THE SONIC THERAPY OF JOE JAMES

It's this sense of positivity that reverberates throughout everything Joe does, with the connective fibres present between the music he creates and the pastimes he enjoys. His dedication to eating clean, exercising and immersing himself in the great outdoors is directly reflective of this — life choices Joe makes to feel good, energise himself and get lost in the beauty nature has to offer.

His enviable work ethic has seen Joe release at a rate that can only be described as relentless, his unwavering desire to write and create resulting in a dense and alluring body of work. His natural flair for writing, coupled with a steadfast approach to authenticity, makes Joe’s music really cut through the noise of contemporary British rap, striking a chord with you on a deeper, more cerebral level. In light of that, UrlfreezeShops took a trip to Britain’s only desert, Dungeness, to celebrate the release of the Salomon Sportstyle ACS Pro “Desert Pack”, spending the day with the rapper riding around on his much-loved Surron bike.  

Health and fitness is something that you keenly show off as part of your lifestyle —copious amounts of exercise in different forms, eating clean and natural foods, generally prioritising your physical wellbeing. What does maintaining your fitness mean to you in a broader context beyond simply feeling good?

For me, there’s a few things to it. Maintaining it is to do with looking after myself. For me to not look after myself through what I’m eating or what I’m doing, it’s almost a disrespect to life itself, because it’s a gift that we’re even here. The majority of the time I eat very clean, because one, it makes me feel good, makes me perform better in whatever I want to do and it gives me energy, but two, I feel like if I’m taking the piss out of my body — I’m going to see that, I’m going to feel that. That’s a disrespect to my vessel that I carry, so it’s to do with that, mainly. I see it with like some of my pals, my mate who’s going through stuff, they’ll say “I’ve got no energy”, and I’m like, “yeah, you’re eating this, you’re waking up at this time”, which I understand, each to their own. My thing is that certain things work for me, that’s not going to work for everyone, and I don’t think I’m better or worse than anyone for how I life my life. For me personally, I just have to be on that clean lifestyle to be happy, it just makes me feel happy.

Exploration seems to be something you also hold dear and do often. A quick flick through your Instagram shows shots from the top of snowy peaks, luscious forests, mountain biking through the hills, scuba diving and more. What does it mean to you to be able to leave the confines of London and explore the world to the degree that you’re now able to?

I have to be able to do things that are very spontaneous and to stay present. I like the idea of that when I go up a mountain, I don’t know what’s going to happen. When I went to Ben Nevis a couple of months ago, a blizzard started, and there was a moment where I was scared, and I liked it. Me and the boys are looking at each other laughing like, “this is scary, innit?”, but I like stuff like that. Also, I don’t really like structure, which is why I’m so disciplined with my exercise and stuff. I don’t like structure; I like to do things that are all over the place. Really, if I’m being honest, I’ve never liked being told what do, so I like being away from people where I can do my own thing, be a bit of a kid as well. Even when I go away on holiday and I’m spearfishing and stuff like that, I just get lost in being present — being lost in the sea for five, six hours. Even when I’m fishing, I’ve gone two days straight and caught nothing, but I’m not there like “argh, I’ve caught nothing” — I’ve enjoyed every second, I’ve met some random geezer on the beach and spoke with him for two hours that’s changed my perspective on something. The more things you do that’re out of your comfort zone, the more things you learn.

You’re recently a father, huge congratulations to you and your family. How has bringing a life into the world affected you personally, but also how has it affected you as an artist?

On a personal level, you know what, it’s going to sound mad, but it’s not really changed much about me. For me, it takes a lot to make me panic about things, but I’ve noticed with my daughter — this is an innate thing all humans have — I’m checking my daughter’s cot every hour, every half hour, even every ten minutes to see if she’s breathing. But I’m not normally like that, so that was interesting. Also, just the fact of having something that’s so small and so precious slowing me down a bit, because I can be quite erratic at times. But it’s also made me more militant because I have to be stronger for her, so it makes me train even harder because I’ve got another person to protect.

With the music, it tends to be a stream of consciousness of what I’m going through, so you’ll hear me talking about my daughter a lot more. I’ve never been one to glorify or romanticise anything negative with my music. Even if I talk about something that’s happened or I’ve seen, it’s usually from a place of reflection, or from like a narrative kind of perspective — almost like a fly on the wall. Even if I’m talking about doing something, it’s usually never with the aim of glorifying. With having a daughter, my narrative approach to music tends to stay the same.  

You release music somewhat relentlessly — in 2022 you dropped 4 albums and an EP, in 2023 you dropped 3 EPs and an album and you’ve already begun 2024 with a stellar performance on the Colours platform, in addition to releasing another EP in collaboration with mellow grime producers Wilfred and Oakland. How do you stay motivated to create at such a high rate?

I make a lot of music and because what I talk about is just honest to me, it’s what’s happening in my life and what I’ve seen, it’s impossible to run out of inspiration. When you try and create a facade or a character, you will run out of that because it isn’t coming from an organic place. That’s why I am motivated because as long as my heart’s beating, I’m not going to run out of anything. The volume of what I release is so frequent because it just makes me feel good to make music, making it in the moment. Instead of doing a rollout and packaging it in a certain way — so releasing one single, waiting three weeks or a month, then another single and trickling it out and drip feeding it — that’s not a good representation of how I create. When it comes to things like my Pure Connery EP, for example, I made that in two days. I wrote every song, recorded it and released it in two days. So, for me to record something in two days and then release it seven months later just doesn’t make sense.

 I feel like there are a lot of tricks in the music thing, with people trying to slow you down. I just found that no one I was trying to work with was fast enough for me, there wasn’t engineers that were fast enough. I would just start mixing things myself, which is why with some of my music it’s not the best mix — at least in an industry standard way — but it’s just raw and organic. Videographers weren’t quick enough for me so I stopped making videos, or I just got my mates to shoot them. I just found that I was faster than everything, so I just started releasing, releasing, releasing. People say quality over quantity, but it’s possible to have both — just because you’re releasing something in high volume doesn’t mean it’s not good.

Furthermore, how do you maintain such a high level of quality when it comes to writing / performance with the constant output?

I’ve always really liked lyrics and poetry, even in school I used to do creative writing. There’s a thing when I write music: I could just start writing now and freestyle a whole story. I’ve always had an interest in that, creating a whole world of someone in my head. It comes from that: I actually enjoy writing and as long as I continue to enjoy it and love what I’m doing, the quality is always going to be there.

There’s nothing generic about the content of your lyrics, there’s an intent level of specificity about your world and the people and places that populate it. How important is it for you that you draw from real life events when you craft a song?

If I’m talking about something that’s really happened, it’s fitting that I mention the names. When I write music, I’m not thinking “oh, I shouldn’t say this guy’s name”, ‘cause the people that are listening aren’t going to know who it is, they’re not going to care. It’s personal to me, and that’s what creates it in its realest and rawest form, and that’s how I’m going to write it. I just think keeping it true to that is more important than compromising it to fit into song structure. To me, that raw and organic thing, no matter how good of an “industry standard” song it is, that feeling is more important.

You speak at length in your music about your upbringing and the various difficulties you faced through your youth. What does being able to speak about these arguably traumatic experiences through the artistic medium of music mean to you?

Definitely a bit of self-therapy in there. I’m speaking to myself, I’m speaking to God and I’m speaking to, and for, other people who have been through similar things. So I find relief in that, because no matter what people have been through or how hard things have been, there’s always someone out there who’s had it ten times worse than you. If I can put this song out and someone can message me and say “bruv, this meant a lot to me as I went through the exact same thing”, and if it makes them feel less alone, to me, that’s all I need. When I listen to music or look at art and I can relate to it in that way, then it means a lot to me.

Mental health is a subject that comes up a lot in your music, it’s refreshing to hear an artist in the space that you’re in be vulnerable but with such confidence. Considering that for the most part Rap musics’ legacy is confined to more competitive, boastful sentiments what first inspired you to start exploring your own mental health in this highly vulnerable way?

It definitely wasn’t something planned, methodical or calculated, it was just a natural thing. I’ve never thought about being vulnerable, but I’ve never really cared about talking about how I feel — I’ve got no shame, basically. Well, I do have shame, everyone does, but not as much as other people. If people think a certain thing of me, or think I can’t do something, it makes me want to do it even more. If I think I’m going to be alienated for this, I’m going to talk about it even more, because it’s like “why are you trying to make me feel like that?”, I’ll now show you just how much I don’t care. I’ve definitely got a lot of self-awareness, I always have, and it’s such an important thing to have — you have to know yourself in this life. You have to know your limits and break them, and you also have to know things about yourself so you can grow.

Furthermore, do you think that being able to explore difficult subjects like this is therapeutic, either for yourself or perhaps for your listeners?

Yeah, big time. It’s a big thing for me, probably the main reason I put music out. Otherwise, I’d just make it and not put it out. If I’m making music solely for self-therapy, I could just listen to it in my headphones in bed, but the fact that other people can get something from it, something positive, that means a lot to me. I’m here to spread positivity, that’s why the messaging in my music must be a positive one. It relates back to all of the stuff I’m doing around music, encouraging people to get outdoors and be the best version of themselves, that’s because I know there’s no bad that can come from that, that can only benefit people.  

Some of your songs play out like cautionary tales, painting vivid pictures of characters or situations that are stark, visceral warnings of the trife life being involved in the streets; ‘On his Grandma’s fridge he got turned to a magnet, streets is tragic’ sticks out as a particularly haunting bar. What is the intention with content of this nature?

See a bar like that, yeah, you can’t really come up with that unless you’ve seen these things. When you really paint a picture like that, where people can close their eyes and imagine it, it helps to bring them closer to it, it evokes the emotion properly — the rawest emotion. I always write in that way, I tend to paint pictures instead of keeping things vague. I’m very introspective with my music, which is where bars like that come from.

Furthermore, how important is it to you that your music shows an honest portrayal of reality as opposed to opting for glamorisation?

For me, personally, I’m not one of those people who would sit here and say what other people shouldn’t be doing. Whatever situation you come from, if you feel like you want to create a character and build off that, and you’re having fun with it, to me, that’s cool. If you’re creating a character that’s negative, saying negative things with implications on kids who are looking up to your music, when really, one, you’re not even from that, and two, it’s dark, it’s silly — I don’t understand it. For me, I keep it raw, man. I’d find it hard to write like that, creating a facade.

Your choice of beats is varied and quite singular within the U.K. context — of late you seem to opt for irregular, fuzzy jazz-sample loops, often completely devoid of drums and they’re pretty atypical when compared with the vast majority of the sounds of UK Rap music. How did you find this sound and what was it that initially drew you to it?

With the beats, I don’t make music in the studio, I record all my stuff at home. The only producer I’ve worked with is KwolleM because he’s my boy from when I was a teenager, so we had that chemistry. He works the same as me — he makes beats at home and then sends them to me. The whole of C2C we made like that — he’d make a beat, send it to me and then I’d record in my room and send it back. The reason I’m mentioning this is because I sit at home on YouTube listening to type beats, shit like that, and I also love jazz and blues – like I love Miles Davis and Gill Scott Heron and the blues guys like Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf. That’s the music I actually listen to, I don’t actually listen to much rap, so I suppose the influence maybe comes from there. Like I really like jazz music, especially when I’m riding my bike, that’s what I’ll have playing in my headphones.