END. spent the day in Dungeness with Joe James, celebrating the release of Salomon Sportstyle’s ACS Pro “Desert Pack” by riding around on Surron bikes.
Within the landscape of modern UK rap — and, by extension, the genre in general — lyricism is often laced with a sense of braggadocio and boastfulness, the genre’s inherent competitiveness remaining a pervasive attribute. Joe James is an artist who very much exists outside of this, instead constructing sonic worlds that are built upon the foundations of honesty and vulnerability, organically delving into topics like mental health with unashamed confidence. His lyrics are densely woven together to tell stories that are visceral, positive and, ultimately, provide therapy to those who listen and relate to them.
For me, there’s a few things to it. Maintaining it is to do with looking after myself. For me to not look after myself through what I’m eating or what I’m doing, it’s almost a disrespect to life itself, because it’s a gift that we’re even here. The majority of the time I eat very clean, because one, it makes me feel good, makes me perform better in whatever I want to do and it gives me energy, but two, I feel like if I’m taking the piss out of my body — I’m going to see that, I’m going to feel that. That’s a disrespect to my vessel that I carry, so it’s to do with that, mainly. I see it with like some of my pals, my mate who’s going through stuff, they’ll say “I’ve got no energy”, and I’m like, “yeah, you’re eating this, you’re waking up at this time”, which I understand, each to their own. My thing is that certain things work for me, that’s not going to work for everyone, and I don’t think I’m better or worse than anyone for how I life my life. For me personally, I just have to be on that clean lifestyle to be happy, it just makes me feel happy.
I have to be able to do things that are very spontaneous and to stay present. I like the idea of that when I go up a mountain, I don’t know what’s going to happen. When I went to Ben Nevis a couple of months ago, a blizzard started, and there was a moment where I was scared, and I liked it. Me and the boys are looking at each other laughing like, “this is scary, innit?”, but I like stuff like that. Also, I don’t really like structure, which is why I’m so disciplined with my exercise and stuff. I don’t like structure; I like to do things that are all over the place. Really, if I’m being honest, I’ve never liked being told what do, so I like being away from people where I can do my own thing, be a bit of a kid as well. Even when I go away on holiday and I’m spearfishing and stuff like that, I just get lost in being present — being lost in the sea for five, six hours. Even when I’m fishing, I’ve gone two days straight and caught nothing, but I’m not there like “argh, I’ve caught nothing” — I’ve enjoyed every second, I’ve met some random geezer on the beach and spoke with him for two hours that’s changed my perspective on something. The more things you do that’re out of your comfort zone, the more things you learn.
On a personal level, you know what, it’s going to sound mad, but it’s not really changed much about me. For me, it takes a lot to make me panic about things, but I’ve noticed with my daughter — this is an innate thing all humans have — I’m checking my daughter’s cot every hour, every half hour, even every ten minutes to see if she’s breathing. But I’m not normally like that, so that was interesting. Also, just the fact of having something that’s so small and so precious slowing me down a bit, because I can be quite erratic at times. But it’s also made me more militant because I have to be stronger for her, so it makes me train even harder because I’ve got another person to protect.
With the music, it tends to be a stream of consciousness of what I’m going through, so you’ll hear me talking about my daughter a lot more. I’ve never been one to glorify or romanticise anything negative with my music. Even if I talk about something that’s happened or I’ve seen, it’s usually from a place of reflection, or from like a narrative kind of perspective — almost like a fly on the wall. Even if I’m talking about doing something, it’s usually never with the aim of glorifying. With having a daughter, my narrative approach to music tends to stay the same.
I make a lot of music and because what I talk about is just honest to me, it’s what’s happening in my life and what I’ve seen, it’s impossible to run out of inspiration. When you try and create a facade or a character, you will run out of that because it isn’t coming from an organic place. That’s why I am motivated because as long as my heart’s beating, I’m not going to run out of anything. The volume of what I release is so frequent because it just makes me feel good to make music, making it in the moment. Instead of doing a rollout and packaging it in a certain way — so releasing one single, waiting three weeks or a month, then another single and trickling it out and drip feeding it — that’s not a good representation of how I create. When it comes to things like my Pure Connery EP, for example, I made that in two days. I wrote every song, recorded it and released it in two days. So, for me to record something in two days and then release it seven months later just doesn’t make sense.
I feel like there are a lot of tricks in the music thing, with people trying to slow you down. I just found that no one I was trying to work with was fast enough for me, there wasn’t engineers that were fast enough. I would just start mixing things myself, which is why with some of my music it’s not the best mix — at least in an industry standard way — but it’s just raw and organic. Videographers weren’t quick enough for me so I stopped making videos, or I just got my mates to shoot them. I just found that I was faster than everything, so I just started releasing, releasing, releasing. People say quality over quantity, but it’s possible to have both — just because you’re releasing something in high volume doesn’t mean it’s not good.
I’ve always really liked lyrics and poetry, even in school I used to do creative writing. There’s a thing when I write music: I could just start writing now and freestyle a whole story. I’ve always had an interest in that, creating a whole world of someone in my head. It comes from that: I actually enjoy writing and as long as I continue to enjoy it and love what I’m doing, the quality is always going to be there.
If I’m talking about something that’s really happened, it’s fitting that I mention the names. When I write music, I’m not thinking “oh, I shouldn’t say this guy’s name”, ‘cause the people that are listening aren’t going to know who it is, they’re not going to care. It’s personal to me, and that’s what creates it in its realest and rawest form, and that’s how I’m going to write it. I just think keeping it true to that is more important than compromising it to fit into song structure. To me, that raw and organic thing, no matter how good of an “industry standard” song it is, that feeling is more important.
Definitely a bit of self-therapy in there. I’m speaking to myself, I’m speaking to God and I’m speaking to, and for, other people who have been through similar things. So I find relief in that, because no matter what people have been through or how hard things have been, there’s always someone out there who’s had it ten times worse than you. If I can put this song out and someone can message me and say “bruv, this meant a lot to me as I went through the exact same thing”, and if it makes them feel less alone, to me, that’s all I need. When I listen to music or look at art and I can relate to it in that way, then it means a lot to me.
It definitely wasn’t something planned, methodical or calculated, it was just a natural thing. I’ve never thought about being vulnerable, but I’ve never really cared about talking about how I feel — I’ve got no shame, basically. Well, I do have shame, everyone does, but not as much as other people. If people think a certain thing of me, or think I can’t do something, it makes me want to do it even more. If I think I’m going to be alienated for this, I’m going to talk about it even more, because it’s like “why are you trying to make me feel like that?”, I’ll now show you just how much I don’t care. I’ve definitely got a lot of self-awareness, I always have, and it’s such an important thing to have — you have to know yourself in this life. You have to know your limits and break them, and you also have to know things about yourself so you can grow.
Yeah, big time. It’s a big thing for me, probably the main reason I put music out. Otherwise, I’d just make it and not put it out. If I’m making music solely for self-therapy, I could just listen to it in my headphones in bed, but the fact that other people can get something from it, something positive, that means a lot to me. I’m here to spread positivity, that’s why the messaging in my music must be a positive one. It relates back to all of the stuff I’m doing around music, encouraging people to get outdoors and be the best version of themselves, that’s because I know there’s no bad that can come from that, that can only benefit people.
See a bar like that, yeah, you can’t really come up with that unless you’ve seen these things. When you really paint a picture like that, where people can close their eyes and imagine it, it helps to bring them closer to it, it evokes the emotion properly — the rawest emotion. I always write in that way, I tend to paint pictures instead of keeping things vague. I’m very introspective with my music, which is where bars like that come from.
For me, personally, I’m not one of those people who would sit here and say what other people shouldn’t be doing. Whatever situation you come from, if you feel like you want to create a character and build off that, and you’re having fun with it, to me, that’s cool. If you’re creating a character that’s negative, saying negative things with implications on kids who are looking up to your music, when really, one, you’re not even from that, and two, it’s dark, it’s silly — I don’t understand it. For me, I keep it raw, man. I’d find it hard to write like that, creating a facade.
With the beats, I don’t make music in the studio, I record all my stuff at home. The only producer I’ve worked with is KwolleM because he’s my boy from when I was a teenager, so we had that chemistry. He works the same as me — he makes beats at home and then sends them to me. The whole of C2C we made like that — he’d make a beat, send it to me and then I’d record in my room and send it back. The reason I’m mentioning this is because I sit at home on YouTube listening to type beats, shit like that, and I also love jazz and blues – like I love Miles Davis and Gill Scott Heron and the blues guys like Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf. That’s the music I actually listen to, I don’t actually listen to much rap, so I suppose the influence maybe comes from there. Like I really like jazz music, especially when I’m riding my bike, that’s what I’ll have playing in my headphones.