Bonkaz is Ready to be Grime's Introspective Outsider

I had to ask, so let's just get the answer out the way, Bonkaz is not named after the Dizzee track. It’s been his nickname for years, “when the tune came out all of my friends would say my name like they do it in that song, though.”

If you know Bonkaz, chances are it’s for his massive grime anthem, “We Run The Block”. The one with the driving, shoulders-back beat and riotous bars like, “Free up the mandem, beat up the Feds”. It's probably the most openly aggressive hit of grime's new global wave, ticking plenty of boxes in terms of roadman credentials. But Bonkaz - real name Taylor - has a confession to make. He's listened to the James Morrison album “like a thousand times.” And Adele. And The Kooks. Yes, The Kooks. “We Run The Block” might be Bonkaz' only official single, but it barely tells the story.

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When we meet in the plastic-punk hyper colour of Sony’s headquarters I don’t yet know about his listening habits, but there’s a clue from the get-go that he’s not afraid of inter-genre dalliances. I’m used to watching him online in standard streetwear uniform - like the vintage Boston Celtics hoodie in his latest video - but today he sports a Guns n’ Roses t-shirt and a black leather biker complete with studs, House of Pain patch and licks of primary coloured paint. I compliment the look. “Do you like it?” he whispers, eyes glued to the ground. “This is my favourite t-shirt.”

Bonkaz - 23 years old - is a Croydon boy, born and bred. Growing up, he explains, his first love was football. But he’s from the home of dubstep; his neighbours were Stormzy, Krept & Konan and Section Boyz. It wasn’t long before music stole the top spot. “I got into it when I was about 10 or 11,” he explains. “I used to have a huge problem with answering back. I used to get in trouble for talking and then I realised that I could actually get praise for talking - for lyrics.” He spent hours with his mates in bedroom studios - they’d load up a beat and take turns to spit bars. Bonkaz always got the intros and choruses - “because everyone knew that music was my thing.”

One of grime’s defining features is that it exists without the need for mainstream musical endorsements. And Bonkaz knows this only too well. “The tracks just started spreading,” he explains. “We’d record a song and then send it to our whole MSN list. Within a week it would be all over South London - you’d hear it in school or on the bus.” And he seems to have a natural knack for creating his own hype. When we meet he’s flanked by at least five industry heavies, but this time last year he was a lone soldier, just doing his thing.

He was still working a fulltime job to pay the bills when he was introduced to grime’s go-to producers, Heavytrackerz, the guys behind "German Whip", by a friend. With “We Run The Block” already written, they hooked him up with the perfect beat. His next move was risky but baller - he decided that he would perform the track live and eventually drip-feed it to some select radio stations, but it would be kept away from the internet entirely. “I feel like grime was at its biggest at a point when there was no internet - it wasn't YouTube and Soundcloud and all that. It was just word of mouth and radio shows.”

He went about shrouding his track in a kind of unattainable luxe prestige. “It’s that grime thing - you hear a song and you wanna have bragging rights over your fam,” he explains. “I remember tuning into Deja Vu and listening to D Double E spitting some bars. I knew that none of my friends were listening. So I’d go to school the next day and be spitting the bars. It just gives you that feeling of - I’ve got one up on you cos I know it.”

The gamble paid off: “As I continued to do it, people were filming me performing it. Then there’d be footage of me online and the whole crowd would know the words. People would be searching ‘Bonkaz We Run The Block’ and there was nothing official there.” He signed to DJ Target and Danny Weed’s Sony imprint Pitched Up back in July, they had no other option but to acknowledge the underground juggernaut that his track had become.

Creative freedom is a concept that comes up regularly during our conversation. Besides the obvious, I ask, what are the lyrics of “We Run The Block” about? “English Lit was my favourite subject in school,” Bonkaz explains. Not the answer I was expecting, but there is a link - he liked the opportunities that it offered for endless interpretation. “When I say ‘beat up the cops’ that’s an analogy for being willing to be yourself and put yourself out there,” he goes on. “Anyone that wants to take away your creative freedom is the equivalent of a cop.” I’ve heard him use this explanation before and wondered if it was a line gifted to him in a media training session. But now we’re chatting face to face, I consider that he might be telling the truth.

One of Bonkaz’ biggest influences is The Streets - he references him regularly and his most recent Soundcloud offering, the Forgive Me When I’m Famous EP, includes the fan track “King Mike Skinner”. He seems to share the Brummy’s soft spot for romance, his penchant for poetry. That latest EP is awash with wistful female vocals and introspective moments of regret that are unmistakably Skinner.

And then there’s Bonkaz’s own vocal. The boy is not afraid to croon which opens up the possibilities for the type of grime ballads that haven’t been seen since the early days of Kano. “I used to listen to Kano on the way to school every day,” Bonkaz says. “He had a range of different songs, and that showed me that I could do something similar.” One listen-through of Bonkaz’s Soundcloud reveals an artist who’s not happy making cookie-cutter grime bangers. He’s still very much experimenting with his sound.

And what about the message? What does Bonkaz hope that people will get from his music? “Confidence,” he states, no hesitation. “If people could gain confidence from my music that would be really cool.” Of the gamut of musical heroes that Bonkaz cites, from Kid Cudi to the Arctic Monkeys, they share an ability to combine swagger with a willingness to reveal their insecurities. Sure, Drake’s been at it for years in hip-hop, but real talk introspection is a rare concept in the world of grime. “You don't have to always be tough or know how to deal with situations,” is Bonkaz’s thinking. “Some things are hard to deal with and it’s good to hear that in the music.”

The Croydon MC, it seems, is more than prepared for an outsider status within grime. He explains that he’s very excited by what’s happening in his scene right now, but that he needs to do things on his own terms rather than as part of a crew. Stormzy and Novelist may be around his house all the time, but he’s separated himself from them publicly - “I don't want it to look like I’m just riding their wave. Everyone’s gotta work individually to cement themselves in music in general. We’re all under the same umbrella but we all bring something. I just think I’m a necessary part of the puzzle.”

Bonkaz’s next major label release is out this week and there are plans for an album next year (“I definitely wanna go down the Mike Skinner route of doing something concept.”). It’s a guessing game as to what any of this might look and sound like. He clearly has a thing for guitars: “I’ve got this idea in my head of me being the lead singer of a band one day” - and a few days after we speak he tweets about being in the studio with soul producer du jour, Soulection’s Sango. Basically, he plans to be anything but predictable. What he’s clear on, though, is a desire for longevity. His ultimate goal is one that has alluded many of grime’s biggest artists: “I wanna be ten albums deep.”

Bonkaz isn't named after the Dizzee track. But as he talks I’m reminded of Boy In Da Corner - grime is always at its best when it teams toughness with fragility. And every scene needs its outsiders, its early-Busta eccentrics. At a time when grime has well found its misplaced mojo, the new generation may be free to step away from the pack - and move beyond #shutdown mode, so that the next star can proudly through the ends with “Naive” blasting in their headphones.

You can follow Clare Considine on Twitter.