INTERVIEW | NORTH LONDON RAPPER COINS DISCUSSES NEW TRACK ‘FOREVER’

By Rishma • On Interviews, What is New

Listen Here | Watch Here

We catch up with rap­per Coins. Coins, the masked artist, dis­cusses grow­ing up in North Lon­don and how it has influ­enced his music, his decision to keep his iden­tity a secret, and the inspir­a­tion behind his latest single ‘Forever’.

Can you tell us about your exper­i­ence grow­ing up in North Lon­don and how it has influ­enced your music?

Grow­ing up in North Lon­don embed­ded a lot in me and made me who I am now. From the style of fash­ion, I choose to wear, and the type of music I listen to grow­ing up, the com­munity will always be part of my iden­tity, and you can see the subtle rep­res­ent­a­tion in the music I cre­ate. There was always a mix of cul­ture in the inner hood, but from street to street, you could slightly see the dis­tinct­ive dif­fer­ences made up of eth­nic­ally diverse cul­ture. This influ­enced a lot in how I make music, from using vari­ety of dif­fer­ent beats to writ­ing down the daily struggles of how we grew up.

As a masked artist, can you tell us about the decision to keep your iden­tity secret and how it has affected your career?

This was an easy decision for me, I like my life private and want the sole focus to be my art. Like they say, no face, no case, but jokes aside, I believe in evil eye and from my exper­i­ence, not every­body is root­ing for you. I know this will be a lot chal­len­ging fur­ther down my career with tempta­tion com­ing in from left to right, but I don’t want to be con­sumed by fame and would like to stay focused and cre­ate good music that con­nects people.

What was the inspir­a­tion behind your latest single ‘Forever’ and how did the writ­ing pro­cess come about?

When I was writ­ing Forever, I had such amaz­ing energy around me. I was with my boy who shows me so much love and sup­port, he played the beat while I just played around with words. The inspir­a­tion behind my latest single is addic­tion and it takes you on the jour­ney of feel­ing that high, wheth­er that’s from drugs or a person.

Can you describe your cre­at­ive pro­cess on the pro­duc­tion of the track?

I usu­ally don’t have form­al pro­cess I go through when cre­at­ing music. I just need to be in the head­space, where I can feel the energy and emo­tion thoroughly.

Your music often touches on soci­et­al issues, such as the chal­lenges of can­nabis, how import­ant is it for you to address these themes in your music?

Drugs, espe­cially weed, is very nor­mal­ized and so is smoking or sup­ply­ing it from where I grew up. It’s part of most people’s daily routine and is seen as a form of medi­cine that helps escape real­ity, even if its for couple of hours. The listen­ers can hear many ref­er­ences to the exper­i­ence of feel­ing high in many of my tracks and is import­ant for me to address it as it is part of many people’s experiences.

Tell us a bit about the music video for ‘Forever’?

The music video for Forever is shot in Bar­celona, the hub of weed café, where many people go to explore café opened by respec­ted artists such as D Block Europe, the Plug and so on. It is also one of the hot cit­ies, couples fly out for their hol­i­day, so it seemed a per­fect match for the video to be filmed in Barcelona.

What has been the biggest chal­lenge you’ve faced in your career so far and how have you over­come it?

The biggest chal­lenge I’ve faced is being an upcom­ing rap­per with no face, and how fast music is mov­ing. It’s all about your men­tal­ity so I try to stay as authen­t­ic as pos­sible and stick to my own style. Slowly, now, or later, I know it will pay off. It’s not a mara­thon, not a sprint.

What advice would you give to aspir­ing artists look­ing to break into the music industry?

Be con­sist­ent in what you’re doing because one day it will pay off.

What can fans expect from your upcom­ing pro­jects and releases?

I’ve loads of unre­leased tracks I’ve made through­out the years. Hope­fully, I’ll get to release them soon but in the mean­time, you can check out my socials where I post daily updates.

Sup­port Coins on Social Media 

Twit­ter | Ins­tagram 

Listen to more of Coins

Spo­ti­fy | Apple Music

The fol­low­ing two tabs change con­tent below.
My Facebook profileMy LinkedIn profileMy Instagram profile

Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.