UK Grime has been expanding globally at a rapid rate as of late, from Skepta selling out USA tours and hanging out with Drake and Kanye, to D Double E & Novelist rolling all over Australia. The last two years have seen grime artists from all over London picking up awards, selling out tours, and ramping up more YouTube hits and Twitter followers than ever before. It’s not just London that this genre thrives in though, grime has been becoming much more popular up and down the nation too.
The other week I took the advice of Big Narstie and spent a fair few hours studying up and coming artists from the north of England. Delving deeper than the more obvious artists already big on the scene in this area like Jaykay, Devilman and Bugzy Malone, I discovered an array of talent, and ended up doing a spontaneous review of Kurly Hypa’s EP II. Unfortunately that was a bit premature for this series, but there’s plenty more talent out there. I’ve been getting in touch with a few artists since then and there’s a lot more to come from the north from me, but this article is about and up-and-coming grime artist actually from down south.
Ceezlin is probably the biggest grime artist in Brighton right now, though he’s notorious for flitting between genres. He brings together the gritty edge of grime music with the industrious lyricism of Brighton’s Hip-Hop scene, which with being the home of High-Focus records undoubtedly makes it one of the major hubs for UK Hip-Hop. I caught up with him earlier this week to talk Brighton, Music, and all things Grimey. Check it out…
Hey man how’s it going? Glad to finally get together, how’ve you been?
- All good man, yeah always busy you know how it is.
Alright let’s get straight into it. Brighton’s famous for it’s Dub and Hip-Hop scenes, you seem to dabble in both Grime and Hip-Hop, which do you prefer and who are your main influences?
- I cant say whether i prefer grime or hip hop because for me there are no real genres… just good music and shit music… if a beat tickles my fancy I’m gonna jump on it no matter what tempo or style it is and that’s how I’ve always done it… I find it annoying actually how most of the people I’ve met in the industry from successful artists to record label execs have always said I need to have one sound that people can identify with… That ain’t me… I’m gonna make whatever I wanna make… One day i might just spit or sing over an acoustic guitar then an hour later i might rap over a trap beat or something… People always put stuff in boxes or compare it to something else and that’s not how I do things.
Enough respect for that man you do you. You’re always working on something, what’ve you got going on at the moment? Any release dates to look out for?
- I’m now managed by Big Drum Entertainment who also manage Shakka – (has that sick track Say Nada ft JME), and I’ve got a sick EP coming out under that management which is gonna be a lot different to the majority of stuff I have out at the moment… This is a lot more stripped down and uses real instruments rather than synths etc which is something I wanted to dabble in… Also me and a rapper called Mas Law pretty much made an album within a fortnight with a producer called KD from my crew Rum Committee.. It’s more chilled hip hop kinda shit with some singy choruses and concept tracks rather than just braggadocious bars.. I can’t wait to put it out, will be out in time for Summer so keep an eye on that.
You know we will bro. I wanted to speak about the Big Narstie feature, the Kaytanada & Ransom Notes productions, how did these links come about?
- Funny story, the Big Narstie link came from both being sponsored by Converse. I was invited to a tattoo convention and I ended up getting pretty smashed the night before and was too hungover to go haha, so my brother that was managing me at the time went and linked up with him there and they hooked up a studio date… Me and Narstie have two banging tunes produced by Glitch, one is already out on my Snakes and Ladderz EP and it’s the title track… The other is called Raggo and that will come out soon – something else to keep an eye out for. It’s HUGE.
That’s sweet man, work rate’s heavy. Got to keep this short and sweet but anything else you want to mention?
- Yeah G gotta say big up to all the people that have played my music to other people because a lot of collabs and random cool shit like the Kaytranada production happened through people that support me and spread my work when I’ve never even met them so big up to all those people out there appreciate it.
Alright sweet, great to catch up, good luck and we’ll speak to you soon.
