Photos by Marco Grey
When deciding a location for our interview, the rapper formerly known as Chipmunk, now as Chip, asked if we could meet at his barbers in Finsbury Park. As we settled into a sofa tucked away in the corner of the room, the rest of the place buzzing with a constant flow of customers, a bubbling radio and endless short back and sides, it was pretty clear Chip feels at home anywhere in North London these days.
Whether he’s caught your attention through recent beefs, or his name still brings the words “Chip Diddy Chip” to mind, there is no denying that the 25 year old MC has seen a sudden re-emergence of late in the UK scene. “I’ve had to do things,” he says, “to programme my mind, to think like a hungry dog again. But now, I’m completely on the other side of this whole course that started when I first came through. I feel like Chipmunk again.”
Having been known on the grime scene for a short while, the Tottenham kid first shot to notoriety in 2007, at the age of just 17, scoring chart hits and winning a MOBO for ‘Best Newcomer’. Singles like “Diamond Rings” with Emeli Sande earned him more pop than grime stripes, and “Oopsy Daisy” went number one in the UK, morphing him from an underground name – played out of Sony Ericssons on school buses – into a primetime chart figure. By 2009, he was beating Eminem and Kanye West to the MOBO ‘Best Hip-Hop Act’ award.
From there though, you could say Chip's respectability on street level wasn't exactly soaring. From pop songs with Keri Hilson, chart fodder with Jessie J, and performances at places like Sainsbury's Super Saturday festival, your average UK rap and grime fan wasn't exactly coming Chip's way for fresh bars of fire. Basically, you were more likely to see him on SMTV than SBTV. And while a lot of that might still haunt Chip now, it’s easy to forget that before all that fame first began - before the millions of YouTube hits and Myspace plays - he was a 14 year old, juggling school with recording mixtapes, and balancing a rising profile with life in the ends.
“When I was younger, I remember the anxious feeling of getting on a bus on my own, knowing that I was this kid Chipmunk now and that people knew that. I remember a designer called Scribbler when I was 14. The first time I went to meet him I had to get the bus through Edmonton. They had proper on site beef with Northumberland Park which is the area that I use to MC from with Shoddy Crew. I caught the bus and I was shitting myself the whole way, cos if you’re from there and you get rushed… well, that’s it.”
It’s important to recognise Chip’s early days in the context of how he has revived the reputation he has again today, as a fairly respectable contender, despite rivals rushing to write him off as pop act, sell out or faded star. Even aged 14, when his Whatever the Weather mixtapes were getting picked up by Wiley, there was a method, meaning and motive behind everything he did. In his words, “there was a whole circuit of work and income” before those hits came.
I half expected him to be reticent about discussing that mainstream era of his career, particularly given the resolute realness and decidedly non-mainstream friendly qualities of his latest EP Believe & Achieve. But he has a lot of pride about what went down. “Making a pop song isn’t a joke,” he explains. “Not many MCs can just turn around and master those structures and those formulas.” As for the question of how it affected his truly authentic origins? “I don’t care. I made pop when it was authentic to me.”
The journey from mixtape to red carpet is seen by many as what stifled grime the first time around. The movement built momentum so quickly, many major players didn’t know what to do with it and were forced into making calls on which direction to take their sound in, without necessarily knowing what the long term consequences would be for the culture. “A lot of these new dons are fortunate because they’ve had an era of music before them. They can look at it and say, ‘I would do that, I wouldn’t do that’. But we had to actually try things, bruv. We had to risk it, for you, bruv.”
Following the major fame years of 2009-11, he felt the need to stretch his vision further afield. “Grime wasn’t challenging me anymore, pop wasn’t challenging me anymore.” With the sense that the world he had created for himself was getting too small, he headed for America, and signed with TI’s Grand Hustle. To him, this period was important for honing his craft more than anything else, working alongside the likes of Meek Mill, and getting himself to a point where he could “spit over any beat, against any rapper.” Yet while the time he spent in Atlanta was important, it is clear from talking to him that his current focus is firmly homeward bound.
“For so long I’ve been so detached from so many realistic things that really made my bars.” Speaking about his home town is possibly the only time during our conversation that he notably breaks from his otherwise impenetrable confidence. “People do get stabbed here, people do die here," says Chip. "It’s real. Young brothers are passing away and these are all people who actually grew up around here and know.” But as Chip is more than happy to reason, it's often the strife of such places in London that makes the talent of the artists coming out of there so raw and exciting. “There’s obviously something in this town,” he says.
We leave the barbers and walk to the corner shop up the road. I start to see a little of what Chip was chatting about earlier. Almost everyone stops to say hello, or turn their head. But it quickly becomes apparent that this isn’t celeb spotting. These are just local faces that know him. It’s his community; the owner of the local off licence, a kid he went to school with, a friend of the family. At one point, he heavily tips the waitress in a cafe because he's so impressed with the texture of the croissants. He’s been major label, he's been that pop kid, and he’s been America – but back in Tottenham, he looks, sounds and feels more Chip than ever.
Which all brings us to him in 2015, the Chip we see today. He’s been a scared kid on a bus, an anonymous internet sensation, a grime saviour, a pop star, a protege and a prodigy, all before he turned 25. He laughs at this thought, “I can see that my past journey is confusing.”
Given the amount of history behind him, and his vast experience of just how fickle the music industry can be, he’s more than past-caring when it comes to any discussion of the grime feuds that have seen his name re-emerge so rapidly over the past twelve months. “If I could say ‘I don’t care’ in an optimistic way, then that’s where I’m at.”
“I’m a human being. If you’re opinion doesn’t work with mine, I’m going to say ‘alright, safe’, turn the other way and go and spread my message to more people. But there are people who, if they don’t like your view, then they want to do something.” As he sees it, the diss tracks he makes now aren’t just about taking down one MC, they’re about showcasing his strength of focus, and redirecting attention to the ground level interests of his people and his message. “What do I get out of blasting MCs that I know lyrically cannot test me? Take your crazy dumb energy to other crazy dumb people. I know how to handle idiots. I’m not an idiot. MCs don’t scare me, because real life runs deeper.”
It’s Chip’s thick skin that’s helped him survive a decade in the music industry. Major label systems, criticism from the press, networking and self-promotion are all things he has learnt to take in his stride. Listening to new EP Believe & Achieve it’s striking just how literally he is putting this accrued knowledge to use – making music that sounds like grime, but has the foresight to shoot for something bigger than turf wars and micro-aggressions.
He understands that beefing with other rappers is going to distract attention in the short term, particularly in a scene where feuding is seen as so central to the energy. Yet for him, the challenge is maintaining his optimistic mission throughout all the bullshit. As he put it, “the media thrives off negativity, which puts a positive guy in a tricky position.” That being said, when I ask him if he ever doubts his own capabilities to come out on top, he laughs at me, “Nah...once you get your head around it, and around the times, it’s light work as long as you step steady.”
Spending any time with Chip, you can see how he’s courted so much attention over the years. His confidence is mesmerising and infectious, and I'll admit I feel like I’ve subconsciously bought into his new vision. Not in some small-fry “Chip is a sicker MC than XYZ” way, because that’s not the battle he’s really fighting right now. His perception of the scene is self-aware, and his ambition for his own future has come full circle. After this long in the game, man knows where to get a good hair cut.
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