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Someone grabbed my chain and then I just remember seeing knives. A BBC live music event was ended early last night. The rapper crept was attacked backstage. This was a millimeter deeper and it would have been a different scenario. He's a rapper and has collaborated with the likes of anyone and Stormy. [Applause] [Music] Conan's stepdad was killed. Car ran out of the room trying to fight. Two more gunshots. Everything silent. We can either go and retaliate or we take this music thing seriously. Actually try to make it out of where we're coming from. The next thing we put out went viral. Skeptor reached out and said, "Yo, we want to bring you guys on tour." It was such a life-changing moment for us. We started doing radio, TV, and we started branching out. Nala's baby full of natural goodness. You would never put a rapper launching a baby skincare line in the same sentence. You should always feel uncomfortable. Almost like you shouldn't be here and that's the growth man. You can't be afraid of that. Do you know how what the company's valued at? 17 and a half. What do you think Blaine would think another baby? Cadet whose real name was Blaine Johnson has died. He was on the brink of doing something great. What's on your mind? We've got this complex like I'm not meant to cry. like it makes you feel like less of a man or something. I swear this scares me. So, without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett and this is the diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself [Music] crept. First of all, thank you for being here. I think got got to be honest. I think you're one of the the smartest looking guests I've ever had sit in the chair. I'm very jealous of your outfit today. Thank you, man. It's it's sick. And the design is a friend of mine who um who I met in Manchester a couple of couple of months back. But where I wanted to start with you is um back in South London, back in
Cuden. I want you to if you can give me the context in which you were you were raised. And when I say context, I mean like what were those things in your environment at an early age that ultimately shaped who you were and left those little kind of foot those fingerprints on on your personality and character? To be honest, like when I was younger, when I was in school, like all I knew and all my friendships knew were, you know, gangs and, you know, that kind of lifestyle. That's all that we saw. like you know everybody that I would go to school with or you know outside of school that was that's that's what it was and you know we got caught up in a load of nonsense growing up but I was one of those people that always saw the bigger picture and I always thought I don't want to end up going to jail and I don't want to end up dying because that's what I saw like I I've lost so much friends due to, you know, coming from where we're coming from and like seeing friends that I've I've grown up with pass away to to violence or crimes or, you know, friends. I've got loads of friends that are in jail for life and some for even things they didn't even do. So, I always used to be like, you know, when when when my friends was doing this or doing that, I would always be like, you know, I'm going to try and do this and try and do that and because I do not want to end up in jail or dying. Like that was, you know, that's what we was used to. Like, and it's sad because it's like it felt so normal. Like the first time, you know, I was like 13 and hearing gunshots outside my house and coming out and someone's on the floor dead and I'm a 13year-old young boy. And it it was like it was normal. It wasn't even like something that seemed abnormal at the time. It just felt like this is how it is when you live where you live or where you're from, where you're from. And that's what it was. Do you know what I mean? And I feel like I've always always had my eye on being more than that like all the time. So when you know my friends was getting involved in certain things, I was like, you know, I'm going to I'm going to finish college. I'm going to go to university and I'm going to try my best to keep myself, you know, on a
positive path. Like and I always thought this all the time and I always said, "Yeah, I'm not going to I'm not going to fall into this trap because I'm seeing, you know, my friends falling into I'm seeing my friends going to jail. I'm seeing my friends die." I'm like like, "When is it?" And it's and it doesn't end. It doesn't stop. You know, new issues happen now. You know, you got a problem with these people because of this or like and it just it's a constant cycle and I feel like I didn't want to get trapped in that cycle. What what was your family unit like? Um my my mom and dad wasn't together. Um my father went to jail for a lot of my childhood. Um and you know he so he wasn't around for a lot of the important moments in my life and that age where I feel like you probably need you know a father figure there. um he wasn't um because he was in jail and you know again that's what I was you know seeing and that was what was a norm to me you know um growing up my mom was single and it was she was just you know doing her best to look after me and my brother um and I feel like she done an incredible job but there was still I'll never forget there was a moment where something happened and police came to my house and I'll never forget my mom said I failed as a mom and I can't explain how that made me feel and I was like there's no way on earth that I'm going to let those words even become a reality. So I remember from there I was like I am going to make this woman proud like if it's my the last thing I do and that was a really really big you know motivational moment for me. Why you done matter so much to you? Because my mom did everything she could you know she tried her best as as a single mom. She tried her best. She always, you know, wanted the best for me and wanted the best for my brother and, you know, being a single mom, knowing that there's bills and knowing that she was stressed and this that and the fourth, like I know she wanted the best for me and me feeling like, you know, I haven't even tried to appreciate or repay her for that. And her feeling like a failure even though she done her absolute best. So that resonated with me
and it really hit me when she said that and yeah from I remember from then like the motivation I had I was like I'm going to cuz I I I didn't even want to stay in uni or I didn't want to like I was thinking that's long I don't want and I was like no I'm going to go all the way and I'm going to graduate. I'm going to make her run and say my son's got a degree I'm going to do that and I'm going to do my music and I'm going to be successful in that and she's going to be proud. I spoke it and knew it was going to happen because I was so determined from from there to to make it happen. So yeah, often when you're from an environment where people are being tempted to choose a nefarious life, so when when they're being tempted to choose a slightly you maybe it's a criminal lifestyle or something because they don't have the same level of opportunities in that environment. So often people look back and they can almost see how it could have gone another way for for them. How they could have been tempted in that other path because there's no doubt temptation to choose another path would have been present in that environment. When you look back on on those times can you can you see how things could have gone another way? 100%. like there there there was, you know, there was one specific moment that um I remember when it was when Conan had a situation where his his stepdad was killed and his mother was shot. Can you tell me about that incident? What you read about that in a song? Yeah, a song called My Story. um where Conan was um I think he was coming back from radio and Conan um when Conan got back basically there was people waiting for him and he was walking to his door and he had his key in his hand and he's always been a a paranoid person so he'd always like ready to put his key in and cuz like he was always alert and he always he's just an alert person. He's always alert on point. And if this was probably anybody else, they probably would have died. But he was just by his door and then he heard people running behind and he just knew straight away. He didn't look back. He just put his key in the door, turn it, open it, closed it. And then that's
when, you know, he realized like, okay, someone is definitely here to try and kill me. and they've got in the house um and they've basically when they're holding the door upstairs um they've shot through the door and one of the the the bullets you know hit Conan's mom and then Conan's stepdad at the time ended up wrestling with them and then he ended up getting shot um and and dying and and um the guys left. But you know it was that situation that happened and as you can imagine what that what effect or you know that would have had on him and everybody around him. So I remember we were sitting in a car and our friends was like look we can either go and do this and and retaliate or whatever whatever it was and I remember there was that moment of oh we we we take this music thing seriously and you know don't throw everything away right now and actually try to make it out of where, you know, we're coming from. And it was that moment of like, we're going to do the music. We're going to focus and put our all into this and, you know, see what happens. And that was like a moment where that could have easily gone a completely different way. Like we literally had nothing. We was we I remember we had an argument over the last bit of chicken and chips because that's the only money we had. like we had nothing and Conan was homeless. Like it was like probably the one of the worst periods of our lives and definitely Conan's for sure. Um and I feel like from there we done Otus which was like a a cover of Jay-Z and Kanye's um song. And that song went viral. And it was like it was the perfect time for something like that to happen because we could have done that and not done what we, you know, not done anything and then we could have just, you know, somehow slipped back into or whatever. But it was literally from that moment the next thing we put out, bearing in mind we've been putting out music, you know, and we've never had a moment like that before. And the next thing we put out after this disaster has just happened. The next thing we put out went viral and everything changed from there. Literally, you know, we put this
out and then from there we ended up, you know, Skeptor reached out and said, "Yo, we want to bring you guys on tour." And you know, for any musician when you go on tour and do live music, it's like for the first time, it makes you feel like you're really a musician. Like I'm really doing this for real. And that was really like a a a special moment for us that he's asked us to come on tour during this period. We was we were so new as artists. Skeptor didn't, you know, we would have just done the tour for free. He didn't even he didn't even just have us on the tour supporting. He paid us like he paid us per show like and when I mean we were so we was like we're going to get paid to come on tour with you on a tour that is already sold out. He didn't need us there and he had us on on the tour and paid us as well. And it was just like such a life-changing moment for us. Like, you know, I I I I just feel like the the the the stars aligned or something. But, you know, being in that moment where you're like about to throw everything away to then you're on stage live with thousands of people in front of you. Like from that transition to that in in an you know, you couldn't make that up. like that was just it was just a crazy time and I feel like yeah man I feel like we obviously made you know the right decision and yeah we've never looked back since man the person that um carried out that attack um did you ever find out why they did it and did they get caught? It's It's weird because we don't actually We'll never know who who done it because You'll never know who done it. No, because we There was two people there. All right. Um and one person got arrested for it, but at the end of the day, you still don't know, you know, who done it and they got sentenced. Yeah, they got sentenced. I think they got found with the weapon or something like that. But um yeah, there was two. So, we don't actually know who's who's done it up until today. We know a lot about mental health these days. It's a more of a conversation now. But how does, you know, you you're by
his side. How does Conan deal with that? Both of his parents being shot, one of them dying. Conan is like I it's one of those ones where I can't even explain on his behalf because it's not even something I can even comprehend being in that situation. Um what what I know he we have done is you know stayed doing music and doing what we love and actually growing in that world and actually you know becoming someone from doing what we love and you know the success that it's brought and all of you know the great things that have happened and you know us just growing and growing and growing. I feel like that has been a major distraction from the harsh reality of what's happened in in his life. Do you know what I mean? And um I feel like if we didn't, you know, have the success we had, I don't know what would have happened. There it's interesting because I'm not sure if success um success heals. Like you use the word distraction. It's actually the word that I would naturally use. it kind of distracts you from the pain and then what you tend to see when I sit here with a lot of people is they they still have to at some point address that pain that pain or alter alcohol or other things you know um and we see see that a lot with musicians especially you know so that's kind of what I'm getting to you've been through the same you've been through the same hurt and you've lost people in your life as well so you can kind of speak to that as opposed to speaking to Conan situation but how especially in like in that culture in like the black culture and especially black men they don't talk about mental health. Really? Especially 10 years ago. No [ __ ] chance. No, definitely not. It's like we've got this, I don't know, complex or we've got this thing where we're like, "No, we're all right." Like, I can get through it. Like, I'm not meant to cry. And I don't know why or how or why we've been conditioned in this way. But we have and we feel like, you know, we don't need to talk to anybody about feeling down. Like it makes you feel like less of a man or something. I'm not sure what it is, but you know, it it's
definitely something that's important to me because like my one of my best friends committed suicide and I have no idea why up until today. So, you're talking about Nash. Nash. Yeah. M and I I don't know why. Like the last time I was with him, we were celebrating that we just finished the shop. Like, bro, we did it. And he was like, I can't believe we've done it. We've done it. And he was so happy. And then he was showing me like, "Look at the emails I'm getting from people like that showing interest." And he was so excited about it. But then a few days later, he jumped in front of a train. Like what was what did I miss? I was with him, spoke to him all the time like and it was just it was like and we're like this and he didn't not once express or make me feel that he was depressed or going through something mentally like I didn't know and I'm with him every day. I didn't see it. So that's how I know how important it is, you know, for us as men and black men to, you know, really not, you know, hide and cover and in our in our feelings and our emotions. And there's nothing wrong with talking about it or telling someone or going to therapy. Like there's nothing wrong with that. I feel like I don't know why. I don't know why, but that situation made me realize how bad it is because I genuinely didn't see anything wrong with him. Like, we're speaking all the time. He's updating me. Look, this has just happened. I'm going here. I'm going there. I'm doing this. Like, oh, this has just come to the shop. Got this order. Like, we're like, you know, and then we celebrated the fact that we finished the shop and it was built. So for context here, you this is when you launched um Creps and Cones. Yes. So before launching Creps and Cones, Nash was the person that was going to run it and manage the store. And for anybody that doesn't know, so I kind of heard the story that someone a fan had tweeted you guys one day about how funny it would be or something that if you opened a restaurant called Creps and Cones. Yeah. Um you trademarked it or Yeah. No, I basically I I can't
remember. I had a conversation with someone one time and and like I remember the the name came into my head and then I just tweeted one time. I tweeted in 2014. I said, "One day we're going to have a restaurant called Creps and Cones." And I just thought it was a sick idea, sick name, sick play for the name. But in 2014, I never had anything. So, it was it was it was just what it was a really big just putting it out there. By the way, one day, I don't know if this ever going to happen cuz, you know, I'm not in a position to make this happen, but I feel like I will be one day. And I just put out the tweet and then I saw people like, "Oh, that would be sick. That would be sick." Loads of retweets. Oh, that would be sick. And then it was like, "Okay, one day." Like, "We'll revisit that conversation." And then, um, did you trademark it? I didn't. You know, that's nice. I didn't. I did. No one did. Luckily, we trademarked it a bit later down, but we we didn't even I don't think I could afford to trademark it at the time. Like, I I don't even think I could have afforded to at the time when I when I tweeted it. But I remember um speaking to Nash about it and saying, "Yeah, one day like, you know, I'm this is what we we need to do this one day." And he was like, "That'll be sick. That would be sick." But he was working in property and he was doing really well doing what he was doing. And I remember he called me and he was like, I want to I want to, you know, it's time for change, man. I want to do something else. Um, what about the idea that you were saying, the creps and cones thing? And I was like, yeah, let's do it. And this was at a time when I I I could do it. And, you know, and Conan was like, "Yeah, let's like he he he already kn it was something that we wanted to do. Do you know what I mean?" So, um, it was just like, who are we going to get to lead this for us? Because obviously we're musicians. We need someone that, you know, and when Nash broke down, you know, everything that he had been research and learned and, you know, people that he was going to get involved to be a part of it and this, that, and the fourth, it was just like,
this makes sense. Let's do it. And there's no better person to do it with than one of our best friends. Do you know what I mean? And so, we decided, yeah, we're going to do it. Um, and yeah, that was a nightmare in itself. Like, you know, just building a shop, like having builders going missing or, you know, people trying to be middlemen skimming off the top and this that and the fourth and taking advantage of you cuz you're musicians as well, right? Yes. So, we probably ended up spending triple what we should have spent on building it. Um, and it took like a year. Like when I mean me and Nash was probably sleeping in that shop. There was days we had we did sleep in the shop cuz we you know we had to deliveries and the next day and you know we need to get this done and you know we need to do that or do this and and then we we didn't trust any builders. We didn't trust anyone. So we had to be there while they was doing it to make sure they're doing it in the way that we told them they're going to do it. You know cuz we leave them they come back and then something's not done or and it's like what have you been doing in the last week? And it was and it was just it was a it was a probably just the worst like you know experience in terms of our intro into this business world. I hated it. Like I was I'm not going to sit here and say like yeah it was great and it was it wasn't I hated it. I put my back up and it was like okay I don't I don't I know stepping into this world I'm not going to trust anyone now. And that really that restaurant really changed me as a a businessman. really changed me as a as a the way I think and you know the way I approach things and in terms of like before if somebody would come to me and say this is how much this costs to do this I would probably be like okay sounds reasonable let's do it now I'm going to ask 10 other people and get other people to ask another 10 other people and gauge if this makes sense and this is the right thing to do or not or I'm getting the best value for money before I wouldn't do And I do that with everything. It's like I'm I'm I'm double-checking everything, every aspect. Is this the best kind of
thing to do? Or is there a way I can do this in a better way for the same price? And it's just made me like that. And it I feel like it's turned me into a bit of a monster. Not a monster, but like I'm just really not the same person I was when I was making, you know, creps and cones. That's what adversity does, though. you you build a callous and that becomes like self-defense, right? So, more than anything, you want people to know that you're going to ask those 10 questions before they even come to you because then they won't they won't try it. So, you're playing self-defense, which is what I do as well. It's like if you know I'm going to ask 10 questions, you're not going to give me the the bad price the first time you come up cuz you know, every time I interrogate it, even if I end up saying yes, I'm going to ask you all kinds of [ __ ] Yeah, I get that a lot now like from from people that I use and work with and they're like, "Ah, here he goes again on these tangents and asking 101 questions and I'm like double checking everything." And but that comes from experience of Yes. being burnt. Being burnt. Yeah. And we felt like we was burnt really badly on on creps and cones. What did it teach you about business? Cuz that was your first real like foray into business. I mean, you had like the apparel brand before then. Yeah, we done we done we sold like a lot of merch which done which done that was what actually helped us make the money to invest in our music. So the do selling the you know the apparel the merch and stuff like that that's what we actually ended up getting money from to invest and do music videos and do that independently. But what that that cuz that experience setting up a restaurant I mean I used to work in a restaurant when I was in my mom's restaurant when I was young when I was seven 8 n 10 11 12 the chaos of customers and complain chaotic like it that that cuz people someone said to me when I was like I'm doing a restaurant it was like that's like the hardest business to get into why are you doing that money and I was like really like I didn't and then it it became extremely harder for us because you know Nash was our guy
and you know us having Nash getting a staff, hiring everybody, dealing with everything, accounts, this that and the fourth and he was our guy leading this and then the week where launching on the Saturday that earlier on in that week he commit suicide. Take me back to when you found out that that that had happened. It was I think it was like someone was coming to the shop to do something. I I can't remember what what it was, but I was due an update from Nash on something to do with the the shop and um didn't hear from him the whole day. And I was like, "This is odd." Cuz he would usually update us on everything like, "Oh, this has happened." And he was so excited like, "Oh, imagine this has happened. I found the sickest bartender. Oh my god, I found the sickest chef. Look look." And and it it was just like loads of that usually. and we're a week away from, you know, launching. We couldn't hear from him the whole day. And we was like, where where is Nash? Like, why have you got through to him? And we're asking like, what's going on? And, you know, we're messaging him, trying to call him. Um and then um we were when we was at the restaurant um yeah I got a call and someone was like it's Nash and he's dead and I was like and it was like he jumped in front of a train. Like I'm even more confused because one of the last interactions we had, we was walking across the road and I remember the bus was coming and he grabbed me and was like, "Get out the road." Like what are you doing? Like and he's like and I remember him going, "Bro, don't do that to me. You scared me." Like that kind of thing. Like the bus was coming and he grabbed like it was a moment of, "Oh, the bus was coming." Like straight away I I was thinking about I was like that there's no way he did that because I remember like why would he do that? How what was wrong? Why didn't we see it? Like there was so much questions like and I just remember breaking down outside Notting Hill like tears crying. I was like there's no way this is real.
And then we was going to just cancel the the launch and then someone close to him was like he wouldn't want you to do that. And we made a decision and said, "You know what? We're just going to do it." Um, we ended up having to find, you know, all the people, the stuff people that he was contacting and try and get hold of them to keep this thing going for launch. Um, and I managed to kind of get majority but not everybody or everything in in line that he had prepared. We're grieving and we're launching and we don't know what we're doing at the all at the same time. So, and the day it's launch day, you know, we've got the mayor of Cuden coming out cutting the ribbon at the shop. And the whole time I'm thinking about Nash. Like Nash should be here. We're taking a picture. Nash should be in this picture. Like when we open these doors, I don't even know what's going on. So people thought we was there because of PR and we're in a restaurant serving people, doing this, doing that. No, we wasn't. I wasn't in there because of PR. I was in there because I had to be in there. Had to work in there. I had to. Like I was literally working in that restaurant, you know, cleaning toilets, what you name it, I was doing everything, you know, and people thought it was a PR thing and was doing it for PR and it genuinely wasn't. Like I didn't know what I was doing and it was it was scary, man. Like it was like we've literally just launched this massive thing. The queue is from here till the end of the road. Like I've never seen anything like it. The queue was so long and it's like all these people are coming to eat here. Oh my god. and you know we're going through this and you know it was it was it was like a bittersweet but mainly bitter because you know it was you know in the restaurant world you're dealing with people's emotions. You're not dealing with your forget your emotions. You got to deal with the staff's emotions. You've got to deal with the customer's emotions. If your chef is not in a good mood today, he's now going to burn this rice or he's going to do something maybe out of character or or something. Um, and so I've got to rely on my chef's emotions
every single day, even if he's going through his own issues or and it's not just one chef, there's two, three, four. Then, you know, if your your main bar person, it's a Saturday busy night, decides I'm not turning up for work because they've had an argument with their partner or whatever it is, what do what do I do? So, this whole business is relying on other people's emotions. And even the customers, the customers come in, they're not in a good mood. They're already just, I'm not in a good mood. I want my food and I want it in 5 minutes. And if I get it in 7 minutes, I'm kicking off. but just just because they're in that mood. So you you're constantly dealing with emotions and people's feelings every single day. And for you to get that right every single day and everybody's emotions be great and everyone's in a great like Well, you're still dealing with your own, right? And we're grieving. Do you know what I mean? And I remember COVID happened and then it was just like this just gets even worse. And our our restaurant was, you know, it was about coming in there and vibes and experienced music, drinks, this that and the fourth and that was what it was. So it wasn't like takeaways like you know everyone's like yeah just adapt and do takeaways. Yeah, that's fine. But our whole business was built on vibes and we do we did like Sunday events and we like it was really an inperson like that's what we created. But the restaurant done so well it managed to you know survive throughout the co stuff but then we was not going to reopen because of the stress and what it was doing to us mentally. I didn't care about the money. You know, people, you're sitting on a gold mine. You get this right. You just to get it right and you know, you can. And I was like, I hear you. Sounds great. I can't deal with it. Like, it's too much stress there. Like, I was in there every day. I was losing weight. I was I was drained, tired, you know? I remember a guy came in and stole everything because he pretended to be a friend of ours. and the staff that was working there or the cleaner believed him and was like, "Yeah, your friend came in and took all the iPads and all the the the equipment." And I was like,
"What? What? Why? Why would you what are you talking about?" And then gone in there, there's nothing that they've taken all the stock. It's that like what is going on? Like this is this is crazy. I can't deal with this. And it was just like I'm not I don't care what potential this has. I'm not doing it. And then um my my friend bouncer introduced me to some guys and said, "Look, these are some really good guys. You know, they've got these successful restaurants. They run it amazingly and this that and the fourth and, you know, they're interested in partnering up with you guys to just, you know, make this work because, you know, you you clearly got something here." And these guys came and they said, "Look, we we we'll deal with that. We'll take away all the headache. Let's let's let's make it work, man. we, you know, we seeing, we see this being big. We feel like we can franchise it. We feel like we can do this, that, and the fourth. I was like, "Cool, let's do it. Let's give it another shot." Um Um as long as, you know, I don't have to bear that that the brutal reality of, you know, running a business, running a restaurant. Have you ever Have you ever um Have you ever like truly taken time to because you use the word grief, we were grieving. What does that actually look like when you say we were grieving? Because from what from what I'm guessing it and from my assumption of hearing the story, it seems like your version of grieving has always been to just kind of distract yourself. That is literally what I do. And I just feel like and I don't know if I feel like I'm scared to stop and take everything in. So I've always just keep going. I'm just like, "Oh, that's happened. Got to keep going." cuz if I stop and and I don't know if that's a recipe for disaster or not. I'm still waiting to find out. I don't know. When when Nash passed, it was like I felt like, okay, I've got to make this work now. I've got to make creps and cones work because what this this like he done so much and we spoke about so much and you know this can't just die in vain. I feel like through the stress that was one thing that made me just feel like you know I'm just going to you know I'm
just going to do with it. I'm just going to deal with it. It was only being forced by co to stop everything where I sat down and was like this do I want to start this [ __ ] again? Yeah. Do I want to do this again? Do you know what I mean? But what kept me going was that and yeah. How are you feeling though when because again you know you keep yourself busy you keep yourself distracted but what's going on behind the mask like underneath the hood everyone on the surface you know you're keeping up appearances to keep things the ship moving but how are you actually feeling like when you go home at night and when you do have those moments to yourself in the car like how are you feeling believe it or not I don't really have their moments like I literally will be trying to do something until I'm tired and go to sleep, wake up and continue doing it again. Like I I don't feel like I've sat down and taken in everything that's happened. I don't think I have. And I swear this scares me because I'm like, you're taking in so much. You're taking on so much. And all I do is just, you know, keep working. I keep doing this or keep doing that. But then I feel like, you know, I've got a lot of positive, you know, even I don't want to even call it distractions because it's my life. So I'm not really being distracted because this is my life and this is what comes with it and this is what I'm doing and this is what I love doing and I'm doing that. But at the same time, I'm dealing with a lot of grief, like a lot of it. And I haven't sat down and, you know, taken it all in and said like, "Wow, like how am I feeling?" Because I'm always just trying to distract myself, I guess. But have you ever seen moments where that grief or that all the things you have been dealing with have caused your behavior to change in an unpleasant way? That sometimes is one of the like the indicators that there's something there's something underneath going on. Kind of like what you said about yourself just you know there's when you're dealing with things maybe the first thing that might go I mean some people start self-medicating with alcohol or whatever it might be but then other people you just see changes in
their behavior. They might get a bit more angry. They might be a bit more cold, a bit more distant, a bit you know what I mean. Have you ever have you ever seen any of those symptoms in yourself because of the grief? Yeah, I think cold. Um, and I feel like I've dealt with so much. I'm not dealing with this. And I feel like so when something happens where I feel like I'm not dealing with it, I'll just switch off. Are you thinking about like relationships? What are you thinking? Friendships, whatever it is, like it's not, you know, whether it's business, whether it's making a decision that you might not have made before. I felt like, you know, I might have been too nice here or been too nice there. And just everything's just made me feel like, you know, I've been through a a lot more. I'm not going to make you add to my stress or make this add to my stress. So, I'm really quick to just dismiss things or, you know, and I feel like I I become a little bit more cold to it because I'm just like, I'm not going to deal with that. I'm not going to. It's It's almost like I'm protecting myself from feeling any more hurt or emotion. That's one strategy, isn't it? Just to numb life. Yeah. It's just like I'm like, "Oh, negative vibes. Oh, this is no no no. I'm just like this." And I feel like, you know, anything that I feel is remotely negative, I'm just like, I'm out. That is probably a good short-term strategy in some situations, but over the long term, again, there there's probably probably a cost, especially now that you're a father, right? Yeah. And one of the things you're trying to instill into your own child is probably like emotions and understanding your emotions and that it's okay to feel and and even go the other place I, you know, I think people often see it is in their like romantic relationships when you're in cuz men and women have a different uh way about them emotionally. Yeah, definitely.
Typically, right? And so um women are typically more in touch with their emotions and men are typically less in touch with their emotions. At least that's a a broad sort of stereotype. So sometimes can make it difficult when a man has like numbed himself to deal with stuff to then be able to emotionally connect with some a woman in the way that I'm talking about myself as well here that she she she needs in order for you to speak the same language if you know what I mean. Yeah. when your when your music career started taking off and all these crazy things start happening. Um, in your own estimation, what was the moment where you go that was everything really really changed when we dropped that? Um, everything really really changed. Otis was like a partial change. That was like this the first liftoff. That was the first liftoff, but it was like, okay, what's next then? Yeah. And then the next big moment that we had was when we released our project called Young Kings. M it was like a independent mixtape that we done. Um and we got a Guinness World Record for it for being the highest independent charting album. 18th or something wasn't it? Yeah, it's like 18 years like top 20. It was like and that was before streaming. Crazy. So that was just you know based on physical people buying it and you know that was a real like wo moment for us because just before that like that period after Otus and before Young Kings we was dealing with so much rejection like in terms not even just rejection but you know people saying oh maybe you should put a a girl in your group and you can be like endubs and maybe that might work out for you or have you tried the ant and deck thing like just being comedians or like it was bare of like just loads of people, you know, just giving us their projections of what they think we should be. And it just felt like they wanted to just chew us and spit us out kind of thing. And and that's what it felt like. And
you know, we started then trying to make records to please what the radio wanted or, you know, what we felt would have got on TV. And then we sat down. I remember we sat down with Skeptor. Big up Skeptor again. We sat down with Skeptor and we was like, "Yeah, man. Like like the labels, man. They're not they're trying to make us do this or they want this kind of sound." And I remember Skeptor said just sat Skeptor and Jammer. They was in Skept's house and he was like, "Forget radio, forget TV, forget record labels. Just do you. do whatever it is that you want to do. There's independent plugers that will plug you to radio themsel. You don't need a label to get do all of these things. Just do it yourself. Put it out yourself. Like don't watch and then they're going to come to you. I'll never forget he said he said they're going to start coming to you. That was like a really important moment for us where we released our project and the music that we made was just like what we wanted to make and you know we made Don't Waste My Time. And when we made Don't Waste My Time, it was like it was purposely made to be like, "Yeah, we don't care what anyone has to say. This is the music we want to make or we're going to say what we want to say on the song and you lot can't tell us anything." I'll never forget when we put it out, it just went crazy. Like the song started going everywhere performing it. Then we, you know, the song ended up on um Creed the movie and like, you know, out to Bellow's entrance song. Like it was a massive moment in Creed and it was like we've done all of this with a song that we knew like we we just thought this is this is what we want to do. Don't waste my time. Yeah. Don't don't waste my time. And we was just like yeah like and then as Skeptor said everyone were running to you now. Everyone was like oh my god want to sign record labels left right center. Oh my god. Like throw a checkbook. So yeah we want you. We want you. And then it just really was like a it was like a really 360 and and then we started doing radio and you know TV and we started you know really branching out and people always
like how did you get into that? But the reason why we how is because we always overd deliver on little opportunities. So, we got a radio opportunity to do to to with Apple to do a show that they've been doing with everyone. So, not everyone, but like a selective few of artists. Everybody gets I think like six episodes. Um, and then they move on to the next artist. We ended up on episode 36 or something. But it was because we was like, we got this opportunity. We know how everybody else has done these shows and what they're expecting, which is they're not expecting much from us. But what if we make this a sick show? What if we go out of our way, bring other guests on, have games, let's do fun, let's do fun things, let's make this entertaining, and actually make this show a good show. And that's what we did. So, our show was nothing like what they expected. We went above and beyond. We had everybody coming on our show from Americans to Swiss French to you know the Daves to AJ Tra like everybody's come on our show and we didn't have to do that. We didn't get any extra to do it. We just said we're going to, you know, take this opportunity and make the most of it. And from that, you know, they kept offering us more shows and more shows and more shows. And then someone, you know, brought up the the TV show, the rap game, and said like, "Who do you think?" And because of our radio show and like they was like, "No, these guys would be great for this." That opportunity came to us and someone recommended us to do the rap game. And then we ended up in TV. But that was all because we just put that extra bit of effort in a small opportunity. And I feel like a lot of people, you know, don't even think like that. Like some people think there's an opportunity here. This is what's expected of me. This is what I'm going to do. And I just don't I just don't live by that. And Conan, we don't live by that because I feel like if you overd deliver and show what you actually can do in any situation, what can come from that is going to be a lot more. And it's always worked. It's so true that you can take a when someone presents you with an opportunity, they're actually it's almost like they're actually what you see there. Some people will see an opportunity.
What you're actually if you look behind the opportunity is a set of dominoes. Yes. That if you flick the first domino and you succeed in the first opportunity, there's this cascading set of opportunities that arise from it. But if you don't do a good job on that first domino, hitting that first domino hard enough, you'll never start the sort of, you know, the knock-on effect. And I see that in everything that I've done, even becoming a dragon or, you know, cuz it's very easy when you become a dragon just to fall in, just to fall in line, right? Just to sit there. Yeah. But for me, it was like, here's an opportunity for me to really try and express myself. Exact. And and I noticed that when I watch it, I'm just like, I'm so glad he's just being him and saying like what he truly feels and not just like it's sick to see. Do you know what I'm saying? Cuz it's funny cuz I it wasn't I'm not saying I'm not saying it was a maybe it was a little bit conscious, but my thinking is look I'm going to I I can get kicked off the shirt anytime. I might as well like do it my way and have a bit of fun with it and at least like leave a mark because the dragons in the past that I've like resonated less with are those that didn't show the full side of their personality and acted too much like a dragon. And acting like a dragon to me is it is like sitting there and just like I'm out. Like I like your business. That's good. I'm going to invest. So for me it's like well in reality my personality is a bit more diverse than that. So exactly. So people watching that will see like there's more to him than this whole dragons thing. And then you know other opportunities are going to and they have. It's crazy. It's mad. And I I I swear I live by that. I genuinely do. I feel like don't see something as for what it is on on on the surface on face value. Just there's a lot more that can come from this if you really just put in a bit more effort. money. Money starts coming in for you in your life. People don't teach us anything about money. I mean, you did go to university for accounting, so I thought maybe you had a bit of an advantage there, but I I don't don't
even know if that's true. I just I just saw it in your uh your CV and thought, "Oh, maybe that helped him." But money coming in, nobody teaches us what to do with it. Especially in I think I got to say, I think in the in the like hip-hop community, there's a lot of narrative around like go and get the go and get that car or go get buy this watch or go buy this shiny thing. And I also think that sets us back as well. That's something that's I've always in more recent times when I've started to understand money and how it works. And I've met billionaires and I've met people that literally their careers are just playing money games where they understand how to get this money and and double it and they have all and they also have access. So they get the deals first. If Airbnb is going go into the stock market, they'll get a 50% discount. It goes public the next day. They sell the next day and they make double their money. So it's access, but it's information. And I just feel like, you know, we a lot of people have been deprived of that information. So when you start getting money in your life, what's your relationship? I agree 100%. Because there's things that I just found out about that I just didn't know existed. And it's like, why don't we know this, you know? Um, but like I feel like it starts from school. I feel like there should be a class in school that teaches you on this. like just things like credit. There was something at uh uni was like you get some £750 overdraft thing or whatever and then I was £750. Yeah, I do that. Yeah. Like oh great. And then they're chasing. What are they going to do? They're not going to do anything. I'm not going to jail. Like and then but like it was just not knowing that this stuff actually matters affects you for years to come. And it's like you don't know just either paying fines or whatever it is like there's things that you know this if you don't do this or you don't pay this or it's going to affect you in the long run. And I just never knew and I'm someone that would if I knew I heard it once that's it never going to I never knew. My first car was a Range
Rover Sport and it was they wouldn't let me put it in my name. So I I my business partner had cuz he had credit. He put it in his name and then so I was driving around in this Range Rover Sport living in a sevenbedroom house with a tennis court and my I honestly they wouldn't lend me 200 quid cuz I destroyed it when I went to uni. I dropped out of uni straight away. But I'd gone and I'd got these overdrafts. I just blown the overdraft. It's like they set you up for it. Like I swear to you, it's like it's like cuz I know so much people that's gone down that same university path of they offer you this big shiny £750 like that you don't have to pay back interest free. You do have to pay it back. But but you have to pay it back. But like the way they coat it is in like you know it's a trap that we fall into because we don't know the consequence of if you don't do this then this happens. And I just feel like it stems from us. I feel like this being something that we should learn in school like you know before we start taking credit out and start doing things that affect our credit we should be learning about it. But there's nothing that you know really teaches you that in school like and you know all my peers or my friends and none of us knew nothing about credit. And I just think why why is it like so hidden or why is it not really projected? Is it a parent's role to tell them about credit and you know I feel like it now it is cuz it's probably become a lot more of a thing nowadays. But yeah, and and just things like, you know, when you you you end up in this world of business and you know, there's things that you find out about, you know, like EIS, SEIS, and stuff like that. And I just I just couldn't believe this stuff existed. And it was like yeah when you you know if you you know I've got someone Jason um who invested in creps and cones and stuff like that and you know had no idea about EIS and SIS and that he could get you know a percentage of his investment back and you know from tax that he's previous and it's just like what why don't we know about this like why is this you know there there's so much like even research and development you know you
being able to claim money back from that And it's like a lot of people have probably watching this have no idea what I'm talking about. And it's just like why why don't why why is this stuff not normalized or people knowing about this stuff? because there's so much ways to do things you know and there's so much different methods of supporting you know you doing startups or investing or there's so much things to you know relieve the intense you know amount of money you might end up spending to make that a little bit better or you not having to spend as much or you being able to claim this back is it's crazy and I just feel like it's proper hidden and as you as you you know you get further and further into a a different world. You you find out about a lot of things that you didn't know about before. When you first started getting money, what were you spending it on? Um when I first first got I think the first thing I probably bought was a car. Like you good with money back then? Back then I I wasn't bad with money. Like I wasn't bad with money. I I always thought I want to, you know, there's there's nice things that I really really want to get. like I wanted a a nice car and this that and the fourth, but I I wasn't really like over crazy going crazy with money. I haven't been like that. Um I feel like I've always been, you know, good at managing money, putting money aside, budgeting money. I feel like I'm really really good at that. What advice would you give to people then that are young, especially young people that are, you know, about to embark on their own career and that might, if they're lucky, come into money? What advice would you give them? Um, you know, try not to upgrade your actual lifestyle as much as you feel like you should straight away. Because the thing about money is it's it's not even the short term of it. It's the long term of living costs and that lifestyle that maintaining that is expensive because, you know, you might think, yeah, I've got X amount of money. I'll go buy this. I still got that. It's not. Cuz over time, you got to keep spending that money. These bills are going to keep rolling in. You got to keep paying
for this car. You got to keep paying for this house. You got to keep paying for all these bills. You got to keep you want to go out and have fun on holiday. you want to this is, you know, so my thing is is if you do get more more money, try to keep the same lifestyle as much as close as to what you was already living, you know, because it's it's the silent direct debits and the silent non-stop bills and the silent favors here and there and the silent holiday. It's that is the silent killer is of of what happens to people, the lifestyle. Do you think that like hip-hop culture is guilty of of encouraging people though to upgrade? It is. You know what I mean? Cuz I think most of my when I think about why I was buying bottles of Don Peron in nightclubs the minute I got money, it's definitely because of music videos. You know what I mean? No, there there there is um but then and cuz I was insecure. So it's a combination of the both. It was like you're insecure cuz you were broke and you were the only black kid in an all white school and you always wanted to be have validation. Look at 50 Cent over here with these bottles. He looks like he's validated. So, yeah. No, I feel I feel like it is. And the And the clubs know what they're doing as well. Like Like I don't know if you ever noticed, but in the club, they always make it look like people's ordering more bottles than they fake bottles. They put them back in the back of the room. Yeah. But to a person that's just in there, they're like, "Oh, it looks like he's just done. I need to It needs to Yeah. And then it's just like it's just this culture of them just taking your money." The thing is, you know, they put gambling shops do best in areas where people don't have money because people are in those areas. That's why if you go into a more sort of deprived area, you'll see multiple gambling shops because they they know that people in those areas to them money means so much more and it's a real get out. So, they're much more susceptible, I believe, to gambling addictions and to being reckless with their money because if I can bet 50 quid and get 500, that changes my life. Whereas if you you're
not going to see gambling shops in rich areas because they're not they they a might have the information to understand the actual odds but b um they don't a big bet isn't going to change their life in the same fundamental way. They have the same money insecurities. And I think this is part of the problem within within the like the like hip-hop culture which is a lot of people are starting out without it. So they have those insecurities about money and money is probably the reason for a lot of pain in their home. It's probably the reason they saw their mom and dad arguing. they saw a lot of pain around money in their home. Um, and so they always they always felt that it could fill that void. And then when they get a little bit of it, they're so much more intent and compelled to signal to everybody else that they got it by making reckless money decisions. And that's this kind of perpetual cycle cuz then people are looking up at them and going, "Okay, when I get it, I'm buy the bottles of Don Perry on and I'm going to Yeah. and and and and it's like it's one of those ones where it's like you can't even really help because you you know we can make you know all of these decisions and that show them like look you can do these and you know invest your money and do this do that and forth but to someone who is coming from nothing that has just got this big fat check from a record label you're going to tell me not to go and buy a watch or not to buy a chain and match everybody else that's you know that you know everybody all the girls love and this that or whatever it is that the reason their reason for feeling they need these things or these items like how do you tell them no don't do that do this well I think it's I think part of it is people like you who've been through that who they can who they trust cuz if someone else says it they ain't going to listen if their mom or dad says it who ain't been through that process who ain't made the mistake says that they listen I can't tell you the amount of times I've spoken to like young artists and said don't go and just splash your money or don't you don't need to go and buy these things or buy that or you don't need to do it. And they're like, "Yeah,
but I I need the chain at least." Like even maybe if it's just a chain or I need something to look like a rapper. That's what I'm saying. So it's like self-fulfilling. It's a cycle cuz they're going, "Well, if I don't get the chain, then I'm not that rapper who I want to be someday." So, if that rapper that they wanted to be someday was talking about investing and starting companies and and all that stuff, they might be saying, "Man, I need to invest this money in the stock market or I need to buy a property because skepters just bought." You know what I'm saying? But the the issue is is, you know, they they they need to understand that that is a a longer game and it's more about the future. But as a rapper that might blow up now, they're going to get these bookings and be on these television programs and be in these clubs and be in these parties with the artists that are shining that have the good watch on that has this there are going to be around that. So that's immediate, you know. So telling someone, you know, forget their immediate, think about the long term, but they're in the media every single day and witnessing the immediate now. How do you tell them to ignore that? It's hard. So even when I you know I sit down and have the don't get me wrong like there's there are a lot of people that do listen and you know do you want to do other things and you know that have come and ask me for advice and ask me to intro to introduce them to this person or that person and I I'll always do that but there's definitely been a lot that's like no but I I definitely need the chain though I need I need to at least have you know a bus down Rolex I need it like I need a bus down like everybody's been saying you know you watch all the you know, big artists in the world. They've all got crazy chains on. Like, you know, you look at Hoveve Jay-Z, he's one of our biggest, you know, the people that we look up to as a musician and a businessman. He's got on a sick watch every time I see a new picture of him or he's got, you know what I'm saying? He's got a big chain. Like, he's still there's still that element. I feel like for artists, the compromise is both. Like, go and do that stuff, but you still need to do
that stuff. Don't just do everything and buy, you know, spend your money and splash your money on cars and jewelry and this. Don't do that. Maybe, you know, if you want to do get your little starter pack and, you know, be on your way. Cool. But don't, you know, go and spend all of your money or a big chunk of your money on that. Like, you know, if you want to do that, do it in, you know, either stages or do it in, you know, you don't have to do it all at once. I guess I understand the point as well that like this is branding at the end of the day. It is it is like it is like but behind Jay-Z you do have one hell of a portfolio. Same with Diddy. Like you have an unbelievable property portfolio, art collection. He's he's made crazy bets. But you're right, he especially in them early days before he Yeah, he he did like and it's branding, isn't it? And you know, it's hard because I feel like for for a lot of new young artists knowing everything they've ever wanted was to be like that rapper they're watching and become to then turn around and be like, "No, don't do that." I completely agree. I just I feel like they have to go through it. What they wanted though was to be validated and they wanted to fit in and they wanted to be accepted cuz when when you go through it Yeah. You're right. It's like, oh, you're you're Yeah, but is there not That's what I'm saying. Like, this is so systemic that it's not as easy as I'm It sounds like I'm making out. Like, it's a really deep systemic system which is held in place. Like, and I I realized that when I've tried to have conversations and tried to be like, "Yeah, no, this is what you need to do, and if you want me to introduce this, you should put your money into this." And they're just like, "Yeah, yeah, okay. All right." and then they go and buy the next, you know what I'm saying, chain or pendant or whatever it is. Well, what you're doing now is the the best the best possible thing. And that exactly and like it's a lot
deeper than just, you know, a brand. It's more the fact that what kind of brand, what you are and showing them that okay, I can actually do anything then or you know the the sky's is the limit and them actually seeing that this is just as big if not bigger than music because it's an example that they're following. They're following the example of the one the rapper that they admire that came before them. So words are [ __ ] great, right? Whatever. Like they're not as powerful as an example. Exactly. That's what role models are. So So it's just actually going and and doing the things and them seeing it and they'll be seeing all this stuff you've been doing when everyone will be seeing it and they'll be thinking, hm, okay. Yeah. And and it will spark a lot of people to think, you know what, let me do the idea that I had in my head a year ago. Yeah. Like why not? Because you know at me being a rapper to launch you would never put a rapper launching a baby skincare line in the same sentence. Like it's just it doesn't make sense. Even though it makes so much sense for my life because I have a child and a daughter and it and it makes sense but just the fact that I've turned that into something and then them actually seeing that okay what it is is actually a good thing. like it's not, you know, there's I feel like there's one thing putting your name to a brand or saying this is my brand, go and buy it and then actually another thing actually bringing something out that in that market there's a crazy demand for and they're actually loving it. For anyone that doesn't have the context, um you've launched Nala's Baby, which is a um a child care a child skinare. Yeah. Skin and hair care um range named after your daughter Nala. Nala. Yes. And this is actually how we first met cuz I was filming Dragons Day in Manchester. We were both in this restaurant called Tattoo, which my friends, one of my friends restaurants.
Great restaurant. Go check it out. One of my favorite restaurants actually in the country. Um, and you came over and said, you know, you introduced yourself cuz I think we've been we on social. Yeah. Yeah. But we obviously never met face to face. And that's one of the first things you told me about. You said, "I'm launching this brand in in a in a week or two or whatever it was." And you after that, you you sent me the deck of it. And uh I couldn't believe it. I was sat there with Peter Jones and Deborra Me and all the dragons. I was like, "Man, this guy's [ __ ] launching this sick brand and it's going into 400 boot stores cuz I've just been in the den all day listening to entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to get into like I don't know, they're like having these one of them is having a meeting with Boots and they're just getting like blackboard or they're getting like sidelined or whatever." And for for you to come up to me, oh, you're wearing 400 Boot stores. I'm like, that's the investment I was looking for all day. Do you know what I mean? I've been looking at hand sanitizer and you got all the [ __ ] set up before you even dropped it. you had seven figures of investment. You had this cap table, these investors that are celebrities and that are, you know, big names and that are legit people. And you said, "Yeah, I'm about to drop this brand in in a in a week or two." Um, and 400 Boot stores. I couldn't quite believe it. I was like, "That's mad." And why doesn't why isn't people why, you know, why isn't everybody talking about this? And then a week or so later, everyone was talking about it. Yeah. Cuz I hadn't announced it then, right? They were still I was basically like a week or two away from actually announcing it, right? And um yeah, so it was like it was one of those ones where it was like even explaining it to you, I was like you probably thinking how come I've never heard of it or why but because yeah we we hadn't announced it at that point but the amount of preparation that went into even just the announcing to the launch. How long did that whole project? Two
years. Two years like two years before before Nala was born. Um, basically how it how it started was Sasha, who's Nala's mom, um, was pregnant with Nala and she became really like, I want everything natural. We're having a baby. I want the best for her as as mothers do. Do you know what I mean? And she got introduced to an app. It's like a product re rating ingredient app um, called Think Dirty. So, it rates products from 0 to 10. So 10 being the absolute worst and zero being the cleanest. So we're getting, you know, baby shower gifts and loads of people are giving us gifts and loads of them are products and, you know, skincare, hair care products. So, we're putting all of these products in the app and all of these products, you know, they're claiming that this this that and the fourth and a lot of the products are coming up as eights and fives and like looking for the zero. Like, is there any zero zeros here? Like, because it literally rates each individual ingredient. Oh, so zero is a good score. Zero is the best score. So that means it has zero bad ingredients in there and like it highlights each ingredient of what number it gives each each ingredient and how harmful and you can click in it. It gives you the details. It's really detailed and you know thorough. So I was like there's no zerorated like baby range in any of these any of the brands that we're getting cuz all the brands was like they're available in all the high high street retailers and stuff. So I'm just like nah this this can't be right. and she was like, I don't want to use anything on on her and she's born cuz why is there no And then we did see like a few random zeros here and there but you know they're either really expensive you know we're talking like 20 a bottle £25 a bottle or whatever it is or they're from another country they're not even sold here. Um, so you know when she kind of brought this to my attention, it was like me having my business hat on was like just like why don't we why don't we make make it why don't we make that and then we thought is there a reason why there isn't maybe maybe there's a reason maybe
it's not feasible or what's the reason why isn't there why doesn't this exist and then um it was like all right cool where do we even start and then I reached out to someone um I don't I'm not sure if she wants me to say her name on that cuz she's really like private but she's a G and I I brought the idea to her and she was like this is a sick idea and um funny enough I met an amazing manufacturer like a week ago So, I will present this to them and see if it's something that they want would want to do. Um, but let's let's let's mock up the branding and let's get the branding right so that, you know, when we bring it to them, they can kind of vision it. So, you know, we're working back and forth in with the branding and we're like, "Yes, this is it. This looks exactly how we want it to look." And um she took it to the manufacturers and the manufacturers was like, "Let's do it." like this sounds like an an amazing, you know, idea. Um, you clearly done research and you clearly have a USP and, you know, exactly what you want for this product. So, this sounds like a journey that we would love to embark on. So, you know, getting a tick from the manufacturer was important for us, you know, cuz there's loads of And, you know, she was one of the people as well. Getting her stamp saying, "Yeah, I think like this would be great." And um so we've started developing the formula and you know they was like okay so what do you want? I was like look I want a brand a skincare range not just a you know one skew but like the whole range. It needs to for one be a zero rating on this app. All the ingredients need to be a zero. Okay we'll get to that. I said, I want it to be 100% natural as the most natural you can get it. And then they came back and was like, you know, 100% isn't what we would advise for kids because, you know, microbes and fungus growing on products. You need shelf life. So, you know, you need to have a preservative in there. And and there's different types of preservatives. There's natural alternatives. Um, and it was like, okay, cool. We just want it to be the most natural you can possibly get. Like we want it to be as naturally derived as possible and we wasn't going to settle. And there was that. And then
there was the checklist of the parent checklist of, you know, vegan, crueltyfree, you know, tear free, so if it goes in their eyes, it doesn't burn. Alcohol free, all of these sensitive skin, eczema, and then, you know, cuz we took so long formulating it, Nala was born and she had eczema. So that was like, you know, it needs to be suitable for eczema. It needs to not irritate eczema. It needs to, you know, be suitable for sensitive skin at least. We need all of these checklists. And then it was like, okay, that's great. And then we was like, but we want it to be about £5,550. And that's where it was like, okay, this is going to be really kind of difficult to do because it's like if you want such a great product, it's going to cost a lot. And then it made me realize why there's this doesn't exist. Maybe maybe I still don't know, but why doesn't this ex and it was like we've got to really take a hit on the margins, but if we believe that we can make a great product and sell loads of units, then you know it's about the mass amount of sales rather than the niche market that can afford an expensive product. And and did do you you started this business with your ex partner? Yes. At the time when you started this business, were you still together? Yes, we was. So you actually you you separated in the time of formulating the business. Yeah, we did. A lot of people I mean obviously for a lot of people that would have been it. Yeah. You have broken up but you know I feel like one thing we've definitely prioritizes putting our daughter first and you know we feel like this is something that if we get it right it can be something we can pass down to our daughter or or you know her to be proud of you know cuz we you know when she's older we might not even be in a company still. I don't know what can anything can happen. We might not even be here or do you know what the company's valued at our one? Yeah. At the moment 17 and a half 17.5 million. Yeah.
Based on the orders that obviously the mount stores are in the orders and that wasn't even including like DOC. It was just based on, you know, our orders from Boots and uh the rate of sale that we was expected to hit, which we've absolutely smashed since launching. But um yeah. Um and the the investment as well. So, I mean, I've been seeing online it's been selling out like crazy and it's like my team has put in a order like a um hundreds of thousands of bottles. Yeah, hundreds of thousands of bottles. Me being me, like, guys, this is a lot of bottles. Like, this is a lot of bottles. Like, are we sure we need to buy this many bottles? And my my team, look, trust me, we know what we're doing. And then we're a week and a half in and I've run out of bottles and we've already put in the order for the the next um cycle of production already and that was meant to last us 3 months and we've done all of our bottles in a week and a half. I would say when nearly two weeks people literally can't find it going to the stores sold out sold out. I saw people selling it on eBay and stuff. It was it was crazy. Like people literally people are still trying to get hold of it. They're going into I get messages every day people t I can't it's not available. It's not available. It's not available. And we've just literally had to you know sold out on our website. Our stock gone. Like everything was just selling out everywhere. It was like it became like gold dust. People was like my god I finally I managed to get one bottle. It was only a conditioner but you know when you restock it it it's crazy. And we just did not see this. We knew it was going to it was like we I knew it was going to do like well in terms of like I thought people would resonate with this because it's actually a really amazing product but it's actually exceeded everyone's expectations and you know now Boots is like yo we need a lot more stock and it's like how have we got to place another order already of making more stock to be available and it's just like at this rate like this rate of fail like what we valued our thing was before. It's like we've definitely undervalued oursel here based on what's what what's
happening here. And you know, now we've got to think, oh my god, we've actually got to think about the next phase of investment now because, you know, we're going to be looking to to expand. We're going to be looking to expand. I'm going to make you an offer crap. I'm going to offer you all of the money for 98%. Oh my god, that is so funny. So yeah, man. Like we're literally just in awe of like everything that's happened and you know, everybody coming in and and trying to make it work and you know, boots cooperating and, you know, really being like really like, you know, supportive of everything that's going on. And what have you learned? What I've learned is as it relates to like you know people listening to this that might have their own ideas or they might be thinking about setting up their own business. What what have you what have you learned from this you know this process over the last 2 years of building this brand that you that you didn't know before? what I've learned. I feel like this is the first time that I've been able to fully prepare for something in terms of you don't need to rush the process because initially when you know we was doing this brand I was so excited about the brand and when I wanted it out and it was like I could have you know done this brand a lot quicker cut corners could have I could have you know when they sent us the first batch of samples been like yeah not gone back and said, "No, I don't like this. I want to change this. What's the percentage? I want I want I want it more natural. I want it more this. I want and now now we need to, you know, do this test and that test and this." And it was like I I didn't have to do all of that. I could have literally just, you know, got the brand after the first batch of samples, which is in the first couple months or whatever, and been like, "Yeah, let's just get it online." I didn't need to, you know, take my time. We took our time like anytime there was a a obstacle and it would cause us to push back and it was like do you want to push back or do you want to just go ahead? No, just push it back. Let's just keep pushing it back cuz we need everything perfect. We need we don't
want to rush this process, you know, if something needs to be changed and it was like I think we got it got something back and it was at like 95% or something natural and was like no if it's going to take us another month, 2 months to get it to 99, I'm just going to wait. What have you learned about um the importance of one of the first lessons I learned in business was cuz I'd also made the mistake previously and then when I got it right I realized how important it was is the like what have you learned about the importance of the people around you especially you're going into an area that you've not been in before retail even like the baby market it's a brand new area and so you've got to have surely you've got to have people that know know that world yeah like these are unknown unknowns to you like you going into that it's the same with me in most area new areas that I've been in in terms of industries. I don't even know what I don't know. Of course. And you know what? One thing I' I've done with this is I let the experts be experts in in certain aspects. And the issue is that how do you know they're experts? Cuz you don't even know if they're good. You don't. But all you can do is based on, you know, prior work, your relationship with them, and them knowing what they're talking about. Um, and you know, you can only gauge it to as much as your brain can gauge something to, and you've got to kind of put trust in it. Whether you might have to replace this or replace that person or this or get someone else to do that, it it happens in business all the time. But, you know, I feel like I've been a good judge of character so far cuz everybody that's been in my team from the start is still here now. Isn't it funny how good people hire good people? 100%. And bad people hire bad people. 100%. It's probably the single biggest thing I think I could impress upon anyone from this conversation as well because I know you had you you said you've had that experience with Creps and Cones is just like there'll be young people thinking about starting a business and those first decisions about
who they do it with will be the single biggest predictor of their success or failure as far as from my experience like those first few people if you pick a if you pick a if you take your time and really be ambitious with the talent you align yourself with you say you know why can't I work with the best person in the world in this not not just Dave who ain't got a job and he's got time on his hands who I've who I know went to school with like why can't I find the best person in the world and inspire them to come with me on this and to fill my blind spots. People don't do that 100%. And also the other reason we don't do that and why I didn't do that when I started my business is cuz I don't think I can manage the best person in the world. Someone even double my age. I don't I don't know what [ __ ] I'm talking about. So how am I going to tell them what to you know what I mean? And that's an insecurity that means we just go for Dave 100%. I can't remember who said it. They were saying something like they they if you if you're in a a room or around people where you know you feel like you shouldn't be there. I can't remember where I was where I was where I was watching someone say that and it was like you should always feel like you shouldn't be here. Like you're the dumbest person in the room. Yeah. Like you know if you feel like you're Yeah. then you shouldn't you shouldn't be in and you should always feel uncomfortable like as in like almost like you shouldn't be here like and those are the rooms that you should be in or those are the people that you need to be trying to you know bring on the journey with you and that's the growth room yeah and that's the growth room and you can't be afraid of that you got to be able to go in there and say like look this is who I am this is what I know and this is what I'm doing and do you want to embark on this journey with me and not feel a way to do that cuz I feel like a lot of people might be shy to go and approach this person or you know say like even even me coming to you who's seen 100 million people talking about business to show you the business
I'm doing and you know being able to just feel confident enough to do that cuz some people would have thought cuz you you're the first person that will pick apart something you know what I'm saying no like okay so what this doesn't make sense so I was just like you know but I I've leared to just be that person and not be afraid to, you know, go and approach someone who might be 10 times more experts in this field than me. And I don't feel scared to do that because that's the only way I'm going to grow. Quick one. We have a brand new sponsor on this podcast which I'm very excited to tell you about. They're a brand called Blue Jeans by Verizon and they are a video conferencing and collaboration tool that has changed the game for our team. So, I'm so glad to be working with them because, as you know, one of the most important things for me is when we have a sponsor, it is part of my world. It is part of my life. It is part of my companies. As someone who's on calls pretty much 80% of the day building my businesses and speaking to my teams all over the world, it's the guaranteed security that differentiates Blue Jeans from all of the other options that are out there in terms of video conferencing. Their enterprisegrade security means you can protect your organization from malicious attacks and establish real trust with everyone that joins your meeting. And that is something. There are so many things that make sense and and make Blue Jeans um a better option than the sort of competitors out there. And I'll be talking about all of those aspects, those features, and the reasons why I use Blue Jeans in the coming episodes. If you want to check it out, you can head to www.blue jeans.com to learn more. For many years, people have been asking for a coffee flavored Hule. And quite recently, Hu released the iced coffee caramel flavor of their um ready to drink Hules. And I've just become hooked on it over the last couple of weeks. And now I'm drinking that as well as the protein. Make sure you try the new ready to drink flavors. The the caramel flavor is amazing. The um new banana flavor as well is amazing. And obviously, as I said, the iced coffee caramel flavor has been a real smash hit. So check it out.
Let me know what you think on social media. I see all of your tags and Instagram posts and tweets about your back to the podcast. I want to talk to you about m music as well. Before we finish, um, one of the things that I I almost couldn't believe cuz it just feels like the most unfortunate timing ever is that you're attacked backstage. Yeah, I was I was Yeah, I was backstage and then like loads of people just come backstage and then they they they was asking about someone who I had no idea what they was talking about. I was just it was just a mad confusing hole. And then someone grabbed my chain, my cadet um my cousin. And then I just remember seeing knives like like literally like my jacket was like it was crazy. Like I just all I remember is seeing I had to fight my way through it to get through the door to close the door. But yeah, and then I looked down and then my jacket was just full of rips. And then I looked at my leg and it was soaking. My hand was bleeding. I could like it was crazy. And um I remember the ambulance was like, "If this was a millimeter deeper, you would have got your artery on your leg and it would have been a different scenario." And it was a bunch of guys. I don't even know who they are. Never met them. Never had issue with them. Like don't It was crazy. in in Birmingham cuz they've all just rushed backstage. But yeah, it's crazy. And that um Yeah. No, that wasn't really in like it wasn't in it. Yeah. Yeah. It was just a completely different um thing. But it was like Nash and Cadet passing within the same year. That was the real like not on the same year but within a year. So Nash passed in the summer of 2018. Then Cadet passed um 4 days after my birthday, 5 days after my birthday, right? Cadet passed in February. So who's who's for people that don't know who is I mean Cadet in of itself is is very well known, very well loved. But who is Cadet to you? Cadet is my cousin, my first cousin. Um my dad and his dad are brothers and he
was a musician as well and he passed just you know he was just having his break record and his record was was growing and like he was really in his you know that moment where you're about to just and he was there and he passed away in a car accident on the way to a show um which which was just like it was crazy because um just like a few weeks prior my uncle Cadet's father just told us he'd been diagnosed with a brain tumor and that he I remember him just saying and I don't know what I'm going to do and that was the last you know so we began mentally preparing for my uncle and and they saying the doctors are saying that you know I've got a couple months at max and we was trying to get through that. Um and then two weeks later cadet passes in a car accident on the way to a show. Um, and he was in a full car and he was the only one that passed away which was like it was it was crazy and it just makes me feel like you know if something's destined for you then it's destined for you because there was so many variables that that could have changed that situation in terms of you know he was coming around a a corner a blind corner and the guy that was driving was drunk driving a van and he they crashed on a on a corner on a road. So if cadet was 10 seconds later or 10 seconds earlier, that wouldn't have happened and there was like variables of he missed the cab before. So there was me to get in an earlier cab, but he missed that. Then they had to call another one and then get in in that in that cab. And then the other variable was they wasn't even meant to get a cab there. There was meant to actually just drive to the show, but the person that was meant to drive them couldn't end up making it. So then they've had to go there and then, you know, get a cab and there was so much different var and it just was like 10 seconds, 5 seconds even. So it was a drunk driver that he drunk driver. Yeah. He was drunk and he and he drove head on into the the taxi and the car was full and he was behind the taxi driver and it the impact on his head is what killed him. He was he was more than just a cousin to
you though, wasn't he? Yeah. Like he was like my whole life. Like we grew together like as in like my mom was at his birth. His mom was at my birth. Like from day dot we've been like this, you know, and like we grew together. We done everything together, shared so much first memories together. And then we had like a little moment of of or period where our relationship became rocky because I started being successful in music and he wanted to do music as well. And cuz it was the same argument with him. It was like you need to you need to go a bit more hard with this music. You need to do this. You need to do that. And so we invited him to Wireless. Um, we was performing at Wireless Festival and was like, "Just come like get inspired. We got we got we're about to perform. It's going to be sick." And he came and I remember he was like, "I'm so charged. I'm so charged." And then he, you know, he got in the studio. He was like sending me loads of me. He was like, it was a whole different energy. And then, you know, you could feel that energy, you know, being resonated with, you know, fans and the audience. And then he started really building this, you know, following and he's, you know, he was really great at storytelling. Like he was an amazing storyteller and people loved that about him. And he, you know, it it just started all happening for him. And then before he died, I remember he done a um he put like a clip of him doing a song with another artist called Dino. like they put a clip up and then I remember Kona was saying to him like turn this into a song. Make this a song. This is make this an actual record. That song now has gone you know to be platinum selling and it was independent and you know we was having those conversations about money. He was like we because we was like look this song's picking up. You're about to see really good money. And he was like yeah but it's not here now. And I'm saying, "Yeah, cuz it takes a while to get processed and for you to receive it." But and he was like, "Shall I sign the record? Shall I sign it to a label?" Because a label will offer me, you know, 100 grand, 150 grand right now for I'm
saying, "No, this song is already doing what it's doing without any label. Just do it independently and just let it build and you'll make so much more than what they're offering." And he was like, "All right, cool. That's what I'm going to do." And then the song just kept getting bigger and bigger. You know, it's silver 200,000 copies, 300,000 copies, it was just growing. And then, you know, he was finally having that moment where he was about to, you know, break through and then he had a the the accident and then it was just like everything just came crashing down and that was like within the same like within a year of Nash passing away and Nash was like my best friend and then Blaine passing away. Cadet's name is Blaine passing away, you know, within months after that. And I've just lost these two pillars in my life within a year whilst being told my uncle's going to die. Do you remember where you were when you found out? Yeah, I was in Dubai. Um my partner at the time, Sasha, um took me to Dubai for my birthday and um we was I was packing and walking in the lobby to go to the airport back to come back. So I was on the way back to London and then my friend CJ was calling me. But the time that it was, it was at like it was like 2:00 a.m. or 1 2 a.m. in London and I think it was like 6 6:00 a.m. where I was like 4 hours difference or something. But I just remember looking at the phone, you know, and thinking cuz CJ doesn't call me, but he's really close with cadet, but so he doesn't call me like as in like he wouldn't he was not one to call me at that time of night for anything. So, I'm looking at my phone and I don't know how my brain processed that there was an issue in such a short time. And he called me. I was like, the time in the UK is 2:00 a.m. CJ never calls me. Why is he calling me? Something's gone wrong. He's Him and Blaine are like this. Something's gone wrong with Blaine. And I answer the phone. I just done all of that like straight away. I was just like, "This doesn't make sense." And I've answered the phone and he's literally crying on the phone and I knew straight away like I knew I didn't
know what how like sorry I didn't know how well or I just knew that something was wrong and it was to do with Blaine because he's calling me and he's just crying on the phone crying on the phone and I'm just like what what what and then he said he's gone and he didn't need to say bla cadet. He didn't need to say that cuz I I knew exactly who he was talking about. And then he said and he but he wasn't talking properly. He was like car crash. Like he's gone. He's gone. He's gone. Like and then I just remember like I ran out of breath. I was I had to lean on something. Like I my breath was going like I felt like I was literally going to drop down and faint in the middle of the hotel. And I was just like I I didn't even know what to feel. Like I'm about to get on a plane. I've just found out my cousin's passed away and I'm you know stuck in an airplane. Like this whole time I'm just going through customs. I'm doing this. I'm doing this but I've just found out my cousin's died and I'm just like get me back now. Like it was one of the worst if not the worst feeling like ever. like losing him was uh like h it was horrible like it was horrible and you know he was so such an important person in my life like I would speak to him about everything like every idea every song I play to him like every just everything like he was like everything to me do you know what I mean and to lose him it was It was hard. It was horrible. And just something we're still dealing with. Still dealing with it till today. Still I still I haven't even taken my thought off the gas since to sit down and actually taken that he's not here. Up until today, I haven't. Do you remember the last thing that you that Blaine said to you? Yes. The last thing he said to me was, um, just know that I love you for real, for real, and I've got your Gucci socks for your birthday. That was the last thing he said to me. And I was congratulating him on getting his first apartment cuz he just got his apartment. And he was like, "Yo, I'm really feeling like starting to feel like a rough now. Like I'm starting to feel like um and yeah." Yeah. And he was
like, "I've got these Gucci socks here for you when you're when you're back." When I'm meaning I was in Dubai. And that was the last time we spoke. I can see you're still processing it. Wow. What's on your mind? I just feel like he should be here, man, and witnessing everything. And like I just felt like it was too soon, like he was on the brink of doing something great and it was just like it just got taken away from him and yeah, it just felt too soon. Like you know when someone has so much to to to offer like he has so much to offer the world. He was like his presence was so infectious. Like he's that person that will come somewhere and you just you will remember him because like he's such a troll comedian. Makes you laugh. So positive. Hasn't got a bad bone in his body. Like he's he's the person he was the person that would tell you all the friends, "I love you, bro." And everyone's like, "Oh, bro, stop saying that." He would say, "Yeah, I love you." and he would say, "Look you dead in your eyes and say, "Yeah, I love you." And he didn't feel a way to say that. And he, you know, he was always so expressive and he made us feel comfortable to be like, "No, I love you, man. I love you, too. I love you, too. Like, my brother, I love you." Like, and you know, he was that guy. And, you know, he had the most infectious laugh. Like, he was so honest with, you know, when you're trying to make a decision, he'll give you the most honest opinion. if you think something's not good or nothing something's terrible idea like he was that person man and he was a big part of me so that's why I feel like I haven't and don't want to sit down and process it and it's not easy you know we buried not buried but my uncle got cremated but his funeral was yesterday So he passed away a few weeks ago. They gave him a few months. He lived an extra few years. So he was a fighter. Um but I've lost both of them and like they're both important role models in my life. Like my uncle was he was the guy. Do you
know what I mean? like it he was the responsible the guy like my dad is more the you know I I can go and do something with my dad that we shouldn't be doing like he's that guy do you know what I'm saying and me and my dad are really close now do you know what I mean but my uncle was always that if I need advice or this is what I'm going through or what should I do here and you know even talking to him about nalas and him saying like you know You should do this right. Get investment. When in those moments when you realize that life can be unfair and precious in equal measure, you people often speak about things words that went unsaid. Things they wish they could say in hindsight. Something that I think a lot about with my parents as well. I try and reflect on the fact that they're not going to be here forever and that there's certain things I wish I I should probably be saying to them now that that at some point when I realize which we life teaches us in the most unfortunate ways that life is finite. It's not guaranteed and it is precious. that um we realize when it's too late and people as they say get the roses um after they can smell them. Definitely. Is there anything that you when you reflect on words you you you wish you could have said to him or you wish you could say now that that um that comes to mind? Is there anything where you go you know what I wish in hindsight now I know how precious life is. I wish that this had been different or um no, but he did teach me a very valuable lesson because otherwise I would have had that regret and that would have been eating me up until today was us sorting out our little issues that we had and becoming close again and not letting that drag out because if we didn't Yeah. I would have lived in regret for the rest of my life. The fact that I didn't, you know, we didn't hug hug hug hug through it and turn our page and and get on with what we are as cousins, blood and family, and you know, we've been in each other's lives forever. We trust, love each other. Like, if I didn't rectify that situation, we didn't rectify that situation, how would I felt? So, it's definitely taught me from
there. when I have issues with people that are close to me or arguments with family members, just forget that. Sort it out now. We got to sort it out now. Let's argue. Let's scream at each other now, but let's do it now. And let's hug afterwards. That's what it's taught me. I don't want to, you know, live in regret and think, h like on the last conversation we had was we was arguing, wasn't even talking. our words were harsh or you know because that can happen and also other little moments of spending time you know I feel like especially even after yesterday and just seeing my family that was at Blaine's funeral at my uncle's funeral and thinking that if this was me these are the same people that are going to be there for me this is who I need to be focusing my time and energy Because these are the people that care the most. Not saying no one don't care, but as in these are the people that are going to be here if this happens to me. Who's these are the people that are lifting my uncle's casket that is going to go and lift my casket? This is where I need to to to really focus and spend my time because everything else it's great. It's it's lovely, but you know, anything can happen to me and that means nothing and then it means everything to my family. Do you think you need to um confront some of those things that you've kept yourself distracted from confronting the grief, the loss? I do. And how how do you think you you'd go about doing that? because I've heard you speak about and encourage other people to go to therapy before and have those conversations, but from what I was able to ascertain, that's not something you've done yourself. I haven't done therapy. I'm not I I I just I just felt like, you know, if someone feels like they want to go therapy, don't feel weird by going to therapy. I I don't know why that was even even seemed as weird at a stage or not even weird. Sorry. You used to be stigmatized that going to therapy makes you crazy or something. Yeah. like whatever it was. But it's not. It's just it's normal. But I haven't done it because I feel like I'm on this treadmill. Yes. And that's why I haven't
done it. And I feel like therapy is going to be the thing to make me actually take everything in. And I feel maybe I'm scared to go therapy maybe. But I feel like I should. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks the next guest a question. and they don't know who they're writing it for and I don't get to read the question until I open this book. So, yeah. Um, interesting. These are always quite difficult because they're always quite profound, but um, when was the last time you changed your mind about something life-changing? I think the last time I changed my mind was Nala's baby. The fact of, you know, we just broke up and we had that, yeah, no, we're not going to do this because this don't make sense. And then having that, you know what? Nah, we've got to put our daughter first. Change my mind. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. And it was like, okay, cool. Let's do it. And, you know, I feel like what we're about to achieve with that, God willing, you know, was a life-changing decision. It's interesting cuz when I reflect on the story you've shared with me today, there was another moment where you had to make a big decision. Sat in that car after Conan was Conan's family was attacked. Yes. And it's funny in hindsight how you can see how a decision just in the opposite direction that could have happened through emotion in the moment, a decision not to choose maturity or to put something more important first could have sent your life in a completely different direction and just for temporary feelings, you know, a decision you can make and make a permanent outcome. And it's just like, yeah, think about it. Crap. Thank you for your time. It's been I mean it's been incredibly inspiring to to meet you, to get to know you, to see what you've done. And I don't know, I feel like life might have, you know, made us cross paths for a reason because I was thinking a lot about a lot of things to do with like money and investing and how, you know, how to be a
better role model for the next generation of people and young people from slightly challenging backgrounds. And then I'd met you that day. Yeah, you were doing this incredible thing with Nala's baby and um it was like the universe had conspired to inspire me at that exact moment um to make sure that your story and what you're doing becomes the role model becomes the the thing that young people are aspiring to do because not only did you have huge success in this one area of hip-hop music and rap and and those things but for you then to go into a completely unexpected slightly bizarre to be honest lane of like baby the baby wear industry. It's the it's the most perfect example of like resisting your labels. Your labels told you to be a rapper to rap. But in resisting your labels, you went into a completely different area where you're absolutely not allowed to be according to society. And for you to make a huge success there, I think is the best evidence we can all take on for our own lives that we are not our labels. We can do anything. and um and and also um you've given such clarity on like the steps that we take to get there. The importance of team, the importance of hard work and and much of it is just the importance of self-belief because when your partner was was having those concerns about other baby wear baby products on the market, a lot of people would have just accepted it. They would have just taken the product that had the eight rating. But there's a certain type of person that goes maybe we can change this and that's what you did. So, thank you for the inspiration. Thank you for the generosity of your time and thanks for sharing your story. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]