‘My dad had this rucksack that was full of rap cd’s’… GRAFTER is a 21 year old rapper from Newham, East London. Being surrounded by rap music as a child lead Grafter to write his first rap at the age of 11 and he hasn’t stop writing and rapping since.
GRAFTER’S SOUND
After listening to every track on Grafter’s Soundcloud we were interested to know what type of music he listened too. The beats that he raps on gave us the feeling that he is greatly inspired by Hip-Hop music and wordplay, we asked him if we were right in saying this. He voiced to us that he used to be, and that punchlines and metaphors were important to his sound until he started making music for feeling, “I want you to be able to listen to my music and feel something, I want my songs to resonate with your soul”
Religiously listening to rap group ’67’ from Brixton everyday, Grafter says that their gritty raps get him through his days. The team at Trapped Magazine was surprised to find this out because they’re styles of music are extremely different.
We then went on to ask Grafter about his musical journey so far and what’s next for him. He describe his journey as slow and steady whilst also letting us know that he is in no rush and has accepted that it will take a while for him to get where he wants to be.
LIVING IN INSPIRATION
In 2013 the Newham council gave a press release about the acute housing problems in the Newham borough. Within this release they expand on the topic of the high levels of poverty in Newham stating that the borough held the rankings for; the 3rd highest child poverty rate in London (32%), the 2nd highest unemployment rate (10%) and that a third of working people living in Newham are low paid.
After becoming knowledgable of this, We decided to ask Grafter if music has been an outlet for him and what inspires him, as a person and musically. Grafter let us know that music is most definitely used as an outlet and regularly tells the people who are his life to listen to his music if they really want to know where his state of mind resonates.
Inspired by the struggle of living in Newham, Grafter expresses that his very poor area is full of negativity, with a huge lack of positivity to inspire the younger generation. “It’s mad because when I’m on my local estates and the kids come to me with their eyes glowing like “Yo I see your new tune of SBTV” I know their happy to see someone from their ends doing something and it inspires them to do something as well and that in turn inspires me”. Grafter is able to see the beauty in the struggle which can be very rare for men his age to recognise, his drive and determination comes from the realisation of the tussles he sees day to day. We like this about him.
THE SUAVE SOCIETY
Grafter is the creator and a member of the Suave Society, consisting of Loopz, Kieron Boothe, Dubz D, Karrizmah, Devs, Ghosty and himself. Living by the slogan ‘Separating ourselves to stand out’. We questioned Grafter on what he wants to bring to the music industry and also what is the Suave Society bringing. “I actually don’t know what I want to bring, I just want to make my music and put it out there”. Grafter comes across as someone who does things that are of value and worth, music being his greatest possession is all that he intends to offer. However he vocalised to us that he created the Suave Society in order to open the door for more unheard artist. If the unheard come together and make noise then the sound will elevate.
D.R.U.G.S EP
‘D.R.U.G.S’ stands for Desperate Retreat Under Gods Supervision. Grafter elaborated on the concept of his most recent EP, stating that he wants his EP to be your “desperate retreat” allowing you to escape from the problems in your life for a duration of 20 minute. Loopz, a fellow member of the Suave Society produced the whole EP, we asked Grafter why he decided on this, he said, “that’s my best friend, we were just chilling and we thought that instead of just sitting and getting high lets make some music and whats what we did”
Grafter recently released a music video for his track ‘Jay Dee’ from D.R.U.G.S featuring Kieron Boothe. We are huge fans of the track and video, its simplistic, neat and entertaining. Shot in Grafters ends and outside of his house, Grafter told us that the video shoot was ‘wavy’ and that shooting videos is always a ‘good time’.
WHEN DID YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH MUSIC?
“I fell in love with music when I heard the song ‘addiction’ by Kanye West. When that song first came out I was super young and I knew ALL the lyrics. I had no idea what the lyrics were really about but I knew them all.
When I got older I listened to the song again and it made so much sense to me and this was years later and I loved how the song was so timeless and from then I wanted to make timeless music”
Written by Lashawna Rose Stewart – @LashawnaRose
