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Perth MusicWiley Interview
It is almost impossible to overstate the importance and impact that Wiley has had on UK urban music. From UKG’s ‘Nicole’s Groove’ to being a member of Pay As You Go, Boy Better Know and, of course, Roll Deep, this enigmatic MC and prolific producer has more than earned the title of Godfather of Grime but is now perfectly placed to take the scene to new boundaries with what will no doubt be his biggest album to date. See Clear Now is the hotly anticipated new album by Wiley out January 17th. The album features a heavy-mixture of grime, house and electro-pop melodies as well as special guests including Hot Chip, Kano, Daniel Merriweather, new kid on the grime block Scorcher, Pharrell protégé Kenna, Sam Young and Mark Ronson to name a few. Wiley caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.
See Clear Now is Wiley’s third full length album and was released in the UK late 2008. There have been some reports of Wiley not being that happy with the album so I asked him to explain the process of creating this album and if he is happy with the final product. “What happened was that I was more like a robot on this album, I just listened to what I was told. Sometimes you have to do that to be able to see the big picture so that’s what I did. There was some stuff that I didn’t like but I did it anyway and I didn’t argue and at the end I kind of felt that there was a bad energy about the whole album. But then I listened and listened to it and realised that the album wasn’t made for my normal crowd but for a wider audience. That’s when I saw the bigger picture.”
Wiley has been given the unofficial title of the Godfather of Grime and is highly respected in the music industry with artists such as Dizzee Rascal and Kano publicly stating that he is their idol. “I said to my father that I didn’t want to be known as the Godfather of Grime because I’ve always felt that Godfather means an old man and he said to me that in music there’s Godfathers like James Brown is the Godfather of Soul, there’s Kings like Michael Jackson is the King of Pop and that being labelled like the Godfather of Grime is a very important thing and I shouldn’t just brush it aside. He said to be called a Godfather of a genre is a very powerful thing and that other people in other genres will respect me and even if they don’t like my music they will respect me. So I am trying to embrace it from that advice.”
I also asked Wiley to explain the formation of Grime music and what he thought of the genre in Australia. “I was partying in the Garage, 2-step scene and there were a lot of people that were older than me that I looked up to and a lot of people that were younger than me looking up to me. I think the Grime scene evolved from the Garage scene and kind of formed from all the people that wanted to get into Garage but weren’t able to get fully into the scene. I haven’t stopped making music for at least 5 years so when I got here to Australia I was so happy. It seems like somewhere I can take a break as well as make music at the same time. The Grime scene in Australia is small so I would love to build it up and be completely involved. I used to think you had to live in London to do what I do but I’ve come to realise that I can live anywhere in the world especially now with the Internet the way it is.”
See Clear Now is out now. For more information on Wiley visit www.myspace.com/eskiboywiley
Godfather Of Grime 2009 Australian Tour Dates:
Fri 16th January - Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Sat 17th January - Metro Theatre, Sydney
Wed 21st January - Meche Nightclub, Canberra
Thur 22nd January - Prince Of Wales, Melbourne
Fri 23rd January - Adelaide Uni Bar, Adelaide
Sat 24th January - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast
Sun 25th January - Zoo Nightclub, Brisbane
