On the future of grime: Jawnino and Vivian Oparah in conversation

Hoodie up, drawstrings pulled. Head rests against a chilly night bus window. Reflections on the glass blend with deserted London streets as the bus makes its trundling way back across the river. This is about the closest I can get to describing Jawnino’s music, whose intimate, train-of-thought meanderings have found a voice for a generation raised on grime, afters and austerity. It’s the product of the radio he smuggled into his bedroom late at night as a child, secretly listening to grime sets on Mode and Rinse FM, followed by appearances on those same radio stations as an adolescent, and culminating in his freshly-released full-length debut – 40.

Jawns joins the call camera-off, choosing to remain masked-up in all public appearances. He is soon followed by long-time friend and fellow artist Bunny, perhaps more widely known as Vivian Oparah, star of the critically acclaimed rom-com Rye Lane. The film, much like Jawnino’s music, finds beauty in south London’s Peckham. In stark contrast to Jawnino’s disembodied voice, however, Vivian is energetic and animated, frequently blurting out Jawnino’s closely-guarded real identity before collapsing into laughter. The conversation is full of “I’m dead’s” as the two retrace tales of their prodigious youth, and of the chance meetings with numerous other artists that have also since ended up pushing British music forward. It all started as a bit of fun at parties, but there was a sense that the two were grappling with the pressure of eyes gradually falling upon them.

In view of the release of the 40 mixtape, Jawnino and Vivian pick apart the experiences and influences that make up his enigmatic sound.

So how did you guys meet?

Jawnino: You know what, I’ve actually been trying to think about this, but I feel like it was through Lemar [M.i.C.].

What were your first impressions of each other?

Vivian Oparah: I remember just thinking that Jawns was a sick, sick, sick, rapper. You know when you feel like someone’s got something very special? Even back then, I just remember thinking, he’s got like sick stage presence and sick bars. But then, as a person, I thought you were quite shy but in a sweet way. I didn’t think you were stush. I just thought you were shy.

Jawnino: I think it was a thing you grew into it, init. We grew into each other, but the energy was always unmatched.

Back in 2019, Vivian reviewed your single ‘It’s Cold Out’ for Resident Advisor. How has music and life changed since then? 

Vivian Oparah: Yeah, life has changed so much since then. It’s crazy to think that I was working at RA for two years. I just remember really feeling like ‘wait, this is an electronic music magazine. Why is no one talking about grime?’ That infuriated me, because it obviously talked about dubstep and I think there is a slight racial bias in that because grime is always fronted by like a lot of Black kids whereas dubstep is now quite whitewashed. Jawns you can speak for yourself, but I feel like ‘It’s Cold Out’ was a turning point for you. After that, I had to go back to acting, so I feel like that song was also a turning point for me. 

I’ve heard you mention before that hearing the ‘It’s Cold Out’ snippet was sort of like an ‘a-ha!’ moment. Where did that vision come from? 

Jawnino: Well, it was just the stuff I was listening to, even like Morrissey and The Streets, people expressing themselves and talking slower on faster beats. I thought there wasn’t really anyone making that in the grime world. So yeah, when I found that, I think it changed everything. 

During the RA review, Vivian made a pretty apt comparison to Wiley’s eskimo sound. What attracted you to those sounds in the first place?

Jawnino: My dad had a mad collection on iTunes, he just used to save everything, you know, bare hard drives. There was like a Wiley Tunnel Vision tape, I can’t remember which one it was, but I was like ‘yoo, this is fucked’. I got into it more and more, and I was listening to Logan [Sama] on Kiss at midnight. I started sneaking this radio into my room because my mum wouldn’t let me listen to music late at night. I remember the next day I would download all of the songs he’d played the night before and just have them on repeat. It was only like me and one other guy in my school that was listening to that kind of stuff. But yeah, that was my entry point.

You, Brbko, Kibo, M.i.C. and a bunch of others have all been redefining the grime sound for a while now. How did these collaborations come about? 

Jawnino: We were just going out to different shows and parties and we all just happened to be making sounds that align. I don’t know, someone was saying the other day that the underground thing just doesn’t really exist how it used to, with everyone meeting up at parties and making music. It’s more internet-based now. 

Vivian Oparah: Me, M.i.C., LCY, Fauzia and a couple of others all lived in a house. We called it Summerhill.

Jawnino: Big ups Summerhill!

Vivian Oparah: We used to have parties all the time, people would always come through to that house and end up meeting other people who were making music. I think that was a vantage point for loads of other cool minds coming together as well. But yeah, you don’t really have stuff like that now, I can’t really think of a link up point or a place that I would go. I used to think it’s because we’ve got a bit older...

Jawnino: ...I was just about to say that!

Vivian Oparah: Nah but I don’t think it is that! I really don’t know where I would go. There used to be like Keep Hushes and Boiler Rooms all the time. There just felt like an active scene and you’d see people around at shows and you could track people’s progression really easily. Now, it’s a bit more smoke and mirrors and internet stuff.

Do you still see yourself as the new generation of grime, or has it become something of its own now? 

Vivian Oparah: No! It’s pop! I only say that because I feel like sometimes people’s ideas of genre can then become limiting to the artist. Pop is so free, like Dua Lipa can be in the pop space with Doja Cat at the same time and they sound nothing alike. For me, pop is someone making something super idiosyncratic, then creating the context and making it viable and popular within their space. So Jawns is a pop star, he’s grown into a pop star.

Jawnino: You should get back into write-ups. 

Vivian Oparah: I’m just so excited. You’ve got artists like MIKE and Ojerime on there, and even just imagining what that would sound like – it’s probably something you can’t define right? So it’s pop.

Jawnino: I’d say the sound is more like a UK sound rather than anything else, because it covers so many different UK genres. I wouldn’t really say grime or anything that narrows it down, but grime is where it started.

“Everyone loves to complain about London but we love how it has brought together so many different groups of people and nationalities. It’s just a beautiful melting pot” – Jawnino

The UK is super central to your identity, too. What I find really interesting, though, is when you talk about London it almost sounds like a traumatic space. There are lyrics like ‘it’s cold out’ or ‘I hate this place’. How do you square those two things?

Jawnino: It’s both. I would say I hate and love it at the same time. Everyone loves to complain about London, but we love how it has brought together so many different groups of people and nationalities. It’s just a beautiful melting pot.

You both have fictional and physical connections to Peckham Rye, but, where Rye Lane’s Peckham is very colourful, Jawnino’s seems pretty dark and cold. 

Vivian Oparah: Yeah, I think that’s the two sides of the coin that Jawns was talking about. There’s the Rye Lane version of London, where you can just meet someone and have all these mad experiences in one day. It’s kind of like an open-world RPG game, you can just keep going and going and that’s kind of how nightlife can feel here. You can bounce from things, it’s never-ending, the city is so alive. But also the city is so dead and gray all the time. Because of how grey it is I feel like there’s a melancholy in all of our bones and that can be tough as well, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. You can’t have the light without the dark. 

Jawnino: Peckham Rye has changed so much, I saw some guys playing cricket on the street the other day and I was like ‘yo!’

Vivian Oparah: But at the same time, there’s an auntie shouting down the street!

Jawnino: But I feel like over time, it’s changed for the worse. Gentrification hasn’t really completed Peckham yet, but it’s halfway there. Or 75 per cent.

Viv, is there anything you’d like to ask Jawnino while we’re here?

Vivian Oparah: People often ask me a version of this question a lot, so I’d like to hear your answer to it. A lot of the shit we did started as really juvenile and playful. We’d just be trying things and going studio, it was so bouncy. Then, when you get to a certain stage, it starts getting really serious and all the fun’s gone. So, I guess, how do you protect your heart and soul when it feels like the industry is trying to suck all of the joy out of it?

Jawnino: I think, most importantly, it’s about the people around you before you get to that point. If you go clear with the same team, they’ll make it feel like it was at the beginning, even if all that stuff is happening around you.

The 40 mixtape is out now