YOUNG BRITS DOING BITS: NiGE
Music
YOUNG BRITS DOING BITS: NiGE
With NiNE8 fast becoming London’s most prolific collective, MC/producer NIGE (alias Sukha) is a busy man. Layering low Kentish-soaked vocals over lo-fi house beats, his sound emanates something characteristic of London but that stretches far wider than the capital – he put out an EP with Lithuanian label Say No More Records last year and has a collaboration with a Netherlands-based artist in the pipeline. He said it best. “It’s a London thing. But it’s bigger than that.”
But global outlooks are no distraction from more community-driven initiatives. We met at MAP, NIGE’s beautiful cafe/studio/events space in Kentish Town, where he first recorded back in 2011 and since coordinates, a rich programme of events and community-focused projects.
Two days removed from the release of Rewinder, we caught up with NIGE to see what’s on the horizon for Nige and NINE8.
Words:
Ashe De Sousa
Imagery:
Connor Carver-Carter
BB: What are up to at the moment? What have you been working on?
I’ve been focusing a lot of energy on the collective, we’ve been working on lots of bits and bobs and on what to put out next. Then on the side I’ve been working on some solo material like Prince of Wales Road (POWR). Yeh, apart from that I’ve been doing a lot of work with MAP Studio Cafe, we did our merchandise collaboration with NiNE8 for Red Bull Music Festival and we’re working towards setting up a stall in West London which is where we kinda began. One of the owners had a shop in Portobello in the 80s with his first company Fifth Column, and in the 90s we were at all of the carnivals, always on Portobello or Golden Road with our stall, so kinda harking back to where we started and pushing the clothing in that direction.
BB: How does the dynamic in the collective change when you join up with other outfits and collectives? How do you maintain the DIY ethos when there’s a demand for things on a bigger scale?
It feels for me that we’ve come full circle in that respect. Doing collaborations with brands, like Lava with Converse and NiNE8 with Red Bull and now Boiler Room, it facilitates you financially to get back into doing more self-initiated things. For example, with the panel talk at Red Bull, Lava mentioned that Lord Apex was one of the first people she spat bars to and it’s like, having Elevation Meditation with us is really good because we share an ethos, a social history, a musical history, and I think that doing larger things with larger budgets has put more money in our pockets so that we can go back and do more self-initiated things.
BB: And I guess you also share a sense of place with EM?
I’m personally not from West, I’m from Kentish Town but it fascinates me how much has been coming out of West particularly with EM. But I think what’s been coming out of West is more a signification that it doesn’t really matter about the area. I’ve always kinda grappled with this a bit, like when people talk about a South East London jazz scene, it’s more that there are individuals within London who make music. In the same way that streaming platforms will put a genre on your track in order to put it into a playlist that algorithmically work with other musicians, people do that by postcode as well. They say ‘its a West London collective,’ actually no it’s not, it’s a London thing, to quote an old track, I think that’s what West is showing. It’s not just East and South that are doing their thing, it’s London. So as much as West has its style and its sound, I think that these people deserve credit as individuals, they’re not just holding up a postcode, it’s bigger than that.
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IT’S NOT JUST EAST AND SOUTH THAT ARE DOING THEIR THING, IT’S LONDON.
CAPTION GOES HERE: LORUM IPSUM
CAPTION GOES HERE: LORUM IPSUM
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I’M DEFINITELY NOT OUT HERE FOR THE FRONT COVER, I’M MUCH MORE IN IT FOR THE NAME ON THE CREDITS.
BB: So what do you think of when I say home?
I think home means openness and comfort and safety, and if you can feel that within a building or around a group of people that’s really what home is. The collective definitely offer that. We’ve never had any sort of ‘sign your name on this dotted line you’re in NiNE8’, similarly no ‘ah you’re not pulling your weight, you didn’t make the hottest track on that tape, you’re out’ kinda thing. There’s none of that really. For every member in the collective they know they can come to any one of us, for a beat, or for emotional advice. It is multifaceted the way the collective support each other, we support each other with releases, with production, with mixing, with breakups. This studio that we’re in at the moment is definitely a homely place for me. When we’re in here, nothing can really get to us you know, there’s lots of nice people outside drinking coffee and there’s lots of nice people in here chilling and making music so you know, you’re wrapped in different layers of nice friendly bubble wrap. You just feel really calm.
BB: And does that sense of home reflect in your music?
It all ripples out doesn’t it, if you’re not feeling calm, it’s like taking a drug or something, if you’re not good before you take it, you’re gonna go awol, you know you kinda have to be at peace with yourself before you go down any routes.
BB: What’s the relationship between NiGE and Sukha?
This is an interesting one actually. When I first met a lot of the members of NiNE8, I was, and still am, very conscious about putting out music as a vocalist because I’m not really one for publicity. It sounds a bit silly because we’re having an interview now but I’m definitely not out here for the front cover, I’m much more in it for the name on the credits and having recognition in that regard, so I steered clear of it and I worked on my production. I started producing lo-fi house music and put out an EP with Say No More Records and I was working with them so much that I kind of naturally became a member. I think that if I hadn’t hesitated in joining NiNE8 straight away, I wouldn’t have two distinctive things going on and two sounds. POWR was gonna be a lo-fi house track for Sukha and I had some interest from a Russian label and I sent it to them with the vocals and they were like ‘it’s really good but can you take the vocal off’. I was like, ‘you know what, I’m trying to do something a bit different’.
BB: It’s a really natural sound though, even if rap over the top of lo-fi house beats isn’t what we’re used to hearing.
Yeh, because the kind of music that I was making at the time was catered towards Eastern Europe basically, before Mall Grab and DJ Seinfeld became like superstars. But at the same time it’s me making the music, I rap as well, so I think it sits quite comfortably on the instrumentals.
What effect can music have on a community like this in 2019?
I think it has a really big impact. Having MAP has enabled me to do more outreach projects in the community, and the community do react and interact with this space. We’ve done Camden Against Violence fundraisers in the venues and I’ve run a workshop in the summer for songwriting and production for kids in the area. The space is available for people to interact with, a blank canvas, an open book for people to run community led initiatives through music.
What does Britishness mean to you in the 21st century?
I find it hard to talk about Britishness being from London because being a Londoner is very different from being British. We have different ways of living, we have different opinions to the rest of the country, so I feel like Londoners can’t really claim Britishness in the same way. London is so exceptional in lots of different ways, and not just in good ways like, we are closed minded and sometimes outspoken and over-opinionated on things that maybe we don’t have any experience to be so opinionated on.
What are you up to for the rest of 2019, what can we expect?
So I’m gonna be putting out a single at the end of every month for the rest of the year, so yeah just cracking on with the stuff we’re doing with MAP and cracking on with NINE8 stuff.
What do you want people to come away with when they listen to the new tracks?
I think in introspective way, I think I’d like them to come away with a better idea of who I am. I think that POWR was quite a good introduction to me and my outlook on things and that the next three tracks of this year are gonna flesh out me a bit more. It’s about conceptualising myself for the listener. I think the messages in POWR is about London, about being quite adamant about wanting certain things like social progress and equality, I think those things did resonate with people and I hope that similar sentiments will come through again.
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