Rock Off Stormzy T Shirt Heavy is The Head Logo Official Mens Black

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I feel like there was a period when music was about the industry. People worried about whether a radio station would play them,” he says in his basso profundo voice, referring to a fear among artists of speaking out politically. “Now people are just walking their truth.” What makes them even cooler is the fact that both Stormzy and Jama have used their platforms to talk about personal subjects that matter to them. Jama has spoken of the pain she felt as a child when her father served multiple jail sentences. (She is no longer in touch with him.) “When I was starting out I felt a bit nervous about people finding out, because I thought they’d think less of me,” she says. “But then I decided I should be that person that speaks about it.” Last year she made a critically acclaimed documentary, When Dad Kills: Murderer in the Family, about children of fathers who are incarcerated, or addicts.

To announce the tour, Stormzy said: “I was thinking what’s next, cos we’ve done 3 O2s, shut that down. I said to the team, we gotta do something bigger, something better, something different. If so, how did Banksy get Stormzy to wear one of his works unknowingly? Did he leave the vest in the Glastonbury dressing room with a note: “From an anonymous well-wisher?” Surely the rapper was in on the stunt, for the vest was perfectly coordinated with the rest of his show. Its stark design showed up powerfully against the spectacular swirl of multicoloured lights and flashed-up messages. It seems too much to believe that Banksy happened to infiltrate a work of art that balanced the optics of the performance so precisely. There’s Alec Boateng, known as Twin, co-president of 0207 Def Jam records, who has been collaborating with Stormzy for years. “I would not feel comfortable being on this musical journey without him,” says Stormzy, who was one of 0207’s first signings. “I know it sounds cringe, but if I’m a Jedi Knight, he’s Yoda. I’m great without Yoda; Yoda is great without me, but his guidance makes me better.” Wealth and fame, for all their perks, can make changing your life more difficult. For Stormzy, success felt like something that was shielding him from making the changes he felt were necessary.Academically brilliant students’: Joseph Vambe and Drew Chateau. Photograph: Karis Beaumont/The Guardian JV I think Stormzy felt connected to us because we’ve all experienced different forms of hardship, and in our own avenues we’ve become successful.

This realisation, he says, was driven by self-accountability, not self-pity; he does not lament the childhood he had, but simply recognises its limitations.“I realised, especially growing up in South London in the environment I grew up in, there’s never going to be a time anyone encourages man to go deal with his feelings.” Stormzy says. “That’s a very adult thing to think, I’m gonna go deal with my life and my character with who I am and who I want to grow to be,” he says. “There is power in vulnerability.” DC If there’s one thing I want people to take away from the scholarship and our stories, it’s that your struggles are your own, and you can be successful. In the van, recalling it, Stormzy gestures with his hands in front of his face, snatching at the air for words. The fast, thrusting, hostile-by-default register that characterises grime music is not to everybody's taste. Whatever you think about Stormzy's genre, though, this rapper is by any standards a first-rate lyricist. He's exact, economical, a master-hand at the necessary rapper's bluster and often very funny. ("I come to your club and I f*** shit up," raps this Manchester United fan in popular song Know Me From, "I'm David Moyes.") The Notes app on Stormzy's phone is crammed with fragments and couplets and chunks of verses - "bars" is the word Stormzy favours when discussing his lyrics. And his oral dexterity as a rapper extends to a general talent for chat. For now, though, as he contemplates the spring's unlikely commercial triumph, the words that tend to come to him so easily just won't. "I can't even. I can't even," Stormzy says. Out of The Ends Yeah, I don’t think we want to tell a simplistic story : you went through hardship , got out of the hood , and then …Before the interview began, Stormzy was mic’d up, trailed with a camera by director Jordan “Zebie” Boza. I wonder if we’re going to be filmed – no, it turns out, but they are recording the audio. His team say it’s for a documentary, but Stormzy says the collection of footage is just part and parcel of his everyday life. Is it all right, always having someone in your space like that, I ask? “He’s my brother,” he says of Boza. “Not my blood brother, but … He’d be there anyway. It’s been happening. He’s been doing it for years now.” For someone who claims to be a homebody, most likely to be found spending time with his two rottweilers – Stormzy calls them his “sons” – being documented 24/7 seems like the most unusual aspect of his lifestyle. That, of course, and the fact that he’s throwing a literal gala for his 30th birthday.

He and Jama have worked together several times: Jama interviewed him on her drive-time radio show, and she appears in the video for his single “Big for Your Boots,” in which the two of them are hanging out—where else?—in a takeaway fast-food joint. He dedicated his song “Birthday Girl” to her.Today’s shoot is in part a celebration of the news that HSBC will be sponsoring an additional 30 scholarships at the university, and some of the past scholars’ achievements. Drew Chateau, who studied law and is now a trainee at a top firm , and Joseph Vambe, who studied human, social and political sciences, and is now a Labour councillor, were the first two students on the scholarship. Until today they have not been publicly named – Stormzy, and the university, wanted to protect them from any unnecessary pressure during their studies. You know, when you do something half positive, people are like, woah, you are Mother Teresa. And it’s like, yo, chill man Possibly this is due to the length and time at which he dropped it, which marks it as a standalone release.