GLASGOW-BASED rapper Bemz describes winning the BBC Introducing Scottish Artist of the Year award a few weeks ago as a blessing but in some ways that blessing has been mixed. On the plus side it has thrust him into the spotlight but it has also cast him as a spokesman for Scottish hip hop, a role he very definitely does not want.
Ask him if he thinks of himself as a spokesman for a community and the response is an immediate: “Hell, no.” The rapper, who is appearing later today at Melting Pot and Heverlee’s Optimo 25 weekend festival at Queen’s Park Recreation Ground in the city, is very clear that such a role “is not my goal and not my ambition”.
Hip hop is the world’s second-biggest-selling genre according to the most recent surveys but the music hasn’t yet established a hugely successful Scottish base, although Bemz – whose “civilian” name is Jubemi Iyiku – agrees the current scene is “thriving”.
He’s reluctant to analyse Scottish hip hop too deeply and won’t be drawn on comparisons between the home-grown music and the American superstars. “I don’t particularly partake in that kind of thing,” he says. “For me rap is rap. An explanation of what Scottish hip hop is really is a different conversation for a different time.
“I guess people see me as a representative of the scene because I’m in the limelight but what I plan to use that limelight for is to make changes which will make life easier for the young people coming up through Scotland’s rap music scene.
“In my opinion – and this is my opinion and if anybody can show me otherwise that would be great – there are already plenty of paths laid for Scottish indy and electronic musicians. There have been forefathers … people who have accomplishments in these scenes at the highest level. There are blueprints for these genres.
“If you want [advice on] making indy music in Scotland there are plenty of people to talk to, there are 500 promotions and establishments. But when it comes to making rap in Scotland they are few and far between and there is not really a blueprint to follow. There have been lots of successful people working in hip hop in Scotland at various points but these have been individuals rather than a movement.
“After the trials and tribulations
I have had to face in the past 10 years to get to where I am now
I kind of owe it to the youngster who is coming up now wanting to do rap to help them to not have to deal with that kind of nonsense.
“I think the reason people see me as this kind of figure – “that rapper boy who is now the face of something” – is because young people see representation, someone who looks like them and sounds like them in a space which is not usually open to them. I want to use this space to shine a light on young people – working-class, black, brown people – coming up and making good music in Scotland. I want to make it easier for those people.”
Bemz’s music is too personal to represent an entire movement. He regards it as “a form of truth, of reflection and of therapy”. His lyrics are drawn from his life, and an unusual life at that. Born in Nigeria, he moved to south London with his parents and six siblings when he was just four. Ten years later, his father decided he should “escape the madness of London at the time” and move to live with his aunt in Stranraer.
The Scottish town offered a very different experience. “It was a big culture shock,” he says now. “There were not a lot of black people in Stranraer, or brown people.
“Not a lot of anything that wasn’t white.”
You get the feeling that it wasn’t until Bemz moved to Ayr to study sound production at college just before his 19th birthday that he really settled in Scotland. He describes life in “big, mighty Ayr” as “sweet”. “I had friends in Stranraer and still have some there but I wouldn’t really call it home. If I had to think of somewhere in Scotland that felt like home it would be Ayr. I’m not saying it necessarily is home but it definitely feels most like it. I felt like I was really accepted into the community.”
Bemz thought he would study to become an English teacher but the call of music proved too strong. In south London he had been surrounded by music of black origin – Afrobeat, reggae, hip hop. Even when he left for Stranraer he was able to access that music – “the joys of the internet” – and Scottish friends introduced him to new indy, rock and electronic music.
“I developed a broader understanding of music,” he says. “Rather than having tunnel vision I realise there was just good music and it didn’t matter what type of music it was. It hit me when I was 16 and 17 that music was the path I wanted to go down.”
HE began performing gigs around 10 years ago but didn’t really take it seriously until later. He tried to break into the Glasgow music scene but found it difficult. He thinks now that was because he didn’t work hard enough to make a big impact and because Glasgow didn’t rate him highly enough to make room for him. “It felt like no-one really wanted to stick their neck out for some random guy from Ayr,” he says.
His songs mined his own life for subject matter. The track ’94 ’til Forever told the story of his escape from the city (“I was raised on the blocks/Concrete jungle filled with snakes and dogs”) and the deaths of his grandmother, mother and brother before he turned 16.
He examined the issues of mental health and what it meant to be a young man living in Scotland. “That’s what I was at that time,” he says. “And that was literally the only thing I could relate to. Looking around me there were a lot of people in the same position as me, going through the same issues as me, to put it bluntly, mental health issues.
“But it was never my driving force to be the voice for mental health. My goal is simply to tell my story through the art of music. I’m not anybody’s role model. I’m not someone to look up to because I still make mistakes. I try to tell people it’s OK to make mistakes, OK not to be perfect.”
He’s looking forward to today’s gig at Queen’s Park, his first festival performance of the summer. Post-Covid, he says people appreciate live music so much more. “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Now, though, he sees people struggle with the cost of living crisis because we’ve been shafted by the powers that be”.
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He’s extra aware of financial pressures since becoming a father 18 months ago gave him a new sense of purpose. “I want to make sure my daughter has the life I never had. I want to make sure that every pound I spend on music brings two pounds back.”
The BBC award is certainly a step in the right direction. “It has certainly changed the way people talk to me now, I tell you that for nothing,” he says. “I am still the same Bemz so how come they didn’t want to talk to me yesterday? I guess everyone wants to be connected to someone who is on the up but that’s just life. The award has been a blessing and I will be forever grateful for it but it makes me realise there is more work to be done. I have not accomplished half of what I want to accomplish. I am just getting started. I have these accolades, which is amazing, but I still have to go to work [in retail] from nine to five.
“However, I am able to make waves and be positive because who would have thought two years ago that this boy from Ayr, who Glasgow was not really accepting of, who does rap music and talks a lot of nonsense would now be Scottish Act of the Year?”
Bemz has been forced to cancel his appearance at Optimo 25 in Queen’s Park Recreation Ground at the Heverlee Village, curated by Electric Shores. He will still be appearing at King Tuts in Glasgow on Thursday, May 19. He promises some new music is on its way.
