{"id":551031,"date":"2026-07-20T19:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/551031\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T19:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:19:09","slug":"songer-interview-u-k-rapper-talks-new-album-what-if-i-say-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/551031\/","title":{"rendered":"Songer Interview: U.K. Rapper Talks New Album ‘What If I Say No?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cAs much as I would love to break America, I don\u2019t want to have to feel like I\u2019m compromising anything to break a new market,\u201d Songer<\/a> says. \u201cIf that happens, it happens. If not, I\u2019m not gonna die swimming against the tide.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs he says this, the rapper sits at a table on the banks of the Grand Union canal, outside Paddington Station in north central London. He doesn\u2019t live here, but it\u2019s easy to get to on the train from his home near Reading, a broadly unremarkable town outside the British capital. He takes a sip of beer. Suddenly he seems to remember that he\u2019s speaking to a fairly well-known American music magazine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to break America,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s the absolute dream.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor now, it\u2019s impressive enough that Songer has broken in the U.K. Wokingham, the small town he grew up in (just outside Reading, which is just outside London), is not known to be overflowing with rap talent. He blew up in 2017 at age 17, when a freestyle on the British YouTube channel Bl@ckbox went viral. His name became better known on home shores when \u201cVino Bandit,\u201d a collaboration with the drum-and-bass producer K Motionz, crashed the U.K. singles chart. Then his own track \u201cToxic Freestyle,\u201d featuring an instrumental lifted from the Britney Spears classic, became the second-highest selling U.K. rap<\/a> single of 2024. For all of the U.K. rap scene\u2019s talent, for all its brawn and bravado, its innovation in production and depiction of the country\u2019s troubled streets, few rappers convey the turmoil inside their own heads quite like Songer.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut despite interest from the mainstream, Songer remains resolutely independent. His choice of lyrical subject matter makes him something of an outlier too, his albums full of confessional bars about mental health and the challenges of growing up in the spotlight. \u201cI\u2019m not a rapper, not an MC, not a producer, not a singer, just someone who writes down stuff and puts it out to the world,\u201d Songer says. I\u2019ve interviewed him several times, and this is the sort of thing he says often.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tOur most recent interview happens a week before the release of his sixth album, What If I Say No?, due on Friday. Having toured Australia, New Zealand, and much of Europe, supported grime pioneer Dizzee Rascal, played Glastonbury and made music with a broad range of scene legends, you might think the American market would be the next target on his hit list. But for now he has his mind on the impact of another English export on the United States. And don\u2019t call it soccer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFootball lyrics that are shit are so annoying,\u201d Songer raps on new album highlight \u201cWhat\u2019s the Punchline.\u201d \u201cIf you\u2019re on the wing like Bale or Beckham, I\u2019m throwing coins.\u201d Even you, American reader, know who David Beckham is, and maybe even that, in his playing days, he played on the right side of the field, or the right wing. You may even have heard of Gareth Bale. Being \u201con the wing\u201d (also like doing time on a prison wing) like \u201cinsert footballer here,\u201d is a common lyric among British rappers. Throwing coins at the pitch is something unruly football fans \u2014 in the sport\u2019s largely bygone lawless era \u2014 would do if they were unimpressed with a player\u2019s performance, particularly affecting wingers, as they were closest to the side of the pitch. You get it. It\u2019s a clever bar.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDon\u2019t just watch the games,\u201d Songer says, addressing anyone who\u2019s yet to fall in love with the sport. \u201cWatch the fan culture. Watch what it does to people. Watch the way people react to it and what it means to the people watching it. That\u2019s how you fall in love with football. People live and breathe it. It dictates a weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt could be about to dictate his weekend. We speak on the day before England\u2019s tragic semifinal defeat to Lionel Messi\u2019s Argentina. \u201cIf we win against Argentina tomorrow,\u201d he says, still naively unaware of his country\u2019s impending immolation, \u201cthen I\u2019m flying out there for the final.\u201d He has a ticket already, which cost in the region of \u00a35,000. He thinks if he\u2019d waited until the semifinal was over, that price would have almost doubled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tLike football, British rappers have a checkered past when it comes to making it big in the United States. You may have heard of MIA<\/a>, or Skepta, The Streets, or even Dizzee Rascal (and you\u2019re welcome for Slick Rick, MF DOOM<\/a>, and 21 Savage), but further legends of the U.K. rap landscape like Wiley, Giggs, Ms Dynamite, D Double E, Casisdead, Skinnyman, So Solid Crew, and 67 are probably less likely to ring bells in your ears. How would Songer suggest a new listener might get into his music?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRather than the songs that I think commercially might do better, I\u2019d show them one of the more honest ones,\u201d he says. \u201cI rely on honesty so much. Without the honesty I\u2019m just someone that rhymes quickly.\u201d He mentions one of his favorite lyrical subject matters. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a case of this geezer likes to go out and get hammered. It\u2019s why do I get hammered? How do I feel after, and the complexities that come with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThese are the two sides of his musical personality. Among his Spotify most played, you\u2019ll find songs like \u201cVino Bandit\u201d and \u201cBalling,\u201d where Songer raps over raucous beats about going out on a Friday, drinking lager, and maybe the occasional narcotic. Elsewhere in his oeuvre you\u2019ll find stuff like \u201cNo More Candles\u201d (2019), a laconic cloud-rap track over which he intones lines such as: \u201cI have been blessed in life to the point where I don\u2019t complain, but oh my days, why the fuck am I feeling so much pain?\u201d Then there are others like the grime riddim \u201cMind of War,\u201d and the U.K. drill-inflected \u201cBetter than Yours,\u201d with a Kelis-inspired hook (\u201cMy album brings all the boys to the yard\/Damn right, that\u2019s better than yours \u2026 I could teach you, but you ain\u2019t got bars\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHarvey Ryan*<\/p>\n

\n\tThen again he also does like, as he says, getting hammered. \u201cStop giving me politics, I don\u2019t want politics, I want Moretti at half-past three,\u201d he raps on \u201cFeel My Face.\u201d Then: \u201cAsking the barman to give me a free one, somebody told me that talk is cheap\/Whole generation trying to escape on C-O-C-A-I-N-E.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two sides of Songer\u2019s modus operandi \u2014 neatly dichotomised in the title of another new track, \u201cVices vs Verses\u201d \u2014 can be traced back to his beginnings, growing up in pubs around Wokingham. His grandad was the singer and frontman in a pub band called Alfie & the Alcoholics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHence my middle name,\u201d says Songer, real name James Alfred Songer. \u201cMy middle name is Alfred because of my grandad. There was banjos, the craziest looking guitars. It wasn\u2019t like, \u2018Let\u2019s get a Les Paul.\u2019 It would be, \u2018Let\u2019s get a banjo with three strings missing.\u2019\u201d He credits his kin for his musical passion: \u201cIt\u2019s in the family, people that love music. My dad adores music from my grandad, and I adore music from my dad. So yeah without those 12 pints and a banjo, I\u2019m not sure what would happen.\u201d Was he drinking 12 pints as a child? \u201cNot at that age, no. I think I was only on about 10 or 11 at that time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs well as his grandad\u2019s Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash covers, Songer grew up listening to the Arctic Monkeys and Eminem. He once saw J. Cole supporting the early 2010s U.K. rap superstar Tinie Tempah. At school he and his friends learned to rap by cussing each other\u2019s mums. Songer soon realized he had a gift for rhyming insults, writing lists of punchlines in his notes and rattling them off at any opportunity. Eventually his friends convinced him he was actually pretty good. As he reached adolescence, he had mates who were throwing drum-and-bass raves around Wokingham, Reading, and Bristol. Songer became their go-to MC, belting out those same punchlines to sweaty clubs full of teenagers at 160 beats per minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2017, at age 17, he recorded his near-legendary Bl@ckbox freestyle<\/a>, and the British music industry started to take notice. His debut album, Dream Workz, with an image of Songer smoking on the moon as its cover, came in 2019. Then came Lyrics for Sanity and The Sunrise Project, on which Songer reached new levels of poetic introspection. \u201cI\u2019m paranoid, my phone\u2019s got my life on it\/Credit card, fingerprint, it\u2019s got facial recognition, notepage, that\u2019s my mind on it\/I wish that I didn\u2019t, but rely on it\/Knowledge is power, I think I\u2019ll die from it,\u201d he lamented on \u201cConfession Tape 17.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHis next album, SKALA, named after his family dog, featured a guest verse from grime legend D Double E, a key cosign and mentor who still texts Songer well wishes on Christmas morning. Fifth album The Price of Therapy cast Songer\u2019s as U.K. rap\u2019s top psychiatrist, dropping lines like: \u201cMy lyric book will know me by my scary side\/I used to write to cope, now I get a flight\/There\u2019s airport security I recognise.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first time I interviewed Songer, nearly five years ago, he told me \u201cI\u2019m into politics, but I hate politicians.\u201d On \u201cFront Row Seats,\u201d another highlight from the new album, Songer pines: \u201cChild poverty\u2019s the highest that it\u2019s ever fucking been\/Where\u2019s the party for that gone, what kind of world to we live in?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s harder to be optimistic about the future than ever before,\u201d he says. \u201cI think the light at the end of the tunnel has gone out. I think the illusion that technology getting better is gonna somehow save the world is gone. The disbalance of power, the elites, the world\u2019s first trillionaire \u2026 It\u2019s gonna get really dystopian. My worry is, do we have enough time for the pendulum to swing back the other way? I probably sound a bit miserable, but I\u2019m not optimistic at all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDAYS AFTER OUR conversation, the World Cup was presented to the Spanish captain Rodri by President Donald Trump. Songer skipped it in the end, opting to sell his ticket after England\u2019s semifinal defeat and watch at home like the rest of us. He is perhaps more familiar with the sight of the tangerine tyrant handing over a trophy than most, having seen his club team Chelsea handed the psychopathically designed Club World Cup by the same man last summer. \u201cI think he\u2019s an absolute scumbag,\u201d Songer says. \u201cAnd I think the sooner FIFA have a president that isn\u2019t two and a half inches inside of Donald Trump, the better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tHe stops short of total doomsday speak, especially on the subject of football.\u00a0\u201cI only ever see the World Cup as a good thing,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is only ever a force for good, even if people are trying to drag it the other way. The world\u2019s on its arse really. I just think we\u2019re in real danger of handing the keys, if we haven\u2019t already, to people that can dictate the narrative of the world to be whatever they want.\u201d He invokes another recent news story. \u201cYou know the two people that climbed the Empire State Building and got married? One: How amazing is that? But two: Their flag said \u2018The day that the power of love overtakes the love of power, the world will find peace.\u2019\u201d Sounds like a Songer bar. \u201cYeah, exactly. They must have access to my demos or something.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHalfway through our conversation, a twentysomething man walks past us and stops. \u201cSonger!\u201d The rapper smiles and gladly poses for a photo with the fan, asks his name, and thanks him for his support. He tells me this is normal for him by now. In the same vein, he says breaking America would not mean \u201cbeing top of Billboard charts,\u201d but \u201cexpanding my audience and building a community, building a family. If I were to break America whilst maintaining the level of integrity that\u2019s so important to me within my lyrics, then it would be the biggest possible compliment to the music. If they can relate to how I\u2019m feeling, then we\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs much as I would love to break America, I don\u2019t want to have to feel like I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409,250325,250326],"class_list":["post-551031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music","tag-songer","tag-u-k-rap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}