Bamboss "I'm Just Local" - Blog Story

We sat down with Hackney's finest and 'Volyume Up' label owner Bamboss. The rapper recently dropped his acclaimed 'Local' E.P.  and is making waves with his 'Volyume Up' imprint.

We talked creative processes and how beatboxing his ideas morphs into finished productions. Talking inspiration from everyday life Bamboss captivates his listeners with his relatability and realness and his work is definitely a voice for youth culture. His label 'Volyume Up' has already demanded respect musically and we learnt about what's next for the entrepreneur.

We sat down with the Bam and discussed his story as a artist and label owner. Check out the video interview and transcript below 📺⚡👀

 

 

 

 

1. Who are you?


I’m Bamboss. I’m a rapper, producer, engineer and artist.

 

2. Tell us about your project ?

My project ‘Local’ produced by me, mixed and mastered by my company Volyume Up. It’s about drips and drabs of my upbringing, my culture, my area and past experiences to and insight into my mind. 

 

3. Tell us about your creative process?

A lot of the time it starts with the beat. I beatbox in random places so I could be taking a random shower and I'll just get like a melody in my head and then record it with my phone. That’s the basis so basically once I beatbox the beat is made, I just have to add sounds to make the beat on the computer, so that’s the plan for the next couple of days. Then either a line will form and then and then I can just go off on one, or I have lines that are ready there in my notes and whatever works I just go with that and it’s done. I can't have a tune and just leave it there, if I do I’ll lose the inspiration for that.

4. What's your approach to creative entrepreneurship?

Because I kinda do everything not to say on my own, because I do have outside help here and there but that is to help execute the ideas that I might have difficulty defining. So I might go to a friend of man and give him a whole bunch of ideas and they will help me form this mess into something to something beautiful. I don't sleep until I get it done and execute all the ideas I have.

 

5. Where do you find your inspiration? 

I have literally use everyday life, past experiences, my upbringing, different stories, the now and conversations I have. I’m sociable person and I tend to have conversations with everyone I come in contact with, and if something triggers me in that conversation I just pull up my phone to write it down. For example on my ‘Local’ project there's a song called Costcutter, which is a corner shop if you are from endz. The beat was there, it was during lockdown and I was hungry, the first line is “Let me get a Snickers, and a Ribena” because I really wanted that. Then I went off on a tangent and asked the other artists who featured on that song what would they want if they went into Costcutters and my guys paying. So that song came off of me just being hungry. Another example is my girl had new hairstyle and she asked me what do you think? I said that style really suits you and a whole song called “Style You Wear” that was about her.

 

6. Tell us about your personal style & influences?

I’d describe my style as very laid back. Nowadays I get my ad-libs bring out my personality more,  slower placed so I can get everything I want out. Before my style was more double-time, but now my style sounds more like a conversation and I feel like I can express myself more. Now I’m just conformable on the beat and I just sit on it, and I demand respect from the first line to the last, so that see me now.

At first I was really influenced by the Ludacris when he had cornrows. That was my guy to go to because he was a sick rapper, he had a personality, when he done features you didn't even need to know his name was on it you just knew it was him. He had a movement called ‘Disturbing the Peace’ which I really messed with. As first I copied him and then slowly morphed into my own thing. So he had the personality, I had the personality, he stood out in his verses, I stood out in my verses, he had Disturbing the Peace I have Volyume Up you know what I’m saying. That's how I started at first and then there's like 50 cent,  Jay-Z,  Cassidy who’s a battle rapper, so every now and again I tried to do punchlines but not overthink I just do it. So yeah those were my main inspirations and Eminem. 

 

 

 

7. What kind of music do you Listen to?

Nineties r&b is my thing. If you are every a passenger in my car, you will hear me sing harmonies all day. Nineties and a lot of cheesy pop music, I just love the melodies. I have a 15 hour playlist of Pop playlists top of pop songs. If there ever was a TV quiz show and the topic was Pop Songs I would win haha. But just music listening to my music and me as a person you wouldn’t think that but it’s the truth.

 

  

8. What's the funniest thing you heard recently?

I literally find everything funny. Even I’m my day job people are like Bam “why are you smiling?” I’m like “I’m happy!” I’ m like shouldn’t I be happy. Overall I’m just a happy person and I’d say probably too energetic.

 

9. What do you do in your spare time 

In my spare time I watch loads of Anime, I also read a lot of Mangas. For those of you who don’t know Anime are Japanese cartoons, and Mangas are Japanese comics. I've also discovered the Korean version which is Manhwa. As well as watching on tv and reading all of those, I play football a lot of time and love that cinema. Obviously I couldn’t go over the lockdown, so you would catch me on my my MacBook watching a lot of films. I’m a heavy God of War on Playstation fan and it has a lot to do with with Greek mythology. Anything with spiritual or mythology and I’m in there. It’s not the norm to people but for me I see it as the norm.

10. What do you want your legacy be? 

I want my legacy to be.. Everyone I came across is inspired. Whether it’s my energy levels, through conversation, through my music, through action. Whether it was from them watch me take on this music journey. Because I've done a lot of stuff just through hard work alone. I mean obviously there's gotta be some sort of talent there, but in terms of hard work I just keep going. But more so how I made them feel as a person, I’m trying to touch everyone in a good way.

11.  Plans for the future?

In terms of music before I dropped a ‘Local’ I will dropping singles yeah. But this is my thought process, it's easy for me to drop a song and spend on a year trying to promote it. But I've got so much more to say they just the one song because I got a very short attention span. So if someone I like only dropped one song every year, I'd fall off of them because there's only so many times I can reload that song and put on my playlist. So I told myself and even said it on one of the songs called ‘East Lon’ I said “I used to drop one for the numbers, I thought I was fancy, now it’s project after project I swear on my mother” So I'm just going to continue dropping projects. EPs, shoot a couple of videos and keep it pushing. I mean push the songs as much as I can, but I'm still going to keep dropping projects because I've got a lot on my mind, wherever that takes me we’ll see.

In terms of the company Volyume Up which I push the music under. I want to expand, I want to do a podcast, short skits, short films. Right now I'm pushing to be more than a Label I’m pushing it to be a Creative House, so even when I mix and master other peoples stuff it comes out under Volyume Up, when I direct videos it comes in the Volyume Up so I want expand that like a Bad Boy or something like that. I’m trying to have a overall media company. So that’s one of my big plans to execute, it’s forever growing because if you were to ask me a year ago, Podcasts wouldn’t have been on there been in there. I like talking and doing music, so why not do it like this. There’s going to be more stuff, come to me in 5-years time there will be more ideas to execute.

12. Tell us a bit more about your label?

I’ve had artists there before, but now when it comes to a thing of work ethic which we were talking about off camera. I’ve given a lot of my time and studio time time to artists who I thought were really sick but then they kind of let me down because they didn’t have a plan and expected me to do all the work. So now it’s gone back to its solely me just me under Volyume Up. I would love to do more events and eventually a festival volume. There was more than one reason behind the name.

Right now it’s just me but eventually I would like to bring artists under Volyume Up. Not just Rappers.. I think play the name is broad enough to bring other genres underneath. The whole point is to just play the music and turn the volume up! I’m up for working with singers, poets, actors the whole shebang. I know that will come in due time. I’m making Volyume Up something that is well respected. Hence why I'm putting in all this work, and come with the quality, packaging and the product. That’ probably why I'm so hard on myself, so yeah that's my plan for the late just making bigger than it is.

 

13. Where can we find you?

You can find me find me on www.imjustlocal.com on Instagram @bamdiggy for the label @VolyumeUp everything on all socials. I’ve you go on www.imjustlocal.com everything is there, videos for projects, playlists, bio I've even got a playlist that has every artist that comes from hackney on there so yeah.

  

Interview: @Maya_Mihoc

 Photography by: @DJ_Lukey

Filmed by: @Nadstooki

Music: Bamboss - Costcutter ft. Armzout & Sentry

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Bamboss is pictured wearing our Gold Connection Bracelet and our matching Gold Connection Necklace. Bamboss also wears our hand-crafted gold Crater Signet Ring made in London. 

 

2045 Medallion - Gold

Shift Ring - Gold

HAVANA Bracelet - Gold


Crater Signet Ring - Gold

 

 

 

#StookiMovement 

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