INTERVIEW | “IF IT’S GIVE AND TAKE, THEN I GUESS I’LL TEACH AS I LEARN” MEET WEST LONDON RAPPER S.I STATURE

Tell us a bit about your­self as an artist, and cul­tur­al cur­at­or? 

 I’m just into express­ing myself. I got dif­fer­ent medi­ums, one of which is song writ­ing, rap­ping, singing. The music­al side of things. I like to paint the pic­ture with words, hence the ali­as Sal­vador Dali. I involve it all. At times I switch between lan­guages, but that’s just how it all goes off in my head, I guess. I’m rep­res­ent­ing for mine, for a cer­tain breed, if it’s give and take then I guess I’ll teach as I learn. 

What does ori­gin­at­ing from Colom­bia mean to you, how has it influ­enced you? 

It means everything. Its who I am at core, of course you can­not for­get I was raised in the UK, and it plays a major part of who I have become. But my true essence belongs to the plains my par­ents and ancest­ors walked. I was raised in west Lon­don but in a true Lat­in house­hold. With music­al influ­ences of salsa, val­len­atos, cumbia in the house it gave me an early under­stand­ing of rhythm and per­cus­sion.

I have fused that now with my exper­i­ences here in the Uk and the mesh or fusion would you like, is now a Spang­lish melod­ic rap vibe. 

 Colom­bia is rich in Indi­gen­ous tra­di­tions, music being one of them, a form of heal­ing and spir­itu­al­ism. How do you incor­por­ate this in your art? Are there any sac­red instru­ments that have been used in your own music? 

I find the music I grew up on had a lot of pain and heart­break. A lot of love and romance. Strong mes­sages that I also find myself express­ing in my music nowadays. One com­mon instru­ment I’ve always found intriguing because of  its par­tic­u­lar­ness is “La cam­pana,”.  A cow bell, the way I remem­ber my cous­ins pinging the hell out if at parties and it soun­ded so good. There’s a meth­od to it, you got to have that rhythm. Its deffo an instru­ment I’m going to source for my stu­dio. 

The Hip-Hop scene is incred­ible in Colom­bia, Have you col­lab­or­ated with any artists from there?  

To be hon­est I haven’t, but by no means am I say­ing that I would not. In fact, my team have been in con­tact with a few pro­du­cers from Colom­bi­a’s Carib­bean coast San Andres that are keen on work­ing with us. But I’ve col­lab­or­ated mostly with UK Lat­in artists. I’m open, I’m ready. 

Grow­ing up in West Lon­don, you have seen both sides of Lon­don from poverty to riches, the Gren­fell tragedy in 2017 really high­lighted the injustices that come at the cost of gentri­fic­a­tion. What are your thoughts on gentri­fic­a­tion and Lon­don? Have you noticed any changes?  

I remem­ber Gren­fell vividly. I was in the build­ing the night before the tragedy. I was vis­it­ing a friend who lived on the same floor where the fire broke out. Then to see it all go up due to some unfit clad­ding the was placed on around the build­ing due to the very same thing you men­tion, gentri­fic­a­tion and the pleas­ing of the new buy­ers in town. It’s a known thing in west Lon­don, that all those people lost their lives due to neg­li­gence and till this cur­rent day there are still unanswered ques­tions. Gentri­fic­a­tion is hap­pen­ing all over Lon­don. Its a social cleanse. It effects hous­ing cul­tur­al shifts and don’t get me wrong change is good, how­ever this can­’t be the best way. 

 You have foun­ded some really import­ant hubs for your com­munity here in the UK, tell us a bit about them? 

I like to cre­ate things. And to be hon­est in the Lat­in com­munity, we made some noise and star­ted get­ting recog­nised as a poten­tial upcom­ing mar­ket with the biggest Latino col­lect­ive to come out the Uk; BER­DC, going on to win the LUKAS awards 2018. 

In 2019 MILK AND NOODLES was offi­cially formed. 

And in 2021 I guess we saw the birth of LAT­IN LON­DON. 

 Tell us a bit about ’Milk & Noodles’ and ‘Lat­in Lon­don’?  

Milk and noodles is a trio con­sist­ing of Scam, Ace Lon­don & myself S.I Stature. It’s a mix­ture of Scams Afric­an, Aces Carib­bean & my South Amer­ic­an roots all mixed up cre­at­ing a win­ning for­mula. A blend of mature wave as described in a recent art­icle by com­plex UK. 

Lat­in Lon­don is more a spinoff or my tribe if you like. A part­ner­ship with selec­ted cre­at­ives such as Pro­du­cers Ash Almeida and Jason Camacho. We work closely with video­graph­ers, script writers, design­ers and all things cre­at­ive in between. 

 Tell us a bit about your jour­ney in music? Why was Hip-Hop so import­ant to you?  

It’s the art of expres­sion for me. I like music because I believe it has no rules. It allowed me to off­load. Paint­ers hang their work. Box­ers leave their emo­tions in the ring. I leave mine in the moment. The cre­at­ive moment of put­ting words togeth­er to cre­ate a mood you nev­er thought you needed. Spe­cif­ic sounds that trig­ger dif­fer­ent feel­ings. Stor­ies that can explain my jour­ney. Stor­ies that share my exper­i­ences.  

Besides music, poetry and spoken word is also an area I like to indulge in. I feel it allows the receiv­er to solely focus on the words. Really in tak­ing the mes­sage I have intend to give out. 

 You speak openly about a lot of the soci­et­al issues in Colom­bia, how import­ant is it for you to use your music as a tool for expres­sion, change and aware­ness?  

What good is it me hav­ing a voice or a tal­ent and not using it for the things that mat­ter and are close to me? I think it’s a require­ment for any artist to stand true and use their plat­form to show what they rep­res­ent. Aware­ness is everything. Its key to song writ­ing also. 

 Last year, you got to per­form at the incred­ible Breakin’ Con­ven­tion, how did that come about? Tell us a bit about the piece you had put togeth­er?  

We pushed the bound­ar­ies. My col­lab­or­at­or and suc­cess­ful break dan­cer ‘SPIN’ approached me with the idea of cre­at­ing a piece which involved my lyr­ics in con­junc­tion with his break dan­cing moves. The com­bat­ive piece was based around the state (government/authority) i.e. my words and lyr­ics VS The people (Spins dance and col­our rep­res­ent­ing the cul­ture) End­ing in a sus­pense­ful twist. The piece was received extremely well by the audi­ences on both nights and even the tabloids such as ‘THE TIMES’ & ‘THE GUARD­I­AN’ 

 Hip-Hop and dance go beau­ti­fully togeth­er, do you plan on put­ting togeth­er sim­il­ar pieces?  

Yeah of course why not? I loved the pro­cess. The end piece was beau­ti­ful, and I think both medi­ums com­ple­ment each oth­er very well. Extremely well.  

What does the future hold for S.I Stature?  

God will­ing a lot. I leave all the plan­ning to him. I have plans but I’m strong on mys­tique, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

 Where can we find out more? 

Check out my You­Tube chan­nel and please sub­scribe 

Ins­tagram @S.I_STATURE   @milkandnoodles_   @ltnldn 

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Rishma Dhaliwal

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. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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