An afternoon on Deptford Beach with Jeshi

A thick, grey covering of clouds hangs above the London skyline as I make my way down to south-east London to meet Jeshi. The rapper, who originally hails from Walthamstow, broke through back in 2022 after the release of his arresting debut album Universal Credit. His visceral bars and left-field production choices instantly isolated him as one of the most exciting artists to emerge from the UK scene, and his newest offering, The Great Stick, released last month, sees the rapper continuing to push forward.

We meet on Deptford Beach, a small breakaway from the city with a striking view of the docklands. It’s a suitable meeting place: The Great Stink has the same name as the famed 1858 event, when unusually hot weather made the Thames – which used to be pumped full of human waste – really stinky. Although the artwork for Jeshi’s EP may suggest a direct link, the rapper says the title has a more “metaphorical” meaning. “It’s a way of talking about the stinky shit that goes on in life sometimes,” he explains. “Coming off a project like Universal Credit, which was quite conceptual, I wanted to keep that up.”

Jeshi makes no bones about his experiences in the city. His tracks are raw, and often bleak, depictions of the grim realities of living in London when you’re broke, frustrated, and left with no clear path to break out of the cycle (best presented by the standout track “Bad Stomach”, featuring Jawnino). Against the ice-cold backdrop of the sparse beat, Jeshi plunges into the depths of his psyche, discussing his past and the pressures of his success with bars like “Don’t want to water down or distil... can’t take the grief of losing what’s real” and “Killed the old me, sat at the funeral/at the funeral smirk, in 110s and my best shirt/conversation making it worse, prefer if you tell me what you want first”.

As our stroll along the gloomy Deptford Beach ends, we head up to his friend Cajm’s house. Cajm, a member of the post-punk outfit Powerplant, headed up production on The Great Stink alongside Max Frith. Both musicians provided a striking backdrop to Jeshi’s verses, having recorded the EP in various spots around the UK. Being away from London allowed some time away from the pressures of the city and also the standard routines of recording studios. “You’re able to have a completely clear head and see things with laser precision when you’re working on music,” Jeshi explains. “It was almost like a writing and recording camp for everyone involved.”

“We had a big wall of notes for the project, including one that said ‘No Universal Credit themes’,” he continues. “With [The Great Stink], I wanted to make something that just felt a little more left-field and free. It feels like a big shift from whatever I was doing previously, which for me is what keeps it exciting. It’s great if people like the music, but first and foremost, I need to be excited by what I’m doing. I wanted to create something that sounds really new and interesting.”

Sonically, the project sees Jeshi venturing into an even more singular sound, with closest comparison points being US-based hip-hop experimenters like JPEGMAFIA and Injury Reserve, whose styles are focused on creating abrasive canvases where syncopated, hard-hitting drums are matched with obscure and microspliced samples and granular synthesisers. “Also on the board, we had two artists: Dizzee Rascal and Limp Bizkit,” Jeshi explains. “If you look at Kid A by Radiohead and Boy In Da Corner by Dizzee Rascal, I think they’re the exact same in how futuristic and alternative they are and in terms of intent and pushing things forward. It’s hard sometimes in Black culture and Black music, things just get pigeonholed so much. They wouldn’t look at Dizzee how they look at Thom Yorke, but I think they’re the same.”

“I love Universal Credit, but the problem I had after was people pigeonholing it into this political thing,” he continues. “Obviously, there was a lot of social commentary in there, but I didn’t put it out to change the world. I called it Universal Credit to be humorous and I think nuances like that can go over people’s heads.”

Jeshi’s often humorous approach to otherwise bleak subjects separates him from so much one-dimensional socio-political commentary. The single “Paid Partnership” serves as the best example of this, where the hook, “You my boohoo man/You my pretty little thing” as well as sarcastic jibes like “I got a face, I’m in the gym inches of my waist/I used to think I looked like Peter Kay, now I’m tearing up Clapham on a Tuesday” shine a spotlight the superficial lifestyles of influencers. “Humour is really important in music as well,” he says, citing old Kanye albums such as The College Dropout as a standout example of how powerful irreverent music can be.

After listening to cuts that didn’t make the project, as well as some newer stuff Jeshi, Cajm and Max have been working on, we head back to Deptford for a spot of lunch and a couple of beers at the Dog and Bell pub. Life has changed considerably for Jeshi in the past couple of years: he was still on universal credit at the time of recording his debut album a couple of years ago; today, he’s just come back from touring Asia. “With financial struggle, it’s hard to be yourself. It’s hard to do anything when you have that cloud looming over your head,” he says. But with success, it can be easy to feel guilty about leaving your old self behind, as referenced in the track “Bad Stomach”. “As you progress through life, guilt is something you do have a lot of, you always feel like you should be doing more for your family, you always feel you should be doing more for your friends,” he says, finally. “Life is much better, though. You can’t forget where you come from, it’s the thing that makes you who you are and what gives you a balanced perspective. At the end of the day, we’re all blessed to some degree. Things could always be worse.”

Jeshi’s new EP The Great Stink is out now

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