The British rapper shot to fame in 2010 with his single Pass Out (Picture: David Fisher/Shutterstock for Gl)
It’s no secret that British music icon Tinie Tempah wants to be remembered as being ‘more than just a rapper’.
The 37-year-old said it himself in 2023 that he is looking for more out of life than ‘number one hits and packed out arenas’.
But, speaking to Metro ahead of his appearance as a guest on the newest series of Dragons’ Den, Tinie recognised how people still like to put him in a box.
‘Everyone tends to have the habit of categorising people’, he tells me.
‘It’s very difficult once you see someone in one light to see them as something else.’
The chart-topper initially rose to fame in 2010 with the release of his debut single Pass Out. Since then, he has collaborated with global superstars and witnessed his music soar to breath-taking heights.
Tinie Tempah is a guest Dragon on this season of Dragons’ Den (Picture: BBC Studios)
The musician is a multi-platinum-selling artist (Picture: Getty Images)
But despite his astronomical success, the rapper, whose real name is Patrick Okogwu, boasts an equally successful career in investing in startup companies as an angel investor.
In 2007, he co-founded record label Disturbing London and later launched publishing company and creative agency Imhotep, which he recently released his latest singles Closer and Eat It Up with.
Today, Tinie revealed how important business is to him, explaining: ‘If it wasn’t for business in my life and obviously my art and my talent, then I wouldn’t have been able to create the social mobility that I have for my family and for myself.
‘If you don’t build your own dream, you’ll just end up helping someone else build theirs. Business for me seems to be the remedy to that.
‘I didn’t go to Harvard or Oxford or anything like that. But when you start to make headway, it’s a liberating feeling, and you not only change your life, but you get to change the lives of others.
‘Being able to not just be an artist but as an artist with a label or publishing company… it feels like I’m bringing more, putting more value into the world than just standing on stage and just performing my hit songs.’
Tinie said he is bringing a different approach to the Den (Picture: BBC Studios/Simon Pantling)
The star spoke out about the state of the music industry today (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
Despite his success in the music industry, Tinie is not naive to the dangers associated with the music industry.
The multi-platinum-selling artist said we hear ‘time and time again’ stories of artists getting caught out in their contracts, even with superstars such as Taylor Swift.
‘If you don’t do your due diligence or you don’t understand what’s going on, you can easily get burned whether by a major corporation or by an individual. It’s treacherous,’ he tells me.
The new Dragon also explained how despite the music industry being more accessible to artists today, there’s ‘more saturation’, which makes it hard to stand out.
‘The destiny is still in your hands, and with social media it could be anyone’s moment at any time, even without them trying,’ he says.
‘So in many ways it’s better, but I guess I’m speaking as a privileged artist who already has a profile. Maybe if you ask someone who was just starting out, they would have something else to say.’
Of central importance to Tinie, however, is how he approaches his business ventures.
In comparison to the other seasoned Dragons he will be sitting across, including Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, and Steven Bartlett, Tinie says he thinks of his ‘own life and not necessarily getting through the door and being welcomed with open arms’.
‘A lot of the Dragons are so seasoned in what they do, some have done 100s, if not 1000s of investments, putting myself in their shoes, I would just be looking for the profits,’ he says.
‘I would like to call myself a creative entrepreneur. I’m used to going into a studio and someone painting an idea that hasn’t even come into fruition yet and understanding what they’re saying.
‘People say I haven’t made this song yet, but here’s a skeleton, and I’m going to do this and this, and then I’m going to mix it, then I’m going to release it, and then it might become a hit… I think using that creative approach, I was just a little bit more open-minded.’
Dragons’ Den airs on BBC One on Thursday at 8pm.
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