Eating Pizza Whilst Talking Grime, An Interview With P Money

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In August Pizza Hut Restaurants partnered with Grime star P Money and Rinse FM DJ Vectra to show off the playable pizza box’s new musical capabilities. Which has been used for the worldwide advert and for his upcoming album Live & Direct. Pizza Hut has also given fans the opportunity to sit down and have a pizza with P Money. We sat down with P Money over a pizza to discuss the partnership, his album and his career to date.

 

Where did the name P money come from?

 

You know what I never ever called myself P money, it was just a name given to me at school. I was in school rapping on the playground,, brand new phones, I had, brand new creps, so people just associated me with money and that’s where it came from. 

 

How did your partnership come about with Pizza Hut Restaurants?

 

I reached out to Pizza Hut to get them involved in my album campaign & they showed me this crazy pizza box that converts into a DJ deck. I was looking at it thinking, “This is sick I’ll bring down a DJ and we can have a try of the DJ box.” I took DJ Vectra down to test it out and to my surprise it actually worked well.

Pizza hut then made grime the theme of the campaign and my tune was used for the advert along with a tutorial from DJ Vectra on how to use the decks. The video got over a million of views, something so unexpected from a pizza box and I’m using a beat created on the pizza box for a track on my album. But yeah all love to Pizza Hut for the opportunity.

 

Do you feel you’ve changed musically since ‘Money Over Everyone’, 7 years ago?

 

Yeah 100% now I try to make my music drop on everyone’s ears, adults as well as children. I try to do things where people can enjoy and rave but also learn from it. 

 

Coming from an inner city South London area like Lewisham, what challenges have you experienced that have made you who you are today?

Firstly my mother being a single parent, it was just my brothers and me at home so I was making money by any means necessary, we didn’t have no million pound check from no one. I’ve never had a 9-5 job, I don’t know what it feels like nor do I want to know ha-ha. You know how it is bro.

 

Your album ‘Live and direct’ is out in November, what can your fans expect?

 

The album is like a journey of finding P Money and every fan has been on this journey with me, building a final form of P Money like in Dragon Ball Z. The album will sound like a live show from start to finish; you sit back, and listen to it, it’ll feel like you’re at my live show. I’ve made it so that you get to feel the vibes and insights into my life; it’s like an introduction to P Money.

 

You dropped your ‘Thank You’ EP on your birthday . Tell us about the motivation behind the project?

The motivation was simply to be grateful for the support; I did a rave on April 2nd, 6 days before my birthday. We sold a load of tickets before hand and on the night, a load of people turned up. The tickets weren’t cheap and I understand not everyone has money. I then sat down and had a hard look at my life and where I came from and realised that the fans have stuck by me throughout.

Nowadays everyone’s in it for money, cars, clothes, and the status of being the ‘big man’. I’m not like that, I still like producing and performing at shows, as you guys already know, you’re at most of the shows! And there’s plenty of shows ill just turn up for free because that’s just how I am, it’s solely about the music for me.

 

 

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How did the song ‘P Money’ by Wiley come about?

 

I was at Eskimo dance and Wiley came up to me and was like “Yo P man I rate you, I think you’re sick” I was like “ Bro come on man I’ve rated you since day, you know this” then the tune came out. Everyone was cracking joke calling me the karate kid, I was like whys man keep calling me that? Then I realised that every line Wiley spat he did this karate chop movement. I had no clue about the song and video. I found out the same time you lot did, saw it on twitter and YouTube and that’s about it.

 

 

You’re quite a versatile MC, do you work on it or is it natural?

 

It’s natural but I do work on it, no-one can ever say that don’t work on it. I was doing Grime and Dubstep at the same time, it’s not easy to cover two different sounds but it’s helped me adapt and know how to use my flow in any situation. Dubstep was hard to MC on, a lot of the time when it first came around they didn’t want any MC’s, and they would turn off your mic. I balanced it in such a way that people were asking for me on the tracks so they had no choice but to leave my mic on. I’ve adapted the same style on Drum and Bass now, a couple days ago I was on the Drum and Bass stage, alone shelling!. I do it to challenge myself and get better. When I come back and do a Grime track I’ve got some next flows and everyone’s like ‘Whaaaat???’

 

In the recent years Grime has had it’s resurgence and rappers like you have put it on the map. What has been your best memory to this date?

 

Ha-ha come on man! That’s mad pressure, I’ve done so much. One of my best memories to this day would be when I first did Wireless, that to me showed me that UK music is the thing. There wasn’t really anyone from our scene at Wireless that year, think its was 2014, it was me, Giggs & a couple others that was the year Jay Z headlined. We packed out the tent, 3000-4000 people. I remember the engineer running over to me at the end and asking my name, he was like, “No one this whole weekend has packed out this tent & you and Giggs have just torn up the place”. At that moment I was like “Our thing is actually real, we have a strong backing, the engineer didn’t know who I was but 4000 other people knew my name and my lyrics and they were there for me & Giggs, the two main guys from our industry”. Ever since then I’ve been travelling the world performing.

 

 ’10/10′ Received  Crazy attention, What was the motivation to do a remix? 

 

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t have to do a remix, the original was already big. but because I still go pirate radio I see the rappers who were upcoming then I was talking to them about it what they wanted to do with their careers. I did the remix for them, I knew them, I rated them, and I’m a close friend with some of them so I just put them on. I still have to give credit to them, it’s not easy to jump on a P Money track, the hype is too much! But I’m glad the people on the track benefitted from it. It’s all about helping the youth progress. They will be carrying our scene in the future.

 

 

Couple weeks back the scene celebrated the GRM x KA Drinks Rated awards. If you were nominated for an award would you attend?

If I was nominated for an award, I don’t know you know, I don’t know if I would attend. It would take the people around me to convince me and show how important it is in order for me to attend. I’m that type of guy who’s like cool safe see you later and dead off a motive, stay at home and get my award posted to me. I would roll up to my next performance and thank everyone who voted for me. Put it down simply, when JME wins an award come back and speak to me because I feel he should of won an award a long time ago. But I don’t need validation. I know as well as my fans know I make good music and I will continue to.

 

Do you feel its time for other awards ceremony such as the MOBO’s & BRITs to acknowledge the artists of the genre?

 

The MOBO’s have acknowledged us, I give that to them. About five years ago in an interview when Devlin first got nominated I said it’s about time that the MOBO’s started to support and recognise UK music, then I got people from the MOBO’s hitting me up like “why did you say that?” and I was like “it’s true, you haven’t been supporting, bare American people are getting nominated and winning the awards, yet you don’t want to holler at the UK scene but you’re a UK awards show.

They definitely switched it up and realised that we need to support and have done so, as you can see this year with the nominations. On the other hand the BRITs need to sort it out and follow in suit. They are probably vex at the fact Kanye invited the main guys from the Grime scene to preform ‘All Day’, that was a madness you know! Maybe there will be a change especially after Skepta winning a Mercury 2016 Award, now the waves are set hopefully they all jump on.

 

Who are your own inspirations within the scene and what is the best advice you’ve received?

 

I don’t have actual inspirations within the scene but people I respect and value the opinions of will probably be people like: JME, Big Nartsie & Ed Sheeran, they’ve all got something about them where they don’t seek anything from anyone, they’re their own person and just get on with it. They are there to help the whole scene and their friends benefit rather than solely themselves. For example JME is known for who he is as much as he’s known for being in BBK. He is the same guy whoever you ask. I rate that. The best advice I gave to myself when I started out was, “I need to be me, music is something I can do”

 

A question that’s been on our minds since it happened is,. What went down with the Lord of the Mics Clash between yourself and Big H?

 

Ha-ha, you’re not the only one who’s wanted to know! Personally for myself, that was not a clash, if we talk about clashes, back and forth dubs were talking about my clash with Ghetts back in the day. That was a healthy clash.

The BIG H clash it should have been more organised, too many different people got involved, it got a bit too personal. A big part of it was that people saw the money that could have been made; the art of what we were doing got taken out of context. You only hear the negatives from the clash, people complaining that they spent money to attend and the clash wasn’t a clash. It should of just been put on, simple terms, these two are clashing, the clash is here, everyone just roll it’s going to be a sick clash, bang done but nothing is as easy as that hey!

 

We see that most Grime events happening you’re on the set list, how does it help your music and do you feel other artists need to get themselves on stage more?

It helps a lot; even being at someone else’s show just watching how they conduct themselves helps a lot. For example, suppose you came to my show where say 1000 people are there to see me and I brought you out to spit your own bars, if 20 people in that crowd like you and think your sick they will go home, look up your socials and tell their mates, that adds to your fan base, so being about helps. Being in photos also helps, people will ask about who is so and so etc. A lot of MC’s that sit at home and complain, I say fam you’re complaining from your house. Get out there and do something, its not just going to come to you. If it means you roll up jump the barrier and grab that mic and shell, do it by any means necessary because someone will rate you and think nah man this guy deserves to be on the mic I’m not that guy to complain, I just get stuff done.

 

The merchandise market is massive. Do you see yourself releasing anymore OG’s merchandise in the future?

 

We have OG merch already but I only want to release clothing that accompanies my music and has a meaning to it not just for the sake of releasing clothing. It doesn’t have that same effect for me personally.

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Do you regret anything you’ve done musically in the past?

 

You know what, I don’t to be fair. I don’t have a manger number one, so I can make my own decisions, I’m not forced into anything I don’t want to do. Same on the flip side, if I have a manger, that manger works for me not the other way around I can sack him or her whenever I want. It’s the same musically, if I’m not feeling it I’m not going to do it, I don’t care about the money.

 

You’re part of a veteran group of Grime acts, what advice would you gives to young upcoming artists?

 

Use the Internet; we had it hard because we didn’t have the Internet and resources that there are now. You can go viral in minutes, get signed and sponsored in no time. It’s all mad bro. The second piece of advice would be to talk to each other, talk to us, we are human, look at YouTube videos to see how we’ve done it and try do it better, pick it apart and lastly don’t be afraid to have knock downs, no one got to the top without any knockdowns.

 

Where do you envisage the grime scene being in 5 years?

 

In terms of grime I feel that every artist will have way more opportunities. The position I’m in now a lot of MC’s can get into this position much easier, I feel that there would be some sick academy set up, a lot more opportunities in college and a unit for producing music. When I was in school they didn’t teach me how to produce, it was either learning to play the piano or guitar that was it. In 5 years schools will have newer ideas and things to help people become MC’s. Right now I’m trying to create a course for artists to learn about publishing and how to get published, what it means and learn stuff that we know/ stuff that I still don’t know being in the scene this long. In 5 years we will know these things and share it with the younger audience. For myself, in 5 years I want my own record label and have artists signed to it. Within the next few years I’m going to get into management.

 

What do you have planned for the future?

 

Well, my album is out in November, I will be working on shooting videos for the songs, keeping on track, working towards the goal of owning a label and the management route. But yeah men it’s living each day trying to maximise the time you’ve got you get me.

 

We wanna give a big thank you to Pizza Hut Restaurants for working with us on this interview.  To Follow P Money’s Musical Journey follow him on Twitter at @KingPMoney

 

Words: Amandeep Basi – @SignorBasi

 

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