“What I’ve really got to do though is travel the world,” Wiley tells me. “I don’t really want to sit down here. I’ve been here for 31 years.”
The so-called ‘Godfather Of Grime’, the UK rap style that emerged around 2000, has a new lease on life. Around two weeks ago he leaked eleven zip files full of unreleased tunes – including a whole album, The Elusive, that was going to be out later this year. And the files aren’t just bad mp3 versions – they are full cd quality files. What’s more, he did it all via Twitter as well as firing his manager at the same time. It sent the online Grime communities into a frenzy and even managed to bring down the Grime Forum website with all the downloads.
Speculation was rife that Wiley had gone mad or was in a meltdown but the story that has emerged, and the rational artist on the end of the phone with me, directly contradicts those theories.
He continues with his new worldwide focus: “What I really need to do is – I need to spend the next five years travelling and meeting the commitments of my music and the labels around the world, not just in England. If I stay in England it’s a small horizon. There’s a way that you can become worldwide and go to every territory and do the interviews, press and studio time with the musicians there.” Wiley is starting that process by returning to Australia for Stereosonic after the cancellation of most of his club tour last year due to personal reasons.
But his vision goes further: “You see Timbaland and people like that. They do music on a scale where – say if he’s at home and he decides, ‘You know what I want to go to Holland today cause I wanna record with blah blah blah.’ That’s the power I wanna have.”
Isn’t that far fetched though? “You can make music where ever you are and whoever you are. If you’re someone and people like you, and you like them, and you can bond and make music that will make money!” says Wiley. “Then you can be wherever in the world bro. But what you’ve got to keep doing is to keep moving. And in England they don’t think outside the box and they think London is the world. And that’s not really good enough for me and I need to know and see that it’s not. I need to go and see these other places because I want to spread the vibe. I don’t just what to be here.”
He concludes: “The world is a big place and if you can get it right then it’s only good for them places. And as long as I pay my taxes then we’re live!” he says with a laugh.
Wiley has been working at a frantic pace since he released the zip files. “I’m just trying to vocal as many as possible,” he explains, “because I know that there’s always gonna be one out of a batch of tunes that someone is gonna like. If they don’t like them you keep going because that’s how you find hits. Otherwise if you just make one hit and then you wait and you wait that’s like one hit wonder stylee and I don’t really want to be like that. Know what I mean? I just wanna have song after song.”
He explains the sharing of the zip files: “So I’ve leaked them to get the worldly vibe. I looked at Drake and Lil’ Wayne and saw the way they leaked. And sometimes if you leak good music and people are like, ‘why the hell did he do that?’ – that is when you become the person that you really are. Because they see now that I make loads of music. I go around, I shop, I try to get deals. Sometimes the music goes unheard. That’s two years old music that I’ve just got eleven zip files together and I let them go.”
And Wiley also achieved another aim: “So everyone realises, ‘Oh Wiley has been working but the labels ain’t gave us what he’s been makin! They just give it to us in dribs and drabs or they hide what he’s really been making.’”
It’s like a new beginning: “Yeah definitely man, definitely! So my whole point why I even leaked the tunes is because I said right cool.. If I leak these tunes that is a challenge for me to make the next twenty tunes build on top of these zip files.”
But just as importantly it was a refreshing of Wiley’s own outlook: “I realised that we’re living in the time of downloads. Sometimes you have to use the free downloads thing. You have to get in the game. I didn’t have to give it away but I did and the love that has come back is immense bro – I’ve never had it before. So I know that it is definitely a new day.”
But what of firing his manager? “I respect every single person. I respect every person I have worked with – no matter what. If they fired me, or I fired them, or we fell out. The whole point of us falling out or moving on and not working together.. like with this manager John Woolf, the most recent manager, I fired him from being my manager not because I hate him – I think he’s a cool person – but I need him in a different position in the company. I need him not to really be my manager. He needs to be a different job title so that I don’t feel this way towards him.”
Things are becoming much more clear and Wiley’s thinking is clear too: “Cause I like him but not as my manager. So we switch it so he’s my partner maybe so we do stuff together instead of… do you know what I mean? Cause he comes from the business side of it which is really really good – I need a business person. But then obviously a business person who’s quite clever might try to be too clever on a different day and then when I work it out in four weeks time then I’m angry at him. You know what I mean? So that’s all that is. But everyone else – like XL – every label that I have worked with I’ve got so much love for them.”
But the love goes deeper than the business: “Not because they gave me money – money was part of it – but that’s not why. The reason why I love them is that they didn’t give up no matter what. If I walked out or couldn’t handle it any more they were understanding. And they could have been much more angry because they did give me money for the music. So I can’t hate them and I never will. All I will do is look back and say ‘cool, maybe I’ll work with them in a different way’. I won’t be underneath them, they won’t be underneath me, maybe we’ll be equal.”
But Wiley is holding himself to high standards: “If I fail or I don’t meet the needs of what I need to then it’s gonna be my fault. So that’s why I want it to be my fault – then I can’t blame someone else. I can’t rely on anyone and I just have to keep going in my own brain. It’s hard though man because most of the people in the world who work as hard as me in other countries – like in the US – they do less. They don’t have to worry about all the things I have to worry about. Do you know what I mean? Their managers, everyone, has got everything so tight that all they have to do is just fuck about really. ‘Scuse my language.”
Fans are eagerly anticipating Wiley’s next album later this year. “Since I released the zip files two weeks ago I have done like a tune or two tunes a day since then,” he tells me. “So I’ve got like 20 tunes for my new album, King Richard The 2nd. I’ll try and get it out this year, I’ll be honest with you, but if it don’t then it will come out early next year. If I can get a single out around the end of September and then release the album straight after that, and then do another single at the end of November then I’m live. It will be a tight schedule but I’m gonna talk to my label now and see what they’re saying. Cause I just got a record deal with All Around The World.”
For someone who has been in the game and acknowledged as an originator for so long it is great to feel such determination. “This time I just wanna remain on the label. I wanna sell a couple hundred thousand records – I don’t just want a deal. Know what I’m saying bruv? I need the numbers. I was watching a little documentary and the manager said, ‘numbers don’t lie’. And he’s right. Because what they do is the highest numbers is who you are bruv. And that’s what I wanna be.”
Wiley plays at Stereosonic nationally around Australia in November/December this year.
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