As part of our BLACK British edition The Detail which you can read now, we sat down with Khalil Madovi to reflect on Black Britishness and his career so far.
How does your music reflect the black and British identity does the exclusivity reflect the experience?
I am black and British, therefore anything I do anything, anything I say is Black and British, it doesn’t have to fit within the umbrella of what we are told black Britishness is. My music reflects the experiences of my life and my story, the stories that I’ll share through my music, I think powerful music has to come from a place of truth, this reflects my Black British experience. Whether that’s party culture, whether that’s love, whether you know self-awareness reflection on existential issues. These types of questions can arise from the kinds of experiences in journeys that I’ve had as a black brit you know, this reflects my Black British identity.
My music reflects my identity in a few ways. A huge part of Black Britishness is diaspora, it is the multifaceted nature of ‘where we are from’ and ‘where we are really from’, bringing those elements together I definitely draw from both my Jamaican and Zimbabwe heritage in my music as well as my London energy and also, I refer to my time in Manchester where I spent a lot of time growing up there when I was young. My music reflects my identity in a few ways, the experience is kind of an exclusive one and music reflects that experience.
How do music and the performative arts intertwine with the black and British experience?
Music is a huge part of our culture, dance is a huge part of our culture. So naturally, being black has shown me that expression is a huge part of my identity, who I am, how I’ve learned to navigate the world, music as a form of expression, performative art as a form of expression, to see that they intertwine would imply that they were once separate, I think that imagery blends them together, it’s more than just a collage of elements that has different colours within the same picture. I think that the black British experience is an expression, I think the black British experience is music I think it is Art, I think it is dance as it’s deeply ingrained in who we are. So many other stories are told through these forms of media, expression is such a huge part of that is something we celebrate something we train from a very young age.
Why did you start to curate music? who are your musical influences?
Music has always been around for me you know, so it’s always been something I was interested in I was good at, it was a form of expression I knew that was taught to me from like birth, my Mum is a vocalist, my Dad’s been involved in the music industry. It was always an option because I liked it and I was good at it. When I was young there was one day when I was with my Dad, Grandma and Sister in South London on the way to a market, playing on the radio was Never Soft by Ms. Dynamite featuring Labrinth, produced by Labrinth on the way, that way that song made me feel, that’s when I knew I wanted to make other people experience the same feeling through music. Listening to Labrinth’ work was one of the catalysts that inspired me to start. A few years later I then found myself with a cracked version of Logic and I started figuring stuff out, I was doing a music GCSE at the time because I wanted to understand the mechanics of music that’s when I began playing around more at that point I threw myself into a much deeper level.
So many people are popping in London right now man, Little Simz, Cleo Sol, Inflow he’s like one of the greatest producers ever, we don’t give him his flowers he’s a significant influence for me. Many different people are doing so many amazing things right now. As far as my musical influences Labrinth is huge, Kendrick Lamar, Donald Glover, Hiatus Coyote Daft Punk D’Angelo, J Dilla, Ghetts, Chip, Wretch 32, Coldplay, Shaka, Kanye West Tyler, The Creator, Drake are just some of the people who influence me.
Do you think black British musicians are underrepresented in the mainstream, do they fit into the commercial space?
I’d say they’re not underrepresented because in the mainstream music scene in the UK there’s a black presence there, but the totality of what the black presence symbolises isn’t represented in the mainstream. If the world is an ocean and Black British musicians are like a huge iceberg, the mainstream would be the vantage point or the viewpoint or perspective that we have from what we can see of everything above water. If the mainstream is only what you can see above water then you know that a lot is going off in the ocean below the water level but you can’t see it because of what the mainstream perspective is.
I’d say that black British musicians are underrepresented in that respect because we are such a vast entity. We tap into so many different pockets, many people are doing so many beautiful and brilliant things but they wouldn’t get the mainstream shine so a lot of people don’t know about them.
Thankfully, we live in the Internet era, which means you could you can just be in your niche bag and let the world find you. Before in the music industry, the reason record labels had so much power was that they were the ones that presented you to the world but now we live in a life where the world and an audience can find you, being consistent and putting yourself out there pays off, your audience will find you and that is a beautiful thing.
You can read the full version of The Detail Magazine Here
