ON THE RISE
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South African artist Gr8ful’s name displays how he feels and his two-single project, “Perspectives,” talks about how he got to where he can feel that way.
“Perspectives” is two songs, “Pop Off” and Carry On” with two completely different sounds that relates to the artist’s journey and development into the singer he is now.
“The message behind ‘Carry On’ is basically having faith, believing that any difficulty only breeds change and through that change you’ll eventually feel the ease and be able to reap the pleasure of life,” Gr8ful said. “‘Carry On’ carries that message, where as ‘Pop Off’ is more of a let loose, allow yourself to be in order to find yourself kind of song. I’m saying take the time that you need in order to be the best version of yourself.”
Gr8ful said the video for “Carry On” carries a message as well starting off with the artist jumping out of bed early to an alarm and joining a friend to work in a food truck. He seems to question where he’s going in life, saying “I’m greatful, but I didn’t sign up for this shit.” Then the scenes change rapidly to as the young man becomes more successful.
“With ‘Carry On’ we used Scarface as the genre we were trying to show, going from being in the food truck to a massive amount of success,” Gr8ful said. “The question is how do you handle that success.”
Gr8ful said music has always been a part of his life, from primary school when he started playing the violin. As he got older he tried other instruments like the drums, the piano and the guitar.
As he got older, his brother encouraged him to start writing his own music.
He counts his musical influences in the old-school giants of hip hop, Tupac, Biggy and LL Cool J. Today he listens to the likes of Kendrick Lamar, J Cole and Lil Wayne.
He started taking his speaker to the park around the age of 13 and 14, practicing raps with friends to get more comfortable with free-styling.
“I’d go on to playing beats on my speaker, like normal beats and then I started rapping over them,” Gr8ful said. “It was just me and my cousins and I started rapping about what they were wearing and eventually I started being able to be very fluid with my words and being able to say whatever I want. It wasn’t really like nursery rhymes type stuff anymore it was more like I'm able to rap about actual stuff.”
Gr8ful said “Carry On” and “Pop Off” were released in November, but he wrote them about a year ago. Those two songs show him in transition from that kid in the park to the musician he is now.
“‘Carry On’ and ‘Pop Off’ were very different to how I approach my creating of music,” he said. “It was the first time I actually sat in the studio and the producer was making the beat in front of me. While he was making the beat I was writing my lyrics. It was the first time it had gone like that. Usually I would get a beat and I would go home and write my lyrics to the beat and come back and record. This was completely different, it changed my perspective on music and my stance.”
Gr8ful plans to release more music in the new year showing how that transition has continued and the artist he’s become.
“I say that ‘Perspectives’ was the biggest project that I’ve released at the moment, but it’s not going to be the biggest project I’m ever going to release,” Gr8ful said. “That’s definitely cooking up now and it is for next year. We have something that's much bigger coming. This is only the start and it’s part of a much bigger picture. It’s setting the tone for what is to come. You have to have a perspective for what’s to come.”
Be sure to stay connected with GR8FUL on all platforms for new music, videos, and social media posts.
Websites:
Spotify
Apple Music
YouTube
Gr8ful.co.za (Coming soon)
Socials:
Instagram
Facebook
ON THE RISE
Blossoms caught up with NME to discuss competing with The Beatles and Johnny Marr for this week’s Number One album. With ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ in the running, the band also explained why making things themselves remains such an important part of their work as AI becomes more common.
The Stockport group put out their sixth album last Friday, October 2. By the midweek update, it was sitting at Number Two, between The Beatles’ expanded edition of ‘Rubber Soul’ and Johnny Marr’s latest solo album, ‘The Age Of Everything’.
“It’s mad, to be honest,” singer Tom Ogden said to NME about the chart race. “Liverpool on one side, Manchester on the other and Stockport in the middle. If you’d told us this 10 years ago, when we were releasing our debut, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I mean, we’re in good company aren’t we?”
Discussing the stories behind the album, Ogden described ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ as “about being married and all the everyday stuff that comes with it”. He married Katie Donovan, the sister of Blossoms drummer Joe, in 2021. Married life has since given him a new appreciation for what he describes as “the extraordinary ordinary”.
“Saying the wrong thing in an argument, losing your wife’s no claims bonus, crying at the Kardashians, it’s all in there,” he explained. “The album is named after Stockport Town Hall, which everyone round where we live calls the Wedding Cake, and it’s where I got married, so it couldn’t be much closer to home.
“The last album [‘Gary’, 2024] had a song about a stolen fibreglass gorilla, which everyone loved, and that gave us the confidence to bring the same playfulness to this one, just with more personal subject matter this time.”
Alongside tracks that came out of writing sessions with Declan McKenna in a hot tub, the album reflects the band’s desire to stay involved in every part of the creative process.
“It started with the recording,” Ogden explained. “We made the album with Shawn Lee, playing live straight to tape, and once you’ve done it that way you can’t really go and fake everything else. We sat down as a band and picked the colour palette, and everything visual followed from that. We had body scans taken of ourselves and cake toppers of the five of us 3D printed, put them on a real cake and photographed it. I’ve directed and edited the videos, and the sets are all built by hand, no green screen. For the pop-up shop on launch weekend, a local artist hand-painted the album cover for the sign outside.
“It’s more work, but you end up with a world that’s yours, and I think people can tell when a band’s had its hands on everything.”
With AI tools and digital effects becoming increasingly widespread, that approach feels particularly relevant. For Blossoms, though, the motivation is simple: “the fun is in the making”.
“Tape doesn’t let you cheat and neither does a real cake,” Ogden said. “If a set’s a bit wonky, it’s because one of us or our mates built it. I think the more stuff gets generated, the more people want to know a human being actually did it. We’ve been in this band together for over 10 years, five lads from Stockport, and that isn’t something you can ‘prompt’.”
Maya Jama also appeared in the video for the album’s first single, ‘Meet Me In Love’. Her appearance came shortly before the UK launch of Celebrity Traitors, where she took on the role of a traitor alongside a cast that included Richard E Grant and James Acaster.
“She was brilliant,” Ogden recalled of working with Jama. “We’d met her at the MTV EMAs in Manchester a couple of years ago, so we took a chance and sent her a DM …and she said yes. Next thing she’s in a theatre in Cheadle miming my vocals while a load of people dressed as me serenade her. She got the idea straight away and was a proper laugh about it.”
The conversation then turned to whether he thought Jama could take home the win on Celebrity Traitors.
Ogden joked: “As for Traitors, she spent a whole day pretending to sing my song and I almost believed her, so I’d say she’s got every chance.”
Fans can listen to ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ now. In November, Blossoms head out on a UK arena tour with The Royston Club. Tickets and further details are available here.
Before the tour begins, the group is also scheduled to appear on SNL UK on Saturday, October 24.
