Exploring His City: Louis Culture Interviewed
Louis Culture, the 25-year-old rapper, producer, DJ and all around talent from south London sat down to talk to us this week about what he brings to the world with his unique, touching sound, defying genres and showcasing his undeniable talents.
His sound is often labelled as ‘conscious rap’, however, to put his music in such a tight box would be inaccurate, he also delves into garage, house, and more traditional piano sounds within his songs.
We discussed his collective Elevation Meditation alongside his close friends and fellow artists, growing up in South London, and his upcoming performance at RALLY festival this weekend.
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You have said in interviews that Louis Culture is a reflection of Black Britain – can you talk a bit about what your experience has been like growing up as a Black man in Britain and what influence that has had on your music?
It’s been beautiful if anything. When I think of things that are specifically cultural, it’s like you know, like going into my uncle’s house as a kid and lovers rock playing in the garden and him making Jamaican food in the kitchen or having a barbecue in the sun.
Or, being at home with my mum and her introducing me to certain books and films that she put me on to, and her interest in Black history. Then it was going to block parties and shubz as a kid, and carnival. All these things make up a massive beautiful community. Today, we have p-rallel and No Signal doing events.
There are so many people who make what can be a frustrating and misunderstood life as a Black man better. Not to take away from the hardship that comes with people constantly dehumanising you, or look at you like a spider in the sense of how they look at you and fear you. But as I have said, in my upbringing and how I was taught to love myself and love my people I would still describe it as beautiful. It comes back into the music, because it was a melting pot of everything. I have got to experience all sides of Black Britain and I try to represent that in what I do.
Do you tend to write your lyrics based on your own experiences? What is your creative process when it comes to tackling lyricism?
It had always been a reflection of my life and this and that and the other, but recently I have tried to challenge myself to explore and challenge myself to expand on new topics and storytell. It is where I’m at now where I ask myself how I can challenge myself. It’s real, but I am always trying new things. I started releasing music around 2016, and I can see my progression from that point, in 2016 I was trying to figure out releasing demos and sounds, and I think now I am close to having figured it out.
Even the producers I work with, we are all chiselling at what we want. Before, it was just an instrumental, now we bring in string sections, we change up the singers. It’s more curation, if anything. I always saw this for myself, I always knew I would be doing music. I’m not sure if I saw it the way it is now, but I always knew I would do music.
You have quite an interest in fashion as well, how does music and fashion come together to form you, Louis Culture, as a person?
I think they always bounce off each other. From an artistic standpoint, the same way that your creative director puts together a collection is the same way that your artist puts together his collection, his album, his mixtape, his EP. It’s a team coming together to try and give out the best product to present it to the public.
On a deeper level, my mum went to London College of Fashion. She was an assistant buyer at Harvey Nichols back in the day. So she’s always been fresh and into clothes and then like, even down to me I couldn’t leave the house if the fit wasn’t fire.
If it wasn’t together I would be like yo, like there’s too many colours, go back upstairs like don’t do that. Me and Lord Apex come from a similar, culturally rich background where we are always dressing and looking for new clothes. It has always been important to me. I see it as an extension of my education as well, I learnt so much from reading fashion magazines.
Speaking of Lord Apex, you are both a part of Elevation Meditation, can you tell me about how the collective came about?
I grew up with p-rallel, and when we were around fifteen or sixteen, I brought Lord Apex round to record something. Finn Foxell and Sav went to school with p-rallel, and they came into the mix from that. This was very early days in London, there were some shows, like open mics and showcases, but unless you were connected there was not really a lot you could do. It was very much just SoundCloud, or if you were lucky somebody might book you at a birthday.
We started creating our own rules, dropping music on SoundCloud all the time. We knew a few people and we started doing events with them, it was very much just carving out our own. From there, people came and started gravitating towards that, because the music spoke loud enough. At the time, it was being individuals, some of the original alternative kids being in London at time.
How are you feeling about RALLY Festival this weekend?
Big ups to everyone involved. I’m a hip-hop/rap diehard fan forever. I do appreciate people that put me in these alternative spaces, I am honoured and it means a lot to be on the same line-up as Wu-Lu and Obongjayar, they are people I respect and that inspire me. I’m blessed know them as well, and I always like doing things in South London too.
Festivals like RALLY are important as they bring us together. It’s easy to get boxed into UK Rap as a genre – which is completely fine, but listening to my music you can see that I can exist in multiple spaces, and I feel as though RALLY is one of those spaces.
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RALLY festival takes place in Southwark Park, London on August 5th. Catch Louis Culture at London’s Village Underground on September 18th.
Words: Lucia Botfield
Photo Credit: Evie Shandilya
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