“I’ve been a rapper for all of this time, wanting to do rock”: How Native James finally realised his vision

“I started to listen to grime, and my heart was telling me I needed something heavier with it.”

In a way, Native James always knew he had to fuse the two genres that claim different sides of his heart. Metal and grime aren’t the most obvious bedfellows, mind you. Sure, the nu-metal greats like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit were already on the musician’s radar – and seeing ragga-metal icons Skindred live was a revelation – but there wasn’t anything heavy with that signature accent and emphasis on vocal delivery in grime that Native James grew up with.

Originally exposed to the rap subgenre at school in Bedford, one fateful encounter persuaded a young Native to pursue it himself.

Confronted by another kid with the simple question, ‘Can you rap?’, youthful innocence and – in hindsight – naivety made him splutter out a string of ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah…’. Native shakes his head at the memory.

“I had never spat a bar in my life. Never said anything in my life. And I thought they’d leave it at that, but they said, ‘Alright, do something, then!’”

And so he did. Dropping in rhymes about the Titanic and other “random shit”, it wasn’t exactly a rap battle from 8 Mile, but he walked away thinking, ‘Why don’t I actually start?’

Initially showing up to rap gigs and freestyling for 30 minutes, he didn’t start actually writing lyrics until a couple of years ago. And once songwriting came into the picture, there was still something else pulling at Native James’ creative consciousness.

“In primary school, we used to have somebody who would take us to school, and he used to have his own playlist. There was Motörhead, Linkin Park, Evanescence, System Of A Down, Cradle Of Filth… and I fell in love with the sound.”

Linkin Park were Native James' first taste of what a rap and metal crossover could be. But to him, he “never had a common denominator, and there was never something there where I could mingle [metal and grime]. And I didn’t know how to. So, I’ve been a rapper for all of this time, wanting to do rock.”

A move from Bedford to a more rural area further isolated his access to both grime and metal, but it wasn’t until his performance at last year’s Reading & Leeds that he realised this urge for genre-blurring could be possible after all.

Despite having a grime EP already in the can, Native knew “Reading to be a mostly punk and rock festival, so one of my band members suggested doing it as a band thing, and I thought, ‘Why not? Let’s switch it up! They think I’m going for a grime set, let’s bring the band, and let’s go do something.’”

From mosh-pits and walls of death to “security [having] to jump onstage” in Leeds, Native James knew that what happened that August bank holiday weekend was special, and has continued to morph into new EP Rebirth.

“Grime is already a punch in the face as it is… but metal added into the mix is an even bigger punch.”

And with five incendiary new tracks clenched in his first, Native James is going for the knockout punch. Get in the ring and watch out.

Native James' Rebirth EP is out now

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