Music
After an explosive start to his career, the young Coventry MC is finding his voice.
Over the course of the year we'll be catching up with the UK artists you should be keeping an eye on in 2020. Here, Jesse Bernard speaks with rising Afrobeat-influenced UK rapper Pa Salieu about Coventry, cubism, and managing his come-up.
The plan was to talk early in the day via Zoom, but events larger than the conversation at hand made our scheduled call feel less urgent.
I’d been due to speak with Pa Salieu just as the wave of protests against the murder of George Floyd reached the UK, but the young Coventry MC felt that he needed to show up to the demonstration in Hyde Park. So it was that we ended up on the phone as he travelled back home to the Midlands with his manager.
This was the first march he’d been to -- he was just 12 years old when the country was last gripped by a major uprising against racial injustice in 2011, following the death of Mark Duggan -- and is feeling effervescent. “It proves that unity is power, the energy felt different,” he says, “everything that’s happening now is just reminding us that we’re visitors here, that’s what I see. If you don’t use this time to see what’s going on, it’s mad.”
Despite his laid-back flow when he’s rapping, there’s a fierce and burning passion evident when Pa speaks. At various points I wonder if he’s the son of a pastor, such is his certitude. Pastor Salieu has a nice ring to it.
The 22 year-old’s career began after he turned to music as a form of escape following the passing of a friend, and if there was a succinct way to describe how it feels it would be rage and pain transformed and repackaged as one’s testimony.
After a handful of freestyle videos and singles, his breakthrough came with the silky, Jevon-produced Frontline. The six months since then have seen Pa’s star rise, and his name slapped across multiple festival lineups. While the pandemic has put those performances on pause, he’s been keeping himself busy during lockdown.
What I can’t explain through talking, I want to say in my writing -- I want to master all of that. I want to learn how to emphasise my words, how I breathe.
In May, he released follow-up double A-side Betty/Bang Out – the former of which has enjoyed a three consecutive Record Of The Week placements on Radio 1. “I’m at a place where everyday is work but you know when you’re at a place where you love it so much that it doesn’t feel like work, that’s what I have now,” he says, “Now it’s easier for me to concentrate and focus on music, I know it’s been a mad time but for me this lockdown has been a blessing for me.”
He explains he doesn’t want to be boxed in to any one genre -- and while that’s become a cliche, early signs are showing us he’s rejecting that. Bang Out and Dem A Lie sound more inspired by grime than Afroswing chart fodder, and Pa mentions that back when he was just playing around with music it would be grime he’d experiment with -- highlighting the fact that while many of the young MCs coming up find today their way towards drill or Afrobeats, grime is still in their DNA due to its pervasiveness and impact on Black music in Britain.
“This ting is pure to me. I’m not inspired, I just wanted to do music because I like it. I love painting, it’s for me and it’s the same feeling I get when I make music. That’s why I say I’ve got no genre like Picasso,” he explains: “That man done cubism, that’s an expression. That’s what this is for me.”
Sometimes it feels like his rise is happening too quickly. As the number of festival lineups with his name on continued to rise at the beginning of the year, he recognised that it was all happening too soon. “I don’t want to take pressure when I’m not ready,” he says, “What I can’t explain through talking, I want to say in my writing – I want to master all of that. I want to learn how to emphasise my words, how I breathe. I can see everything on the horizon, and it’s coming, but it’s not my time right now.” As well as mastering his craft and writing new music, he’s taken the opportunity provided by lockdown to learn how to mix -- and a recent appearance on NTS showed him in full flow, selecting his favourite tracks from West Africa.
Pa’s Gambian heritage -- along with a certain steez and level of cool he exudes -- has drawn comparisons to J Hus, who has spent recent months reconnecting with his own cultural roots in Africa. The comparisons are easily understood, and Hus has publicly endorsed the young MC. Both artists tell first-generation hood stories to the sound of West African dance music, but what separates them is geography and experiences which define each of them independently. Of course, Pa Salieu has a similar cadence and voice – but Coventry isn’t Newham, and vice versa.
There’s something prescient about J Hus emerging as a voice of Newham’s gen, while much further north in the Midlands his Gambian countryman is also sharing stories of life on the streets. Both of them talk about coming from places that they can’t call home but it’s the rallying, guerilla-like tone in their sounds which, blended with disenfranchisement from the state and the ends, suggests an urgency in the messages they’re sharing. Pa Salieu, in particular, has never felt so strongly about telling stories of what it means to be second-generation Gambian, born in the UK into violence and poverty.
“It’s hard to explain but since I got shot I’ve been more serious with life,” says Pa, recalling the circumstances that led to him being shot in the head outside a pub in Coventry last year – an incident he references on his recent collab with SL, called Hit The Block. “I was on road because I didn’t have any money and things escalated. Me and my music, I don’t care about all of that stuff: I’m happy about the fact people are hearing what I’m seeing and where I’m coming from.” He speaks to the exploitation and grooming that led him into the illicit drug trade and the violence that comes with it for young Black men. Pa’s angry.
There are moments when his voice trembles softly, and he struggles to articulate his thoughts as he becomes more expressive and passionate. But he’s clear about the message he wants to spread: “They say experience is your best teacher in life and I’m pissed off with the way olders tried to manipulate man,” he says. “I’ve never been that guy but what I went through, someone’s going through now. Olders wanted me to go on road, I still ended up on roads. I was stubborn but I still fell in because that’s the way the ends are.”
When Pa speaks, it’s as though he’s standing in a pulpit or just on the block, giving his testimony with an elegance and conviction that many this early in life and their careers don’t often have.
The sound’s always going to be different but the message will be the same. I just don’t want this to be for nothing.
We often hear this story from artists from London and Manchester, but Pa Salieu’s journey highlights nationwide racial disparity and systemic failures, as well as the contemporary context in which Black life exists in Britain. He judges himself too harshly for the circumstances he found himself in -- there’s only so much you can pull yourself up when you feel that you’ve been failed by systems meant to nurture you.
“I had to sacrifice time and energy, I fell in love with music. I don’t know how to explain,” he says, apologetically. “This land wasn’t made for me, this postcode bullshit, ends bullshit. I take pride in where I’m from because there’s people like me there,” he continues, exasperated. “I can’t die for a land that doesn’t care about me. It’s not just London, I got shot in the head and no one knows who did it. It’s everywhere, it’s fucked outside of London, I don’t know how to explain it. They looked at me like I shot myself and no way can they look at me like I’m a piece of shit. Even with the olders, I’m not mad at them, they’re just a product of their environment and the whole system’s fucked. The youts are scared and shook, that’s why they’re walking around with knives, it’s for protection.”
Pa’s zeal is infectious, endearing even, but there’s a sense he’s still trying to figure out how to vocalise how he feels outside of the mediums he uses for self-expression. On record however, he paints a picture with broad strokes: “I done seen a couple things/Up ina this lifestyle/Serving all these fiends/We just tryna eat right/Mama she righteous/I came from greatness/I need my cake up,” he spits on Betty.
Underneath it all, however, there’s a clear sense that what Pa’s really pointing to is how he was essentially forgotten and ignored long before by overstretched schools and local authorities. But it’s the personal experiences and testimonies of artists such as Pa Salieu, through the vehicle of rap, that not only speak truth to power but can also be transformative -- especially for those in similar circumstances. “It’s easy to get sucked in,” he says, “And the way people judge: if they knew how vulnerable I was or people like me are, you won’t judge like that. I talk about violence because it’s part of the story. It’s the only way I can flip it.”
As the conversation begins to wind down and Pa’s joy slowly begins to re-emerge, it becomes more apparent that he’s not just an artist but a witness also. It feels almost biblical but it’s someone that’s called by a power much higher than themselves, or us, to give their testimony so it can provide a pathway for others. It’s why he says attending his first protest march felt so important too -- and the energy it’s reinvigorated him with.
“I’m gonna channel it with sense, I want people to hear what I’m saying. The sound’s always going to be different but the message will be the same,” he says. “I just don’t want this to be for nothing.”
