Blizzard really blew up last year after his smashing his performance in Lord Of The Mic’s. Outside of battling he has already mastered the art of clever wordplay whilst also delivering brutally, honest, personal truths in his music. HTF caught up with Blizzard to discuss his new EP, upcoming side projects and making music your mum can boogie to.
HTF: So firstly let’s start with the obvious. Did you see a surge in popularity after your performance Lord Of The Mics?
B: Yeah there was a pretty massive improvement in demand after that. Because I was appealing to my core fan base again, I started making grime music before anything. So to go back to that original audience and appeal to them is a really important thing. It was good to keep me relevant, because for a while I was just doing hip-hop and acoustics. I just felt I needed to be more consistent with grime.
HTF: Looking at your music there’s an almost uncomfortable level of reality concerning: bullying, taking steroids when your were younger, did u make a conscious effort to discuss those issues to connect with the people pout there who needed it?
B: Exactly, and I’ve got to be very careful because I appeal to a very impressionable age bracket. And all I need to say is something like “smoking weed is good” and it will have a negative effect on that person. Recently I’ve taken efforts to raise the bar in my music, whilst also being aware of the potential effect I could have on my audience. Music doesn’t have to be negative to be entertaining. I have nothing to hide. People can relate to the track about bullying. I’m not trying to exaggerate my protagonist as a rapper. I want to be relatable, so people can look at my music an be like “I’ve been through that I can understand him” and that’s why I’m gonna dig into more of my life. There’s a Prodigy album that says it best, it’s called ‘Music For A Jilted Generation‘, I feel like that’s the kind of thing I wanna do. I wanna make music for kids who wanna make something of themselves, as well as the kids who don’t know if they’re going to make something of themselves. But still have an idea for what they want to do. I just want to inspire people with what I do. Lord Of The Mics is the Blizzard protagonist in full form. But with my recent musical endeavours I’ve leaned toward the real person like me being Brad (real name) who I am as a person. Rather than accentuate the negative traits of the music I make because grime and hip-hop are quite braggadacious and certain aspects glorify gang culture. And with me being from a suburban background it’s not something I can really relate to, so that’s why my content is the way it is.
HTF: There was a point in the late 90’s where regardless of the rapper, everyone was glorifying violence somewhere on the album.
B: It’s because it’s the norm of what the hip-hop demographic expects. When you listen to Brother Lynch, Necro and Uncle Murder it’s horrorcore but it’s part of the genre. But what I make is a bit more versatile and eclectic.
HTF: Who inspired you?
B: Guru from Gangstaar was one of my main influences. When I listen to a Gangstaar record it’s more than “I make money, I drive fast cars, I smoke loads of weed” It’s more than that, it’s trying to teach people. I see him as a more of a teacher, or literally a Guru. Another guy is Immortal Technique; he’s an absolute wordsmith. He’s a genius. More recently I’ve been getting into Mic Righeteous. I love his content and I love how he doesn’t fake who he is. What you see in his music is a complete representation of him. And that’s what makes me want to discover more of his music. I’d like to think my music has the same effect. I hope people can hear I’m not trying to appeal to the hip-hop norm. I hope they can see I’m trying to deviate from that.
HTF: Do you try to make sure there is no division between Blizzard the rapper, and brad the person? Essentially creating a Brad The Rapper?
B: It’s weird, because that’s how I picture it in my head, but no one seems to pick up on that. I want my music to be a complete representation of the person I would be when I meet my mum to go for tea. My mum is a fan of mine, she listen to and critiques my music when she needs to. She knows I’m the not the kind of person that a lot of rappers are. And when she hears songs about me being bullied and being in relationships, in contrast to rapping about drugs that I don’t smoke, and cars that I don’t drive what’s more plausible, and what’s a better impression to give.
HTF: How do you combine the honest in your music, whilst still making a song that’s entertaining?
B: I listen to a lot of music and get my song writing skills from different genres. I’m influenced by people like Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys, Johnny Marr from The Smiths, Lennon and McCartney the way they write inspires me, so I try and incorporate all of my influences into my being. Then I try and present it in a way people expect without being predictable. With “Testing The Water” I was becoming unhappy with the way things were going. I didn’t feel I was using the faciliti4es, links and people I’ve connected with over the years. I felt like I wasn’t really fulfilling my true worth. My music was becoming predictable. I got to a point where in thought “This isn’t the truest representation of me” I play piano, I’m an instrumentalist and I want to make soundscapes not songs. I listen to people like Brian Eno, Phillip Glass, I’m into Jazz, Soul, Funk-
HTF: Will we get any of this on “Testing The Water”?
B: With “Testing The Water” it’s a very broad pallet of genres of music. I think it represents the frustration of me feeling I couldn’t make different kinds of music. So to some people the EP might sound kind of boisterous and fickle, because I go to tracks about me bragging, then tracks to being bullied in school, it might seem a bit quick to jump between these concepts, but I wanted it to represent me being a fast thinker and always jumping from one thing to another and having a short attention span. I want you to feel my process on the EP, not just the song, you can feel the effort that went into it, the thought that went behind everything and the craftsmanship of the melodies and the backing tracks. I’ve had 60% contribution to the production, whether it was co-producing or producing the track myself. I want to get to the point where I can make an album and say I produced the whole thing. It would feel like I contributed more to that product, to me the way I see it is you can either write to a track and put your lyrics over it or you can sculpt a song from scratch. And then you’ll feel more of the song, rather than the rap you just wrote.
HTF: At some point are you looking to incorporate a live band?
B: Oh yeah, well I do acoustic stuff in my shows. But I wanna do side projects, things that you won’t know are me. Like some jazz backing stuff, some singing like JNSM, The Weeknd, I want to be more than just a rapper. I aim to be a musician, and hopefully that’ll pay off in a couple of years when I’ve mastered my craft.
HTF: Can you see any of these side projects coming out anytime soon?
B: I’d put it out under a pseudonym because the name Blizzard comes with certain expectations. So if I go under a pseudonym it’s a blank canvas. With my album I’m going to incorporate different aspects of all my tastes in music into one product. Not only is it an insight into my work it’s also an insight into my personality. I want it to reflect me, not just Blizzard.
HTF: What can we expect from the EP? Concerning what the fans want versus what you want?
B: I’ve still kept to a similar mindstate to “Sooner Than Never” in the sense that it’s quite lyric based. But the beat choices have changed; I wanted to incorporate more demographics – I’d never thought of making commercially accessible music until recently when I realised some people just don’t make money off grime full stop. I need to think of a way that I can actually provide for myself. I put all of my effort, time, money, breath and power into music, to make something that I’m proud of. Rather than staying on the same line of rapping over trap beats, and typical grime tracks I wanted to make it more live and sound more real like live instruments and live guitar. We have a grime song that incorporates live instruments. “Be A Lie” is the first track on the EP, and it’s quite “trappy” but it’s still got influences of different genres of music in it. And that’s what I think it’s important, because I want my music to appeal to mums as well as daughters and sons. I want my music to remind people of different era’s in music. Look for the EP in the first quarter, say March/April. I’m really excited to hear feedback as well where people can tell me what they like or don’t like on the project, and what they’d like to hear more of. Because at the end of the day my supporters are the people I pay attention to. I like constructive criticism because it makes me grow as a human. It gives me a different kind of outlook that I wouldn’t see, because when you’re in the creative process, it’s very different tot the observers process. For example: Nas might hate his record, but a million people in Britain might rate it.
HTF: Are there any fan favourites you might have to perform although you may not like quite as much?
B: I try to make my set as much fun as possible, but ensure it’s also fun for the people watching. And that’s’ why rather than performing something I’m getting sick of I’d rather try something I’m less comfortable with. So people can hear it for the first time. So even if its’ not perfect, people will have the privilege of saying I heard that first. People always ask me to do “Neckbreaker” which was my first single. People always ask me to perform that but when you do something for so long it gets tedious. So instead of that I’d rather incorporate 3 new tracks that I’m a bit comfortable with, instead of performing something that will just come off robotic. If you’re a poet and you write a poem, if you read it so many times it loses it’s meaning.
HTF: Ok thanks a lot man, good luck with the EP.
