During our cover interview with Stormzy for the 100th issue, the grime MC exclusively revealed that he would be giving a talk at the world-renowned university, following in the footsteps of Kanye and A$AP Rocky who’ve also graced the establishment to speak.
“It’s proper sick,” Stormzy told us. “The best thing for me was – a lot of people expected me to go to Oxford uni, because at school I was quite academically smart. I got good grades at GCSE. My family, teachers, my mum was all like, yeah, ‘Mike’s gonna go to Oxford, he’s fucking smart!’ And I ended up being a rapper.
"But it was like, you’re smart, you was meant to go Oxford, become some corporate person. Now that I’ve chosen my career and said, ‘guys I’m not going Oxford’, I’m doing this, that has led me to Oxford saying ‘yo, can you come in and talk to us?’ It’s like, shit – I was meant to go here, now I’m talking to the students?!”
He explained that it’d be in Q&A format, also admitting that public speaking doesn't come as naturally to him as performing: “Now that I’m more in the limelight I don’t enjoy eyes on me as much. Which is weird. Like for example, walking down the road – I’m not some crazy celebrity but a lot of people notice me – schoolkids and that. So public speaking is a bit strange.”
We’re interested to hear what the grime don has to say, and you can watch the whole thing HERE live on Periscope, from 8pm GMT on the 7th March.
The full cover feature appears in the latest issue of our print magazine, complete with still imagery filmed on VHS by Sharna Osborne.
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