Having been making music for over a decade and been known by several aliased including Bigz and The Flygerian, Mr Bigz launched his latest EP S.U.M.M.E.R during the second half of 2014. As we loved it so much, we hunted down the man himself and asked him some questions about not only the EP, but about his career over the last ten years as a whole…
On his change in image from Bigz to Mr Bigz…
Mr Bigz: It’s like the new me but the real me. As you age, you tend to mature and you tend to become more refined, so I think Mr Bigz is just the refined me. I’m wearing a tracksuit today so I’m just plain old Bigz right now, but when I throw on my glad rags and that, it’s the refined me and that’s what Mr Bigz is.
Starting in the music industry…
Mr Bigz: I’ve always been rapping since I can remember, but in regards to recording songs – I hate saying tracks, cos I feel the whole world says track and it just takes the soul out of what the creation is; you’re not a DJ or a mix engineer so stop saying track people! – but yeah I started recording songs about ten years ago. Through that I got into writing and producing and it’s been a steady development since then.
Featuring on Sway’s 2004 classic release This Is My Demo…
Mr Bigz: It was a game changer and one of the best albums ever to be fair. I was part of a collective who started an independent label, Alliance Records and my business partners did a joint venture deal with Sway and co-released This Is My Demo. Sway and I became very good friends and I was friends with his cousins already, as we went to school together and they’re like brothers to me, so it was a natural organic thing.
How his experiences have helped to shape his current music…
Mr Bigz: I lost my older brother, two of my close friends and my grandmother all in the space of twelve months and I don’t tend to talk about it too much, but it’s not a thing that generally people tend to go through in life. Losses are not new things to anybody, most people know what a loss is, but not everyone has gone through rapid loss, so it definitely influenced my music and also me in terms of the way I think. I can be a bit of an on & off person, which is why I enjoy making music that makes people smile, because in turn it makes me smile. Sometimes it’s hard to smile when you know what you’ve been through. For the EP I just wanted to make music that made people happy, smile and dance again.
The video for his latest track ‘Starlight’ taken from S.U.M.M.E.R…
Mr Bigz: Turkish and me came up with that concept and he was like “why don’t you do it vintage or like ‘Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough’?” and I was like “why don’t I do it like ‘Rock With You?’” and we just combined the idea, told Matt Walker and he new exactly what I was going for. I’ve always done good quality videos because I feel it’s important to display your work well. A lot of people get away with doing very cheap videos and rely on some sort of other hype in order to carry them through. I’ve always wanted to display what I do in the best quality and I think it’s my most creative video to date. I’m just glad the videos are improving as I go along.
The sound of ‘Soul Food’, another track from S.U.M.M.E.R…
Mr Bigz: A lot of people refer to it as old skool, but it’s not old skool as I still make it. There are people who have been making hip hop in this way since it started and they haven’t stopped. But when a genre becomes commercialised that commercial sound is what labels push forward as hip hop, but it’s not, they’re sub genres, such as Turn Up music or Down South music. The same way you don’t eat chicken every day, you don’t eat burgers everyday, you feel for different things at different times. The sound stems from an old skool feel but it’s soul music and Rap-Soul is what I call it. I like vintage sounding stuff but I feel like when we say it’s a sound that’s coming back around it makes me nervous because it means that it’ll get commercialised and then a lot of artists in the game feel they need to copy what’s going on and it makes something that was at one time so beautiful, now become shit.
Giggs and Wretch 32 featuring on S.U.M.M.E.R…
Mr Bigz: It was great to connect with Giggs because we’re from two different sides of the city and we hadn’t managed to cross paths, so I’m so glad that music can bring people together and we made something awesome. I’ve known Wretch 32 and the people around him like Zeon [Richards] for about twelve years now and obviously he is a wordsmith. I’m slightly older than him so I’ve seen him grow and it’s been awesome to see him get better and grow bigger and the fact that he still shows love constantly and we can still come together was great. That was real rap and we wanted to show people around the world that English brothers be rapping!
His forthcoming album…
Mr Bigz: I started the process by doing the hook writing and the production and I’m gonna try and get it down to ten tracks. There is a lot of sad stuff in there, but it’s generally soulful, so even when it’s sad it’s still gonna touch you and I think that’s the importance of music. It’s supposed to touch you in one way or the other; sometimes it’s supposed to touch you soulfully and mentally and it teaches you, sometimes it’s supposed to touch you soulfully and makes you happy, sometimes it’s supposed to touch your conscience, sometimes it’s supposed to make you feel sad.
His journey over the last ten years…
Mr Bigz: I have been ‘going in’ for the last ten years. I don’t think I was that good in the beginning to be honest, but I had a big mouth so I used to talk a good game. But I’ve been ‘going in’ consecutively from about 2006, in the sense of lyrical content and becoming an awesome rapper on a global scale. Syllables, flow, putting words together, I display it all the time and all of the big urban outlets are free to go and check a Bigz freestyle cos I never miss a beat. I’ve always made dope music and I think in the past I was caught up in that whirlwind of “oh dubstep’s in, let me go do a dubstep tune”, but not anymore. I’ve gotta do what I love because if I do that I’m gonna become great at it because I’ve got such a passion for it.
Artists taking responsibility for being role models…
Mr Bigz: A friend of mine tweeted the other day and said ‘Hip Hop used to be the cure and now it’s the cancer’ and the way that resonated with me was that you really do have to take responsibility for what you put out into the world. Everything you put out, even though it’s seen as the norm, it can’t always be negative. You can’t always put out things with a negative connotation because there are people watching this and they are learning from it. You can’t refuse the role model thing because if you do, don’t step out into the public. You wanna be looked up to, every poet just wants to be loved, I heard that on J Cole’s album and it’s truthful. Everyone’s a role model.
How much of an impact football has on his life…
Mr Bigz: I almost don’t want football to be such a big part of my life because it genuinely affects my day. If Man Utd lose then it fucks my day up or fucks my weekend up. That’s why I prefer when they play on Sundays and not Saturdays cos then I can still go out on Saturday night, which is my treat day and still turn up! If not I’ll be moping.
Which tracks have inspired him recently…
Mr Bigz: I like different things. Yeah there’s certain turn up music I like, but there’s also certain Soul I like and certain Jazz I like and I was listening to the Backstreet Boys this morning! If it’s a dope song, it’s a dope song and I fuck with it. Sometimes I even try and break down the genre barrier and say that there’s only good music and bad music and everything in between is just politics. If it bangs, it bangs. Gigslutz is the representation of how my mind works. You went from just Stone Roses and Noel Gallagher music and you now also cater for hip hop and urban music.
Mr Bigz will be headlining his own show for the very first time on Tuesday 24th February 2015 at Servant Jazz Quarters, N16 8JN and you can grab your tickets here. Also make sure you follow the man himself on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest news and music direct from Bigz.
Matt Tarr
@MattTarrJourno
Matt Tarr
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