Not many British rappers have as layered and provoking story and career as Guvna B. A multi-talent of the highest altitude, Guvna has been steadily rising in his career for well over a decade now, with an eclectic array of work flaunting his diverse skill set, impressive progression and ability to adapt with the times. From his roots in grime, garage and gospel, the artist has devised a sound that is uniquely his own, standing out amongst the congestion of the scene with his thought provoking outlook, raw honesty and defiance against conformity. The East Londoner is known for his work as a broadcaster, sport pundit and author, but mainly his musical discography, which looks set to be augmented by his upcoming album The Village Is On Fire.
Guvna has now blessed us with the latest teaser from the upcoming body of work. “Amplify”, which features a terrific turn from hotly tipped Ghanian star DarkoVibes, is a track full of intricacy and brevity. Following the powerful and brooding “Bridgeland Road” and poignantly uplifting “Traffic”, the latest offering is a rousing effort of playful vibrancy and evoking emotion. Combining the stylistic tendencies of Afrobeats and UK rap, Guvna borrows the sonic nuance of some of the hottest producers in the game, TSB, AOD and Venna, who submerge the listener in a soundscape of colour and groove. The cut thematically follows its predecessors as a damning but measured social commentary of modern life in London, with the writer emitting a sprawling tale that twists and turns, hopeful yet cautious; the album promises more of the same stingy retrospection.
We had the pleasure of connecting with Guvna himself, to discuss the evolution of his sound, his most defining career moments to date, and what to expect from his upcoming LP.
Watch the visuals for “Amplify”…
Read the full interview…
When did you start creating music?
I started to rap battle in the playground at school for a bit of a joke. And then, at some point in school, it must have been about year nine or year ten, I heard Kano’s song P’s and Q’s on MTV base, and it just really inspired me. He was from East London as well, probably lived about 10 or 15 minutes away from me, and seeing a young black man from my area on TV, rapping at a high level, talking about his area and his influences — that really inspired me. And so “P’s and Q’s” by Kano inspired me to take this music thing really seriously. And that’s when I started to kind of really get in my bag.
What and who were your early musical influences?
Well, my parents played a lot of Motown music and gospel music in the house growing up. So I grew up listening to a lot of Jackson Five, Otis Redding, Whitney Houston, and Marvin Gaye. And then also like Kurt Franklin, a few gospel artists as well. As well as that, Afrobeat because we’re a Ghanaian family so we played a lot of Daddy Lumba growing up. As I got older, I started to develop my own musical tastes being from East London. Garage and grime was a big part of that.
How has your sound evolved to where it is today?
I think I’ve become more comfortable with sharing my vulnerability through my music and that kind of helped evolve my music into a more thoughtful and retrospective sound as well as the uptempo high energy stuff. I think when I started to do music, I was very much imitating the influences around me. But as I got older, and I went through my own kind of experiences in life, there was an authenticity that came with the lyrics. And that kind of resulted in wanting to find a fresh and authentic sound. See, I reckon that my vulnerability in difficult circumstances has contributed to a more authentic sound.
What inspired the new single “Amplify”?
Well, my dad passed away in 2017, after a short battle with cancer. And just reflecting on his life, I realised that he was kind of a typical Ghanaian man that didn’t really say much about his feelings or stuff that he went through in life. And so I realised I didn’t actually know a great deal about him even though I lived under the same roof for decades. I was 27 when he passed away. Anyway, it made me want to like kind of delve into his life more. So when I went back to Ghana, where my parents are from, I went back to his village, all the streets that he walked, spoke to family members, and they kind of gave me a more detailed picture of what it was like for my dad growing up, and I realised how well he had done to make something of his life and escape an environment where there wasn’t much opportunity. And he just created opportunity, not just for himself, but for me as well. And that legacy was really important to me. And so “Amplify” is just about doing the best you can in the environment that you’re in, and amplifying every positive aspect of life to give yourself the best chance of achieving something. And it’s quite nice because we went back to Ghana to film the video.
How did you begin to work with DarkoVibes and what was the collaborative process like?
So I had the track already. I worked on it with a producer called TSB, and an amazing producer/saxophonist called Venna. And we had the track, the bars, the beat, but I needed a hook and because it was so heavily inspired by my dad and the country that he was from, I wanted a Ghanaian person on the hook and so I hit up a friend of mine who does the Afrobeat Show and he’s very well connected, and I said, “who’s the hottest artist right now coming out of Ghana? I need to work with them.” He just said, “Look, by chance a guy called DarkoVibes who’s blowing up at the moment, he’s in London, send him some of your stuff and he’d love to get in a studio with you.” So Darko pulled up to the studio, I booked it last minute, we had a late night session and we just hit it off ASAP. He just jumped in a booth, laid down the chorus, and it was perfect. The energy was amazing, man. And it felt like I was really collaborating with an authentic artist who knew what he was about. So it came out real special.
How did you come up with the idea for the music video and what do you hope it conveys?
I thought it would be a shame if I didn’t convey a lot of the inspiration behind it, so I deliberately chose an area to shoot which were the streets that my dad would have walked growing up. I wanted it to be vibrant, I wanted it to feel good. And so sometimes when people film videos in Ghana or parts of Africa, they show the fact that the environments aren’t the best and people are really down and that kind of stuff. But even though that’s true as it is around the world, that’s not my experience of Ghana. My experience is that even if you’re in some really bad situations, there’s a lot of joy, there’s a lot of optimism, there’s a lot of hope, there’s a lot of brightness, and that’s what I wanted to convey in a video.
How did you select “Amplify”, “Bridgeland Road”, and “Traffic” as singles? What do they tell us about the album as a whole?
With the singles, I really wanted to show the breadth of the album, not just in subject matter but in sound. So “Bridgeland Road” is inspired by a racially motivated attack that I experienced in my local area. I was on my way back from a coffee shop, trying to get into my car, and three white guys approached me, wouldn’t let me get in and one of them ended up throwing coffee in my face and punching me in the eye. I just didn’t believe that stuff like that was or allowed to happen unprovoked in England. And so I wrote about it. It features my cousin Michaela Coel, who actually inspired me to write about the experience in the first place as a form of closure. So that felt like a good starting point, to kind of set a tone that he album. “Traffic” was actually chosen by someone on my team called Lydia. She’s kind of a specialist when it comes to radio and that kind of stuff, and she encouraged me to put it out because she said, “Look, I feel like the topics you’re touching on in terms of the education system and how we can equip young people to thrive is really important.” And “Amplify” was a bit of a selfish choice, for me.
What can we expect from The Village is on Fire?
You can expect kind of unfiltered vulnerability. I really want to set the tone of the album by, you know, talking about the attack, and then kind of delving into how it made me feel and the state of society at the moment. I just hope that people listen. And at the end of the album, they think, what can I do to contribute to a safer community, a safer society, a village that young people can thrive and a village that people can find purpose in? And that’s what I want the album to do for people. In terms of the soundscape, you got everything going from say grime to afrobeat to dance/house. I know it sounds cliche, but there’s genuinely something for most people, but it still sounds coherent.
What, personally and culturally, have influenced the themes of this album as a whole?
So personally, it was obviously the attack. But culturally, my mom used to say this thing to me as when I was growing up, it’s an African proverb: it takes a village to raise a child. And that means that everyone’s responsible for a safe community, from parents to neighbours, to peers to education system to emergency services to health care. But when one or two or three of those groups of people aren’t doing their job to the best of their ability, the village is on fire because no one’s doing the job is not safe and people start burning it to the ground. So if a young person is trying to get an appointment with a therapist on the NHS, and it takes them three months to get an appointment, and then they get their appointment, and then they’re getting rushed out in 10 minutes because the healthcare system has so many people to get through. That’s not fit for purpose, and that’s not contributing to a safe village. If there’s no trust with the police force because they don’t look out for women, or they’re institutionally racist, that doesn’t create or contribute to a safe community or society. And the album asks questions like that. And that’s what’s influenced the themes of it.
What are you most looking forward to with the release of the album? What do you hope people take away from it?
A friend said to me the other day that we live in a world that is dominated by singles, and no one really cares about albums anymore. Don’t know how true that, the people that connect with my music actually really appreciate albums that are really well thought about and really well put together. So I think I’m most excited about people taking it in, in one go, you know, like, it’s a bit old school. But yeah, just getting an album pressing play, from start to finish, and really taking in the story. That’s what I’m most excited about. And going on tour is going to be sick. What do you hope people take away from it? That we can all play our part? You know, if we just rely on the government to make change, or policymakers, it might never happen? Hopefully it does, but it might never. But if we look in the mirror and ask what we can do, then at least we can change our own lives and the lives of people around us to a certain level.
Do you have a career highlight thus far?
Apart from getting featured on Wonderland, which is amazing, I would say my career highlight is someone messaging me and saying that they had been struggling with their mental health and with self harm, and they listened to one of my songs and felt like they can go on in life and achieve anything that they want to achieve. They haven’t self harmed since they listened to the song and their mentality is in a much, much better place. And for me, that means more than all the awards and record sales and that kind of stuff because it shows that there’s power in music, power in rap music that often has a bad rep for you know, solely promoting misogyny and substance misuse and antisocial behaviour. Just goes to show that there are quite a few artists that are using rap music to really make a change and make a difference.