Josh Lee meets the young gay rapper making waves on London’s hip-hop scene.
On every season of every TV talent show, there’s at least one contestant who looks as though they would find the quietest of suburban libraries socially overwhelming, let alone the rent-a-mob audience ITV have gathered for them to sing in front of. But then, Leona Lewis’ A Moment Like This begins to play over their suspiciously developed VT and within minutes they’re blowing the audience, judges and public away with their Beyoncé-esque pipes. Think Paul Potts, Shaheen Jafargholi, or the forever-iconic Tesco Mary.
North London rapper Karnage has a similar “shock-entry” vibe about him. There’s a softness and a serenity about the 19-year-old grime artist when he’s off-stage, which complements his back-length braids, plucked-to-perfection brows and delicate, feminine bone structure. But on stage, he’s every bit as ferocious as his name suggests. After watching him slay Sadie Sinner’s Cocoa Butter Club, a monthly celebration of queer and trans performers from minority ethnic backgrounds, we had to find out a bit more about one of the most unique underground artists we’ve come across in a while.
Having started writing rhymes at 15 after listening to his uncles rap, Karnage was fully aware of the hyper-masculine world he was trying to become a part of, and that his developing aesthetic would leave him standing out like a sore, perfectly manicured, thumb: “When I began rapping I thought, ‘oh my gosh, I’ve got to be this masculine guy, I have to have this masculine persona and rap about masculine things,’” he tells me over a hot chocolate.
With lots of young gay men, especially black gay men, chasing conformity for safety, sex, work or all of the above, Karnage’s personal style is refreshingly defiant. But while the 19-year-old presents in a way that stands out against most men in his genre, he assures me he’s called Karnage for a reason: “I don’t spit soft,” he warns.
Not that I need telling, having already seen Karnage perform. At January’s Cocoa Butter Club, he kicked off his mini-set with a reworking of Stormzy’s 2015 hit Shut Up, and had the audience screaming along within seconds.
It’s one of the beautiful things about the Cocoa Butter Club – most of us in the audience grew up with grime in some shape or form, giving artists like Karnage a space where both aesthetic and artistic output are equally well-received, respected and understood.
This was even more apparent when he performed the ingenious Hoe Diaries, a track that gives Karnage the chance to show off his lyricism and wit, via our favourite topic – sex. Let’s face it, there aren’t enough places in the world you can watch a black man in a crop top spitting about “Dylan” with a “dick bigger than my ambition.”
Karnage’s fearlessness as a rapper grew out of self-defence. Like most gay kids, he knew his identity could become a lightning rod for abuse, and his attitude as a young teenager developed accordingly: “I didn’t get bullied, because if anyone tried it, we’d be fighting. That’s just how it is” he explains. “When you get older you realise you can’t solve everything by fighting, but that’s how it was.” So the bite that was initially reserved for homophobic dickheads was channelled into his on-stage persona: “In person I’m very soft and very chilled, but on stage I’m very aggressive and a lot more full on. But I think it’s just somebody I turn into, and I can’t control it. But it’s good, because I’m a nervous person. I get nervous because I want it so bad. But as soon as I step on stage all the nerves go.”
There’s a palpable sense of drive that emanates from Karnage as our conversation goes on. When I ask him about who he views as competition, he identifies himself: “I am my worst enemy,” he admits, “because the goals that I set for myself are so high, and I have to reach them. There’s just nothing else. I don’t feel pressure from other people. I feel pressure from myself.”
Despite still studying at college and working a day-job, Karnage is managing to build his brand and fan-base, particularly within the London queer scene. “I’m seeing people go crazy, and after people come up to me and tell me how amazing it was and how I’ve impacted them, or even messaging me, saying how my performance has impacted them,” he tells me proudly. “It’s overwhelming, because I really didn’t expect it.” As well as his growing LGBT following on the scene, Karnage has already picked up his first celebrity fan, which isn’t bad going for someone so early in their career.
“MNEK, me and him had a brief encounter at the Cocoa Butter Club,” he says. “I just remember him saying how great my performance was and later he kindly bought me a drink – god knows I needed it – and I made sure we stayed in contact.”
As well as “converting the gays to grime,” Karnage wants to make waves beyond our community. He wants to prove a gay grime artist can go toe-to-toe with the UK’s best, and be every bit as “hardcore” as his musical influences: “just because we’re gay, doesn’t mean we have to be spitting soft,” he reasons. “My goal is to be up there with Stormzy, with Nadia Rose, with Lady Leshurr. To achieve that, I can’t be spitting soft. I’ve got to be spitting hardcore.”
His end-game might be world-domination, but the driving force behind his ambition is to carve out a space for more queer rappers, particularly within grime, to emerge: “I want people to look up to me, and say, “well if Karnage can do it, I can do it. I want that, that’s the whole point. Because there’s no one out there looking like me, doing what I do, I have to be that person, and hopefully be that person for younger kids or people like myself.”
• Find Karnage on YouTube and Twitter @karnagekills
