Kojey Radical

BIG DREAM DIY in deep

“Iremember we was so broke,” Kojey Radical begins in his gravelly, amused London accent, tall frame bent back against a small chair in his hotel room. “We split a £3 pizza. A £3 Italian pizza we split between like, five people, because we had no money.” He’s recounting a time back in 2015, as he worked on the visual concept for the track ‘Bambu’ with Northampton creative duo The Rest (now best known for their collaborations with slowthai). It’s one of the many moments in his career when failure and success rubbed up tight against each other; when Kojey - also known as Kwadwo Adu Genfi Amponsah - sat in what seemed like defeat yet might have also been on the verge of global mega-success.

Today, DIY is meeting him over a video call as part of the promotion for newlyreleased album, ‘Reason to Smile’. According to almost everyone, Kojey is (once again) on the cusp of greatness. But this, as he later puts it, is not his first rodeo. The promise of something better has long been dangled, realised to a certain extent sometimes, and then snatched away, only to resurface just when he thought it was all over. “I started my music journey with the thought in my mind I was already a failure,” he begins to explain. Having studied at the London College of Fashion, he finished by writing a book in his final year. “And I had an idea for a soundtrack to accompany this book. And I decided, OK, I want to do this. So I’ve gone to my lecturers - I was studying Illustration and Creative Direction at the time - and I’ve gone to them and said, ‘I’ve made some music, and I’m gonna hand it in, and you’re gonna mark it like illustration and art’. And they said, ‘We’re not, and you will fail if you do that’.”

He did it anyway, and presumed he’d failed his degree. However, deflated but not deterred, Kojey posted the EP that came from that final project, ‘Dear Daisy’, on SoundCloud. It quickly gained traction, and had soon scored him a big enough audience to allow those feelings of failure to begin to recede. “Virality was a lot smaller back then, it took a lot less to go viral, you know? So, I’m enjoying the fruits of that labour, and the summer comes to a close, and my boy gives me a call like, ‘Are you going to the end of year show?’

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chance to dig into a longer profile on some of the most exciting artists in the world right now. so well’. I said, ‘What you mean, did so well? What you talking about?’ She said, ‘Check the results’. So, I checked them, and I’ve ended up getting a first. I It’s been a long and bumpy road for finished top six, I can’t remember if it was in my class KOJEY RADICAL but, but, with long- or the university overall, but I did really well. And then awaited debut LP ‘Reason To Smile’, the life began.” multi-hyphenate Londoner is finally ready to come good on all the potential. Keep reading for an extract, and head over to diymag.com/kojey to peep From there, life began to unfurl in its own twisting, turning way. The video for ‘Bambu’ ended up getting Kojey signed as a director, the full feature…Words: Katie while an early tour supporting Young Fathers would Beswick. prove life changing: an inspirational moment to hammer home the importance of a strong work ethic and, integrally, the idea that not all music that finds a popular audience is pop music. “It forced me to never consider changing for a mass audience; to just do what you wanna do, consistently,” he nods. "The more music I put in the world, the more I have the chance of being [a lifeline] for someone else." He left the tour focused and determined, ready to share a burning rage with the world. The political tracks he wrote in this period saw him labelled as a sociallyconscious spoken-word rapper. “But that wasn’t really me,” he explains. “I mean, I came from spoken word, which was conscious, but that’s not my personality trait. I’m a normal person, you know what I’m saying?” Then, all of a sudden, the tides began to turn. “The industry starts fucking with me a little bit more. I’m on the ‘Hot for 20-something’ BBC list or whatever. Radio was starting to support. But I’m inexperienced and have a severe lack of music. I’m getting all this attention and this love, and I can’t reciprocate it. You get this rush of, ‘Oh it’s there; he’s there; Kojey’s right there; he's on the cusp of whatever the fuck’. But I weren’t ready so it went away.”

“I quickly put on a jumper, some jeans. Everyone else was dressed to the nines - I didn’t get the memo,” he continues. “So, I go, and my lecturer’s there. She comes up to me smiling, all, ‘Oh so glad to see you, you did

Read the full feature at www.diymag.com/kojey.

‘Reason To Smile’ is out now. DIY

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