Novelist is a Lewisham lad and a grime artist. He’s reviving and bolstering the genre’s organic, raw energy that has become disfigured and diluted by the democratic effect of social media.

But Nov’s story runs deeper than just his Soundcloud-mixtapes and tracks. He’s an 18-year-old who makes it his business to be aware of the social and political landscape by industriously educating himself on societal prejudices and political instabilities. It’s this muscular affiliation that augments his tracks with respect and integrity from grime’s artist-veterans and followers. 

A founding member of The Square (kicked off when he was just 16) his hunger for success – and his actual success – is apparent. But he’s no less humble and modest for it. 

His progression can be awarded to the duality existing in the world of Nov: a millennial methodology nuanced with traditional slants, governing his creative and distributive processes. He leads the revival of grime’s essence through collaborating with producers such as Mumdance, while pushing tracks through pirate radio, vinyls and Soundcloud. This oxymoronic condition between fresh and far-gone – and resulting multigenerational connection – breaches the boundaries of conventionality and into the realm of the revolutionary.

Lewis Firth: Why do you think people stopped listening to grime?
Novelist: Bruv, bare people stopped listening to it. And now people are listening to it again because we’re using pirate radio again. That is grime’s essence. You know this YouTube, freestyle thing, that obviously didn’t exist back in the day. It’s not real music, you know?

LF: Yeah, a lot of it is shit. 95%? But then there’re one or two who are sick. And I mean, just one or two.
N: Yeah, yeah – that’s true. Now everyone’s going back to pirate. When I spit my lyrics everyone knows who I am because they’ve already heard it on the radio. People say radio’s dead but it’s definitely not, man.

LF: People are reverting back to it, a sort of rebellion against this new, democratic system that social media has created.
N: It’s tiring! It’s all diluted. Look at vinyls. I put a vinyl out when I was 16. I was the first person out of that age group to fuck with vinyl. MP3s don’t have a re-sale value. Emcees have been going back to old-school ways so it’s just made everything more interesting. For a few years it’s just been YouTubers and clashes between artists with no history between ‘em.

LF: Have you clashed with anyone?
N: If I were to clash with anyone, it would probably be with one of my guys – someone that I’m cool with. It’d be entertaining – back to back; rah, rah, rah; spitting our lyrics, you know? You can’t just have some random guy from another area clashing with some next-man because it’s just not real. And people say there’s a ‘grime revival’. I mean, I wouldn’t call it that: it’s always existed on some level. Regardless of who liked me and what everyone else was doing, I just wanted to do it properly. So I went on pirate radio, I put out vinyls – I was hungry to put music out and work with non-grime producers, the ones that bridge the gap between genres, you know? I worked with someone called Mumdance. He’s a top man and a sick producer. I thought, ‘this guy would be sick to collaborate with’. I was shakey at first, but it was really different and that’s what made it sick, man.

LF: I think that was society making you shaky, though. Everyone was doing something different to you, so it made you doubt your music. 
N: Too many choices, init: digital spaces have created more options and changed all that. People started bringing trap and funk elements into grime. But that authentic, grime energy had gone. When I worked with Mumdance I made sure that we used his techniques on old-school, grimey riffs.

LF: I think all genres over the past few years have gone through a major shift. Labels and producers have been trying to make it all mainstream while compromising on integrity.
N: Yeah, man. Fuck that, bruv. It’s all made to fit with everyone’s taste. And that’s just not grime, man. I completely agree.

LF: YouTube has democratised the industry. Anyone can upload a track and call themself a musician. But it’s the story behind your work, too. The only way to differentiate yourself from the fakes is to tell your story that’s unique to you.
N: Like, ‘what’s grimey about you, bruv?’ [laughs]

LF: [laughs] Exactly. So, for you, what’s true grime?
N: I don’t want to say to people that they can’t make music. I mean, if you want to make a grime tune then do it with authenticity. Where I come from, Lewisham, is fucking nuts. I’ve been in bare dramas. I’m not chattin’ about being a bad man. I’m talking about real stories and real shit. My man Skepta wouldn’t be able to say half the shit he’s thought of without being inspired by what was happening around him – I’m the same, so this is why the music is so important for me. It’s not just a sound; it’s a real expression of what’s happening. It can get political.

LF: So how did you get involved with Skepta?
N: Skeps is one of the man-dem. I personally don’t like the feeling that someone has just ‘brought me in’, you know? I’ve worked so hard from the bottom. I don’t want anyone to say, ‘I’ve done this for you, so you owe me this’. Skeps has done it like, ‘man, you’re sick; come to New York with me and let’s fuck up a show’. That’s why I have massive respect him. I’ll never let anyone chat shit to me about Skepta – he’s real, man.

LF: And how did The Square come about?
N: I have always been doing my thing in the ends. Since I was about 12 or 13. I met DeeJillz and Elf Kid when I was about 14. One day we just thought about making a crew. The day we made The Square – the day we gave it a name – I met some sick geezer called Streema. It was four men. Then slowly more and more people came into the crew.

LF: Last time we met, we spoke about the extra work you do in trying to help kids reach their potential. Let’s talk about that because I think, especially now with everything happening with the austerity cuts, it’s so important. What sparked that drive to get involved?
N: When I was 13, I got stabbed in the chest. This was in my ends. The feds came to the scene before the ambulance did. I thought, ‘nah, this is fucked up’. Before, I was just a kid. I was just living life. But then after that, I had a realisation: when you’re damaged the ambulance is supposed to come, not some fucking officer questioning you while you’re bleeding out. Something needs to happen. I started becoming more aware. I realised that I needed to be more clued up about the world and what was going on. When I was 15 or 16, I was the Deputy Young Mayor of my borough. I’ve always been a good yute in the ends – but a bad yute, too.

LF: Bad in what way?
N: Not bad because I’m evil, but when you’re young you just do things. I’ve always cared about my community and the young people. Then that position made me realise that the whole system is fucked-up. Hierarchical bullshit. They sell you the dream and then shut you down. We never had any power to change anything; it’s a scheme to make people ‘believe’ that they’re in control. It’s mad, bruv. I was going to meetings every Monday, chatting about real issues, and they always got ignored. I gave these people business plans, with times, dates and budgets – the lot. So what’s the problem? They just chatted shit. So I just wanted to be rebellious and do things my own way. I dropped out of school and started doing grime properly. I wanna do stuff for my ends, of course, but it’s not that simple.

LF: You do it through your music. You make music, get a rep, then influence the youth that way.
N: The youth listen to people my age, as I’m only 18. But you want to say shit and you have older people telling you to be quiet – you know what I’m saying?

LF: Social media has fucked things up. People are so used to having the information so easily accessible, that they’ve now developed a habit of believing anything that’s pushed onto their screen.
N: You can’t judge a political party from 140-character tweets. I just think we should fuck-up everything [laughs]. I don’t condone violence. I condone fucking-up the system because you’re fucking-up my system. Everything is la-dee-da for you; things are messed-up for us.

You can check out Novelist’s work on Soundcloud, here. Novelist’s EP 1 Sec is out now on XL Recordings