Meet Isaiah Dreads, the biggest (and only) Grime star to come from Dorset

Isaiah Dreads is an emerging Grime and Hip Hop artist from the quiet country town of Dorchester.

At the age of 17 he has performed on 1xtra with MistaJam, been Zane Lowe’s Next Hype, done a Gimme Grime with DJ Cameo and his appearance on Annie Mac presents has 100,000 views. We caught up with him in his hometown to hear his story and his views on the Grime scene.

So how did you get into rapping?

My older brother, he rapped before I did and when I was like six or seven he always used to show me grime tracks. Channel U was on in those days and I got influenced to make my own music. I remember JME dropped Serious remix, my brother played it to me and was like just listen to this and that day I memorised the whole thing, then I listened to another grime beat and I changed all the words with the same kinda flow. That’s how I started, then I just kept writing and writing and writing.

Have you ever thought about pursuing anything other than rap?

In school I put all my focus into music. All I was thinking about was when I get home I’m gonna write to this beat, I was writing in lessons, I was doing all that kind of stuff all the time so my focus just wasn’t in it. If I wasn’t a rapper I would have tried a lot harder in school; when I was about to leave I had just signed a development deal and I used that as a kind of fallback that if I did bad in my GCSEs it wouldn’t matter

What has been the hardest thing you’ve had to do on your journey so far?

It was hard coming up as a rapper when you perform at places and there’s literally no one in the crowd. Most people wouldn’t wanna do that again, because it shows no one really cares. It’s mad: I did Reading and Leeds and a festival in Portsmouth and each of those sets, the whole crowd was packed and people knew every word to my songs and it’s just crazy to see coming from an empty room to a packed tent. I’m just so glad I carried on with it when it was hard and no one was appreciating it.

Can you tell us about your studio and recording?

I think it was in Year 10 they first invited me down and by Year 11 I was missing a day of school every week just to go up there and record. When people are making music, whether if it’s jazz, hip-hop, rock, everyone has the same vision, so it’s cool to be involved with that. I write so easily in that house; when you press pause on a beat you can hear 6 different tunes being made and it gives you inspiration to carry on. Just before I went there I made my song  “Preditah” and I remember arriving at the studio and hearing his music playing from a room. It turned out he was producing there at the same studio house and I got to work with him and his brother, C4. It was just really cool to work with someone I listen to a lot.

What are the struggles of being a rapper from Dorchester, not London or Manchester?

Where I live in the countryside I can’t rap about growing up on the road or selling drugs or all of that, but I have different things to talk about, the way I was brought up and the surroundings I was brought up in allow me to make a different kind of music to everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I love road rap, but I think a lot of rappers feel they need to rap about selling drugs or growing up on the streets just because they feel it’ll make their music better, but the reason I rap differently is not because I’m against it, because if that’s your life that’s your life, but I’m just saying it’s okay to rap about other stuff.

What do you think of Grime’s negative image?

Grime tends to be shown in a negative light by a lot of people who don’t understand it and don’t listen to it. At the end of the day it’s just energy and culture and that’s all it boils down to. When people are going crazy in the crowd, Feed Em to the Lions comes on and someone gets punched in the face that’s just energy, that’s just someone’s feeling that song so much they can’t control themselves. I don’t think it should be looked at in that light. Grime’s a positive thing in my eyes.

What new stuff have you got coming for us?

I’ve just finished my new mixtape, which was meant to drop already but I kind of just thought “there’s no rush”. I see people on Twitter asking where it is, so there’s a bit of hype around it, so I just wanna make it as good as I can. It’s not just grime and it’s not just hip hop. There’s grime songs on there, there’s double time hip hop, then there’s real slow stuff. I think there’s something for everyone. You might not like all of it but you’ll like something.

If you could pick three tracks to show us what you can do, what would you choose

Wait For Me, Nasty, Celebrate: they’ll show you what you need to know.

Follow @IsaiahDreads on Twitter for more.