JGrrey: A rainy day plant-shopping with London’s rising songstress

The morning, musician JGrrey and I meet at the Nunhead Gardener in South London it rains heavily and has the sort of painful, sharp cold that really makes it clear winter has begun. Showing up in a comfy, oversized scarf and Aries cardigan, she got the memo too. Within a few minutes, we get straight to work looking through all the indoor and outdoor plants in the garden centre. Walking around, the gardeners give us tips about using coffee grounds in soil and knowing which plants to keep fruit flies away. While she does not buy any plants at the end of our tour – she has over 90 and notes her partner will not be impressed if she comes home with any more – she opts for a full bouquet of orange flowers she says has “Halloween vibes”.

Having a ‘plant mom’ phase seems fairly normal but having almost 100 plants who are actually alive is an accomplishment – one she does not boast about, but is definitely proud of. “My mum was always a huge gardener, she loves plants. I watched her nurture, prune, cut and water them. It was kind of this thing that was just part of my mom’s routine that I never questioned until I was like 16 or 17,” she explained, speaking on the origin of her love for plants. “I remember going to IKEA with my mum and being like, I want to get plant and that’s where it started. Those plants they got when I was 16, over ten years ago, I still have them.”

Before heading to the Prince of Peckham for our sit-down conversation we get a coffee and take a walk through Peckham Rye Park discussing gentrification in south London before seeking shelter from the rain in The Round. As we walk through Peckham Rye and she shows me her favourite food stand, she gets stopped by a camera crew walking around interviewing people on the street. With an up-for-anything sort of nature, she accepts their request to ask her a few questions. Members of the Alpha Course, a religious course aiming to introduce the basics of faith through talks, they quiz her on forgiveness and spirituality. While speaking on such topics randomly at midday on a Friday may seem daunting to some, she works through them with a certain logical ease, which becomes less surprising when she tells me she is a triple Capricorn.

Below she talks about her latest project ‘If Not Now?’, her background and why empowering her community is important to her.

Could you tell us a bit about your background and where you grew up?

JGrrey: I grew up in London. I was kind of born into the system. I started my life in various foster homes, but I was born in Vauxhall. From a young age, I remember being moved around this big place called London, which I thought was a country. Living in such a big city definitely gave me the ability to adapt to many different random situations, people or spaces. It’s something I‘ve carried with me throughout my life. 

I’ve also lived in Manchester, Watford and various other places. I think that growing up in and around London has definitely shaped who I am today. I’m open to trying new things, whether it’s new places, new people, new spaces, cultures, foods, languages, clothes – I’m excited by everything. London is often considered a melting pot of beautiful people and cultures, and it’s a place where everyone is trying to get by and grow in the midst of the city’s hectic pace.

When did you start getting involved with music?

JGrrey: I believe it was around the age of 12 when I began writing poems. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know what it was for. I wasn’t very good at it, but that’s perhaps where I started to form a connection with words, rhyming and crafting sentences with a rhythmic quality. I experimented with various ways of writing poems, like finding unconventional rhymes and patterns. I remember finding this fascinating at a young age, even though I didn’t necessarily realise it was leading me to music.

What type of music did you listen to growing up and how has it influenced your taste in music?

JGrrey: I listened to a lot of Beyoncé. My dad is a DJ, so he would often be spinning his sets during the day for events that would take place in the evening. It depended on whether he was doing mobile DJ gigs, parties, weddings, or bar mitzvahs – you name it. 

I remember being really young and listening to my dad’s music. He unapologetically blasted a mix of songs, including tracks from artists like Amy [Winehouse], Beyoncé, Frank Sinatra, Kelis, and many others. It was such a diverse range of music. Back in his DJ days, he had to do a lot of research to discover new music.

Where was the starting point for your new EP?

JGrrey: I remember when I was writing, there was a lot of ‘song and dance’ in my tracks. Similar to like ‘Dream' or ‘Pretty Insane’, ‘There’s13’ was freestyle. I heard the track and just pressed record, the track itself is my first scratch. I really like keeping as many scratch vocals as I can. Even in ‘Dream’, or my latest single, ‘The Bottom Line’ if I do say so, is a good scratch vocal, and it doesn’t make any sense. The lyrics are absolute nonsense, but it feels good. I’ve seen people listen to that song, they’re singing along with meaning. I don’t know what it means, it’s open to interpretation.

How different have you found working on this project to your past projects?

JGrrey: Really hard because I care about it. I think the setup in which I was making music previously was a setup around men who worked in the music industry. Now I am around women working in the industry and I think that that’s completely changed my perspective because I’m aware, now more than ever, that I, as a woman of colour, a queer woman of colour, need to continue to release music for people like me. I don’t need to write a song for the pop charts. I don’t need to write a song that’s got a great chorus that might go. I need to write songs that other people like me can listen to, feel empowered by, feel uplifted, consoled, reassured and see themselves in.

The cast for your ‘Sick of Me’ music video was made up of entirely women of colour, what was the process behind that?

JGrrey: So it wasn’t just the cast; it was the whole set, the whole everybody from the beginning of production, storyboarding, behind the camera crew, cast, everyone. It was something that I was really active in trying to get, and I did it. I think there are only two men in the whole process of the music video, and it’s not that I’m trying to stop men from doing anything. It’s that I’m trying to make a point. It took me three days to find one woman in the industry. It was really just trying to uplift anyone other than men because the song isn’t about men. The song is for Black women and non-binary people. It is for trans people who I feel like the whole world is against them at the moment with regard to the headlines and the things politicians are saying about their existence.

When you did finally find all the people to shoot, how was it on set? What was the energy like? 

JGrrey: Everyone was just saying, wow, what a difference it can make when the whole room is a community and uplifting one another safely. No one feels like they are a target, no one feels worried, and everyone understands that we are a community of respect. The energy in the room was so validating. All of these people came together just because I thought I was gonna do it and we did it. It was a beautiful thing – very validating.

What do you hope people take away from listening to this project?

JGrrey: I hope they listen to it and remember that everybody is so multifaceted. You know, even you and me sitting here now, I’m showing you one side of myself, you’re showing me one side of yourself. Hopefully, this project will remind people when they listen to it that they are not just one thing, they are everything. You can be whoever you want to be. You want to try anything you want to do. If it brings you joy and doesn’t harm other people, pursue your interests. There’s nothing you can’t do.

If Not Now? is out now.