“WE WANT CHE! WE WANT CHE!” A legion of bolshy teenagers and early twenty-somethings are growing increasingly restless as the clock ticks past 9pm at London’s sold-out Electric Brixton and they await the arrival of the man they’ve all come to see. Unperturbed by the stifling temperature inside the venue, a few fans don large furry bunny heads in the style of the Atlanta rapper’s curious character creation Sayso. Almost as if to briefly placate their demands, those in attendance get a quick glimpse of the 19-year-old Che waving at them and taking the scene in from an overhead balcony shortly thereafter.

Five minutes later, the house lights go down and the crowd surges forward en masse. A 1920s ballroom music intro soon gives way to a voice introducing the “Bass God”, and Che finally emerges to the glittering melodies and bit-crushed 808s of self-produced cut “Million Dollar Mansion” from this year’s Fully Loaded EP. What follows is bedlam, as the rapper and his hype man roll through more than 20 tracks in just under an hour – much of them lifted from last year’s critical breakthrough REST IN BASS – and repeatedly call on those ahead of them to “open that shit up,” inciting mosh pits from left to right.

“I feel like I’m at the peak of my performance ability right now,” Che tells me backstage just a few hours before this scene unravels. “The path that I’ve taken has been quite slow and steady, so as new opportunities come up, I’m nothing but thankful. At the same time though, I’m now ready to just go ahead and show people exactly why I should be here.” 

I meet Che five hours before he’s due on stage; he’s shirtless and just settling in, having been driven down to London from a show in Manchester the previous night. This comes only two days after he had got into a semi-viral fight with fellow underground rapper Nine Vicious while shopping at Selfridges. A sizable group of fans are already starting to gather outside Brixton Electric, determined to get the best spot once doors open. Meanwhile, the rapper and his crew aren’t happy that the venue hasn’t changed the overhead facade listing to reflect that he’s playing tonight – after all, they say, he’s sold the place out. (When I return to the venue later, this oversight has been duly corrected.)

Before our interview, Che spends some time considering tattoo ideas, having called in an artist to give him some new ink while we talk. He ultimately settles on getting it done on the left side of his chest, just below his recreation of Trevor Brown’s “Black Eye Madonna”, that tattoo being an homage to the cover of Crystal Castles’ breakout 2006 EP Alien Practice. “She was fire,” he says of Alice Glass, the duo’s iconic vocalist, as we get on to discussing them. “When I go out on stage and put on eyeshadow or other stuff, it’s because of Alice. She’s a big inspiration to me.”

Che, born Chase Shaun Mitchell, is one of the figureheads of an ever-radical, ear-damaging corner of rage and trap that cares little for masculine preconceptions about fashion and wearing make-up. “I don’t care what anybody has to say about that, and I stand for people being able to express themselves that way,” he says. “I’m one of those people who will happily go outside in a crazy outfit because that’s what I like, and it’s how I choose to express myself.” A recent trip to Paris Fashion Week saw him meet one of his fashion idols, Rick Owens, whose items he says he wears almost every day. “They’re loud clothes that are black; they make your head turn,” he summarises when asked about the designer’s appeal.

The rapper also walked a fashion show for the first time in Paris this June. Decked out in purple trousers, a leather shirt and knee-high boots for Bazo 1199, he says he told the stylists involved that he wanted to be a cowboy. The look, he adds, was partly inspired by Lenny Kravitz, whom he names as one of his style icons.

Though Che’s recent output and aesthetic has taken significant cues from the metal he got into as a teenager – think Suicidal Tendencies, Marilyn Manson and Ozzy Osborne – he’s firmly a product of Atlanta, where he grew up as an only child. Recalling rides in his stepdad’s tow truck as a kid while listening to the music of Bankroll Fresh, he says Atlanta trap always stuck with him from that point onwards. Now though, as he steps into adulthood, he’s looking to leave the Georgia city and get a house elsewhere. “Atlanta hasn’t got much going for me anymore,” he says. “I pay my respect to it, of course, and it has the best artists. All my inspirations and the people I look up to took the step to look beyond Atlanta though, and I feel like it’s my turn now.”

Che’s effortless ability to straddle an outré line between rap and metal is perhaps one of the greatest appeals of his current output. The latter influence comes through best in the thrash metal drum fills of “DOE DEER” and caustic vocal delivery of “ON FLEEK”, both from REST IN BASS. These distinct musical worlds are also reflected in the cross-section of an average crowd at a Che gig. In London, wide-eyed teens in basketball jerseys and shorts mosh side-by-side with make-up-clad goths, dressed all in black. The night’s pre-show playlist, meanwhile, nimbly rotates between Playboi Carti and Nettspend standards, and punishing metal tunes.

My meeting with Che comes almost exactly a year on from the release of REST IN BASS. “I definitely had a direction that I was going for with it from the start,” he says of the record that can stake a claim as the most innovative rage album since Carti’s Whole Lotta Red. “It was mainly inspired by the music of Marilyn Manson, and obviously Carti in a more direct way.” Though Che has appreciated the critical praise he’s received for the record, the overall reaction to it went much as he expected. “People loved it, but also some people hated it. That’s a reflection on my whole career. But it’s like, ‘Listen to my album, and if you hate it, at least you listened to it.’”

REST IN BASS signalled a significant change in direction for Che, arriving off the back of the sugary sweet melodies and escapist party anthems of 2024 breakthrough album Sayso Says, as well as 2023 debut mixtape closed captions, which was produced and recorded while the rapper was still just 16. Loaded with bass-boosted 808s, head-spinning beat switches, and autotune-aided vocals that alternate between baby-voice coos and all-out mania, last year’s LP, and its companion deluxe record, ENCORE, were signals of intent: Che is determined to stand out from the crowd amid an abundance of increasingly humdrum rage music.

All of this begs the question, though: where does he go next? Che takes a minute to consider his answer. “Honestly, I want to just keep amplifying the swag that I’m on for now,” he says as the tattoo needle continues to whirr away at his chest. “I wanna turn it up even more, because my fans are loving it, and I couldn’t care less about the mass population.” As he takes in the adoration of the thousands of people in front of him on stage later that night, it’s hard to blame him for wanting to keep riding the wave. In Che’s words: “I’m dropping music for myself, and if you wanna listen, you’re invited.”