Advertisement

Lethal Bizzle: ‘Radio Is Slowly Dying, Social Media Is The Number One Platform Now’ - EXCLUSIVE

If you haven’t heard Lethal Bizzle’s ‘fun, summery, energetic’ anthem (his words but we totally agree) ‘Playground’ yet, then where the HECK have you been?

It’s a song that’s become the soundtrack to our summer, with a video that’s already had over 500,000 views (despite not totally going with his super high-budget, action-movie esque original idea), so of course, we couldn’t wait to get him on the phone for a chat about his new track, his clothing line and who he’d love to get in the studio with.

SPOILER ALERT: It’s Lily Allen.

image

Copyright [Ricky Swift/WENN]

Speaking exclusively to Yahoo Celebrity UK, he told us: “I’ve known Lily for quite a while now, so I definitely want to do something musically with her, and I think she would be really really cool. I think her style is so unique, it just fits into any type of genre so that’s one to tick off my bucket list. I’m hopefully going to try and make that happen sooner rather than later.”

For ‘Playground’ though, Lethal turned to Shakka because he’s ‘been a fan for a while now’.

He explained: “When I knew I wanted to make this record, I knew straightaway that I wanted him on it and I was like ‘Yo, we need to get Shakka on the track’. I just literally reached out to him and went ‘I’ve got an idea for a song, I just think your vocal will absolutely smash it’, so he came to the studio and I kinda already had a melody for the chorus and then he just put the words together and I just did the verses and it was just a real fun time making it.”

If you haven’t heard ‘Playground’ yet (seriously, you NEED it in your life), The Bizzle admitted that although he didn’t necessarily intend to make a summer anthem, he knew the song had a ‘summery vibe’ as soon as he heard the beat.

image

He also took it as an opportunity to show a ‘different side to the Bizzle’ and tell his story while having fun with it.

That story? He recalled: “It’s from my point of view, basically just having an issue with a female friend that I had an encounter with and it just went a bit weird. Everything was cool and then I just kinda got the silent treatment. It was a few summers ago, and I was a bit like ‘Oh, what’s happened?’

“I think there was a few things I think her friends were getting in their ears and obviously, because of what I do, she was kinda unsure. So I was saying ‘forget your friends, just enjoy yourself, just do you, f**k what people think, just have fun. Play around.”

‘Just do you’ is pretty fab advice in our eyes.

With every record that Lethal puts out, his fans’ opinion is seriously important to him, as he said: “It’s like getting a first hand opinion once you put something out. Or I do like a teaser on either my Instagram or my Snapchat, I can get instant feedback to see if this is working or if it’s not working. So just everyday and having that relationship with my fans, it really inspires me to keep making it.”

image

Copyright [Joseph Okpako/Getty]

His connection with his fans has always been really important, with the 30-year-old explaining: “I think I learnt from a very young age that your fans are the number one priority in your career. There was a time where everyone wanted to get signed to record labels and lots of people got signed for lots of money and got dropped and didn’t realise it’s not about having a record deal, it’s about having a fanbase.

“There’s no point being signed if you haven’t got any fans, so the fans are the most important. I always try to keep that relationship tight with them and give back and make sure that I’m accessible and I’m always visual and vocal and they can get hold of me via social and have conversations via Snapchat or Twitter or whatever. I think that should be every artist’s number one.

“Have a relationship with your fans because they’re the ones buying your music and putting you in the position in you’re in.

“I think social media is the number one platform for every single artist. I think radio is slowly dying and I think, especially independent artists, I think it’s giving us a voice. I mean I’ve got a record deal now but I was independent for so long.

“I think with artists in general, it’s given us a voice and given us a connection with the fans. We can talk to them and let them know information. Now, it’s like you’ve got more opportunities to make it as an artist now because the resources are there. You can be a huge star just off the back of social media if you use it properly so it’s extremely important.

image

Copyright [Joseph Okpako/Getty]

“I just think everybody in the music game or whatever industry should pay attention because I think it’s only going to get bigger. Social media is definitely the future.”

Later this year, Lethal will head out on his ‘Denchchat’ tour, and if the eight moshpits he got just for ‘Playground’ at Reading & Leeds are anything to go by, fans are in for a real treat.

Teasing what we can expect from his live shows, he told us: “Just loads of, loads of, loads of, loads of fun. I don’t want anyone to come there and walk away and not have a good time. Loads of surprises will be happening as well and I’ll be bringing a few guests out. Just bring your old shoes, don’t bring your new shoes because they won’t be looking new afterwards. It’s going to be a good time.”

Consider it noted. He’s having a great year in terms of live shows, with one of his ‘career highlights’ happening when he performed at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Grime Proms.

Recalling the experience, he said: “That was one of the most magical things I’ve ever done in music. 1Xtra put it together and they wanted to get me involved and it was quite surreal. I didn’t get much time to rehearse because of my schedule was mental, so I had like a ten minute rehearsal at Maida Vale studios, I had one or two run-throws and then I had to get back on a plane to go to Spain and then I came home the next day to do the Proms.

Copyright [Twitter]

“It was amazing, man. It really kinda opened my eyes up to the boundaries and the limits you can take in music. It’s just made me think even broader for how I wanna approach future records and how I wanna involve different sounds, so that was definitely one of my favourite performances I’ve ever done. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to do that again, hopefully I do, but it was magical, that’s the only way I can describe it.”

Having described just how nervous he was beforehand, he added: “It was an amazing time, man. I keep watching it back myself to take me back to that moment. Playground was very new then and the response it got was amazing. I thought the building was going to tumble down when Pow! started. Definitely a moment to remember.

“As an artist, it’s very rare for you to do something like that, especially from a grime background. I’m from pirate radio, making beats on Playstation 1, and then next minute, you’re at the Royal Albert Hall with a 52-piece orchestra. You can’t predict that, it’s crazy.”

Music isn’t the only thing on Lethal Bizzle’s mind though, with his ‘Stay Dench’ clothing line continuing to grow day-by-day.

image

Copyright [Twitter]

Admitting that he never really imagined it would blow up so much, he said: “Again, I’ve got to thank social media for that because that really helped give it vision and give it presence, and the name being so popular anyway because of the obvious Judi Dench. She gave us her blessings, she’s actually spoke about the brand and she’s a fan of the brand and that’s just promotion that you can’t even buy, that’s priceless.

“I was quite nervous to see what she thought about it, I didn’t want her to think I was cashing in on her name or anything, but she totally got it and understood it.

“Social media definitely made it a lot easier to promote it and let the fans know when new things are coming out and it’s just become almost like a household name in the urban world. Every time you put something out, it literally just sells out within minutes. I didn’t ever think it would be so successful. I did hopefully feel that I wanted to get into the clothing business at some point but the way it’s gone, we’ve been running for almost four years now, we’re still going form strength-to-strength. It just shows how powerful social media is.

“It started off as just the word ‘dench’ being used by me and my cousin who used to play for Arsenal, and we used to just say it on social media and everyone would be like ‘what does dench mean? Why do you always say dench in your tweets? Why do you always say dench on Instagram? Why are you all saying dench?’ Then my cousin one day, he finished a match for Arsenal and he took off his top and he had a ‘dench’ vest on and that was on Sky Sports and millions of people saw it, it was on the back of newspapers.

image

Copyright [WENN]

“The fans were like, ‘you should start doing dench clothing’ and we didn’t really think about it. The funny thing is one of my fans did a t-shirt with dench on it and was like, ‘Look, I’ve got a dench t-shirt’ and that’s when me and (Emmanuel) Frimpong were like, ‘we need to pull out finger out mate, like what are we doing?’. We just grew as big as the brand grew, we didn’t rush and say we’re going to do a whole range.

“It literally started as one black and white t-shirt with plain writing with ‘dench’, and then they sold out and then we just expanded it. Four years later, now we do everything from hats to tracksuits to t-shirts to hoodies. I think we did phone cases at some point. We wanna keep expanding. We’re trying to get a girls range in there as well but who knows man, who knows how far we can take it.”

As for the future, he’s hoping to get an album out next year and he’d love to get grime to the O2 or to Wembley.

YES PLEASE.

‘Playground’ is available to download now.