The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2019 - Issue 26

bite music celeb West Midlands several years ago, the artist, real name Michael Omari said, “In the room were 17 white kids. One day we had our hard hats off. I had a scar on my head and someone goes, ‘What happened?’. I said, ‘Oh, I got stabbed.’ I will never forget. I was explaining, ‘I got stabbed here, there, there.’” It wasn’t until he was questioned about the wounds that he realised being stabbed wasn’t ‘normal’ although it was a regular occurrence where he grew up in South Norwood, south-east London. “They had faces of horror - and that’s when it dawned on me, where I come from is mad,” he told The Sunday Times Magazine. “Of course it’s shocking I’ve been stabbed. Of course, it shouldn’t be normal. We live in this warped view of reality, and it’s not our fault.” A couple of years ago, Stormzy got into a feud with radio station LBC in 2017 after they affiliated his music with knife crime. It started when a caller on the radio station said he had listened to albums by grime artists such as Skepta and Stormzy and thought that the genre was responsible for knife crime in London. “That is such a farfetched statement,” he replied. “For someone to say grime music is the reason for the country’s knife crime epidemic - that is wild. How do you even get there?” Calling the radio station out on his track, ‘First Things First’ from the album Gang Signs & Prayer , the artist was invited to the show to sit down with presenter Shelagh Fogarty to discuss the topic of knife crime, grime music, and why he had ‘dissed’ them. Explaining that he attempts to reflect his environment and not promote any violence or criminal activity, Stormzy said, “Our truth and where we come from is so different, I don’t even expect the world to get it.” At the end of the inter- view, he and Fogarty made peace. Following this, a documentary maker was sent packing when she contacted Stormzy for a project she was working on. “Hi, I’m doing a documentary on gangs in south London and would love to interview you when you’re in town? How can I get in touch with you and provide further information?” He simply replied, “Well, I’m not in a gang so don’t know why you’d want me?” Despite removing her tweet quickly, his fans caught wind of this and accused her of stereotyping and taking the name of his album literally. Not just someone who tackles knife crime and other issues on a public platform, Stormzy apparently approached Oxford University with a proposal for him to fund scholarships for four black students over two years but was turned down. “We tried Oxford but they didn’t want to get involved,” he said, according to The Guardian. The artist then turned to Cambridge University and reached an agreement to fund two under- graduate places a year for two years, including a fund for maintenance. Oxford denied turning him down. Taking his talents to the screen, the rapper will appear in the BBC’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s 2001 novel Noughts + Crosses , a book set in a world divided by race where black people (Crosses) are the rulers and white people (Noughts) are the underclass. Stormzy will play the role of newspaper editor Kolawale, a new character created for the show which is currently being filmed in South Africa. “As a diehard fan of Malorie’s novels, being a part of this important show is a dream come true,” he said. Described as a “gripping story of first love in a dan- gerous, alternate world where racism divides society,” the show will also star Peaky Blinders actor Jack Rowan, Cold Feet star Helen Baxendale, and newcomer Masali Baduza. Having penned more than 60 books for children