I kind of come from a broken situation, you get me?
Man’s broke was more than financial.
..How you fucking with a G?
I do me, they just pree
Used to do my show for free
Then Giggs told me “Nothing’s free”...
I wasn’t one of them kids that had to be in for dinner.
Just ask someone who knew man then.
That’s when they’ll be like, “Oh yeah, he was a little shit.
He doesn't give a fuck.
If it ain’t nailed to the floor, he’ll take it.”
I went away for conspiracy to supply crack and heroin, county lines.
I’m sorry, innit. Yeah? Cool.
I shouldn’t, I laugh, yeah? But man’s sorry, innit.
Please, I’ve done my time.
..I was ’bout to say some shit that you probably won’t deep...
Hailing from Gascoigne Estate, Barking,
Potter Payper is from one of the most deprived areas in London.
His most recent stint in prison
saw him released early from a six-year sentence for good behavior
after being convicted for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.
Having been in and out of jail a total of 14 times,
the Irish Algerian rapper promises this time will be his last.
..If he’s on you, I agree
Look like money, smell like weed
I’ve been official, referees...
Tonight is my launch party for my mixtape Thanks for Waiting,
which is out at midnight, tonight.
That’s what it is, for everyone to just come, celebrate.
We’ve all been working so hard over the last year, so yeah,
I’m excited to see all of my people in one room together,
happy and celebrating a positive thing.
And... yeah, man, just having a good night, to be honest.
The first rap I wrote was probably when I was, like, 15.
I made a easy and unconscious decision to start rapping.
Do I remember it? Yeah, I do remember it.
Am I going to say it? Nah.
..If I see him then I’m spinning like Manny Norté
I said if I see him then I’m spinning like Manny Norté...
I grew up in the outskirts of East London, in Barking.
My estate, I grew up in the Gascoigne Estate.
It was a rough area.
Some people live in squalid conditions,
some people have habits and problems or whatever.
Some people are on drugs.
I kind of come from a broken situation, you get me?
It’s not just not having no money.
It’s like a broken home dynamic of there’s no hierarchy.
Also, there’s nothing in the refrigerator, my boy.
There’s nothing over there.
I went to secondary school,
and I’m noticing a difference in money.
I’m telling my school friends, like, “Come play out round my bit.”
And man are saying, “No, my mum said I can’t got round there.”
And that’s when I started realizing, “Hold on, am I from a bad area?”
Or when I used to go to my bredren’s house,
and they’ll be like, “Everyone can go in,
but man can’t go in.”
You get me? I’d be, like, “Rah.
What is it because of?”
And I knew it’s because these people knew
man’s in a situation where man’s desperate, man’s hungry,
and people don’t want desperate people around them,
especially kids.
..When I was little fam I never knew I was poor
We was on the block licked, four ways on a draw
One pound chicken and chips, you couldn’t want any more
You can’t miss it if you never had or seen it before...
And don’t get me wrong as well.
Let me not down my people dem, you get me?
I had my grandma’s house.
Yeah, look, I’ve got her initials tattooed on my face.
See my nan, my whole life since I was four years,
she used to write me letters.
And at the end of the letters, signed off with this,
every single letter, d’you get it?
So since she passed away, I just felt a little absence.
My name, Potter Payper,
the Potter came before the Payper, clearly.
When I was younger,
I’d be wearing some big Deirdre in Coronation Street glasses,
fucking bowl haircut.
From there, bowl cut, glasses, Harry Potter.
..When I was little fam I never got attention from girls
Little Viper wears that trackie every day and he smells
Ain’t been home for like a week, I’m like eleven or twelve
It’s a couple years later when they sent me to jail...
Them times there, it was do or die, you get me?
You grow up very quick,
and you take a lot of responsibility on very fast.
You start thinking, “Yeah, this is man’s duty, that’s man’s duty,”
or, “Man has to have money.”
From then, it become
man not stealing sweets from the shop no more.
Man’s trying to steal something I can sell, to get the cash
so I can have p’s
so I can buy this, and I can buy that.
I went away for conspiracy to supply crack and heroin, county lines.
Going away this time, the last time, the final time
was the only time I ever needed to go.
Was the only time I ever, like...
it was the only time I even learnt something.
For me, the very big thing was I was in my cell,
door’s banging, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
“What’s going on out there you man?”
“Yo, Stormzy just bigged you up, man.
Stormzy just bigged you up on Glastonbury.”
I’m like, “What are you lot going on about, man, seriously?”
And now I’m getting @’d. Bares, you get me?
So now I’m looking on my thing, like, “Yo!
This is crazy. I can’t believe it.”
But at that moment,
I felt like if I apply myself properly,
and if I change my thinking,
change my eating, change my smoking, change my everything,
I'll be on that stage myself.
I’d hit rock bottom, then gone through the floor at the rock bottom,
and then realized that I had to rebuild myself.
Was at that stage then when I decided to take life seriously.
I decided to take-- Obviously music is my life, so they go hand in hand.
It was easy for me to drop all the other stuff out,
so I was just writing and writing and writing
more and more and more and more,
trying to better myself.
2020, I came out,
and at the first studio session that I had,
I made the whole 2020 Vision EP.
I made, like, six tunes in two hours.
That was the affirmation I needed,
like, “Yeah, cool, I am the man for the job.”
..In three whole years, a lot of people didn’t check for me
So now I’m home, I just hope you keep that energy
I got a Gs on my kicks, put McQueen on my chick
My machine on my hip, ’cah I got beef on my strip...
I was in jail when COVID hit.
I got out of jail when everyone was in lockdown,
but I was really in a real-life lockdown.
So performing after so long
really was obviously a new experience,
not just for performing,
but because I never performed on that scale in my life.
The music’s come so far,
my fans have had so long to sit with my music and take it in,
not just on a surface level.
So everyone I’m meeting, I’m connecting with differently,
and everyone’s got a story about this and that.
I’m using in-ears for the first time and stuff.
I’m going to go get my actual in-ears molded into my ears and stuff.
Just getting bare molds these days, you get me?
We made it. We’re here.
Meet her round the side.
I’m not usually someone who makes a habit of meeting people in alleys.
OK.
Teeth on that bar, yeah? This one.
-Nice and relaxed. -Sideways?
-No. That’s it. Beautiful. -Oh my God.
Relax your face.
No talking. Lovely.
So nice!
It’s like going underwater, isn’t it?
Yeah.
Brilliant!
Have you had them before?
-No, never. -This is brilliant, then.
-This is the first time for me. -Are you wearing generics or nothing?
Generics right now.
So I can’t wait to show these and feel like...
-It’ll be great. -the difference.
Oh, that’s so nice.
-Ooooh, I love the color of this one. -Oh, wow.
It feels mad.
Like I’m swimming.
The biggest obstacle that I had to overcome in music
was obviously I wasn’t coming from a lot.
I didn’t have a lot, and what I did have,
I had to do bad things to get.
So if I did have a lot,
I had to compromise myself a lot to get it.
And I kept having to do that,
and the more I compromised myself, the less and less I was of myself.
So that was kind of my biggest obstacle.
Man really been through these things and come out the other end,
so it’s like I ain’t trying to...
I ain’t trying to play it down or glamorize it,
or make people think, “Aww, man.”
My only motivation
or my only ever thing that made man do bad things,
ever made man be that kind of person
was through trying to get money,
trying to be money hungry, just wanting money,
wanting to fill a hole that I perceived to be left by money.
I only ever used to do that stuff for p’s, you get me?
Now I make p’s from music,
so you ain’t got to worry about me doing that stuff.
I am a rapper.
I want to be an asset to the music industry.
I want to further the UK industry overseas,
mash up the rest of the world kind of ting, you get me?
That’s my vibe.
I’ve been into music, bro.
It’s man’s expression, it’s man’s release,
it’s man’s life.
It’s my mum, it’s my dad.
It’s my sad times, it’s my happy times.
I’ve always been myself,
and I hope that’s inspiration to everyone
that you’re never down and out.
You get me? Until you’re in the mud, and then God bless you.
I came so far and done so much with so little
that enough is enough to satisfy me that it’s not about that no more.
Now it’s about the legacy that I leave behind
and the mark that I make on this game
and the respect that I rightfully demand
and take back from life and people.
..Best you double up my fee
I pull up, need second fee
Look like money, smell like weed...