Hail Javan St. Prix, grime’s pre-eminent deconstructionist.
Where many of his contemporaries opted for rapid-fire flow, Trim has always stood out for his languid approach. Grime’s default idiom is percussive, centred around polyrhythms and looping verbal tags, but Trim’s impulses are primarily melodic. He’s happy to tease out a beat’s potential rather than attack it head on.
Which isn’t to say he’s a natural fit for the road rap scene either: Trim’s content (impish, free-associative) and intonation (unpredictable, spotted with pauses) sit uneasily next to road’s aggie bravado. He wrangles and mangles language into surprising new configurations; he’s probably closer in diction and outlook to a performance poet than any of his counterparts.
Singular as he is, Trim (or Lord Sith, or Taliban Trim, or Trimbal) has been around since grime’s salad days. He rose up with the Bomb Squad crew then went on to become a full-time Roll Deep member from 2004-2006. Since then, he’s been an industrious freelancer, churning out an 11 volume mixtape series.
“I like the fact that I can be superhuman in lyrics”
His release schedule over the last 12 months is testament to his catholic tastes. He’s teamed up with Mark Pritchard on the ‘Stereotype’ single, worked with purple-indebted producer Last Japan, repped Butterz on the excellent ‘I Am’ and covered Jay-Z and Kanye West’s ‘Niggas In Paris’. That sense of play sometimes spills over into mischief: following memorable spats with Flowdan and Marcus Nasty, he’s still renowned as one of UK scene’s foremost beefmakers.
Trim’s got lots coming up this year: a flagship LP for Rinse, a collaborative record with fellow Roll Deep exile Roachee, and a high-profile revamp courtesy of James Blake’s Harmonimix project. He’s also making an appearance at We Fear Silence’s mega-shindig at Cable on July 7, featuring artists from the Butterz and Hardrive stables. With all that on the cards, FACT joined Trim in his favourite East London studio to talk Peter Tosh, aliens and the state of grime.
Highlights of this interview are also available via FACT TV.
Tell us a bit about this studio.
“Right now you’re in Ballistic Studio – my manager owns this studio. We have recorded Vols 5-10 here, as well as any other features. After, I’ll get all the papers, all the lyrics that I wrote, and show you, because it is quite intense how much work I’ve done here. Ballistic Studios, I’m Lord Sith, FACT Magazine, you’re in the building.”
This is your home base?
“This is where I spend most of my sleepless nights, and write all of my hardest bars. Yeah, definitely.”
There’s that line on ‘Motto’ [taken from Bandoolou] where you say: “No matter whose beat it is, I don’t care/I’m that guy”…
“Yeah – that’s me.”
All the way through your career, you seem to have followed your own path a fair bit.
“Abstract beats and weird music – that’s my thing, man.”
I wanted to know whether you see yourself as something of an outsider, a maverick on the scene to some degree?
“I actually compare myself to people that are way better than me, like Eminem and stuff. So that’s why I don’t really stay a part of the scene, because I’m not just making that music. I’m trying to make music that you can understand, music with feeling, and a lot of the time I’m just trying to be myself. All of that other music, I try and do it when I like it, but I just do what I like, so there’s no genre that ties me down. I just do me.”
“I’m always going to be attacking people, it’s only going to get worse”
Whether listening to your earlier recordings or your more recent stuff, your voice is still so distinctive, the way you use rhythm and language…do you have influences outside of grime and UK rap, or even outside of music?
“I used to listen to everything. I’ve never restricted myself on what I should say or how I should say, or how everybody expects you to say on that kind of beat. I’ve just always thought to myself, “I’m going to do this my way”. There were influences like Biggie and Tupac when you’re growing up, but I kinda just heard all of that and realised that I live in England, which some people don’t do, and they still refer to American things and tell people they’ve got guns and are killing everybody. And I found that it was easier just to talk about other people and make fun of other people as well as myself, and people liked it more. So that kind of character just made more characters of himself and just made different names and just went deeper into the person if you know what I’m saying. And now, a lot of people say I’m not as raw as I used to be, but you haven’t heard my album yet. [laughs] So don’t judge me just yet. Just give me my album time and then we can talk about what I used to be. So that’s me.”
Is there anything in particular that Trim listeners might be surprised that you’re inspired by or listen to?
“Peter Tosh, Frankie Paul… yeah, man. I used to listen to all of the music, old school kind of reggae influence, because my Mum’s a Rasta and she listens to revival and stuff. A lot of tracks – old school, revival – brought me to where I am today. It made me more fluent with it, if you know what I’m saying, because I was kind of educated already. Peter Tosh, all of those kind of guys, like Dennis Brown, like – what’s his name? – Lionel Ritchie and stuff like that. I used to listen to all that kind of music. As I grew up and started rolling with cousins and friends and stuff, I’d noticed that everybody else was listening to all the goonbags and Ol’ Dirty Bastard and stuff. So I just listened to them and thought, “how can I just be myself and still not be the norm”, you know what I’m saying? And it worked, because of those influences. Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Dennis Brown – the mix between that is where Javan came from.”
Talking about ‘the norm’ – how do you feel about the current state of the UK grime/hip-hop scene at the moment?
“It’s healthy, it’s healthy. It’s alright. I think everybody is doing what they need to do for grime and whatever else. A lot of people have realised that it’s more of a business and we should be closer and stuff, so people are working more together. I’m not that guy. I never have been. I don’t hardly know people. I just want to be myself and do it with the people that I know. That’s probably why I segregate myself from the whole scene, because the majority of people are not who they are behind the scenes. They’re different people, they act differently. My perception of life is that you are who you are – just be as real as you can. If you can’t be that kind of person then I’ll just stay away from those kind of people, you know what I mean?”
Moving onto projects you’ve got coming up, tell us a bit about the Roachee record.
“The Nangest EP, that’s coming out. I think my label is going to invest in it as well, so it’s not just going to be a CD that me and Roach bring out – there’ll be a tour behind it, there’ll be videos and all kinds of stuff. Roachee is one of my closest friends who I grew up with. There’s also Obese, my cousin Nico [Lindsay] and a few others, like J-Nella, Jerzey, Ballistic [Beats], all of these in-house friends as well as musicians.
“Me and Roachee decided before my album that we’d do an EP together because of Watch The Throne. We saw that and we thought we were probably the only two that you could put together that would give you an educational lesson as well as fun and games, where as everybody else, they just want to do grime and tell you how much money they’ve got and stuff. The purpose of the EP is: we’re aliens, and we’ve just landed on Earth. We go around Earth just making fun of humans and whatever else. We’ve also done a remix to my F64 and other stuff on there. It’s going to be a big thing. It is The Nangest EP for a reason [laughs] It’s going to be very nang. The word nang means good, by the way [laughs].
“Also, there’s a couple of features. Dirty Danger, Tinchy Stryder, Obesity, Nico Lindsay, and that’s it. Everything else is just me and Roachee going ham. There are some mad beats: producers like Starkey, Ballistic, Dirty Danger as well, Rapid. Not the norm, not the everyday thing – apart from Tinchy. Just not the norm, just weird music that sounds spacious.”
“Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Dennis Brown – the mix between that is where Javan came from”
Talking about aliens makes me think of your collaborations with Mark Pritchard, which you’ve had a fair few of in recent months.
“My favourite one was ‘Stereotype’, that was done in seconds. A lot of music I write, the music writes itself. I would hear the beat, write to it, and by the time I’ve got home I don’t know what I’ve written. Then vocal it, and after when I listen back, it educates me as well as everybody else! I’m like, “Wow! I said all of that!”. But yeah, Mark Pritchard is one of the best to get that out of me, and Ballistic as well. They can get weird stuff out of me, just by sending me a beat, which is why we work quite well.”
Comparing Mark Pritchard with another young producer you’ve been working with, Last Japan…how did that come about?
“He just tweeted me one day and said “I’ve got a beat for you”, and I was like, “Okay, talk to my manager about it”. The first beat was called ‘Blood Diamond’. I just vocalled it and listened after like I usually do, and liked it more when I was listening back to it. Then we did the recent one which we did a video for, ‘East’. It’s filmed around the City of London. The purpose of that was to be myself and explain how things have changed slightly and what people are really doing, and it came out quite well, it’s very good. And he’s a very good kid, he works very hard. I like that about him. So we’ll always work. Some people say “I’ve got a tune for you”, you say “Okay, cool” and they’re just there for the five minutes fame. He’s actually someone that’s got his heart and soul in the whole thing, so I love that about him.”
It must be interesting for you, having been in that position when you were coming up years and years ago, to now being in a position where you have enough prestige to be able to help young producers.
“Yeah. He’s very one track minded, he just wants to do music. He’s got all kinds of avenues that he’s working towards, and you can see it in his actual tweets and work and stuff, that he’s not someone that just makes music, “Uh, I just wanna be famous”. He just does it because he loves it like myself. Yeah man, we’ll always work together, always.”
Another big bit of news that came out this week is the James Blake Harmonimix of your track is now coming out. How do you feel about that track, and about the fact it’s now getting a proper release?
“At first I felt weirdly about it, “I was like – wow, what’s this?”, because he’s got his own way of scrunching music up and playing it to you. It was strange to me at first. Then I listened back to it and got some good feedback back from it, like “You gotta do this, you gotta do more stuff with him, it’s mad music man, do it, man!” And I was like, “Yeah, cool, I’ll do it”, and I spoke to him. He’s another one that works that works really hard and loves music – I spoke to him on the last show we did at Manchester. He did a show before me and I supported him before. We were just talking, and he’s really one track minded as well … It was kind of strange our relationship and how it all came about, but I’m happy to know someone like him! He’s sick at what he does, definitely. Weird music, but I’m a weird person, so I’ll always like that kind of stuff.”
“The purpose of the EP is: we’re aliens, and we’ve just landed on Earth”
To finish off, it would be great to hear about your new album, and also what else you’ve got in the pipeline.
“Right now my album’s like four, five tracks in. I’m only going to start recording it back this week, you’ve just caught me recording it this week. Should be out round about Winter. I haven’t got a name for it just yet, because we was going to go with This Side Of The Fence, but it reflects too much on Boy In Da Corner, and I’m a totally different person. I’m more outspoken. So I’ve got a few other names, and until I know I’m not going to just throw them at you so you’re just looking through all these names. I’ll just wait for a day and send it to you. By the Winter, you’ll have videos of my singles and stuff out, but during this time, around the Summer, it’s going to be The Nangest EP, and I’ll be doing a couple of festivals here and there with Hot Chip and whatever. So, yeah, you’ll probably get sick of me, but you won’t get fed up. By Winter, you’ll hear about the album, and what singles the album will go on.”
Can you give us a preview of what we can expect from it?
“‘Figurine’, with Ballistic, is a tune I’ve done based on the problems that come with me. I’ll give you a little verse into that [Trim launches into a verse from the track, which you can watch footage of here]. It’s there, man. We’re going all the way in. ‘Figurine’ probably will be one of the biggest tracks on my album, because of the purpose and the concept of it. It’s just a toy that you can buy and all the problems that come with this one toy. So, yeah – concepts all over my album. A lot of stuff is indirect, attacking a couple of people – I’m always going to be attacking people, it’s only going to get worse, it’ll be Peter Andre next or someone. But don’t ever take it personally, I’m just having fun. I’m not a murderer or a killer, I don’t shoot guns – I just have fun with music and I like the fact that I can be superhuman in lyrics. I can actually do anything, like you see in a film, in a lyric. Enjoy my music, enjoy everything and don’t dawn too much on some of the stuff I do say.”
Joseph Morpurgo
