Ms Banks: "Having music has helped me through life"

On her long-awaited debut album SOUTH LDN LOVER GIRL, UK rapper Ms Banks aims to give a rounded out and multi-faceted perspective on her native South London, and the women who populate it. Exploring the hardships and joys, as well as race and class struggles, the musician attempts to build its “whole image,” she tells me, with “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

The artistic direction is clear from the record’s title track, which explores “romance crimes”, coercive control and domestic violence, through two hard-hitting and deeply moving true stories.

“South London girls always have a bad rep for being too much of a tomboy or too hood, too ghetto, and not knowing how to love,” says Ms Banks. “But I know a lot of girls who have lost their livelihood, or their freedom, to love and protecting their partner, or helping people that they shouldn't help. All the girls I know, even if they're rough around the edges, want to love and be loved.”

Rich in storytelling and powerful hooks, the LP is Ms Banks' debut, although she has been performing for almost a decade.

“People have made me feel like an album is very serious and put me off,” the singer reflects. “I guess it is serious, but honestly, I could have put out an album years ago.”

When I ask if she wishes she had made SOUTH LDN LOVER GIRL earlier, the rapper shakes her head.

“I don't regret the timing of it, ‘cause it's been a full 180," she replies. "I've come back to my roots, the things that really made me want to be an artist. Maybe if I released it earlier, it wouldn't have been as meaningful. As a rapper, sometimes you get lost in the sauce of what it's all about – you can lose your way and forget why you started.”

In her early days in the music industry, Banks explains, she heavily focused on a wide variety of political and "conscious" themes. As her career evolved, though, club bangers and fun tunes allowed her to grow her audience, but she quickly felt she was repeating the same formula.

"I lost other parts of me," she reflects. "There was no variety in my message. I started feeling like a one-trick pony and not a true reflection of who I am as an artist. But I had to go through all of that to get back to this point. This type of rap, where it's very flamboyant and braggadocious – it's a beautiful element, but it's not everything. With where the world is right now, and the current state of our country, it's just not relatable.”

On the outro to the gorgeously hard-hitting single ‘WHY?’, Banks discusses how stress and burnout disproportionately affect black women. Has she, in her personal life, felt pressure to over-achieve?

“Coming from struggle, and coming from a black household, in a council estate that doesn’t have much, we have an idea of what success looks like,” Banks agrees. “For a long time, I've been chasing real success, but also the illusion of it, and I found myself really burnt out, always trying to keep up with the Joneses. Being a rapper, there's also this whole image and facade that is built within our industry.

"You have to have all the chains and the jewellery and the drip – it's a lot. I’ve got to a place of asking myself: what does success really look like for me? And how can I attain it without working myself into the ground? It's a thing black women go through, but I'm sure there's many other people that can relate in other ways. Everyone does have the odds stacked against them in their own way. We're literally living in Monopoly."

Throughout the record, while Ms Banks discusses heavy themes, she also allows moments of unrelenting joy, such as the incredibly catchy ‘4C’, which its name from a hair pattern.

“I really want to get to a point where I feel super-proud of my natural hair,” she explains. “I feel like it’s an ongoing theme throughout the album: no matter where you're coming from, any hardships you’ve faced or any reasons you felt insecure or unseen, just know you are beautiful – you are worthy, valued, and can make something from nothing.”

In amongst the darker themes on the record, how does she manage to find this happiness and pride?

“It becomes something you learn how to carry,” Banks admits. "Luckily for me, music is my place of rest. It gives me therapy, just writing it down and expressing it. Having music has helped me through life, because it’s allowed me to find my tribe – there might be another girl from another area that feels the same way.”

On the cover of SOUTH LDN LOVER GIRL, the rapper is seen posing proudly in front of a Union Jack, showing the world that, as the daughter of a Nigerian father and a Ugandan mother, her Britishness is not something she has to prove.

“It's always going to be difficult for a minority in a country that isn't really their own,” Banks reflects, “but I’m black enough, British enough, and English enough. Originally, the album was supposed to be called Black Girl In A White World, but I felt that might have been too political, and people were probably going to make judgments without listening.“

Trying to navigate a music industry that is so hard on black women, Ms Banks tells me she was lucky to have a number of performers to look up to.

"Estelle, Miss Dynamite, Lil’ Kim, Lauren Hill, Wretch 32, Bashy..." she says, listing her inspirations. "A lot of them incorporated rapping and singing, and always had a meaningful touch to their music. I've always loved music with substance. Life is deep, so music should reflect that.”

In April, Ms Banks will be bringing her new album to the stage with a EU and UK tour, kicking off in Amsterdam on April 10 and running until April 23 with a gig in London – and she is more than a little excited.

"More than anything, out of all the parts of being an artist, playing live is my favourte," she enthuses. "Gigs, I think, are when you bring the music to life.”

SOUTH LDN LOVER GIRL IS OUT NOW.