Stormzy raises her flag firmly in Meghan’s camp on latest album
Author Zadie Smith wrote a beautiful lyrical piece in The New Yorker about Stormzy making headlines in Glastonbury in 2019. Some of its zeitgeist-friendly highlights are here.
This is about the arrival: of a king and his court and many hoped for this day, when the hyphenated word ‘Black Englishman’ would appear, to the British, as a long-term and central conditions such as ‘African British’ American’.
“’I feel like 25 years of my life have led to this,’ asserted the young king, visibly moved, as he looked out over the crowd even larger than in Agincourt.
But he was not born in a castle. In fact, Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr (we call him Stormzy) was born in a disadvantaged part of Croydon, south London, on July 26, 1993. He was raised by Abigail Owuo, a single mother from Ghana.
He had a difficult childhood. His father was mostly absent from his life from an early age. He glanced at his father; as he drove a taxi around the streets of Thornton Heath, where Michael grew up with his brother and two sisters.
“I feel sorry for him — not in a condescending way, but he’s someone who missed out on a relationship,” he said in an interview. “My mother made up for that, she did a great job. I never felt like I was missing something in my life.”
It was not a privileged education. He describes his background as “very working-class”.
“We don’t have much money,” he said. “New coaches have never been a problem for me. School trips are a legend. My mother worked two to three jobs at a time. She’s a cleaner, a dinner lady – so we didn’t have much time to grow up.
He was stabbed several times and was hospitalized for his injuries
He and his younger brother survived with help from their sisters. “I used to take all of my sister’s clothes. Luckily for me, my sister is a tomboy. So I can go and get her clothes.
At school, he was not a model student. “I’ll be the one to throw a sandwich at someone’s head in a meeting.” He was eventually expelled from school.
In an interview with American radio, he describes his youth in south London as a normalized petty crime life.
“No one blinked. A robbery, a stabbing, a fight in the middle of the road, jump on a taxi and hit the taxi driver, order pizza and rob the pizzeria and take his motorbike. That’s the bogus standard. I just remember being a rat.”
Violence seems to be the norm. He was stabbed several times and was hospitalized for his injuries.
He said: “I have friends who have come a long way. “You go on that journey, and it can lead you anywhere. It’s a random box of prison, death, being an entrepreneur.”
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In a 2019 radio interview, he talked about the spiraling cycle of knife murders in the UK.
“The knife crime conversation is a very, very, very big conversation. I grew up in the hood, but growing up where we grew up, you understand that it’s a bigger problem, like a big rapper saying, ‘Oh kids, put down the knives.’”
Naturally, everything he saw from an early age informed the music he was making. From the age of 10, he rapped to the beat and a year later he did his first local live rap show.
youth club.
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Stormzy at the TRNSMT Music Festival in Glasgow, 2017 / AFP PHOTO / Andy Buchanan / Getty Images
But Stormzy’s difficult background is also ingrained and shapes his political worldview.
After winning the awards for Best Male Solo Artist and Best Album at Brits in February 2018, he performed a rap that raised damning questions about how to handle the Grenfell fire of the then prime minister, where 72 people were killed in June 2017.
“Theresa May, where is the money for Grenfell?” he raps.
He continues this by eviscerating May’s government for “forgetting Grenfell… you are criminals, and you have the guts to call us barbarians… you should go to jail. .. the person should compensate some damages. We should burn your house down and see if you can manage this.
During his performance at Glastonbury in August 2019, he urged authorities to tell the “damn truth, first of all. We urge them to do something. We call on the government to be held accountable for this hoax and we will not stop until we get what we deserve.”
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Stormzy at Glastonbury 2019. Photo by Yui Mok/PA Wire
In early November 2019, when Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said in a radio interview that fire victims lacked “common sense” in heeding the advice of the local fire brigade, where, Stormzy went on a rampage.
“These politicians are actually aliens,” he added, not entirely inaccurately. “A lot of your politicians are evil and cruel, and this is why we hate you. Seventy-two people have died in a tragedy for which you are responsible… This is not about politics, but about our rulers who lack the most basic humanity or empathy. That was crazy to me.”
Later that month, after Stormzy publicly supported the Labor Party and Jeremy Corbyn ahead of the UK election, Conservative Secretary Michael Gove said in a radio interview: “I think we know Stormzy, when he stepped onto the stage in Glastonbury wearing a vest, stating what his political views were. He’s a much better rapper than he is a political analyst.
In December 2019, Stormzy accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of promoting racism in the UK with his views.
“If the head can openly say this racist thing – the comments ‘piccaninnies’, ‘watermelon smiles’, compare Muslim women to a mailbox – if that is their puppet. I, the leading man, the leader that we have to follow, and he openly says these things, he encourages hate among others,” he said.
The disadvantaged boy from South London has funded scholarships for Black students to study at Cambridge University, lectured at Oxford University, donated £10 million to British foundations and charities. English, and founded Merky Books to give voice to disadvantaged young people. Writer.
You imagine this might be less important than four number-one singles in the UK, two number-one albums – but could rank as important to his Ghanaian heritage.
“I grew up as an English kid – going to school in London, wandering the streets of London,” he once said, “but having interactions with my roots and going back to Ghana, I think: ‘ Yeah, really sick. ‘
“I love my country and its people, and the energy and vibe they give off. So I wanted to represent that and be a part of it.
Many would obviously choose ‘Please’ – a song in which he compares the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged relationship with her father, to his fractured relationship with his own father
His new album That’s what I think there are 12 songs that express deep hurt, poetic and street wit in equal measure.
On “I Found My Smile”, he sings about past mental health issues (“Me and loneliness come up from time to time”) as well as taking mickey out of the League of Legends fascist movement. British guard.
In “Bad Blood”, he opened up about the end of his 4-year relationship with his girlfriend Maya Jama. “I should be by your side because I know your heart.”
Many would obviously choose “Please” – a song in which he compares the Duchess of Sussex’s estranged relationship with her father, to his fractured relationship with his own father.
“Please lower your voice, please turn off my phone – and leave Meghan alone, please,” he rapped. “I said leave Meghan alone, it’s so profound that your home was never yours… God give me the strength to forgive my dad for his mistakes and me too. so.”
On ‘Audacity’, he nods to the following pages of his own life journey, as he recalls his 2019 Glastonbury show: “When Banksy put the vest on me / Felt like God is testing me.”
He passed the test.
https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/music-news/stormzy-plants-his-flag-firmly-in-the-meghan-camp-in-latest-album-42208103.html Stormzy raises her flag firmly in Meghan’s camp on latest album