Grime Legends: P MONEY

*THE SYNDICATE DOES NOT EXIST*

South London-bred MC P Money has been championing the new generation of UK grime since he burst onto the scene with the Fatal Assassins crew in the late 2000s. Now he’s positioned as one of the genres top representatives—an international ambassador of the genre bringing his blend of old and new styles to audiences around the globe as well as to his core audience back home.

Now, with the power of legendary pirate-station-turned-record-label Rinse behind him, he’s dropping a new EP next week called Round the Clock.

The title track has already created a sensation, with an infectious, clap-driven hip-hop beat by Loadstar. While the production has a hip-hop feel, P’s battle-inspired lyrics stay true to his grime roots, warning other MCs they may need medical help if they try to challenge him.

You can listen to “Round the Clock” on Soundcloud below, or watch the official video.

The Round the Clock EP includes three additional tracks showcasing P’s lyrical and stylistic diversity. On “Changes,” he teams up with C4 to rhyme about his personal evolution beyond life on the mic. “Mad” is a straight-up braggadocio grime banger built around P’s word of the moment (and the namesake of his latest hashtag campaign and most recent mixtape). For “Missing,” P taps into the dubstep experience that has brought him international acclaim. After a customary slow build, the song explodes on the drop into a blistering, lurching beat over which P, in full contrast, expresses his affections for a gal. As a bonus, there’s also an uptempo UKG remix of “Round the Clock” from Birmingham house and bass duo Cause and Effect.

The EP drops Monday on Rinse, but you can pre-order it now via iTunes.

We were fortunate enough to catch P Money for a quick chat over Skype earlier this week. In the conversation, he breaks down his past and present on the mic, his international success, the current state of grime and its differences with hip-hop, his appreciation for the old school, and, of course, the Round the Clock EP. He also discusses his upcoming album, which he says we can expect in February or March.

Lil Tiger: What got you into MCing?

P Money: Listening to people like So Solid and Dizzee Rascal. I used to listen to them a lot. I noticed everybody used to listen, not just because they done music, but if someone had a mic in their hand, you’d listen. And I felt like I had a story to tell, I had my experiences I wanted to share, so I thought, I’d pick up a mic and make people listen. Literally.

LT: I know you incorporate a lot of old school grime when you perform. How has that been going over?

P: It’s been going amazing. When I perform here in the UK, because everybody remembers when I play something old school, it goes off. It’s like, I trip that memory and everyone’s like, “Oh my god, do you remember …” and everyone goes mad. And when I take it abroad, because it’s so fresh to them, they didn’t even know about it. They have the same reaction. And then I’m educating them like, “Yo, this is old, but get to know it. This is where I come from.” So, everywhere I go, it’s always a big reaction, which is why I always try to encourage more people to remind people of their roots. Remind people of where they actually come from. It’s not a bad thing.

LT: What do you have to say to the people on the U.S. side of things about where grime is at now and what you’re doing with it?

P: There’s a whole load of us doing grime, man. I’m saying, you need to really get on the net. Like, obviously, we ain’t over [there] in the U.S. I hope that more of us do get over there and we’re able to perform grime over there, but if you can, I’m saying, get on YouTube and search us. There’s a whole load of us. There’s a whole load of events going on. There’s actually one happening in like five days from now where every major grime MC, all the up-and-comers, are on the stage at once. And, it probably goes off.

It’s almost similar to a rap battle. You have a whole load of people there and the kind of crowd reactions. Everybody is involved. This is what’s happening over here. And it’s only getting bigger. I hope we can bring it over there soon.

LT: I find it interesting that your own personal history doesn’t come from rap, and I think there’s people out there that don’t realize there’s a whole culture of MCing that’s not based on U.S. rap. How do you feel you’ve developed as an MC without having American MCs as your backdrop?

P: Yeah, I think the reason I’m able to say certain things so fast and have such a different flow is because I didn’t used to listen to rap when I was younger. Even the way we clash is different. Some of us, we didn’t grow up listening to rap and using it as our thing. We do things different over here. I think that just gave us the drive to keep going.

When you follow something else, you almost have to wait for them to do something new to follow that as well. You get to a point where it’s like, well, is this gonna be the same? But because some of us were so different from the get go, we’re always doing something different. We’re always doing something new. And clashing for us, it’s kinda what we knew from the get go. It’s kinda what we did. That’s what we do at our events. We don’t always have a personal clash, but on the stage, you could always say it’s like that. We’re always competing. It’s a very competitive sport. It’s a very competitive genre. That’s just what we are as MCs. We’re animals.

LT: What went into making the new EP?

P: “Round the Clock” is my first proper release for me where I can show people just how diverse I am. It’s got the type of track, where some people might call it rap, but for us, for me, it’s still grime. It’s how Dizzee Rascal was when he first came out in the UK properly, where he had the raw, the energy. When you listen to “Round the Clock” it’s a bouncy track, and it’s like a party track. But when you listen to the actual lyrics, you could almost say its a diss track. I’m actually saying to MCs, you know, anyone wanna battle, let me know. You’re gonna have to call a medic. I’m still giving you that raw, that energy.

I’ve also got other tracks on there where I’m giving you more clever lyrics, like metaphors and clever puns people wouldn’t think of and, like, the deliverance of it. And then I’ve also got another track where I speak about my experiences, changes, the stuff I’m going through in life. So, for me, this release is like the first release where people actually get to realize I can do all sorts of music but still be P Money. This is the start of P Money for some people.