Don't Look Down

“My first project dropped when I was 21 and I was fresh out of uni. Half the things I know now, I didn’t know then,” Kojey Radical tells Apple Music. The multidimensional artist—poet/rapper/musician—has done a lot of growing since emerging in 2014, not least in the three years between the 2022 release of his debut album *Reason to Smile* and this tightly plotted follow-up. Having ascended to new heights of success (BRIT, Ivor Novello, and Mercury Prize nominations), this record finds Radical caught in the liminal space between two worlds and struggling to feel at home in either one. Inspired by a star-studded, imposter-syndrome-inducing Fashion Week afterparty and a birthday celebration for a close childhood friend that highlighted a rift in their relationship he had been too busy to even notice, *Don’t Look Down* is Radical’s attempt to reconcile the disconnect. “I think it’s documenting a time in my life that I would call a transition into real adulthood,” he says. “There’s still a lot of my life that I’m figuring out, and maybe because of the way we’ve all been conditioned to think, there was a guilt in the fact that I hadn’t.” Over the course of the album’s runtime, he dives deep into the core conflicts plaguing his spirit: the artifice of fame; pleasure-seeking and its pitfalls; the pressure to uphold his responsibilities as a friend, a father, a voice for his community. The narrative places him in yet another party environment, occurring in a loop that closes out with Radical locked in a bathroom listening to a voice note from his son in the final seconds of reverential tearjerker “Baby Boy,” forming a seamless connection to opening track “Knock Knock,” where he is summoned back to the festivities and the cycle begins anew. “The bottom half of the album is kind of addressing all these personal relationships that were established in the first half, but seeing the reality of how some of them turn out,” says Radical. “It’s like the duality of some things you can fix, some things you can’t fix, but I guess the most eternal bond is the one between me and my son. \[This album\] is me writing to him, but also writing to myself and wanting to leave a reminder of what this all was, and why, and that it was all for him.” Read on, as Radical takes us through *Don’t Look Down*, track by track. **“Knock Knock”** “\[The other voice on this track\] is my boy, Kwoli Black. He’s a UK rapper and one of my more recent best friends. It’s very hard to make close friendships in adulthood, but we’ve managed to build quite a tight brotherly bond. I wanted to include his voice, because that would’ve been him at the door. The poem itself is kind of the prelude to the album. Life was starting to feel like this party had been thrown for me and I didn’t know. I was like, ‘Why is everyone trying to celebrate me? Why do I deserve this?’ And then, ‘What does it mean when people *haven’t* turned up to celebrate me? Why am I watching those people and not thanking the people that are here? Why don’t I feel at home anywhere?’ It’s asking these questions so we can answer them throughout the album.” **“Rotation”** “This is me stepping out into the party, but then using it as a way of narrating the times that we’re in now. ‘Did the most for minimum wages/Took a little debt for syllabus pages.’ It’s like we go from this institution to that institution and everything’s in a circle. Even me—this internal dialogue of ‘I want to vibes too. I want to shoobs it up, I want to smoke it up, I want to drink it up,’ but at the same time, I’ve got something to say…and not being sure if people even want to hear me say that. It’s like being conscious almost becomes this prison when actually we’re all conscious of what we’re doing and when we’re doing it. But I think some people are given the gift of being able to articulate it and it’s like, ‘Do I use that or do I not?’ I like to juxtapose moments of confusion or angst with music that we can dance to and celebrate to, so the message is hidden in the funk drums and this innate groove that makes you want to move immediately.” **“Rule One” (feat. Bawo)** “The concept for the song actually came from this show that I did many, many moons ago. It was an Afro-punk show. They had the rules for the party by the side of the stage and it was like, ‘No homophobia, no racism, no this, no that.’ As an image, it always stuck with me. Even in this gathering of rejoicing and celebrating, there are still rules of engagement. There are still ways that we have to handle ourselves. There’s a lot of responsibility you feel music-wise to drive that, but also again, make music that people can just vibe to and feel themselves to and feel empowered to. So I think ‘Rule One’ is just me setting the precedent for dos and don’ts.” **“Drinking My Water” (feat. MNEK)** “At any kind of big function, unless I’m ready for the dance floor, I like being out of the way. I like observing and seeing what’s going on. Especially when you can’t bring your people. You have to make acquaintances with people like, ‘OK, we’ll ride out these next three hours together, because we don’t know no one else here.’ That’s this song for me. And life is different for me now. I feel alien to the people around me. If I jump on a call with my bredrins and everyone’s chit-chatting about a normal life, how am I supposed to say, ‘Oh, I just did this campaign, met that person, got paid this much, went to sleep…’? It’s a reminder that I’m quiet, but I’m not sad. I’m fine. I call it an introvert anthem.” **“Long Day” (feat. Dende)** “I was indulging in the fruits that came with the labor, and some fruit is great for you and some fruit isn’t. I was spending a lot of time eating fruit that should have been forbidden. The indulgence is pleasure and a lot of the time, we’re just pleasure-seeking. It becomes a crutch, or the answer to a long day, and you realize that your whole energy towards it is toxic \[too\]. The interlude at the end where I’m talking to Kwoli mimics conversations we’ve had in real life where I’ll be in that long-day state of mind. It leads into ‘On Call’ which is the story of me trying to understand if I like love or if I love love.” **“On Call” (feat. James Vickery)** “I wanted to a play on ‘Ms. Fat Booty’ by Mos Def \[the artist now known as Yasiin Bey\]. I’m doing a lot of ‘Ms. Fat Booty’ references where I’m having a conversation with a woman called Love, who’s the embodiment of love throughout the album. As I meet her, she’s very quick to be like, ‘I see through you,’ and the idea of her seeing through me almost becomes the challenge. She’s got to be on call, because she’s someone I can feel vulnerable in front of. I’ve always wanted to do a storyteller-style song like that, because I grew up on so much hip-hop that really took me on a journey. James Vickery slid on that hook and everything about it is just reminiscent of something I hold dear to me, in terms of hip-hop.” **“Expensive” (feat. Planet Giza)** “The Pocket Queen is an amazing drummer from America. She works with Swindle and she had given us these drum grooves. ‘Expensive’ was one and ‘Conversations’ was another. As soon as we heard it, it was like, ‘There’s something about this that’s immediate and sexy,’ and everything started to build itself. It’s going to sound crazy, but I wanted to give women the chance to feel like Alesha Dixon in the N.E.R.D ‘She Wants to Move’ video. That was my whole goal with this record. How do I give the listener that feeling of: the show is stopped, the lights are on, shock out, no one cares, do what you’re doing?” **“Problems” (feat. Cristale)** “Now we’re at the midpoint of the album, where we’ve looked at how the change of lifestyle leads you to overindulge in things that aren’t really tangible. They’re just fleeting moments that make you feel all the endorphins of moving in the right direction, but nothing’s figured out. How do you even explain to somebody what your problems are when you’re in this middle point of success? In the grand scheme of things, my wants and needs are very simple, but to get there is a very complicated process. Yes, I’m happy and I’m working and I’m successful, but I feel like I should be saying more, doing more, I shouldn’t be around certain people, I need to lock in, I need to cut people off. It’s creating a party out of this angst and taking it to church a little bit.” **“Conversation”** “We’re into the angsty part of the album. The rat race of life. Trying to understand the transition between your twenties and your thirties and put what that feels like into audio format. Having to be a provider, an understander, and an activist all in one day, because the powers that be aren’t doing what they need to be doing for us. Everything’s more visual, we can see it. One story is somebody getting glammed up to go out, the next one is children being lost in wars. We’re so desensitized to it. The speed makes you feel like you’re tapping away at that speed. Next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing. When are we going to stop to talk about it? When do we have this conversation?” **“Communication” (feat. Benjamin AD)** “Ben’s interlude is like stepping outside the party for a second. The wind hits you and it’s like, ‘Rah. Life does go on.’ There’s so many things I’ve missed out on. People still hold space, but they don’t see the grind I’ve been on. You don’t realize how long you’ve been inside until you step outside. And sometimes you’re afraid to see that the party continues even after you leave.” **“Life of the Party”** “The second verse was written about a trip that I took to Sydney. The promoter asked me to do a paid walk-through at this club. It’s just gyal everywhere. I know they don’t know whose section they’re in, so I’m just walking around, normal, ‘Hi everyone, how are you doing, my name’s Kojey,’ but I’ve not said it’s my section. Then they bring over this Patron and it’s got my name in sparklers. So now all these gyal clock this is my section and everyone’s energy changes. And I can’t blame them, because they’re looking for their opportunity to even have a taste of whatever lifestyle they think this is. And none of it’s real. I’m sat here surrounded by what is unequivocally fake love, thinking back to everything I know from back home. I’m from an estate in Hackney—I want to be around my people. But no one’s here. It’s just me. It’s that feeling of being the center of attention, but also feeling isolated by that attention. And not being able to talk about how that makes you feel is even more isolating.” **“Breathe” (feat. Col3trane)** “That’s the crash out. And when I crash out it’s like bravado because the ego takes over. None of you could tell me nothing. So it’s that crescendo of ego and isolation. You can hear the children’s choir out there and the voices from everywhere almost feel like they’re taunting you. And even though I’ve got this moment to breathe, there’s still one person I want to talk to. As much as I’ve got all this stuff around me, I’m still looking for Love. I met her before. I ain’t even acknowledged her since I met her. But guess who I’m going to call when I’m all drunk and dizzy or whatever? And it happens at the end of the song. I want to talk to this person that has very clearly seen through me and seen through all of this, but since I met her—and it was done this way on purpose—we ain’t heard from her. Until it feels like everything’s on top of me.” **“Curtains” (feat. SOLOMON)** “It starts like, ‘I really do love this person. I love you…(bitch). Like, damn, why you make me feel these feelings! Ugh!’ But then I’m sat there and I’m trying to ask myself, ‘What did I do to show this person that I felt that way?’ And I’m running out of answers every next line. Even down to moments when I could have said it and I didn’t say it. This is openly as raw as I can sing what was happening with that, and how left it went because of me. This might be the only opportunity that I get to say it that way, because I know even the person in question doesn’t want to hear it. The song ends like, ‘If you ever hear this, just call me, because I would rather say this to you than say it on a song. But as long as I’ve said it, it’s been said.’ A lot of the time, these are things that are reminders to me to be like, ‘All right, your mistakes have allowed you to make a beautiful song out of it, but repeating these mistakes makes this who you are.’ Anyway, she’s heard the song. She hated it.” **“Comfortable” (feat. Jaz Karis)** “I was trying to write this as the welcome-back-to-the-streets accountability anthem, where I’ve had this conversation with Love and realized I didn’t do enough to show Love that she was loved, and now I’ve lost Love. Sometimes people hear that song and think I’m saying that she’d done something wrong and I got too comfortable. No. I did something wrong by getting too comfortable. I cared just enough to feel let down by the fact that we can’t work this out. And it’s like, ‘Well, I tried and trying wasn’t enough and that’s OK, I’ll just have to go back to the old me.’ That’s always our first reaction: I’ll give up, I’ll just go back to it then. That’s getting too comfortable in leaning into your flaws and not acknowledging that you need to do something about it.” **“Everyday”** “Another super vulnerable one. We’re talking about, in the midst of loss, you fall back on your vices. A lot of my vices were there to help me deal with my own personal insecurities, so you have these verses where I’m kind of self-examining and breaking myself down. And a lot of people thought I was still talking about Love when they first heard this song. Nope. That chorus is about my dealer. Love doesn’t always have to be a person. Sometimes love can be a vice. Creating these songs that everybody can sing together is how I escaped from the loneliness of all these feelings. ‘Everyday’ never takes me more than 10 seconds to teach a crowd, and by the time the chorus comes around everyone can sing it with me.” **“Baby Boy” (feat. Ghetts, Chrissi)** “I was sat with \[producer\] Owen Cutts and we were talking for two hours about the reality of entering a co-parent situation and the effects that has on you, trying to choose your own happiness, so you can still be the best parent you can be, as opposed to being that reflection of parents that we saw that stayed unhappy and took that out on their children in weird ways. Being able to get the perspective from an older father, Ghetts, for me is like…it’s him talking to his son, but also, everything that I wish my dad would have pulled up and said to me. And Owen did the big one on that. He made sure everybody that worked on the record were dads themselves. From instrumentation to lyrics it’s written with the intention of being a real, genuine checkpoint for fatherhood. I wanted it to be this moment that feels like a resolve on a lot of the topics that were brought up the album. And the answer to what my idea of home is: my son’s voice. That always snaps it back into the reality of all this make-believe. This is your real life. Come back here.”

Mercury Prize-shortlisted rapper develops ideas on fatherhood, love and self-doubt on this phenomenal follow-up to 2022’s ‘Reason to Smile’

On the followup to his debut album, Reasons to Smile, Kojey Radical continues to carve out his own sound.