When Potter Payper was in prison, he watched from the sidelines as the other inmates would freestyle rap. “I’m just there in the corner like, ‘I think I can do that but I’m not sure,’” recalls the Barking-bred rapper, born Jamel Bousbaa to an Irish mother and Algerian father. “I was doing all of this memenemenem sh**,” he puts an air-microphone to his mouth, mimicking the fast adlibs of garage MCs popular in the early Noughties. “But that’s for guys that don’t have anything to say.”
Bousbaa, it quickly transpires, is a guy with plenty to say. After spending his teens in young offenders centres, Bousbaa served half of a four-year sentence in what he calls the “big man prison” for running a county lines drug smuggling operation. Upon his release in 2020, he wrote a handwritten letter to his fans, apologising for letting them down. Months later, he dropped his mixtape Training Day 3. His music, at the time, was a gritty exploration of old struggles contrasted with newfound riches. He became known for his impressive freestyles and witty lyricism. Within a year, he was signed to the UK division of Def Jam Recordings; his music had appeared in hit Netflix series Top Boy, and his track “Gangsteritus” cracked the UK top 40. He has since collaborated with Ed Sheeran, Maverick Sabre, and Nines. Now, he’s set to release his debut album Real Back In Style.
It was somewhat inevitable that Bousbaa, 32, would adopt that MC-style cadence made popular by the likes of Dizzee Rascal and Wiley – he grew up surrounded by garage and grime culture; his mum used to help install the aerials on popular pirate radio station Temptation FM – but it was when he stopped imitating those musicians, at the suggestion of his prison mate, that he found his flow. “I came back the next day, and I gave it my best shot in front of those guys, and they were feeling it,” he says, perched on a sofa in a windowless room at a London radio station. He grins in the direction of the box-white Air Max 95s on his feet. “From then, I never really looked back.”
Bousbaa has more to offer than erratic adlibs. He raps about county lines, social services, abuse, violence, politics, and what he calls “the revolving door” prison system. He’s seen it all first hand. It was in prison that he became Potter Payper. “I had long hair and big glasses,” he laughs from behind his Harry Potter-style frames. His hair is now cropped short, covered by his hood. His debut album is a staggering outpouring of emotion, such that his earlier releases now lack maturity in comparison. In a standout song “All My Life”, Bousbaa’s gravelly vocals are laid over an epic instrumental as he purges his life story. It’s angry, cathartic, and moving. As we speak now, his voice is punctuated with that same divisiveness. Each sentence executed like he’s delivering it to the mic.
“I rap about pain because that’s been my life,” he says, describing the “hopelessness” of his upbringing. Growing up, he would spend the days hanging out with friends on an estate in Barking. When it was time to go home, Bousbaa would beg them to come back with him. “Because if I bring friends home, then my mum’s boyfriend ain’t gonna beat her up,” he explains. “Because they’re older guys from my estate and he wouldn’t hurt her [then].”
We’re speaking on the day the Baroness Casey Review is published, which found the Metropolitan Police to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. As someone who has come up against police officers since his youth, Bousbaa is unphased by the findings. “They’re just bullies, man,” he says. “I’ve been on the inside of it, I’ve been in the jails, in the interview rooms, the police stations, I’ve eaten the meals, had the strip searches, been beaten the s**** out of by them. I know first hand that they’re bullies. They’re the ultimate hater.” He seems deflated when recalling these tougher moments of his life.
I’m definitely anti-Tory but I’m also anti-government— Potter Payper
Where rap and policing meet is a contentious intersection. Rappers have long had their music unfairly weaponised against them in court. In the US, the problem has persisted since the early Noughties. Last year, the California State Senate passed a bill that would limit the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal proceedings, as had been done by prosecutors in the indictments of Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna. Rappers in the UK have been subjected to similar practices – including Bousbaa.
“That’s why I went guilty,” he says, explaining how an old song of his was the nail in his trial coffin. “For 10 months I refused to plead guilty because it was a bulls*** charge and then they came to court and found a video of mine from YouTube [“Bobby Valentino”]”. The prosecutors threatened to show the video to the jury, arguing that the song’s lyrics suggested Bousbaa was bragging about selling the best heroin. “They said if you don’t plead [guilty], they’ve got other stuff to show the jury.” (Bousbaa says the prosecutor was planning to suggest another of his songs implied that he was boasting that his drugs were “so good” that they killed a user.) “I was chatting the most s*** on that song. Honestly, f***ing worst song you’ve ever heard in your life. Worst song I ever made, and it got me convicted,” he cackles at the irony. “[But] obviously I was in conspiracy to supply these same drugs I’m rapping about on camera… like a d***head.” On a more serious note, he worries about rappers having their work used against them in this way. “You’ve got to be careful [with your lyrics] because they are listening, and they will try and use it against you in court and they will try and paint a picture of your character.”
While his subject matter is often solemn, Bousbaa wants his music to help fans who feel, as he once did, disenfranchised; those who can see “no way out” of a toxic cycle of poverty and incarceration. “It’s a long dark road of destruction that’s basically a revolving door that I found myself in, in terms of going in and out of prison,” he says. “There’s so many people still in that cycle.” He recalls one fan interaction that stuck with him. “This kid came up to me and he just started crying. He just broke down straight away,” The fan, about 17 or 18 years old, told Bousbaa he had been struggling with mental health issues. “He said, ‘You don’t understand, there was a time I was so close to taking my own life. I felt so low. And I listened to you, and you gave me the hope…’” Bousbaa trails off. “I hope to use my story or my journey to help people not have to walk this path that I walked.”
You’ve got to be careful with lyrics because they’ll use them against you in court— Potter Payper
Frustration is front and centre in his music – frustration with the system, frustration with social and financial inequality, and frustration on behalf of those who can’t publicly vent their grievances the way he can. When we discuss these topics his rap-like flow becomes even harsher. “I’m definitely anti-Tory but I’m anti-government in my whole approach,” he says, describing his outlook as “anarchistic”. “As someone who has gone out of my way to reform myself, I can see from the other side of the fence that there’s not a lot to reform yourself for,” he says as he leans towards me, almost pleading his point. Even “law-abiding” citizens, he says, those who “break their backs every single day get treated like s***”. “They have to go on strike every other year to get paid… like, people can’t afford bread, mate.”
Even as he takes me on a whistle-stop tour of the UK’s prison industrial complex, social deprivation and the effects of the cost of living crisis, Bousbaa is not all doom and gloom. At one point in our conversation, he pulls up his hoodie to show me his T-shirt, on which his name is emblazoned in the style of the Harry Potter logo. “I’m a huge Harry Potter fan,” he says, warmly. There’s that grin again. “I rap about pain because that’s been my life thus far, so I haven’t really had much else to write about but as my life steadily progresses, and you know, I’m staying free and I’m being happy, hopefully that reflects in my music.”
‘Real Back in Style’ will be released by Def Jam Recordings on 12 May
