NEWS
EVENTS
We get an insight into the absurd world of Mr Mini
RnB/Hip Hop | Monday 20th July 2015 | Christina
Mr Mini is a rapper on the rise – he recently dropped his excellent new EP Street Smart Book Smart and has been getting rave reviews from the likes of Clash magazine, who have dubbed him “one of British hip-hop’s brightest hopes”. We sat down with the man himself to talk about all things music.
How’s life treating you and what have you been up to recently?
Life is treating me pretty good, life’s fine. And lately I’ve been making music man, I’ve been living life, enjoying it, taking it a day at a time.
Good! So give us a bit of background, where are you from? How did you first start in music?
I’m South East London, Jamaican background, Peckham to be exact. I started getting into music from a young age. I grew up in a very musically oriented household, so there was always music playing in every room. Everyone had their thing, like if I wanted a bit of reggae, go to my mum’s room, if I wanted a bit of hip-hop, go to my brother’s room, if I wanted ‘If You’re Happy And You Know It Clap Your Hands’, my room innit, cause I was that age! [laughs]. But yeah man, I started off through playing instruments. When I was 11 I started playing the violin, moved onto the drums, piano, wasn’t great at it but I still loved it and just turned into rap, had a thing for words. I just love words, literature, playing with words, and here I am.
Do you still play any instruments?
I play around with them [laughs]. You hear them in my tracks, a bit of keys, but I cheat, like I’ll play a bit, I won’t play all of it in one go.
You’ve been making music for a while, so how did you come to feature on freestyles with the likes of Kano and Tinie Tempah?
When I was about 14, 15, there was a radio station set up in my local area called Reprezent Radio, they’re actually pretty big right now, and I was one of the founding hosts. I managed to get Kano on my show and get Tinie on my show, also got Dot Rotten on my show, but in the time I was already MCing and that as well, said “yeah why don’t we just do a likkle set together, why not?” and just did it from there.
So I know you also produce as well, you’ve produced stuff for Maxsta, Krept & Konan, Manga and Stylo G, are you doing more producing or just rapping?
I’m doing both but with the production side I’m mainly focusing on my stuff. Rapping, all my stuff and AbZurd stuff right now. I’m not really branching out much yet because I feel like I’ve got to a good point with our music, we kinda like know what we are now, and know what I am as an artist and what I’m trying to do, so it’s got to that point where we’re just developing on the foundation.
How involved are you with other artists on AbZurd? Do you work with them closely?
Yeah I work with my producer closely. I’ve got another producer on AbZurd, we work very closely, we’ve got a joint project coming out soon as well. I work closely with my DJ as well when we do our live gigs, he’s the man, you get what I’m saying, we come as a package! Yeah with the other artists that are coming up I’m just kinda playing the guidance role now, steer everyone in the right path, so we’re like a family.
Are you doing a lot of live shows at the moment or are you just getting into that slowly?
I done a few recently, hoping to have a lot more coming up in the foreseeable future, that’s where it’s at.
So who would you say your influences are?
My influences range from the area I’ve grown up in, people. Musically I’d say artists like Ludacris, Missy Elliot, JME, Skepta, Klashnekoff, Nas, Akala, myself [laughs]. So a pretty broad list but I’d like to say I draw influence from a lot of different people, like comedians as well, Dave Chappelle, a lot of the old school comedians, Bernie Mac, because comedy ties in pretty closely to what I like to do as well, socially narrate kinda thing, make people think in a light hearted way.
So you just mentioned there that you focus on issues that are important to you. In some of your tracks you talk about student loans, being broke, government not paying attention to the youth, so is it really important to you that there’s always a message in your songs?
Yeah, it’s really important to me but a lot of the times the message can just be to entertain if you get what I’m saying. So not every song that I write and put out will be a song on this is what needs talking about. Most of them are, there is actually something behind it or something that’s inspired it, but there’s a lot them that are just enjoy this piece of music, like rock out to it.
Talk us through the inspiration and the process behind your new EP Street Smart Book Smart.
The inspiration was to capture who I am as much as a person on record, and capture it as close as I can, so the beginning of the process began by dissecting what kind of music I like. I basically looked over all the projects I’ve done before, listened through and thought of what I’m best at, this is where I’m good, this is what I wanna do, what was I lacking there, and overall it was summary of all of that, and I just wanted to have fun with Street Smart Book Smart. And tell a story, I wanted people to go away listening from it and be like, “oh yeah that was entertaining” or “I’ve got more of a picture of who this guy is, this guy’s different”, that’s what I wanted to do with Street Smart Book Smart. And the process from there was pretty much organic, just studio, vibes out, write the songs, and do it, record.
The video for your first track ‘Hi, I’m Mr Mini’ is really great and I like all your artwork, I’ve seen on Facebook all the different EP covers and song covers. Is that aspect of the business, the visual side, really important to you?
It’s very important to me, like all of that I’d like to say is part of the absurdity. Like it all falls under the same umbrella, it’s all absurd, so when people look at it I want them to think it’s absurd, when you hear it I want you to get the feeling it’s absurd. I want this feeling to get across, that’s the main aim.
And if someone didn’t know who you were and you had to direct them to a track that encapsulates everything about who you are, would it be that one?
Yeah right now it would definitely be ‘Hi, I’m Mr Mini’. I feel like they’d be able to get a good snapshot of the kind of person I am and a little insight into how the mind of one thinks.
So UK rap and grime is going through an amazing period right now – Skepta and JME are smashing it, Stormzy winning a BET Award, Krept & Konan possibly might be number one in the album charts – why do you think it’s all happening right now?
I don’t know, I don’t want to be that guy to par off the answer like “yeah I know!” I think it’s probably just the right time, because when you think about it people like Skepta and JME, they’ve been spitting for years now. Like I had my first music from them when I was like 11 years old, and I know that he was spitting years before that as well, you get what I’m saying. One thing I think it is, if it was to be a reason, I think it’s people’s persistence paying off more than anything, and the scene’s persistence overall. I think the world is yearning for something new and different. It’s exciting right now man.
Yeah because people in America are starting to get interested as well, you got the whole Kanye thing at the BRITs, Drake’s shouting out Skepta on a couple of things.
I think they know they need us too man! I fully think they know they need us, and they have to rate what’s going on as well, they can’t deny it, they need us man! They need us to stay alive, they love the UK man.
Ok so what’s on the agenda for the rest of the year?
For the rest of the year, my YouTube show, This Is AbZurd, another EP on the way, more visuals and more music. And the live show’s coming together in the next couple of months, so there’s a lot more to look forward to.
Tell us a bit about the YouTube show.
The YouTube show, ooohh what does that involve? You know what, I’ve been giving a lot away on this YouTube show you know! Alright, I’ll keep it brief, I won’t say too much about it but I’ll say it to you lot, it’s a sketch show format. I’ll describe it like this – it’s more of a visual representation and screenplay of what I do with my music, kind of. So if you have very bad taste and don’t like the records I’ve been putting out [laughs], you can watch my show, you might like the show. It’s still within the absurdity but it’s the visual side of it. There’s the music side and the visual side, they’re like husband and wife.
Are you writing all the sketches?
Yeah I’m writing all the sketches, me and one of my close, close friends who’s an artist as well, so we’ve been writing the sketches and putting together most of the ideas and are just gonna run with it. Like a lot of the stuff we’ve written right now is actually very, very crazy. I can’t wait until it starts coming and the clips come together as well.
When is it gonna come out?
I haven’t put a date on it yet but I’m hoping to have the first series even by September.
Oh soon!
Yeah pretty soon. We gotta fight against this clock now.
So what are you listening to right now?
Right now I’m listening to Chance The Rapper, his SURF album, I’m listening to Krept & Konan - The Long Way Home, I’m listening to Mr Mini [laughs]. I’m listening to a lot of things man, a lot of different things right now, but mainly I’m on Chance The Rapper’s album right now, I’m loving that.
What’s the first record you bought?
Usher – Confessions. Yeah, I weren’t gonna say it you know but I did buy Usher – Confessions.
I bought that album too so it’s alright!
It was a sick album, I was in primary school man.
What’s the most embarrassing song we’d find in your record collection?
I don’t even know you know. I’ve embarrassed myself a lot of times [laughs]. I’ve embarrassed myself and taken it a lot of times. But back in the day, I’d probably have song names to give you, but now I don’t think I’ve embarrassed myself, I was just having fun and still developing. It hasn’t happened recently so I couldn’t pull it out.
Have you got any guilty pleasures, not that you’d be ashamed to own up to but people wouldn’t think that you’d like this person or this band?
I don’t know if they make me feel guilty though [laughs]. Alright what’s a guilty pleasure of mine? Alright it’s weird, yeah, you see the way I like my toast, like when I have toast you need to butter it straight away and I need to eat it within 90 seconds of it being buttered, and it has to be melted into the bread and look like yeah they’ve become one, they’ve bound together. When I eat that, that’s a guilty pleasure. And I call it a guilty pleasure because I’ve had toast on tops, a toast on top is when someone doesn’t make the toast right and there’s a big blob of butter in the corner and it didn’t mesh properly. So yeah, that’s a guilty pleasure of mine, just having toast done a specific way, and melted into the bread, and not running off the bread.
If you could fill a swimming pool with anything, what would it be and why?
I would fill a swimming pool with honey Jack Daniels so I could sit on the diving board, not dive in it but watch everyone I know get wasted. Yeah and just see where the night goes from there.
That sounds like a good party!
Or it would be marshmallows. I’d love to dive into a swimming pool of marshmallows.
So your house is on fire, you can go in and save one item, what would it be?
My Mac. I’m assuming my mum’s already outside right?
People, pets, all of that, it’s all good but you’ve got one possession that you can get.
I am saving my Mac. I’ll leave my mic, I’ll leave my other stuff but I need my Mac. Yep I’d save my computer.
Alright final question, if you were stranded on a desert island and you could have three songs to keep you entertained for the time you were there, what three songs would you choose?
I’m trapped on an island, I’m gonna choose ‘Do It For The Gang’ by Krept & Konan and Wiz Khalifa cause it’s a turn up yeah, and even though no one else is there to turn up with me, it’ll probably just make me feel better inside. I’d choose ‘Many Rivers To Cross’, the Jimmy Cliff version because I’m stuck on an island, even though it’s not technically rivers, it’s oceans, I’ve got a lot of water to cross before I get home. And I will choose Mr Mini [laughs], I need to stop doing this, ‘Stone Age’. I would choose Mr Mini, ‘Stone Age’ because on an island trapped by yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re gonna go back to the stone age
Nice. Nice link!
Yeah that was pretty smooth!
Follow Mr Mini on Twitter.
