Kojey Radical: 'I'm here now, you're going to hear me'

"There's nothing you can really do to describe that moment just before you get on stage."

Before Kojey Radical performs at Lafayette in London - capacity 600 - he has something to eat and some shots of tequila.

Whatever the size of the venue, he's not nervous about the performance.

"A stage is a stage and a crowd is a crowd. I care about the people. I don't care what the banner above the stage is."

This attitude explains why Kojey didn't know he had been booked for Parklife festival in Manchester until "two minutes before" the general public did.

"My team know I don't care," he tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

Kojey's relationship with his fans, rather than pursuing big crowds, has helped him grow a loyal, long-time fanbase.

"I see people in the audience that I've been seeing since 2014."

The 29-year-old's creativity and talent has been shining through for years, and he's previously been nominated for three MOBO awards.

But despite several EPs, he's never released a full-on, bona-fide album... until now.

"I know it's amazing," he smiles. "But I've got to sit here until 4 March when everyone else can press play and know it's amazing with me."

Fans have already had a flavour of what's to come in his song Gangsta, which celebrates the strong women in his life.

He says his mum is at the top of his "pyramid" and has been the "driving force" in his life.

"When I think of strength, that's who I think about - mumsy. Whenever we stray off the path, there's a voice that guides us back and that voice for me is my mum's."

His sister, who's his co-manager, also helped raise him and he also praises the mother of his son, who wrote a book while she was pregnant.

"I'm watching all these women around me just killing the game on a daily basis."

Life could have turned out differently for Kojey, as he graduated uni with a degree in fashion illustration.

"I could always draw. I love fashion. I was good at creative direction. The actual only thing I probably wasn't that great at was music."

He says it's a story he's told "a million times" but he went from "art to illustration to writing stories to poetry to spoken word to sound design to music".

"Music was my calling," he says.

The gig at Lafayette is part of the Music Venue Trust's Revive Live tour, which aims to highlight smaller, grassroots music venues hit hard by the lockdowns during the pandemic.

"These are the kind of venues you really make memories in. You remember how close you were to the artists you came to see. You even remember the bar. For a lot of people, those are the feelings they've been missing."

Kojey says he wouldn't be performing at festivals like Parklife if people hadn't come and seen him in the tiny venues at the start where he had to "prove" he could perform.

"I'm getting back in the zone so I can be ready for the bigger shows later in the year."

Feeling confident about 2022, the rapper says he's "here to stay".

"They let me in the rap game. You'll hear me. I'm going nowhere."

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