without that RWD forum, what would this be? Sometimes I think grime might not be nothing. RWD is the heart of grime.

DW: So Scorcher made it onto Flyboy?
The thing I like about Scorcher is today we’re in war, tomorrow we’re alright. You have to be like that cos if you ain’t, you will die in this game. Every time we go in the booth, it’s about competition.

HC: So let’s talk about the album title, I guess it’s kinda obvious...
Yeah, you see music people? They are kids. No-one does a nine-to-five. I just think Playtime Is Over is just saying, ‘Come on Ky, grow up a bit.’
HC: Are you still releasing on the same day as Diz?
I hope so but he’s trying to be clever by dropping it back... he knows.

HC: Why don’t you work with Lily Allen or Joss Stone like Dizzee does?
Cos I haven’t got to them. I’ve travelled the path but I haven’t seen Lily Allen. I’m powerful though, they’ll get in contact with me. Like I met Dappy from N-Dubz and we exchanged numbers.. Some people were saying, ‘Don’t do a tune with N-Dubz’, but he is a badman on his thing. I love Joss Stone, I love Kate Nash, my ear loves music more than both of them [Dizzee and Kano]. It’s not selling out. They are the top of what they do and we are of ours. So if you reach the heights of a genre, you can do what you want.

HC: Why did you say Roll Deep needs to be ‘destroyed and rebuilt’?
Cos it needs to be crushed and turned into a record label. Roll Deep Recordings as a name is more powerful than anyone in it. The crew side of it is gone. Roll Deep haven’t got the same thing that they had. Dizzee has gone, Trim has gone.

DW: What are your favourites tracks on Playtime?
The best one is My Mistakes, I think, cos it tells you all my mistakes and the wickedest thing is, the kids will all listen and still make the mistakes. So that is the joke.

HC: What is the biggest mistake you’ve made?
Leaving Nick Denton (Dizzee’s manager) as a manager. But then I was always jealous that he liked Dizzee more so maybe I had to.

DW: What type of dad do you want to be to Leah?
I can’t say that. I don’t know. All I know is that she is gonna be her. See, people look up to people and when they realise that they are only human, they don’t like them anymore. Go away, don’t look up to me, go. Just look up to the sky. Cos you’re gonna look up to me and you’re gonna find out I’m human just like you and then you’re gonna cry. Everyone is normal innit.

HC: Were you at the birth?
[Tentatively] Yeeeaaah. Well I buss in the room like five minutes late and she was born. To have a kid is a good feeling inside, but then there’s the responsibility.

HC: Does Wiley think grime is dead?
Nah, grime ain’t dead! It can’t die, it wouldn’t even die if I died. I keep telling people this. It can’t die, it’s impossible, it’s too late. It’s too late.

Playtime Is Over Is out June 4 with first double a-side single 50/50 / Bow E3 available for download May 7.

RWD Magazine

myspace.com/eskiboywiley

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