Artist Interview: Yizzy

By Resonate | June 11, 2021

Words by Dylan Shortridge

Photos by tenwest management

A song with Dizzee Rascal, performing Glastonbury at 17, and making £100,000 from grime are just a few footnotes on the fledgling career of Lewisham’s Yizzy. In just 21 years, he has done more than some manage in their whole lives. In 2016, he helped breathe new life into a struggling grime scene and even gained the title, ‘Prince of Grime’. Much like Harry and Meghan’s departure, Yizzy is now leaving his duties as grime royalty to diversify his sound. In classic 2021 style, we managed to pull Yizzy away from his busy schedule for a chat over Zoom. We looked back at his time in grime, what he’s up to now and where Yizzy is headed.

Let’s start at the beginning, tell me a bit about when you discovered grime and how you became so passionate about the sound?

Y: So, I’m not sure the first track I heard, it’s one of three I remember. It was either Wretch 32, Mercston, Ghetts and Scorcher – All Now, on one of Wretch’s really really early mixtapes. Then there was Chipmunk – Who R U, that’s kinda the one where I solidly got into grime because Chipmunk was popping around them times. The other one would probably be Lethal Bizzle – Pow, just ‘cause of how bait the song was. I would listen more to sets than I would grime music because for me live performance is where grime music really shows its promise and its worth. The live energy is unmatched.

“So, I feel before I can go forward in grime anymore I have to evolve, and I feel that I owe it to myself.”

I’m guessing you were a bit young for all the era of cassettes and pirate radio?

Y: So, cassettes would have been played to me or given to me by my older brothers. I was around early enough to not know what YouTube was. YouTube was just becoming a thing and in that kind of weird transitional stage. I was born in ’99 so I witnessed that phase where there were CDs and old mp3s that could hold like 20 songs and you would download shit off Limewire. That’s kind of my generation in a way.

Speaking of the early days, talk to me about when you started making music?

Y: I first started getting into grime and actually doing it in 2016. I’ve been in grime for five years and within that time there’s a lot of historical things I’ve done that I’m really glad about that I never thought I’d do. I’m really happy to have smashed my expectations for myself within the sound.

You quite quickly went from a newcomer to the scene to collaborations with the likes of Dizzee Rascal. Were there any points that you found it hard to gain a level of legitimacy?

Y: If I’m honest, it was actually easier in the beginning because a lot of them look at you as younger or as someone they want to help. Some of the first generation are old enough to be my

dad really, or definitely an older brother or uncle, so for them to not want to help the youngers it would be a little bit weird. They welcomed me with open arms and I could list bare people that showed me nothing but love over the years. It’s going from that young artist into an established artist role, when you can just be sick for yourself and your own ability rather than because of age.

That transitional period was a little bit tricky. People would be like ‘shit I just saw Yizzy do this and I saw Ghetts do this in the same place and Yizzy’s just turned 19.’ That was when it was like ok, cut the age thing, he’s doing shit that the people at the top are doing, full stop. No one ever looks at Dave’s age, he’s just seen as Dave. He’s a year older than me.

Talk to me about some of the most influential milestones in your career.

Y: I jumped on grime music at the wrong time as the genre was in a downward spiral. It was 2016, Stormzy had already blown up, grime had already had its resurgence and was on the downward now. You don’t want to jump on the sinking ship, but I did. I managed to do Glastonbury at 17, play Brixton Academy at 17, have millions of streams and millions of views all on my own platform by the age of 18, and then make £100,000 off of grime at 19. I basically saw the scene top to bottom. Skepta, Wiley, Dizzee all the way down to the first emerging artists.

Your recent tracks have switched up the vibe from your original sound. Tell me about how that came about.

Y: I feel like, until I branch out and do other sounds and see other cultures and experience that journey, I don’t think that I can continue my grime one. Being closed off and not open-minded isn’t how evolution happens. Like, if the garage people just decided to be true hard garage fans, then there would never be anything called grime. So, I feel before I can go forward in grime anymore I have to evolve, and I feel that I owe it to myself. As a young artist, I’m still trying to find myself and eventually the better MC it can make me in the long run. It’s a long game, not a short game. I don’t really like the people in grime.

Can you talk to me about the music that has influenced the new sound?

Y: So, a lot of what I grew up on was actually rnb music. My mum always loved rnb; she would always wake up on a Sunday and clean the house and put some reggae music on, so melodies were always in my life from early. Maybe I was even singing before I was rapping. For me, I want to go and work with melodies now. I’ve worked with songwriters and I’ve written stuff, there are unreleased tracks with me and Maverick Sabre where I’ve written the whole of the hook for him to sing because he just really liked the writing.

That’s one thing that’s really cool as well, I don’t think I’d be singing if it wasn’t for Maverick Sabre. When we were in the session for the first time, he showed me a lot of love. I was basically just singing under my breath, as you do when you’re in a room full of some prestigious singers, but he heard it and was like “you know this sounds sick”.

“That was kind of the nail in the coffin for me where it was just like ‘cool I think we’re gonna wrap up 2020 and then it’s time to be moving on’.”

Around that time I started to build my home studio as well, so I had a lot more time to experiment with music. That’s where this new sound just emerged from and it was just so much fun. I didn’t look at it as work as it was just fun.

If I’m honest, when I saw how much fun I was having compared to the fun I was having in grime. That was kind of the nail in the coffin for me where it was just like ‘cool I think we’re gonna wrap up 2020 and then it’s time to be moving on’.

And, what are your plans now that we are into 2021?

Y: Currently, I’m in the process of releasing a new song and video every two weeks. The video for Offside came first as that was off last year’s EP, then I dropped Flowers and so on. I’m basically doing that for the whole year, and because I’m working on projects as well, it’s going to end up that in 52 weeks I will have released about 35 songs. I’m so looking forward to it. I’ve had so much more time in this lockdown to make more music, why wouldn’t I put it all out? There are no rules to this.

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