So myself and Mollie caught up with Krucial K1dd, met up with him on ends, joined briefly by Chuckie and Meter4rmsouth.
They were having a table tennis war and we got down to business with Krucial…
How did you get into music?
“Ah, I think the same as everyone uno, listening to other people, Dizzee… Dizzee and Wiley, they birthed so many MC’s. Deja Vu. I literally come home from school, rusheddd home from school, get in about 4 o’ clock watch a double episode of Dragonball Z, think it was Pokemon then Dragonball Z, then it was 6 o’ clock RUFF SQWAD. Then 8 – 10pm NASTY, 10 – 12pm ROLL DEEP and I was just locked in. I didn’t start MC’ing straight away, from that I was DJ’ing, I think there’s a lot of DJ’s out there that are MC’s now that sort of got the same buzz, when your mixing its all good, but when your mixing your looking at the decks, but you wanna look at whats going on, coz the hypes with the mic, so eventually I just switched it up.”
Where are you from where did you grow up?
“Originally I’m from South London, grew up on Old Kent Road , end of primary school I moved to Islington. Growing up in South was hard, I enjoyed it but when we moved to Islington it was a change, it was different. First time I’ve ever said that in an interview, only person, Meter knows… Meter4rmSouth knows so every time he hears a bar and I’m saying North, he will always give me the eye, like to say I know where your from lol but I’ve been up here for long now, I was doing music down here before anything Grime, I was mixing with people in East and I’ll say that I brang grime to this area. Coz people didn’t know it and people thought I was from East coz I was rolling with people from East. I was listening to it today, ‘Top Of The Compass’ my mix tape, there’s a tune called ‘Cally Riddim’ (That’s the area ‘Cally’) and anyone I knew that spat, even if they weren’tgood I put them on. One of my good friends at the time, he’s not even an MC but I just forced him to just get on. That there for me was good because my mix tape travelled and now I feel that I can say that I was the voice for this area. Obviously before it was about postcodes, everyone screaming their ends and I was screaming my ends LOUD.”
Did you work with levels and ironik etc… back in the day?
“Yh, Wifey Riddim, I had a short verse on the end of it. You lot know the old stuff, these two here are my boys Chuckie and Meter4rmSouth, his coming back with his collective Nu Brand Flexx, got some new stuff coming out.”
I like old skool mc’s and I like to look at what everyone is doing to stay relevant, it’s a mad time for the scene right now, there’s so much versatility and creativeness, its intriguing, what are you up to?
“Staying relevant, ill be honest, only in the last year I’ve started messing about with music again, and that’s only through DDark and Ironik, our old roots, I still chat to them and go to their shows, I see them perform and look at the crowd, thought this crowd know my lyrics as well as theirs but I’m not performing, and I felt I was missing out, it was fun back then and its fun now, so in the last year I’ve been doing little bits, getting good feedback, done a couple features and I’ve got my EP coming: ‘From Morning’.
What I mean by ‘From Morning’ is that I’ve been doing this from early, when you listen to it, whether you know me from before or not, you’ll get
the message that I’ve been doing this from early.”
(I’m there like when you say morning you mean AM, not grief? lol)
What has been the most memorable moment in your career?
“My most favourite time was going down to BBC 1Xtra, uninvited, on my pedal bike. I ride pedal bike everywhere.
So literally I was at home listening to 1Xtra, I dont know what DJ it was, I heard him playing GRIME instrumentals, I just went there told the security, said Krucial’s here, he said who? I said Krucial’s here, tell him Krucial’s here, they made a phone call… they looked at my bike. I said I’ll leave it there. I went upstairs, sprayed, did my ting, come home. Jumped straight on RWD mag, saw all the comments and I just thought that just happened out of nowhere, so for me that was a buzz.
You had a lot of listeners that night, from that spontaneous thing?
“Yh I was just at home listening, thinking I wanna spray and he ain’t got an MC. So I just went there, but there’s been like loads of raves and performances that I’ve enjoyed, but for me… I felt like what I did is something I shouldn’t have been able to do.“
Yh like a lot of people couldn’t do what you did, now.
“I couldn’t do that now, I know that for a fact but I enjoyed that.”
Are you taking on any new ventures?
“Outside of music? Course, that’s the whole reason I left music really. Music back then wasn’t paying what it’s paying now, so I had to do what I had to do to make sure the money was right, so I don’t have to depend on a booking to make sure the bills are paid. I’ve done all that now so I can come back into music the way I like it.”
How long have you been doing youth work?
“I been doing this since before I was a DJ, this was my first job and will be my last job, everything else works around this, everyone knows me, I’m staff, its comfortable and a good environment.What I’ve done, they know what I’ve done they respect that and I’ve given it back to them.”
So its something that will always stick with you?
“Yh definitely, when I first started I was working in the music part, as a supervisor on the decks and stuff, it got mad, when we had a building down the road, because I was working there people were coming there, it got to a point where north, east, south, west was there, it turned into a madness, uno how it is, someone spraying a bar, someone sends after them, ends up getting shutdown.”
Who do you think has the most classic clash?
“I think it was Flirta D and Ghetto in Eskimo Dance, Meter?”
“Yh it was Eskimo Dance when it was in SE1 club around 2004”
“Mad, Ghetto was on one stage, Flirta on the other, the camera was literally going from side to side, obviously, it wasn’t Ghetto’s new flow, his new flow is more for riddims and stuff, not so much for raves I believe, but before he had bare hype bars, but anyone that can go against Flirta… Mad… Coz obviously Flirta in a rave is a machine. That clash there was just mad, if I was in the crowd I would have stood still, took it all in, once it finished then I can rave again. It was just mad.”
Favourite trainer of all time?
“You know what I’m gonna say, right now all my trainers are different, but what I will say, what people knew me for back in the day, Airmax 90’s I had like every colour throughout college, went to one shop in Bethnal Green, I 
saved up my EMA money , for these trainers that were £180 do the math I was saving my EMA £30 a week to make sure I had the exclusives (my EMA paid for new
tracksuit bottoms every other week LOL #AngelJDSports) SO I’m gonna go with Airmax 90’s but I don’t like them now.”
Who would you like to collaborate with?
“You know what most of the people I enjoy listening to I’ve already made tunes with them. I cant put a name on it, all I can say is that if anyone’s making a tune, I wont just jump on a tune with anyone from anywho, I’ll listen to it, if it’s a vibe, it’s a vibe, I’ll jump on it. If I like it I’ll jump on.I cant say anyone in particular.”
What are you listening to right now?
“I’m listening to a song that I featured on recently, I’ve been listening to it for about 5 days. It’s coming out soon we shot the video in Amsterdam, myself and D Dark, it’s called ‘Shot To The Head’, I’ll play it for you in a sec, I’ve also done a track with SubTen called ‘Madting Sadting’. My picture for this is like a DJ can play it, even if he don’t know who we are, I can see a DJ playing it saying guys I think this is called ‘Shot To The Head’, I don’t know who the artists are but I like it so I’m playing it.”
Last beef?
“I don’t have beef, I can’t tell you a name but I can tell you a time… When I used to sign in on MSN… (cracking up) Someone would pop up and be telling me watch when I see you and I don’t know who it was… I think it was because back in the day everyone was stiff, even if you knew all my songs and come to my show to see me… But then stand there stiff and don’t wanna show me that your showing me love. I’d go to an open event, look at Twitter where people follow you, you go to an open event, there might be someone there that follows you and you walk past them because your not friends they just follow you… when they get home it may be ah Krucial’s a dickhead he walked past me or he thinks hes too big, its easy for them to say things like that.
It wasn’t really a civil thing.”
“But now everything is more friendly, back then there wasn’t social media to make it easier.
If I’ve met someone once, now I’ll just say kool, but back then on MSN it wasn’t like that, I’d get messages saying watch when you come back to these ends and I wouldn’t even know what ends I’ve been in.”
“Im gonna big up D DARK coz he gave me the lowdown.”
Krucial will be releasing his EP: ‘From Morning’ real soon so keep an eye out!
For updates on Krucial K1DD follow;
PS4 – Krucial_K1DD (For the FIFA gang)
SGX
One thought on “A Chat With Krucial K1DD”