Coming out and being here now … it’s underwhelming, in reality. I understand that I’ve been making mistakes all my life, and it’s been costing me all my life. Without getting too emotional about it, I missed a massive moment,” he says. “Forget the success of it. Forget how it was received. My debut album release … I wanted to be a part of that, to feel it.” In 2013, he released his debut mixtape, Training Day. Inspired by the DIY attitude of the late California rapper-entrepreneur Nipsey Hussle and the co-founder of Nike, Phil “Shoe Dog” Knight, he pressed up 1,500 CDs and drove around London selling them from the boot of his car. “At that time I thought I was going to the edge of the Earth, but it was probably just Knightsbridge,” he laughs.

Here are the best photos from the winners’ room at the Rolling Stone UK Awards in collaboration with Rémy Martin The message of it all, I would say, is who’s the biggest exports from our country musically? Yeah, are that in terms of rap music – they are not who they are off of that camera. They have manufactured images, maybe by themselves, or maybe with help from industry. But, either way, they are not themselves in any way, shape, or form. My whole journey has been that I’m unapologetically myself. And I stay true to my craft, the sound of who I am as a person at different points in times in my life. Sometimes I’m flush, sometimes I’m high, and sometimes I’m low and that reflects in my music heavily. As we approach the end of his album, we’re graced with ‘Actuality’ which is both reflective and grateful. It speaks on love in several different form and is hopeful. Signing off with ‘White Ash’, it’s chilled as he inhales smoke & continues to rap. Listing off spaces where his white ash falls, as he goes over events and the ash being present throughout. A mate said to me: ‘Bro, you should slow it down a bit, you can say more and be taken more seriously.’ And all I wanted at that age was to be taken seriously,” Bousbaa says. In between penning long letters to Nanny Lucy – he has a tattoo of her signature on the side of his face – he listened to American rappers such as Styles P and Cam’ron. Over subsequent trips to prison he met teachers who helped him dissect the poetry of Tupac and rhyme schemes of Eminem. Training Day 3 then went on to grab number three in the official UK charts, and since the release, Potter Payper enjoyed a UK tour, before dropping a collaborative mixtape in the form of Thanks For Waiting, featuring the likes of Unknown T, Rimzee, Digga D, his good friend Smurke, and many more.

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Here’s what went down at the after party of the Rolling Stone UK Awards in collaboration with Rémy Martin Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. This is different from every other project because I put myself in shoes that I had thought I took off a long time ago – the smelly, old ones.” Working with other artists I have learned that the more times you work with them, the better the outcome is going to be. That project was the first time working with a lot of those guys. It was the first time I shared my process with people who weren’t around before the music. Now, I have learned that there is no such thing as me jumping on someone else’s song, it becomes a collaborative thing that we experience and work on together. We speak, catch a vibe, and we don’t compete, we just enjoy the process and enjoy the music. I’m never looking for the next hit. It’s always just my expression, and I don’t like to waste it,” says Potter Payper, real name Jamel Bousbaa. We meet at a recording studio in Camden Town, north London, where he arrives with a younger sibling who has just received their GCSE results. He tells me proudly about how well they’ve done as we take our seats in the kitchen.

The mixtape’s title referenced the 2001 film in which Denzel Washington’s corrupt detective takes Ethan Hawke’s young recruit under his wing. “In the film, my man [the recruit] is naive,” Bousbaa says. “He wants to be the hero. But then he sees that everything he believed wasn’t what it was. It’s ruthless, people are out here for themselves, it’s dangerous. It’ll be the person you’re supposed to trust the most, your partner, who in the end could be your downfall. That was me in the beginning of that street journey. I was just out here on the roads, a little kid, and as it went on I got more and more entrenched in a life that was never really for me. I’m a better musician and asset to the music industry than I ever was a drug dealer.” Following Stormzy’s shoutout, Potter Payper began writing rigorously from his cell. Telling stories about life confined within his four walls – and the occasional free time in the yard – Payper was telling real-life stories, tales riddled with trauma, anxiety, and hope that his life would be granted a second chance to put things right. a b Kenneally, Cerys (17 March 2023). "Potter Payper unveils new single "Corner Boy" ". The Line of Best Fit . Retrieved 14 May 2023. You said in a previous interview that you wanted your debut album to reach the same cinematic and musical value as your record “Gangsteritus.” Would you say you’ve achieved that?He nods to his late nan who has been an ever-present mention in his music having grown up with her – touching on her “looking down proud” on ‘What They Ain’t’. He implores how he has turned his pain into something. It closed out with a snippet talking on quite simply taking life for what it is. I feel like nobody is rapping like that from start to finish, especially from our country and our generation, our time. That’s why I’ve put it out because the things that I’m saying, it’s undeniable and it has been for 10 years. This year is the 10-year anniversary of Training Day 1. That’s why this year, I’m in my bag so badly. I started this journey 10 years ago, I’m having this interview with you today talking about my debut album in the middle of Oslo and I’ve just been noticed by a young Somalian lad. My cameraman is here filming it all and I’ve got to say thank God, I’m very grateful that I’m here.