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Coco Reppin Grime and Sheffield!
RnB/Hip Hop | Friday 24th July 2015 | Christina
Sheffield native Coco has been MCing and making music for a while now but 2015 is set to be his year - he’s teamed up with Steel City legend Toddla T for the massive ‘Target Practice’ and has a host of new material in the pipeline. We spoke to him about the grime scene and shouting out Sheffield, and if you see him around, don’t ask if he’s from Birmingham.
How’s it going?
Not bad, not bad, just been working. Went studio yesterday with Toddla and my manager DS1 and just chilling, getting a bit of work done.
What have you been doing in the studio?
Just recording a few more tracks, just a follow up from ‘Target Practice’, so I should have some more music coming out shortly. Nothing’s been confirmed just yet but I’ve definitely got more stuff coming.
Is that like an EP or an album kind of thing?
To be fair, I spoke to my manager and asked him what the plan is and I think we’re just gonna get as many tracks as we can together and decide what’s happening from there. As soon as we’ve got enough tracks possibly an EP, something like that.
So give us a bit of background. How did you get started in music?
Basically when I was about 13, I was in secondary school and I had a bunch of friends who were producing music at the time, they’d just formed a group. One of them approached me and said, “yo we’ve started a new group, we’ve got a studio and everything”. I was a bit oblivious to that whole stuff because I’d never been to a studio before, so I was like “is it for me?” but the guy was saying “come studio, try it out”. I just went there and it just took off from there really.
Who would you say your influences are?
Definitely people from my city, growing up listening to them, like Shinobi, and Skepta really. Skepta stands out for me in the whole grime scene, urban scene. I’ve said this many times before but he’s just different when it comes to music and the way he approaches it and the way he represents. He’s not afraid to do his own thing and represent himself, you get me.
What is the scene like in Sheffield?
You know what it’s alright to be fair. Growing up doing grime it was a very serious place to be within the music scene because everyone was hungry, everyone was young, the competition was good, and still people are doing grime music now. I’ve moved to London now but I still see what’s happening, everyone’s still on it, everyone’s representing.
What do you find inspiring about the city because you get a lot of good music coming out of there? Not just grime and hip-hop but also indie music as well, the Arctic Monkeys are probably the most well known ones.
Of course yeah. I don’t know because I started doing music from 13 so I didn’t really pay much attention to Sheff’s music until I started making it myself. I think it’s just the rawness of where we come from, and just not being assed really, being from South Yorkshire, and just representing where we come from. Just being proud to be from Sheffield and integrating that into our music.
Is it important that you’re always representing Sheffield?
Of course, no matter what happens, I can’t forget where I come from, that’s something I’ll always call myself. I gotta do it for myself, I come from Sheffield, people who listen to my music representing from back in the day, I’ve always got love for that.
I know you’ve spoken about this before, and you’re probably gonna get annoyed that I bring it up but your accent comes through really strongly in your music, which I actually like because I think it makes you stand out. When I heard some Clubs & Spades stuff, the first thing I noticed was Shinobi’s and Matic Mouth’s accents, which I thought was cool because it represents where you’re from, but do you still get people bringing it up, like I just did?
Yeah of course, of course. Like I said I moved to London in February and everybody that meets me that’s never of heard me before, never heard me speak before thinks I’m from Birmingham. Every single person without fail, I’m like “nah man, I’m from Sheffield”. And they’ll be like “don’t you find it hard especially doing music for people to understand you” but obviously when I’m speaking you’ll find some words that are coming through with my accent but I think it’s just a case of the slang we use anyway today in the urban scene. But I’m not bothered, people can understand me but definitely clock that I’m not from London.
People think of grime as a London thing and it is a very London thing it’s also a UK thing, and people from all over the UK love and support it so it should be coming from all over the UK.
Yeah of course. I’m not surprised that people outside of London doing grime are getting the recognition that they need because people be representing back in the day even when grime was popping in London from outside of London. I think it was just a case of timing and people being patient and just giving us that time of day to listen to us like, “yo they’re actually sick and they’re not from London, there is a scene outside of London”, so I think talent is just talent, don’t matter where you’re from.
Exactly. Grime is going through a really amazing period right now – Krept & Konan’s album did amazingly well, Stormzy won a BET Award, the US is paying attention, Drake’s all over Skepta – why do you think it’s all going off right now? Is it the persistence thing?
Yeah definitely. As far as I can remember, when grime first emerged, some of the Americans did take notice of grime, it wasn’t on a scale like it is now but there were some people overseas, like “yeah I like grime”. But it’s people like your Skepta’s, your Wiley’s, your JME’s, all the people that have just stuck by it and represented it, and not been afraid to show the world that this is what we do, this is what we’re representing, this is where we come from, and eventually you’ve got to listen, whether you like it or not. I think that’s just the case right now.
Tell me about ‘Target Practice’. What was the inspiration behind the track?
To be fair yeah my manager DS1, he’s a big producer, he’s from Sheffield originally, and he moved down to London a couple of years ago just to pursue a different path, to do a bit of artist management. When he came down here, he’s good friends with Toddla anyway, Toddla’s from Sheffield and he moved down here, so he showed Toddla a track that we’d done previously, a few years ago. Toddla just said, “yeah man I’ve been wanting to get Sheffield artists out there for quite a while”, so obviously I moved to London, met up with Toddla, got in the studio, Toddla showed me the beat and then I just put some lyrics down basically. I said, “yeah man keep that in the pipeline”, he said, “what do you wanna call it?” and I said, “Target Practice”.
Well it’s a good name! It must have been pretty exciting for him to get involved though? He’s massive.
Yeah man, you what it is right, even now Toddla’s a cool guy, he’s so on the level, he’s probably one of the coolest guys you’ll ever meet but even now I think “yo this is Toddla T” you get me. I just rate his genuineness and the fact that he’s wanted to push me as far as I can go and bring me in on stuff. I rate that, I’ll always show him props for that.
And he’s another one that’s always shouting out Sheffield, he’s very proud to be where he’s from.
Yeah definitely man. I love that as well because it makes me wanna push even more knowing that there’s a prospect within music from my town doing very well and representing. It makes me feel a lot more proud as well and just wanna push with him and make it happen.
In the video there are a few shots of you and Toddla performing the track at a rave, which looked pretty crazy. Where was that?
That was at XOYO. Basically we went to the studio the same day, Toddla had a night on there, and we shot some of the video in the studio and we planned to shoot some there. You’ll see that some of the raw footage from XOYO was in there. It was mad trust me.
Do you have any rituals you do before you perform live?
Nah I don’t you know. I probably just go over my lyrics for the tune that I’m gonna do but obviously everyone gets nervous, everyone gets butterflies. I don’t care how many times you’ve performed, it’s just human nature but I think when you go out there and get a good reception, you see the crowd, you just remember what you’re doing it for, and just have a good time man. So yeah I think you have to just think about why you’re doing this music thing and how far you’ve come and it’ll take care of itself.
And in the video there’s a few cameos right towards the end, how did those happen?
Firstly DJ Target, Toddla and Target are good friends, they work together, so he just asked him if he could just jump in the video quick sharp. Yeah everyone was vibesing anyway but a couple people Toddla just hailed up and was like “yo quick video, we got this coming out soon, do you wanna jump in?” and just went from there man.
Do you enjoy that side of the industry, making videos and all that?
Yeah, yeah man. I think it’s important that you have visuals to accompany music so people can get a good feel of what’s going on with your tune. Especially with me like you said before, with the accent thing, with ‘Target Practice’ I think it was good that we had the little annotations, but yeah it helps. Sometimes it can be long but obviously it’s part and parcel of it, work is work and the end product will be a good one if you put in the work.
Yeah and it’s nice for people to put a face to a name, when they can see what you look like and see what you can do.
Yeah precisely because people might hear me on tracks and wonder “what does this guy looks like?” I always do that, when I’ve never heard of someone I think “this guy sounds like he looks like this”, and then I see him and will be like “what, that’s not him!”
Yeah they never look like what you think they’re gonna look like!
At all, at all! You always create this random perception in your head, but yeah man I’m used to it anyway.
What are you looking forward to for the rest of the year?
Just getting more music out there, just making a lot more people aware of who I am. Just getting bare music out there and representing. As I said I came to London the beginning of this year, I just want as many people to know who I am, and to know I came to represent and that’s it.
What are you listening to right now?
Bit of everything really. Everything. There is one track that I like, Kaytranada and The Internet – ‘Girl’. Listen to that, it’s very serious piece of music man. But yeah I listen to everything.
What’s the first record you bought?
Boy, I think it was, people don’t shoot me for this but I think it was Blue! That was in the early stages, but yeah Blue. I don’t know if I got it bought as a present or what, but yeah, man went through phases.
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever gotten in trouble for?
Oh my god, I think it might be drinking. I got drunk one time very, very bad and me and my friends went in this paper factory, don’t ask me why. Long story short, I lost two of my mobile phones because I was mashup and someone must have called the police and the police came. And I hate dogs and they must’ve sent the dogs in there. But yeah I think that’s one of the worst things to be fair. I’m not that much of a bad guy, I’m alright.
Yeah but getting the dogs called on you is not great is it?
Trust me, I’d have anything but dogs. I hate dogs.
If you could fill a swimming pool with anything, what would it be and why?
Probably a lilo, so I can stay afloat if I need to.
There’s a private jet waiting outside ready to take you anywhere in the world, so where do you go?
Jamaica.
Why Jamaica?
Because I’ve never been there and that’s my background, my family’s from there, and I’d love to go to the Caribbean one day.
Last question. Your house is on fire, you’ve got time to go in and save one thing, what do you save? People and pets are all safe, it’s about your possessions, what would you pick?
My laptop because obviously I’m a producer as well and without my laptop I’d be in bits man. And my speakers if I can have that.
Everyone says laptop, they don’t wanna lose the music!
At all, not at all.
Follow Coco on Twitter.
