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The realm of UK Hip Hop comprises of two opposing sub scenes; backpack space rap on the one hand, and gangsterfied grime on the other. Congratulations to all of our analytical readers, yes I am generalising. Bravo, your prize is a limited edition vinyl crafted shank (we like to keep everybody happy here). We all know we love to negatively stereotype the sub scene for which we don’t wear the badge (Akademiks or Carhartt that is - see what I mean about the stereotyping?), but deep down we know it’s not that simple. Not only is there an ever-growing open-minded listenership with varied tastes, but also there are an increasing number of artists who don’t play by the rules, some of the first that spring to mind being Klashnekoff, Sway and Kano.
Now enter Smiler, a 20-year-old south London Hip Hop MC, with a slight dash of grime thrown in for good measure. The result is a cocktail with plenty of flavour for the ladies and enough bite for the man dem, yet a low enough alcohol content for the kids to go out and buy. Maybe I’m not as elegant and urbane as I’d like to think, being that the best comparison that I can muster is a shandy with lime, drank out of a brown paper bag for that added street edge. I’m sure the man himself could give a better cocktail analogy, seeing as the dude has GOT BARS! Anyway, I digress…
With a video circulating around MTV Base and Channel U and his own condoms on road (don’t get it twisted, he isn’t a littering kerb crawler), Rish caught up with Smiler so he can tell the good citizens of UKHH.com about himself, because like he says, “the underground is where it all starts”....
Easy Smiler. You’ve been waiting in the wings for a minute and now a lot of people are saying you’re the next to blow. You’re starting to get your face out there more and more but can you give people who haven’t heard of you yet an introduction?
As you lot know my name’s Smiler, I’m 20 years old and I’m from the South side of London. British born, Ghanaian bred…
Growing up watching and listening to artists like Naughty By Nature & Nas, plus the whole of that New York East Coast set of rappers that were dropping albums in the mid 1990’s like Wu Tang and AZ. Even more underground rappers that not many mainstream kids will know too much about like Cormega, Tragedy Khadafi (Intelligent Hoodlum) etc… I’m an 80’s baby so a lot of my musical influences come from the late 1980’s to the mid 90’s… I started off as a rapper properly around the summer 2001 while I was still in college. Before then I fucked with a couple of garage beats and experimented with a couple of flows.
Elementary Entertainment are basically a multimedia entertainment company that deal with all sides of media entertainment. That includes shit like media management, DVD authoring and video production as well as music production and dealing with artists like me. Elementary came about after a group of older’s from my area basically decided they wanted to control their own business rather then let some big company take a slice of their cake. There are still pieces to the jigsaw that need to be fitted but that name is definitely something you will be hearing more of in 2007, remember those 2 words: Elementary Entertainment!
Well it just seemed to me that nobody at MTV was willing to support the video which was puzzling to me as I believed that the video was good enough to be submitted and played on the station. For a UK video the actual quality of footage was above standard and music wise it’s also solid if I do say so myself! Because I didn’t know anyone on the “inside” at MTV it felt like I was hitting a brick wall and to tell the truth it started to piss me off. But after perseverance and consistently liasing with MTV staff over a few months I was finally playlisted on ‘From The Endz’. I don’t care if it’s a late night programme, I grew up watching MTV and MTV Base and it’s an honour for my video to be shown on there. I get sent the MTV playlist each week and my video is still on the Base playlist after 7 weeks. Most other UK videos are on rotation for about 3-4 weeks before they are taken off so it’s pleasing to know my video was highly thought of by the music manager over at Base... hopefully my next video ‘The Same Thing’ will receive the same amount of love if not more.
Yeah! First week of my video going on the station it entered the Channel U urban chart at number 7. They count the votes by phone number rather then the actual number of votes so it wasn’t just me voting with a basher sim card! Certain times I would turn on the TV in the afternoon and you know when they split the screen with the text messages at the bottom? Certain times I would look down and see 2 or 3 people texting things like “play smilas tune’ or ‘smiler is wikid play naybourhud’. These kids can’t spell for shit but it was definitely a heavy feeling knowing that people out there wanted to see my video that I put my time, money and effort into.
In all honesty, it wasn’t a conscious effort to have a wider appeal. However, the producer of the beat ‘Darkstar’ is talented in both Hip Hop and grime so to hear people say that the track flirts with grime is not surprising. When I first heard the instrumental I did just think it was a sick Hip Hop beat.
I also work with a guy named Budgie who has worked with artists such as Bearman, Luc Skyz and also Poisonous Poets. But to be honest I don’t really watch names when it comes to producers, if a beat is ill I will spray bars over it.
I definitely want mainstream appeal but I believe the underground is where it all starts. Eventually I do wish to be in a position where I’m able to choose the best option for me out of a variety of offers. For a while now I’ve been trying to perfect a sound which will appeal to more then just my boys and others from the same walk of life as myself. It’s all about treading that fine line between credibility and mainstream. So Solid done it perfectly for 2 years, Dizzee Rascal smashed it in 2003/2004 and American artists do it all the time but in the UK it only seems to happen once every few years and I’ve been trying to figure out why that is. Sway was all over the media in 2005 and he won a MOBO and was on a Reebok billboard poster, yet his album dropped and didn’t sell half as much as was expected. A similar thing happened with Kano. They are both artists who I like and respect but they are also perfect examples of how the UK music industry is topsy-turvy. Sad as it sounds, it almost feels like the UK at the moment are not willing to embrace real Hip Hop and black music in general. Hopefully I can buck that trend.
I surely hope so but in all reality it usually comes down to marketing. Look at Arctic Monkeys… they got to number 1 purely on clever marketing. Same with Lily Allen and another classic piece of marketing is Sway with the British flag over the face. In today’s market not only do you have to produce good quality music but you also need to have a good marketing concept that will capture your target audience. The music buying public are so fickle that you can never tell what they will buy into. All I can do is hedge my bets on my music, my image and my realness. Anything else is 50/50.
It was just a promo thing to gain attention from the industry and it worked. Industry heads know me now. For the time being though people can hear the remix of ‘Neighbourhood’ which will be on my musical omnibus (some people call it a mixtape) which will be dropping later this year titled ‘The Broke Sloganist’. But do people even buy singles anymore????
That was the name of the sample CD’s my team was giving out. It had 4 tracks on there and we got tired of calling it a “sample CD” so we just used the name “SE18- The EP”. For my fans outside of London, SE18 is my postcode. In London it’s split by ends so SW is South West, NW is North West, EC is East Central etc… but for the record my musical omnibus will be called THE BROKE SLOGANIST.
I have travelled all over the UK in the last few years and I don’t really want to localise my music by putting my postcode on the omnibus cover. That kinda automatically alienates people outside of my area let alone London. Why would a London kid buy a mixtape titled “LE1 Leicester”? They would rather buy something they can relate to. There will be minimal guests but I can tell you that Moorish Delta 7, Stylah & Reveal & Smart D will feature on there.
Stylah is a personal friend, we’re from the same area and I’ve known him for years. That’s my peoples right there. I’m not one of those guys that runs around on myspace looking for collaborations so you won’t hear me on a track with Trick Daddy & Kon Artist. However there are lots of artists I’m feeling so don’t get me wrong, I ain’t saying I’m too nice to collaborate with anyone! I’ve done stuff with Mr Drastick and Luc Skyz and guys from my own area but apart from that I’m flying solo.
I’ve done a few bits and pieces outside of the capital. I’ve performed in Southampton, Oxford, Reading and of course London plus there’s a few things lined up for later this year….
The music industry is funny because you don’t control your own fate, the public does. It’s not like football where there’s one or two managers making a decision on your life. With music once you’ve done your part it’s down to millions of people across the world to either say ”yes” or “no” and that decides your life. I would never rely on music to line my pockets, that’s loose and short sighted. Within the next year I want to have at least had meetings with major record labels and have dropped the omnibus and album. I’m not one of those dreamers that thinks it will all happen overnight but at the same time nothing’s impossible so I could be in the top 10 UK charts this time next year or I could have given up…. you never know.
Haha…that was my ex-promoters idea and it worked a treat. Like I said before it’s all about finding different ways to market yourself and that was one of many quirky things you’ll be seeing in the next few months. My myspace page has only had 3,000 views and can you believe I’ve had 1,680 DIFFERENT users asking for the condoms. I’m currently in the process of talking to Durex about something official but I can’t say too much right now…
Not really, nah.
I been waiting for this part for the whole interview! First of all everyone needs to go onto my Myspace www.myspace.com/smilermusic make sure you message me and let me know what you think of my tracks. My website is coming soon.
Big up my family and massive shout out to Austin, doing his thing at the BBC... Big shout out to the stations who have played my music, 1Xtra (P & Skitz and Laura for her valued opinion), Choice FM (279, Jenny Francis, Kirk Antony), MTV Base (Nema Babul, Muche).
Shout out to the whole team, Elementary, Poisonous Poets, Smart D, Jay… the men behind the method for the music. Can’t forget my postcode SE18, that’s where it all started, big up everyone in the struggle in Woolwich.
With some of the lazy wastemen littering the country, it’s refreshing to see somebody building his empire from the bottom up. Prior to this interview, I had no idea Smiler was 20 years old, and re-reading it now he only seems further ahead of his years. Hopefully like Skinny, Roots and Sway, Smiler can help take this scene of ours forward and widen the market for us all to benefit from. Look out for his omnibus and album, and in the meantime check out his myspace page. I would give you the e-mail address to get the Smiler project condoms, but sorry, I just don’t think you’ll need them…
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© ukhh.com 2006
Smiler Interview
To this point you’re probably best known for your track ‘Neighbourhood’ that got played on both Channel U and MTV Base. On your myspace you said, “After 3 and a half months of industry politics, MTV Base have playlisted 'Neighbourhood' which is great news.” What was the problem there?
Two guys named Tracklacers, they are sick producers and used to produce for Marvin Humes who was in that pop group called VS that was managed from Simon Webbe from Blue. I’ve been fucking with them for like 2 years now. They’ve also produced a number of other beats for me including a track called ‘Pain’ which is included on my sample CD and some others that you will hear on my upcoming album.
I’m working on album tracks as we speak. That is something that will drop in 2007 once all the politics is sorted out… I’m trying to see G-unit numbers!
Peace
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