Che Lingo is a name you’ll likely see on lists like, ‘ones to watch’, ‘about to blow’, and ‘upcoming British rappers’. But the truth is, like most other names on those lists, he’s been doing his thing for a good amount of time. His breakout track has undoubtedly been Same Energy, from his Charisma EP that dropped earlier this year. The track must ring true to most successful artists out there, who have experienced the rejection that comes with not having the right streaming numbers or press, followed by the clambering attention that comes when you do. Che is certainly not one to shy away from truth-telling. He speaks about the lack of opportunities for youth like him in Metal and Rocks, and preaches the inner and outer beauty of black women in Black Girl Magic, a tune that has technically been his most successful.

On meeting Che, you are firstly struck by his style. Always in his signature gold-rimmed, vintage glasses, he often wears a head-wrap and levels of jewellery. Our first impression was at his British Music Embassy show. Performing to a mixed crowd, to say the least, he apologized for his dry throat since it was his second show of the day, but he didn’t have to. He made a fan out of every person there, with his hype man Risky literally jumping on the bar at times. He even brought up the stunning Sandra Lambeck during Black Girl Magic, the very same girl from the video - not a bad cameo to catch live.

A few days’ later in the Austin sunshine, with kombucha and pumpkin bread as accompaniments, we chatted to Che about crossing-over into the US, what Same Energy and the story narrative Letter to a Dealer are expressing, and why it’s so important he uses his platform to do so.

UHH: How do you find your music translates outside of the UK?

Che Lingo: The racial tension that Black Girl Magic relieved, and a lot of the women it resonated with, just happen to be from New York. There are so many Black women’s make-up tutorials who use the track, because even in Europe, the majority of their fan-bases are people from New York or America. Even Sandra Lambeck, who is in the Black Girl Magic video, she's got loads of followers from here. When they see all these people with really strong Instagram and social media followings, post the video, or use it as a background, that's when it travels.

That's amazing. But you haven't performed in New York yet?

No. I've only been there once, 10 years’ ago to film a youth culture documentary, the differences between London youth and New York. They taught us how to use the camera equipment, and all that stuff. Some people just got impatient because they were only there to get the free trip to New York.

[Che shows UHH his streaming numbers] The top country every month is the United States. Top city this month was London, then LA, then New York, then Brooklyn, then Chicago.

And what is the Berlin connection?

Colors, and my management is in Berlin. The reason I ended up frequenting Berlin so much is because when I started working with Manta Ray, they introduced me to Noah. Noah's the lead of a band called Bakery and they are based out in Berlin. We hit it off immediately. I sat down, and it was almost like we already knew each other. Do you know what I mean? As soon as he played maybe the second beat, I just started writing. We wrote maybe four songs in the space of an hour. I flew back out to play Berghain Kantine with them, which is a smaller version of Berghain. Then we played No Commission in Berlin with Swizz Beats for Bacardi, made a fan out of Swizz Beatz and his mum, and I recorded a song with his son as well!

My first manager Theo, said, “I feel that your music can transition. I don't feel like a lot of people's music can transition. I feel like if it's popular, it will make it there, but I don't feel like it will culturally transition, know what I mean?” But he was saying to me from ike 2013 when we first started working together, he was like, I think you could be a legend. And now, they listen to me more than in London. It's so crazy.

That's mad. I agree, it definitely does. Kojey Radical was one of my first interviews out here a few years’ ago and look how many people in the US are into him now.

Very true.

You put on a super high energy performance the other night at the British Music Embassy. Tell me about your hype man, Risky and your DJ. Have you known them both for a long time?

Risky I've known for 13 years. He's one of my best friends ever. We started making music, and I learned a lot of my performance ability from him.

He is a great performer.

He's a dope performer. He makes music independently from me as well under Risky Javan. We both come from an inspiration of grime and rap and just understanding flow and multi-syllabic rhyming, and we both get excited about the same things. Creatively, we think similar ways, so when we linked up way, way back, we proper started making music, and rolling as a unit more: me, him, his brother Shy, and all our other friends back in London. We felt like more of a force, and it was easier to go to shows and turn up with your friends. When I started to get more shows in better places and better platforms, I just made sure they were always in the loop. Especially with your friends, it's about helping them be self-sufficient as opposed to just bringing them to bring them. There were points where the crowd was more on him than it was me, and then they're gonna go, “Che was sick...but that guy!”

The DJ, DONCH, I met him a few years ago, and he was just being sick. Even if I'm stressing out, I look at him and he's like, it's bad, but it's not that bad. He's such a peaceful dude, he's got this quiet fire about him. He's super talented and very, very committed to his craft, and that's what I want, because I'm the same way. He played at my headline show in London as well.

I saw some videos of that. How was it? It looked very hype.

It was so good. I cried. My mum was there, my sister was there, my little brother saw me perform for the first time. He's seen all of the arguments I've had with my family about music and all the little conversations about what's making your money, how are you taking care of your responsibilities. My family's very supportive, but they'll only support something if you've got a plan. My mum was like, ‘You wanna make music? That's cool, but what’s your plan?’  We're really closely connected to So Solid. My mum used to babysit Romeo, so they knew things can go very bad very quickly, and obviously the media ruined So Solid.

‘Same Energy’ got so massive. I guess that’s your biggest single to date?

It's my favourite single.

When you wrote it, did you think it was going to get as big as it did?

Do you know what, it wasn't even that. The producer is a guy called Young Dalton from Berlin. He sent me back a whole string of beats, and it's so rare that I record more than one beat when I get a beat pack from a producer. A lot of his stuff just resonated and I ended up recording about three or four songs, but Same Energy is the only one we’ve dropped together so far. Black Girl Magic is actually my best performing song from the Charisma EP, but Same Energy is the favourite.

So streaming wise, Black Girl Magic is top, but commercially, Same Energy must be it?

Commercial, exactly, like radio plays. No song I've ever recorded has had more love than Same Energy. And no matter what crowd I perform that in front of, I make a point of performing Better Versions, and I make a point of performing Black Girl Magic when I know the crowd is more Euro-centric. I think it's important not to stray from your narrative and to understand that when you do something like that, it's important to do it in places so people are educated about what your cause is. I'm not necessarily crusading, I just want you to know what's important to me. That's all I'll ever do, I'm only ever living my truth.

And how would you describe what Same Energy is about?

It's not digs at people, it's just if you know that you called me talented before, and didn't reply, or I asked you for some help and you didn't get back to me, or you didn't take me seriously because my numbers weren't high - that's cool. You can do that. But when you come back later, you're gonna have to wait in a queue, because there are people that didn't do that, and I have to prioritize them. It's not like “ha ha, fuck you”. The energy's not on you. The energy's on the people that did mess with me from the start, that did understand that it's more than just your talent, it's more than just your numbers. The world doesn't owe me anything. I've always believed that. Even when I got into my publishing situation, I wanted to be self-sufficient so I bought a studio for my house. Same Energy was recorded in my house, and Black Girl Magic was recorded on the same equipment.

Really? That’s very forward thinking.

The majority of the Charisma EP was recorded in my house, and I mixed my own vocals. If I run out of money, how am I going to the studio? Little things like that, I have to prepare for that stuff. Now I understand my worth more, and I understand the whole idea of what it means to be an artist and how people can just absorb and take from you and never really give back. They can talk and talk, and it's okay, you're talking, but your energy smells a bit fishy. I've heard some people call me "Chee" when I say my name is Che in the song. Like, are you listening to it? If you're doing it because of all the press, I get it, but you could've had the exclusive, but that can't happen now. I's the same with people in my personal life. You weren't there, and you come in later like, “Yo, you alright bro?”I will always tell you the truth, there's other people I gotta prioritize.

When somebody gives you consistency, you believe and you trust in them. It's just like keep the same energy and you could be closer to an artist who's gonna do massive things, because then you're a human. You're not looking at somebody as a product. You're a human first before your profession. I'm just making sure my craft can take me to where I wanna be, whilst maintaining a certain level of integrity with that.

I'm learning lessons today! What do you think the biggest surprise has been about the industry so far?

I'll tell you the truth. Nothing. Nothing surprised me because I don't look at it as the industry. Everybody's got their own individual industry, that's why some people will get the cover of a certain magazine when you know somebody else probably deserves it. Even me getting Colors was because of maybe five, six, seven people emailing them for me, and that's just because of the impression I left on those people and how they feel about my music. Now, that is a part of my industry, because it means that I've got fans that can help me get onto platforms without me having to do anything. I just have to keep creating good music. There's stuff I definitely feel like I deserve, 100 per cent, because I know what I'm worth. But I don't feel like if I'm not getting it now, it means my team ain't doing a good job. The general consensus that moves, that helps you navigate and moves your name around, is what allows you to get opportunities.

I want talk to you about Letter To A Dealer because it’s a stand-out track on Charisma. I really like the story telling style, and it reminded me of Dave’s How I Met My Ex. That has to be a very conscious decision. Why did you decide to make that kind of track?

Letter To A Dealer is an amalgamation of different situations that I witnessed firsthand. Or I spoke to the people that witnessed firsthand and they told me those situations in a way that they couldn't maybe explain to their friends. If somebody who's born into council estate, into a certain type of environment, into a certain class, then whether by their own admission or not, it’s a nature vs. nurture kind of vibe. It's kind of a vibe where it nurtures you into believing that there's only one path, and you get so closed off from everything else because you think, ‘that's them people, that's not for man’. Letter To A Dealer was one of the first rap stories I ever wrote three and a half years ago, and I haven't changed a word since.

Wow.

That's the first time that I ever put it to an original beat, because I originally wrote it to a J Dilla beat. Every time I was recording it, I would always shed tears at the end because I'm older now, and I understand that there's time you can't get back; ‘I grew up with you, I know your potential’.  It's never really disappointment, I'm not judging anyone. A lot of people are just trying to survive, and I feel like the people outside of that respective environment look at those people and think you chose to be this way. It's not that at all, and I'm so passionate about that because there's a lot of privilege in other classes and other races and other situations. To see my brothers being judged when I came from the same place and I didn't necessarily end up in the same situation. Other people's environment around and inside their home is completely different and you'll never understand that. For them to walk outside and have this shield up, you don't know what they went through, and you don't know what could happen to them on the street, and you think that's our culture, but it's not our culture. That's the culture that's been put on us by people who are looking to profit from us. And I don't appreciate it when people look at it and go, ‘well your parents shouldn't have done this, or your mum and dad shouldn't have done that, or you should just work harder’. It's genuinely not that easy. A lot of stuff is very simple in life, but it's just as much your environment, just as uncontrollable as it is decisions you make, and a lot of people make decisions based on their environment.

You grow up knowing a certain thing, and understanding a certain thing and believing a certain thing and never really having an opportunity to express yourself, especially as a black male in a European country. The narrative is, men are meant to be strong, but then you're meant to be four times as strong because you have a quarter of the potential to grow in a certain situation. But then your culture isn't as accepting of certain things and you're taught that boys don't cry and all that stuff. You're not able to express yourself, those are things you don't choose. That person was born into this situation and they can't change that just because there are no resources. They can't express themselves to even say, ‘I need help’. It's mad.

I've seen men in the trap, and then come out the trap, get jobs, and then go back to the trap because their minds are so attuned to instant gratification; ‘I can't stand inside here for eight hours and work and not see my money straight away’. Or they might do a madness and get 50 grand or whatever. I wish that it was different, for all of us. There's maybe one or two from my bit that have really broken away and made something different, but I don't want that to be the default narrative for people of my colour, my age, my generation. Especially due to the fact that we can't express ourselves enough to say, ‘do you know what, this isn't the way’.

All of that is the amalgamation of how I feel about what Letter To A Dealer is. Now as a man, I'm more empathic, I'm more considerate. I've been at a place where I slept outside. I've been at a place where someone I thought I didn't necessarily want to be the first mother of my child, might have had my child, do you know what I mean? I've been at those points and knowing that I'm an expressive guy, I know that there's more out there for me than just the ends and all that, and Metal and Rocks.

What is success for you?

Success is relative. Success is doing what you love and getting paid. It's being able to facilitate yourself navigating how you want to navigate. If you wanna work for someone and you're happy doing that, then you're successful. I don't believe there's different levels of success, there's just different levels of perception of people's success. The only reason I say getting paid is because we live in the Western world. Outside of that, you might not need to get paid. You might just do what you love for the sake of it, teach a man to fish kind of vibe. I'll look at you and if you're happy, you're successful.

Find Che Lingo here:

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/0xNKgWtSixAqcwJLM2c8ez?si=Dv_ADPidRqGgPexeN7DQ7Q

SoundCloud soundcloud.com/che_lingo

Instagram instagram.com/che_lingo

Twitter twitter.com/Che_Lingo

VEVO youtube.com/user/CheLingoVEVO