Longitude Special: Stormzy Profile and an Interview with his Manager, Tobe Onwuka

When London was plunged into mourning last month for the victims of the Kensington high-rise fire, it was Stormzy who lead the music community’s response to the tragedy.

“I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll start by saying I refuse to forget you,” he raps at the start of the Artists For Grenfell’s emotionally charged re-working of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. “I refuse to be silenced, I refuse to neglect you/ That’s for every last soul up in Grenfell, even though I’ve never met you/ ‘Cause that could have been my Mum’s house or that could have been my nephew/ It could have been me up there, waving my plain T up there/ With my friends on the ground trying to see up there/ I just hope that you’re resting and free up there.” Earlier in the month, the Croydon spitter born Michael Owuo Jr. had leant his A-List support to the #Grime4Corbyn campaign, which contributed to the biggest youth turnout in a British General Election for over 40 years.

No bandwagon-jumper, Stormzy had enthusiastically praised Corbyn – “Young Jeremy, my guy. I dig what he says. I saw some sick picture of him from back in the day when he was campaigning about anti-apartheid and I thought: yeah, I like your energy! I feel like he gets what the ethnic minorities are going through and the homeless and the working class.” – in May 2016 when the Labour leader had a lowly 29% approval rating. Add in his previous musings on drugs, poverty, religion, gang culture, and, er, Manchester United, and it’s no wonder that the 23-year-old is considered by many to be the finest social commentator of his generation. He’s no slouch in the beats department, either, with Katy Perry, Chris Martin and Eamily Eavis among those salivating over his Glastonbury appearance.

“When Stormzy greets you with a smile and a wagwan all is right in the world again,” Perry tweeted. “Great show, friend. Your Mum must be well proud.”

The appreciation society is very much mutual, with the California Gurl getting a: “And Katy Perry came as well for fuck’s sake. What a dream. We thank God” in return.

“Man, it’s been one of our best weeks ever!” Stormzy’s friend and manager, Tobe Onwuka, tells Hot Press. “We got a feel for Glastonbury last year when Stormzy played the Silver Hayes stage, but this was a whole different level. The reaction from the crowd; woooargh, I’ve got shivers again thinking about it! To have people like Katy and Chris, whose craft and achievement you’ve admired from a distance, reacting in such a positive way just bowled us over. And, you know what? It was very genuine. They don’t need to be riding on anybody’s coattails.”

Every time Stormzy makes a step-up he makes it look easy – which of course it isn’t. What was he like five minutes before Glasto showtime?

“I wouldn’t say he was nervous, but who doesn’t fret over the moving parts of what they do?” Tobe continues. “He wants everything to go right so he’s very focused, but I’ve never detected fear. Stormzy’s the sort of leader who spurs you on.”

Tobe’s charge picked up his first serious celebrity admirer in October 2014 when, whilst still unsigned, he appeared on Later… With Jools Holland.

“It was Robert Plant who came over and asked to have his picture taken with Stormzy rather than the other way around,” Tobe laughs. “My manager at Land Rover, who I was still working for when we went on Jools, is a massive Led Zeppelin fan and thought I was taking the piss when I said, ‘Oh yeah, I met their singer last night!’ Up till then, they thought it was just a little hobby I had outside of my 9 to 5.

“Robert Plant’s a legend and such a nice guy – you could tell he’s a music fan who ‘got’ Stormzy even though they’re a couple of generations apart. He was like, ‘I love what you’re doing. Here’s some little pieces of advice…’ Another person who Stormzy met that night and has remained friends with is Olly from Years & Years. There’s definitely a collaboration brewing there.

“The show itself was massively important for us,” he expands. “It made Stormzy… not ‘credible’ because who decides those measurements, but part of what is considered to be popular music. Jools… blew the whole thing wide open in terms of force feeding the nation their first portion of grime!”

Also showing him the love recently was Elton John who described Stormzy as being “gregarious, fun, out there and full of energy” before playing ‘Blinded By Your Grace Pt. 1’ on his Apple Music radio show.

“With both of them being so busy it’s been hard to connect but, yeah, we’re very aware of Elton reaching out and hope that something might eventually come of it. To have supporters in all these different area of music is wonderful.”

One of the great things about grime is that it hasn’t needed anybody’s permission to happen.

“That’s exactly it!” Tobe nods enthusiastically. “To me, grime isn’t so much a specific sound as an attitude, an inner city unruliness, if you like, that says: ‘We’re here and, however unpalatable it may be to you, these are our feelings.’ It doesn’t always have to be dark and negative, or rattle along at a furious tempo. It can be whatever you want it to be. Why limit things by having a rulebook?”

Indeed, one of the great Stormzy lines is the Man U-bating: “I come to your team and I fuck shit up/I’m David Moyes!” which graces ‘Know Me From’.

Chuckling, Tobe says: “He can be as funny as fuck one minute and then come out with a line like, ‘All my young black kings rise up, man, this is our year’ from ‘Cold’ the next. That song resonated a lot with people from my community.”

Stormzy’s gatecrashing of Later… With Jools Holland was on the back of the DIY video for ‘Shut Up’ going viral on YouTube. It’s currently just shy of the 60 million views mark, and one of the numerous standouts on Gang Signs & Prayer, his debut album, which debuted at number one in the UK in February.

“This wouldn’t have happened if the music industry had been the way it was 20, 30 years ago when you ‘needed a demo’ to approach an A&R from some label,” Toby reflects. “It was a barrier – a permission, if you like - that got torn down by the internet. You can literally record a song in your bedroom that’s good enough quality to put online 24 hours later and become the world’s next hot tune. That ‘No one will give me a deal’ excuse has gone.

“I’m not dissing labels – we’ve signed a distribution deal with Warner’s ADA and a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell, both of whom are great, but it’s been on our terms. The artist is driving the company rather than the other way around.”

Another major milestone was Kanye asking a gang of UK grimesters including Jammer, Novelist, Krept & Konan, Stormzy, and the also Longitude-bound Skepta, to jam with him at the 2015 Brit Awards. “It was all super last minute but a moment, for sure. There was a lot of talk afterwards about whether or not those UK MCs should have been on stage with Kanye West… why on earth would you question one of the most talented artists of this or any other generation wanting to introduce his tens of millions of fans to this amazing type of music? I don’t get the stamp collector mentality of you wanting to keep it to yourself.

Performing that monster track with Kanye speaks for itself. Him shining a light on grime has been massive. I know he’s had stuff going on personally, and I hope he’s in a good place, but musically no one can deny he’s a genius and a star-maker.”

There was another passing of the baton in April 2015 when one of the MCs Stormzy grew up idolising, Riley, tweeted to him: “Please take it where we couldn’t, my brother.”

“That was so special,” Tobe enthuses. “I’m not sure Wiley would have had that sort of support from the previous generation when he was starting out. There was a sense of people competing with each other whereas now it’s, ‘We’re in this together.’”

That same ethos feeds into Stormzy’s championing of Jeremy Corbyn. “I’m 25, which is two years older than Stormzy, and this is the first time I’ve felt that there’s a politician who cares about us. It’s not a race thing or a youth thing or an agenda thing; it’s us. There are so many communities – like the one around Grenfell Towers – who’ve been overlooked in the past by not only the Conservative party, but also Labour. The reason Stormzy and I support Jeremy Corbyn 100% is that he wants to change that.”

We all wish it hadn’t been necessary, but out of the obscenity of Grenfell Tower has come a renewed sense of London community.

“I’d go further and say it’s a UK-wide thing of communities no longer tolerating tragedies that derive from race or social status,” Tobe concludes. “There are questions, which I’m not convinced Theresa May and her government are prepared to answer. The ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ single was one of many acts of solidarity that have followed in the wake of the fire. Everyone who got the call dropped what they were doing and went to the studio. I cried too, man, when I heard the verses Stormzy dropped. Enough’s enough.”