Ghetts on standing up for women, street politics, and pioneer recognition: ‘Peace is not too much to ask for’
At his studio on the outskirts of east London, Ghetts is working on new music.
Given his latest album, On Purpose, With Purpose, was introduced to the world just a few days before we meet it seems unusual, but when the ideas don’t stop there is no time for rest.
Ghetts describes his working days “as pretty much Groundhog Day”, with a gym workout at 9.30am then straight to the studio. But this is his sanctuary. “It’s like therapy almost. I’m happy when I’m here.”
One of the UK’s most influential rap artists, Ghetts, real name Justin Clarke, was a teenager when grime emerged in the UK in the early 2000s. He has been in the business for half his life and hailed a trailblazer in the genre, with the mainstream catching up in recent years; in 2019, he received an Ivor Novello nomination, followed by a number two chart position and Mercury Prize nomination for third album, Conflict Of Interest, in 2021.
Ghetts says working in his studio is like ‘therapy’
At this year’s MOBOs he received the pioneer award, a “crazy” moment that saw him joined on stage by his parents, who have supported him since the start. “I feel like that’s not just a ‘me’ moment, that’s quite an ‘us’ moment, you know, the culture,” he says of the award. “That meant a lot.”
Ghetts is known for delivering sharp, social commentary through his lyrics, and as something of a veteran now he feels more comfortable than ever getting his message across. In On Purpose, With Purpose, he features collaborations with musicians including Kano, Wretch 32 and Sampha, and touches on everything from politics, war, and knife and gun crime, to parenting, abortion laws and postnatal depression. However, he dismisses the idea of it as political commentary.
“I guess it’s just a reflection of the times,” the rapper says. “I don’t think it’s anything political just to state facts… Some of [the songs] are not as controversial as others, but like I said, it’s a reflection of the world, seeing these things happening. I wouldn’t necessarily say I was calling them out. I’m an artist and I’m painting pictures with words.”
Ghetts picked up the pioneer award at the 2024 MOBOs earlier this year. Pic: PA/ Danny Lawson
Postnatal depression and knife crime
In Jonah’s Safety, Ghetts raps: “I know this lady/ Diagnosed with postnatal depression/ She don’t wan hold her baby… Nobody knew that’s how she felt/ She had the smile that concealed it.” It’s an issue discussed openly much more than it was even just 10 years ago, but by women. It is refreshing to hear a male rapper taking it on.
“I heard the beat and the first two lines just came into my head almost instantly,” he tells us. It was a “massive” subject for a man to take on, he adds, “one that deserves research other than just my perspective”.
In Street Politics, he aims to give “a different perspective” to the headlines on youth knife crime, showing “somebody that was a straight-A student fall into a certain way of protecting himself due to fear… I believe it gives a different kind of understanding of why, maybe.”
Having spent time in prison as a teenager, he is aware things could have turned out differently in his own life. “Yeah, sometimes,” he responds, when asked how much he thinks about life’s turning points. “But it’s just testament, you know, to having a vision and living that vision. And being convicted in that vision as well.”
In another album track, Double Standards, the rapper calls out the “structural imbalance” in everything from racism, the justice system and technology, to the different ways he believes the world has reacted to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Pic: Darkside Media
‘We shouldn’t be scared to ask for peace’
It’s about “the yin and yang”, he says. “A double standard of how people of the world are living in different countries and the punishments that differ also, the treatment that differs also. It’s that left, that right, that light, that dark, and everything in between.”
In the track, he raps: “I was on the phone with a pal of mine / they asked me why they’re helping Ukraine and not Palestine / And I’ve replied brown skin we was so whitewashed.”
In person, he says. “I think that peace is not too much to ask for. That’s what I believe… I think everything plays a part within these things – rich, poor, and so on. Not just race… but I go back to saying peace aint too much to ask for. That’s a powerful statement… we shouldn’t be scared to ask for peace.”
So it does seem political, despite his saying otherwise. In 2019, Ghetts endorsed Jeremy Corbyn “because I believe he’s a genuine person that wants to make things better”, but he doesn’t feel the same way about current Labour leader Keir Starmer. Voting at this moment in time, he says, would be “like voting for a lesser evil, I suppose… I don’t know”.
He also laments cancel culture and “fake rage” in his final track. “I think sometimes that lacks a lot of critical thinking of how we may have got to that point,” he says. “You know, it’s just a million voices in one place and reiterating the same thing over and over again, making it spread.”
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With Ghetts and his team ready to get to work, we leave it there. Given he had about 50 tracks in the mix for Conflict Of Interest and more that didn’t make the cut for On Purpose, With Purpose, plus his current work, it feels as if there must be a big vault of Ghetts music still waiting to be heard.
“Even though some of these tracks are very good standalone tracks, when they’re together they don’t sound like it’s a journey, it sounds pretty random,” he says. “So that’s the only reason why they don’t make it sometimes.”
Will his fans ever hear them?
“One day I want to do a big release,” he teases. “One day.”
Ghetts is performing in Birmingham, Manchester and London between 22 and 27 March. On Purpose, With Purpose is out now
Entertainment
Yvette Fielding says she was assaulted by Rolf Harris on Blue Peter and left alone with Jimmy Savile
Blue Peter’s youngest ever presenter has claimed disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris sexually assaulted her when she was a teenage host of the children’s show.
Yvette Fielding, who joined the long-running BBC programme aged 18, told the Sun newspaper how the paedophile predator squeezed and patted her bottom after finding herself alone with him in a TV studio.
The now 55-year-old also recalled an uncomfortable experience with “grotesque” Jimmy Savile, who was later revealed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.
Fielding has questioned the role of the BBC in allowing their behaviour, arguing people in the industry “must have known”.
Fielding joined Blue Peter in 1987. Pic: John Gooch/Shutterstock
She became a Blue Peter presenter in 1987 and left five years later, going on to host a string of BBC programmes including The Heaven And Earth Show, The General and City Hospital.
Recounting the incident with Harris, she said: “It was very confusing and shocking – just bizarre to think Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I am standing there, thinking ‘I don’t know what to do’.
“Other people in the industry must have known what he was like and you left me alone in the studio with him.
“That shouldn’t have happened. I must have been 18 or 19.
“I think a lot of them did know.”
The presenter says the Harris incident ‘shouldn’t have happened’. Pic: PA
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Harris was a household favourite for decades before his dramatic downfall after being convicted of a string of indecent assaults against young girls.
Stripped of his honours, he died of neck cancer and old age in May last year, aged 93.
Jimmy Savile was ‘grotesque’. Pic: PA
He was also known to be associated with Savile, who managed to conceal his crimes until after his death in 2011.
On her meeting with the late depraved DJ, Fielding told the Sun: “He took my hand and started stroking it. ‘Look into my eyes’, he said, ‘And tell me what you’re thinking’.”
“He was grotesque,” she added.
“I just don’t understand why the BBC allowed him to get away with that for as long as he did.”
Savile worked for much of his career at the BBC presenting programmes including Top Of The Pops and Jim’ll Fix It.
The BBC has been contacted for comment.
Girls Aloud have taken to the stage for the first gig of their reunion tour with emotional tributes to their late bandmate Sarah Harding.
A 30-minute delay to the show blamed on “Dublin motorway closures”, did nothing to dim the delight of fans when Nadine Coyle, Cheryl, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh appeared on stage, standing on individual podiums singing their 2008 song Untouchable.
The comeback tour has been dedicated to Harding, who was diagnosed with cancer and died in September 2021 aged 39.
The group’s late bandmate took centre stage. Pic: Tom Dymond/Shutterstock
During the show, the group performed a duet with Harding, whose vocals to I’ll Stand By You played as they joined in live on-stage.
They later sang one of their biggest hits, The Promise, during which the singers stopped and turned their backs to the audience to watch footage of Harding performing the song on her own.
A post on the official Girls Aloud X account said: “Show 1 done. Dublin you were absolutely INCREDIBLE. What a start to the #TheGirlsAloudShow tour.”
The singers won Popstars: The Rivals in 2002 and formed Girls Aloud, going on to achieve four UK number one singles and a Brit award.
Read more:
Tour will ‘never be the same’ without Sarah
Sarah Harding obituary
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They reunited with new music for their 10th anniversary in 2012, while a second reunion was planned for their 20th anniversary when Harding was diagnosed with cancer.
The tour has been dedicated to Harding. Pic: Tom Dymond/Shutterstock
Less than an hour before their expected arrival at the 3Arena in Dublin, the group issued an updated stage time on X.
It said due to “Dublin motorway closures”, the band would arrive 30 minutes later than expected at 9.15pm.
Ahead of the show, a post on the official Girls Aloud X account said: “Rehearsals? Done. Choreography? Ready. Outfits? Fitted. Girls? Aloud.
“…We’ve been working so hard to make this show special for all of you.”
After two back-to-back opening nights in Dublin’s 3Arena, Girls Aloud will play two concerts at the SSE Arena in Belfast on Monday and Tuesday, before heading to the Manchester AO Arena from Thursday to Saturday.
In November, the group had to add six extra dates to their UK and Ireland 2024 arena tour due to “unprecedented demand” following ticket pre-sales.
Entertainment
P Diddy: ‘Gut-wrenching’ video appears to show Sean Combs assaulting singer Cassie in 2016
“Gut-wrenching” CCTV footage which appears to show Sean Combs attacking singer Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel “has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour” of the rapper, her lawyer has said.
The 54-year-old, whose homes in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by Homeland Security Investigations agents in March, has faced a series of public allegations of physical and sexual violence.
Footage obtained by CNN appears to show Combs – also known as P Diddy and Puff Daddy – wearing only a white towel as he punches and kicks Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway on 5 March 2016.
The R&B singer, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura, was his protege and girlfriend at the time.
Pics: CNN via AP
Read more: What is Sean Combs accused of and what has he said?
The footage also shows Combs shoving and dragging her across the floor, as well as throwing a vase in her direction.
It closely resembles the description of an incident at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles described in a lawsuit filed by Cassie in November that alleged years of sexual abuse and other violence from Combs.
The case was settled the day after it was filed.
Sean Combs and Cassie in 2017. Pic: PA
Several more lawsuits were filed in the following months, along with a federal criminal sex-trafficking investigation that led authorities to raid Combs’ mansions in Los Angeles and Miami.
Representatives for Combs did not immediately comment on the video. He has previously denied the allegations in the lawsuits and his lawyers have said he denies any wrongdoing.
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P Diddy’s homes raided
Cassie’s lawyer said: “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour of Mr Combs.
“Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”
According to NBC News, Sky News’ US partner, if Cassie were to make a complaint the LAPD could investigate, but charges would likely be declined by the district attorney because California law has a one-year statute of limitations for assault and the alleged incident happened nearly eight years ago.
CNN did not say how it obtained the video, but noted it verified the location it was shot by comparing the footage to publicly available images of the InterContinental Hotel.
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