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1:14

McAfee. a

1:17

door foreplay. I think

1:19

it's brilliant that I

1:21

feel sad people who

1:24

don't. But then that

1:26

became a thing, you

1:28

know, that like I

1:31

was somebody who went

1:33

down on girls. So

1:35

you became almost shamed

1:38

for going down. Yeah. What were

1:40

you trying to do is hit. My

1:42

therapist will be buzzing that you're asking

1:44

me these questions. If there's any question that

1:47

feels off, you just say, Paul, doesn't

1:49

I go there? I'd be impressed if

1:51

you found somewhere. Wow. Okay. There was also a

1:53

point where I was very close to a suicide.

1:55

My mom run me, and I was like, sometimes

1:57

I feel like I just don't want to be

1:59

here. I know in that like I put

2:01

my mom in a position where she could

2:04

think about losing her son like while she

2:06

was alive. My dream throughout my whole life

2:08

was for my mom to be happy. Let's

2:10

get to then Jade. Jade tells me she

2:13

loves me all the time and I love

2:15

it. I never knew I could feel like

2:17

this. She's my superstar. And I'm her superstar.

2:19

Do you believe that you will marry Jade?

2:22

We need to talk. Yeah, yeah, we do.

2:26

Before we get started, I

2:28

want to personally invite you

2:30

to subscribe if you haven't

2:32

already. Joining our community means

2:34

you'll be the first to

2:36

know when new conversations drop.

2:38

And trust me, we've got

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2:42

way. Plus, your comments shape

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the show. So let us

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know who you want to

2:49

see on the show next.

2:51

Did your father play sometimes

2:53

with you? Yeah, he plays

2:55

in a life battle for

2:57

his or kicks. So talk

2:59

to me, what was it

3:01

like growing up and what

3:03

influence did your father and

3:05

mother have in shaping who

3:07

you were as a little

3:09

boy? I was mostly raised

3:11

in a place called Niesden

3:13

which is North West London

3:15

on accounts of the steak

3:17

which I don't think is

3:19

there anymore, which is a

3:21

shame. My mom and dad,

3:23

I don't have any really

3:25

solid memories of them being...

3:27

about them actually dating, like

3:29

being in a relationship. But

3:31

my dad was in my

3:33

life, was always been part

3:35

of my life, but it

3:37

was predominantly me and my

3:39

mom. And I think their

3:41

most defining features of both

3:43

of them is that they're

3:45

very creative. They're both lyricists.

3:47

My dad is a very

3:49

accomplished musician. And my mom

3:51

has, yeah, she obsessed with words.

3:53

I mean, both of them

3:55

are quite anti-authority. So a

3:57

lot of fighting, like a

3:59

spirit. and politically what was

4:01

happening. My mom just took

4:03

me to protest when I

4:05

was a kid. But when

4:07

did you begin to

4:09

recognize that? That your parents...

4:12

Not that they were not together,

4:14

but that they were not together,

4:16

but that they were not aligned

4:19

with politically what

4:21

was happening. My mom just

4:23

took me to protest when I

4:25

was a kid. So I even though

4:27

I couldn't. I didn't necessarily know why

4:29

I was in places. I was aware

4:31

that it was a fight against something.

4:34

So I had these early memories and my

4:36

mom used to take me to music festivals

4:38

as well when I was really little.

4:40

We're talking like five or six, seven.

4:42

My mom reminds me sometimes that I

4:44

stopped her from seeing, I'm like five

4:46

or six, seven. My mom reminds me

4:48

sometimes that I stopped her from seeing,

4:51

I mean, she was trying to watch

4:53

Jeff Buckley or someone at Cypress Hill,

4:55

one of these incredible groups. watching

4:57

but my mom was taking me

4:59

to some crazy festivals and then

5:01

with my dad my dad actually I guess

5:03

I could I was aware you know because

5:05

he's just he is like that he's

5:07

he's a piss taker he's joke he's

5:10

charming but I didn't really know how

5:12

much of an anti-authority person he was

5:14

until I was a little bit older

5:16

he was in a rock band but

5:18

he used to be in a punk

5:20

group when he was younger um my

5:22

mom had a t-shirthead said mook shit

5:24

on it. Wow, wow, this is interesting

5:26

because, so that was, what year was

5:28

that rough? So I was born in

5:30

92. Yeah, I guess I would have

5:32

been taking on some kind of marginal

5:34

protest in the mid-90s and then

5:36

I guess when I was older my

5:38

most memorable one was against the Iraq

5:41

war. It's interesting, so you're growing up

5:43

in that. Yeah, I didn't feel like

5:45

I was in the middle of, at

5:47

least I wasn't aware of there being

5:49

much happening, literally where I lived. To

5:52

me anyway, it was this fairy tale,

5:54

it was this fairy tale. which in

5:56

terms of there were so many characters

5:58

I was obsessed with. the names and

6:00

stories and worlds of people that

6:03

I'd meet. One of the beautiful

6:05

things about living in London,

6:07

especially living in working class

6:09

London in an estate is it's a

6:12

cauldron of culture and identity

6:14

and stories, which can be fun

6:16

and enjoyable, but also kind of

6:18

scary and traumatic sometimes. But I

6:20

have vivid memories, you know, I

6:23

remember on the bottom floor of

6:25

our estate was a woman called

6:27

Linda and she had, I think like

6:29

12. bouquets or flowers just outside her

6:31

house that she just let die from

6:33

a person a man I'm guessing she'd

6:35

kicked out and refused to take back

6:37

you know yeah there was a guy

6:39

who called hop along genuinely and because

6:41

he had a leg brace and the

6:43

root the story was that he was

6:45

pushed out of the top floor of

6:47

the estate and landed on his leg

6:50

you know but it's like because I'm

6:52

a kid I didn't have a concept

6:54

of of the severity or like what

6:56

that meant in fact I've just had

6:58

a memory then that of my mom

7:00

or my mom or my mom and

7:02

dad shouting at me because I had

7:04

like a water pistol that I tried

7:07

to shoot at like a police

7:09

car once or police van and

7:11

they obviously freaked out. Yeah.

7:13

Yeah. I didn't have, I don't

7:15

know, we didn't have social media

7:17

about that and say. True. That

7:19

was my entire world. This is

7:22

true. But I understand you did

7:24

not grow, they did not live

7:26

in the same household. And my dad

7:28

I saw... Now and again, I wasn't allowed to

7:30

see my dad for maybe a year

7:32

or so, just my mom felt that

7:34

it was probably better for me. My

7:36

mom's main concern, I think, when I

7:39

was young was to make sure that

7:41

my perception of my dad wasn't tainted,

7:43

you know, and he was going through struggles

7:45

with his own, so she was

7:47

protecting me from that for a

7:49

little bit. And I think actually

7:52

it's good to conceptualize that he

7:54

had a particular struggle with

7:56

an addiction to opiates. And that

7:58

was a really bad point. Bye. did go

8:00

into recovery and sorted himself out

8:02

and he has done two or

8:04

three times. Fair enough. How old

8:06

were you at that time? I think it

8:08

was about five. Okay. So you

8:11

remember not being able to see

8:13

your dad but not understanding why? I

8:15

have one memory of my dad being

8:17

at the flat in the morning only

8:20

because I remember being excited

8:22

and jumping on him but

8:24

I landed on his, I like needed him

8:26

in the in the bits. I mean and

8:28

he... He was like, oh, and I was

8:30

like, oh, shit. I have a memory of

8:32

that, but it's only really when I

8:35

spoke to them more recently, where

8:37

I started to piece together what

8:39

was even happening. But yeah, never

8:41

living in the same house. Okay,

8:43

ever. Fair enough. So your mother,

8:46

from what I understand, is she

8:48

was an artist? Yeah. And then

8:50

she transitioned to therapist. Yeah. I know.

8:52

Tell me about that. Yeah, yeah.

8:54

So when I was in my

8:56

teens. She just. went to unique. Yeah,

8:59

started studying psychotherapy. Oh, so she did

9:01

that in your teens. Yeah. So in

9:03

your teens, you had already moved from

9:05

London though? Yeah, I moved from London

9:07

to Brighton when I was 10. Okay,

9:09

you were 10. Yeah. So now, why did

9:11

you move to Brighton? Well, I think

9:13

it was a mixture of things. Brent

9:15

was super rough when we were there,

9:17

like the crime was pretty high, I

9:20

guess, in comparison to upper boroughs in

9:22

London. And then also my grand was

9:24

there, my mom's mom, mom's mom's mom,

9:26

mom. and my mom's sister, we're

9:28

both in Brighton. So there was a

9:30

support network there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

9:32

But now moving to Brighton, your

9:34

father remained in London. Yeah. Okay.

9:36

So at that point, was there

9:38

any thought of, hey, I'd rather

9:40

stay with dad or no, it

9:42

was just no question, go with

9:44

mom. Yeah, I've never, that's interesting,

9:47

it's an interesting question.

9:50

My therapist would be buzzing that you're

9:52

asking me these questions actually. Because the

9:54

dad stuff has been hard because I

9:56

definitely do put up quite a guard with

9:58

my dad for some reason. Um, no,

10:02

I don't ever remember wanting to live with my

10:04

dad. I definitely saw him enough to feel like

10:06

I had a relationship with him. And

10:09

I guess when I'm

10:11

younger, I'd naturally idealize both of

10:13

them, you know, both superheroes

10:15

to me, my mom and dad,

10:17

and I literally didn't know

10:19

any different. I don't even really

10:21

remember being jealous necessarily of my

10:23

mates who had a mom

10:25

and dad in the house. I guess his thing

10:27

was quite a typical fatherly thing

10:30

where he would try and

10:32

spoil me when I saw him

10:34

and he had various girlfriends. And

10:36

that's why I ask because, you

10:39

know, I think that what ends

10:41

up happening with a lot of

10:43

children where you're not living with

10:45

both parents is that you have

10:47

the parent who's not with you

10:49

full time becomes the spoiler. Yeah.

10:51

You know, so whatever you need, toys,

10:53

candy, whatever it is, you go to

10:55

them. So they become the fun parents.

10:57

No, literally. Yeah. Yeah,

11:00

I say that in there. I say that there's a line in

11:02

the book where I remember that it's one of my most vivid

11:04

memories is that my mom didn't let me drink while was being her. See.

11:07

And my dad gave me so much that I

11:09

threw up, you know. So what I'm curious

11:11

about is, why

11:13

would you not want to stay with the fun

11:15

parent? Yeah,

11:17

no, it's a good point. I

11:19

don't know, I guess because I

11:24

didn't like throwing up, like, you know,

11:26

like I think a part of me

11:28

understood that they were friends the entire

11:30

time, other than that break, which I

11:33

guess was actually still quite a friendly,

11:35

loving boundary. And I think that has

11:37

bled into having quite a latent understanding of

11:39

partnership and that family unit. I've

11:41

always been very open -minded. Another thing

11:43

is that it would never just me

11:45

and my mom. She would have,

11:47

I have God parents and I

11:49

would constantly meet adults. That

11:51

of different walks of life.

11:53

Having an insight into openness

11:55

around sexuality and race and

11:57

gender and Class.

12:00

Class is a massive one because hilariously

12:02

from my mom's side, my mom was

12:04

actually born into money. Her father is

12:07

a man called John Bolting who is

12:09

one of these identical twins called

12:11

the Bolting Brothers who actually made

12:13

the most famous for making a

12:16

film called Brighton Rock in the

12:18

mid-fifties, which is a kind of

12:20

staple British film. It was Richard

12:22

Attenborough's first lead role. And so

12:24

like the Attenborough's were friends with a

12:27

part of my family. But the funny

12:29

thing is... these identical twins married five

12:31

times each. I never met my grandfather

12:33

by the way. So I have this

12:35

huge kind of shrapnel you know family vibe.

12:37

Yes. Where everyone kind of looks

12:39

like each other but they're not that close

12:42

to each other and a lot of people

12:44

have lost the money. So you know my

12:46

mom literally signed on, we were on the

12:48

doll, we were on benefits when I was

12:50

a kid because she had no money. In

12:52

fact I was homeless before needs and I

12:54

was homeless for two years. I would just

12:56

step my mom's friend Tina's house.

12:58

You know what's so incredible to

13:00

me about that is that so

13:03

when I got to the UK six

13:05

years ago, what was most blatant

13:07

to me was how rigid the

13:09

class structure. Yeah, yeah, still is.

13:12

Because in the US we do

13:14

have class, but it's not as

13:16

rigid as it is in the

13:19

UK. In the US it's predominantly,

13:21

predominantly about money. Yeah, right? So,

13:23

yes. So, if you were overly

13:26

wealthy, you were typically considered to

13:28

be whatever high class is. Regardless

13:30

of race, ethnicity, sexuality, is

13:33

definitely not the same in

13:35

the UK. No. But that's

13:37

why this is so interesting

13:40

to me. Yeah, it's mad. So at

13:42

what point do you become aware of

13:44

your class? It's just funny that you reflect

13:46

that as an American coming over because yeah

13:48

my mom's values I think a lot of

13:51

people would agree with middle class but the

13:53

in actuality of our money and our financial

13:55

status she was most certainly working class like

13:58

sometimes even below working class because

14:00

We couldn't afford to live without

14:02

support, you know, because her father

14:04

died and the money is money, you

14:06

know, with multiple marriages like that and

14:08

stuff, money just goes. It's gone. But

14:10

what was so funny was still at

14:13

a wedding or whatever, I'm suddenly

14:15

in a room with people who are

14:17

not only middle class, but sometimes

14:19

upper class. And what was more

14:21

fascinating was I would then go back

14:23

to my estate and I'd know that

14:25

I've just had an experience that like

14:27

80% of the estate would never have.

14:29

We never have, yeah. And then I

14:31

remembered that as a brown boy, that gave

14:34

me this extra step, like there was

14:36

a privilege in that, because I never

14:38

from that point onwards felt threatened

14:40

in rooms of people who looked

14:42

like that, because I'd seen it

14:44

as a kid, you know. Even

14:47

though I wasn't allowed to see

14:49

some family members because I was

14:51

black, which is a whole other

14:53

mixed race complex thing, but... No,

14:55

but we have to talk about

14:57

that. We need to talk. Yeah,

14:59

we do. Yeah, because so your

15:01

mother is white. Yeah, mom's white.

15:03

Yeah. Okay. So your father's

15:06

black. Yeah. You're so

15:08

by the time you're

15:10

in Brighton, you're 10.

15:12

So what is your

15:14

impression of who you

15:16

are when it comes to

15:18

race? Then. Oh. Yeah, so yeah,

15:21

the maddest thing about

15:23

Brighton was that. There's

15:25

not that many black people.

15:27

When I was there, there

15:30

wasn't that many black, brown,

15:32

I think, I think we call

15:34

it bame, then black. Oh yeah, I

15:36

remember. It was six years ago it

15:38

was bane. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. I

15:41

got here, I was like bam. Are

15:43

you serious? I know. I kind

15:45

of that's. But... All I remember

15:47

was assimilation. That's what I remember so

15:49

vividly. I am, I've learned of myself,

15:52

I'm naturally a sponge anyway. I do,

15:54

if I spend enough time with a

15:56

person or a vibe, some part of

15:58

me admittedly does blend. or I want

16:00

to, I want to, I want to

16:03

merge, than me. Again, even being mixed

16:05

race as an idea or as a

16:07

feeling as bizarre because you don't

16:09

look like either parent and you're

16:12

caught between two cultures, the whole

16:14

thing is a trip anyway. I

16:17

remember very much being the

16:19

London boy in Brighton and

16:21

then after about two years,

16:23

I just assimilated with a

16:25

couple of the subcultures there.

16:27

So I remember like I died my hair red

16:29

when I was about 11 and then became

16:31

like a grunge kid and I wanted to

16:34

be a skater, you know, and I had

16:36

like a couple of grunge mates, you like,

16:38

even if I wore a football top, they'll

16:40

be like, nah. You know, it's like

16:42

it's too chubby, I think they'll tell

16:45

townie or whatever it was. I'd now

16:47

in hindsight, I feel I was trying

16:49

to minimize the qualities of mine that

16:51

would be associated of blackness

16:53

in order to fit into social

16:55

groups in brighten. a week on this

16:58

particular topic. In the United

17:00

States, there was a very

17:02

famous court case called Plessy

17:04

v. Ferguson. Have you heard about

17:06

this? So Plessy v.

17:08

Ferguson essentially stated what

17:11

constituted a black person. This

17:13

is the one drop day. Exactly.

17:15

Which stated that if there was

17:17

one drop, in essence, that was

17:20

one eighth. of your heritage could

17:22

be tracked back to someone black,

17:25

regardless of how you presented, regardless

17:27

of the color of your skin,

17:29

regardless of your hair. Regardless, you

17:32

were black. So in the United

17:34

States, growing up, I grew

17:36

up in the 80s and the

17:38

90s, we didn't necessarily categorize

17:40

as mixed race, black, white,

17:42

it was you're black, or

17:44

you're not. And for the

17:46

most part, if you had that

17:49

one, you're black. So for me,

17:51

you, if you were Jordan, you're

17:53

growing up in New York with

17:55

me, you're black. Right? Now when

17:57

I got here, I remember...

18:00

talking to someone on a

18:02

show and I said so are you

18:04

and I said are you it

18:06

was a dating show and I

18:08

said who you're interested in dating

18:10

and he said you know well

18:12

I'm mixed race so I want so

18:14

I said you know I said you

18:17

know I said you know I said

18:19

you're not mixed race you're black wow

18:21

he said no no I'm mixed race

18:23

I said no my brother you are

18:26

black I said no my brother you

18:28

are black mind blow. And

18:30

I realize that I'm in a different

18:32

place. I need to sit back and

18:35

listen. So I'm still trying to reconcile

18:37

this in my mind. So even

18:39

now, what do you categorize yourself

18:42

as? I would say I'm mixed race

18:44

just because I do think that

18:46

there's quite a unique experience that

18:49

comes with being dark skin black.

18:51

But to answer a few of the

18:53

things you said at the same time, I

18:55

guess. The first immediate thought I have

18:58

is that I can't be white. This

19:00

is what I find so funny. I

19:02

couldn't, and I would never be,

19:04

because even if I am genetically

19:06

halfway, there's not even a discussion

19:08

with whether I'm white. I'm definitely

19:10

not white, which is funny, because that,

19:13

like, based on percentages, surely I could

19:15

have a choice between the two, but

19:17

no. That's not how it works, and

19:20

there is a lineage of people whose

19:22

features look like mine, whose hair textures

19:24

like mine. and his skin's like mine

19:27

that are treated unfairly because of that.

19:29

It's not like there's any point where

19:31

a mixed race person was like, ah,

19:34

you know, which side you want? It

19:36

was never that. If anything, sometimes

19:38

there are a reflection being

19:40

mixed race in itself was

19:42

a reflection of something having

19:44

gone wrong before. you know either a

19:46

white woman as a text of a black

19:48

man or a black woman as a white

19:50

man something some things gone awry and this

19:52

person and not exists you know but I

19:54

also I understand why people why people challenge

19:56

these ideas yeah I do and but ultimately

19:58

it comes down to I think the culture

20:00

you feel most aligned to, and

20:03

I do push against

20:05

monolithic ideas of what

20:07

represents blackness, you know?

20:09

I don't like falling into spaces

20:11

where something is seen as

20:13

like unblack because it historically, it's

20:17

not recognized as that, you know? Because then

20:19

you fall into tricky territory like rock

20:21

music. People think rock music can be

20:23

like white music, like that's preposterous

20:26

idea when you look at the history

20:28

of rock music or guitar music,

20:31

you know? Yep, yep. So, it is tough, it

20:33

gets into tricky territory, but all I know is

20:35

I was in a space, I was in a

20:37

city that was predominantly white. I

20:39

would just straight up experience things

20:41

that would make me feel othered, and

20:43

I need to disclaimer this because

20:45

this isn't like a poor me situation. This

20:47

is very a matter of fact, I actually, I've

20:50

really been that affected by

20:52

interpersonal racism

20:55

because a lot of it, I

20:57

think, is grounded in ignorance and that

20:59

person's own just lack

21:01

of experience with black people. I'm with you. So,

21:03

when I was a kid, you know, I

21:05

remember the first time I was told in a

21:07

football match to go back to my own

21:09

country, I actually didn't understand what they meant. I

21:11

wasn't upset. Do you know I mean? I

21:13

was actually, I remember going to one of the,

21:15

you know, the manager being like, what country is

21:17

he talking about? What is my own

21:19

country? Let me know, please. I would

21:22

love to return to this country I

21:24

own, really. That would be fucking great.

21:26

I hear you. So, those, but you

21:28

know, the feeling of otherness,

21:30

that is something that I would have, that

21:32

would have sat within me and that

21:34

will have

21:36

manifested itself in certain situations.

21:38

And I certainly have a

21:41

complex about my position in

21:43

black spaces sometimes, much like

21:45

I do in white spaces.

21:47

And that's, to me, what

21:49

is, what feels so

21:51

sad when I talk to

21:53

many people who are mixed

21:56

race is this feeling

21:58

of never feeling comfortable. in

22:00

white spaces never feeling comfortable in

22:02

black spaces so it's like how

22:04

do you even navigate life I

22:07

think for me like coming from

22:09

Brighton where I feel like I

22:11

have tried to assimilate with

22:13

with a less black culture then

22:15

reassimilating with the

22:17

London culture that I was initially

22:20

raised in that was then confusing

22:22

yes so when you think about

22:24

Brighton in particular yeah that was

22:27

really where you came of age

22:29

Yeah, I guess people would say that, yeah,

22:31

I was a teen, I had all

22:33

my first experiences there pretty

22:35

much with, you know, drugs and

22:38

sex and... Yeah. Police. Drug sex

22:40

and crime. It all happened right

22:42

there. This is Brighton every night.

22:44

Yeah. Pretty much. It actually was

22:47

the drug capital of the UK

22:49

when I was there. Oh yeah,

22:51

I believe it. You know, Brighton

22:54

is the only place where I've

22:56

seen inflatable penises on every corner.

22:58

Okay, I felt that that's probably

23:01

one of the aspects of growing

23:03

up in Brighton that I

23:05

really loved. So you're growing up

23:07

in a much more liberal space.

23:09

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Right. So it's

23:12

a blessing, it sounds like, to

23:14

be in Brighton. Yeah, for that,

23:16

but in that sense. In that

23:18

sense. So you have all these first,

23:20

right? So let's talk about drug

23:22

use. Yeah. Right. So in, I think

23:25

it's, what is it, what is it, 17.

23:27

Yes. How does, how do you

23:29

get, tell it, because I've

23:31

never done co. Oh really?

23:33

Yeah, it's a good thing.

23:35

Yeah, I was saying, it's

23:37

a good thing. But how

23:39

does that, how does that

23:41

happen? How does that, how, how,

23:44

how, yeah, how, yeah, I mean, how

23:46

do you, how do you, how do

23:48

you get introduced

23:50

to it? Well, if you're not

23:52

looking for it, are you know,

23:55

I swear to God. And you

23:57

know what was even more mad

23:59

is? He cemented his name because

24:01

he came to deliver us the stuff.

24:03

And then we were in like a

24:06

club bar kind of thing. But it

24:08

was like loud pumping music, a lot

24:10

of people. And he walked in, did

24:13

the deal, and then went to sleep

24:15

on a sofa in this club. So

24:17

do you know how much sense

24:19

of self-assurity you have to have?

24:21

So yeah, Mr. Cool, I remember

24:23

it vividly. And yeah, we did it.

24:26

I was instructed on how to take

24:28

it. We're in two lines. And then,

24:30

um... How did you feel? Because I

24:32

was here as that first... Bro. It

24:34

was the most memorable part

24:37

of it for me. And this is

24:39

an... which inevitably led

24:41

to my immediate downfall. In

24:43

that, this situation was

24:45

that alcohol becomes like

24:47

water. There's no feeling of

24:49

consequence. A lot of people in

24:52

the UK, unfortunately, Paul. They'll be

24:54

doing coke, you know, weddings. birthdays

24:56

because they've drunk too much and

24:58

it gives them a little wake-up

25:01

so it was them up and

25:03

they carry on drinking is wild.

25:05

I would not recommend. But I remember

25:07

being sat there speaking to this girl I

25:10

was attending the chat up even when I

25:12

was 17. I used the fake ID to

25:14

get in but she was like 19. And

25:16

then I had these row of drinks lined

25:18

up in front of me and there was

25:20

literally six drinks, six mixes

25:23

and I was like yeah yeah. Yeah yeah

25:25

yeah yeah yeah and I'm talking to and

25:27

I'm just thinking oh my god this is

25:29

I can knock these back yeah and I

25:31

said to her I'm just going to

25:33

the toilet and my last memory was

25:35

saying bye to her and walking

25:38

towards the bathroom and then

25:40

I've come back around and I'm just

25:42

like under a car in the car

25:44

park there was three women and I

25:46

was like am I dead and then

25:48

my friend parted them like the ending

25:50

of some kind of war epic and

25:52

lifted me up and it was like,

25:54

you know, and I'd been like sick

25:56

on myself and... and then they basically got on

25:58

me a red bull and... And maybe drink

26:00

the red bullen up, you know, cleaned off

26:03

the sick and went back in and then you're

26:05

back in it's a more But so but so

26:07

but so it get it allowed you to go

26:09

through the alcohol with no consequences Yeah, or you

26:11

felt like there was not initially that was

26:13

the most my mobile hot of coke Yeah,

26:15

but what about the whole I always hear

26:17

everybody not everybody, but I feel like maybe

26:19

it's part of the narrative Yeah, is that

26:21

that first highlight? You'll never be able to

26:23

get that first high again or is that

26:25

just all nonsense? I don't know that with

26:27

coke MDMA. Maybe MDMA. I

26:30

can hear that and then certainly

26:32

heroin I've not I've not tried heroin,

26:34

but that is I've

26:36

heard okay, that that's the the

26:38

part that's most Overwhelming is

26:41

that being that it's a painkiller,

26:43

you know that you are removing pain

26:45

You didn't realize you had so just being

26:47

alive feels painful And the only way

26:49

to remedy that is to do more opiates.

26:51

That's why they're so dangerous got you Coke

26:53

man, I don't fucking know I feel

26:55

like you know, it gives you razor sharp

26:57

focus and you know Like a sense

27:00

of confidence for about 25 minutes until you

27:02

gotta do another fucking line in London

27:04

It's pointless anyway because it's at most about

27:06

25 % pure even though people will tell

27:08

you otherwise Everyone will be like yeah, man.

27:10

I got it off the docks my cousin

27:12

works on the docks. I've got it It's

27:14

not been stepped on. It's like yes, that's

27:16

bus. It's cut with Benadryl come on. Yeah,

27:18

but um, but no I don't feel that

27:20

MDMA. Yes the first high of MDMA incredible

27:22

and if it was regulated and I

27:25

feel like there's actually a lot of medicinal and therapeutic Benefits

27:28

benefits. So MDMA. Did you try that when you

27:30

were in the teens? Yeah, I think 16 when

27:32

I did that you were 16, I think I

27:34

did that first actually before the coke Yeah, it's

27:36

before the coke. Yeah, we were

27:38

pretty restless in Britain. Okay With

27:41

with drugs and sex which I only realized

27:43

a sex thing when I started speaking to

27:45

people in London about their Secondary school time and

27:47

I was like, oh Rob, we were

27:49

active. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't realize that that

27:51

that was going on in Brighton But

27:54

you know though the the the the amount

27:56

of sex though has dropped off. Oh

27:58

really? That's the thing. I think that's the

28:00

part that people don't buy,

28:02

but it's the fact. So

28:04

if you look at the

28:06

percentage of Gen Alpha, we're

28:08

like up to your, what, mid-20s,

28:10

having sex, it's much lower than

28:13

Gen Z. If you look at

28:15

Gen Z compared to millennials, much

28:17

lower. If you look at millennials

28:19

compared to Gen X, my generation,

28:21

much lower. So we were doing

28:24

our thing much more. Serious. And

28:26

then you keep going. So you

28:28

go to baby boomers. So you

28:30

know who was having the most sex?

28:33

Our grandparents. Yeah, if they're

28:35

living it up in the 60s,

28:37

come on. Yeah. 60s or 70s. Yeah.

28:39

Three love. That was a movement. It

28:41

was a movement. But to your point,

28:43

social media. Social media. Yeah. makes it

28:46

people think act like it's really

28:48

everything in that respect for

28:50

sure yeah expectation absolutely absolutely

28:52

so the first time that

28:54

you have sex is in

28:57

Brighton yeah yeah do you recall

28:59

oh yeah you recall the moment

29:01

it's a bizarre story I can't

29:03

lie because it came as a result

29:05

of me being off school for

29:07

a couple of weeks because

29:09

I was put on police

29:11

suspension because I had allegedly

29:13

assaulted a girl in my class

29:16

which wasn't true. I was found innocent.

29:18

She turned out that that girl's

29:20

mom was charged with wasting

29:22

police time but it was it

29:25

was fucking surreal. Just in short

29:27

what happened was I'd nudged my

29:29

friend on the shoulder to say

29:31

hi this was someone I knew and

29:33

then at the end of the lesson

29:35

the teacher said oh this person said

29:37

that you hurt her and oh my god you

29:39

know I'm sorry. Apparently

29:42

this sorry was considered legally an admission of

29:44

guilt. So the next day I went into

29:46

school and I was put into isolation, I

29:48

wasn't allowed to see any of my school classmates, I

29:50

was made to sit at the back of the class.

29:53

And I did, it was too scared to tell my

29:55

mom that this had happened because I didn't know

29:57

what the fuck was going on. And I was

29:59

trying to speak... to this girl and her

30:01

friends. Her friends were kind of a

30:03

little bit confused. I thought, no,

30:05

tomorrow will be fine. It'll be fine. Next

30:08

day I'll go in and I'm taking to

30:10

the deputy head and that's when I

30:12

now realize the severity of this memory

30:15

is I might have been pushing

30:17

it down a little bit because he

30:19

actually locked me in this room,

30:21

the deputy head, and he basically

30:23

just told me that I was, I'd been

30:25

like raised to beat women. I mean, but

30:28

it was pretty, I was in tears,

30:30

I remember breaking and being shocked at

30:32

myself, I didn't realise that I had

30:34

done this. So he made me write

30:36

a letter of apology to like this

30:38

girl and her mom and it fucked me

30:40

up, bro, like that was shit, it was

30:42

crazy. And that, when it got to

30:44

that stage, it became a legal matter

30:46

and my mom was working as an

30:48

appropriate adult at the custody centre, weirdly

30:51

at the time. Okay, she was friends

30:53

with some solicitous, some solicitters.

30:55

What's going on. And now I realized

30:58

that there might have been a racial

31:00

element. I really hadn't considered that at

31:02

the time with the teacher. It was

31:04

a white teacher. I was one of

31:07

the only black kids in my school.

31:09

I don't know. I definitely didn't

31:11

think that at the time. I wasn't

31:13

even aware of that. But it was

31:15

fucking horrible. And now thinking of that

31:18

as an adult to do that to

31:20

a kid and tell the kid with

31:22

no evidence, by the way. Just this

31:24

story. I can see how that waits.

31:27

Yeah. And you're revisiting it. And you

31:29

think how incredible it was

31:31

for your mother to be in your

31:34

corner and for her to have

31:36

those contacts. She had a few

31:38

words with that teacher, yeah. And

31:40

what would have happened if

31:42

you didn't have that advocate? Dude.

31:44

Exactly. Like that would have

31:46

been, you know, I mean, I could have,

31:49

I remember being in that room,

31:51

like rewiring my own memory of

31:53

the event. Like surely for somebody

31:55

to be telling me this I must be

31:57

misremembering what I've done like in my head I'd fuck

32:00

and grabbed someone and throwing them

32:02

across, you know? Right. But I know it feels like

32:04

an odd space to tell the story, but

32:06

those really were the grounds in which I

32:08

was then, whilst this investigation was taking place,

32:10

I was, I wasn't allowed to go to school

32:13

for two weeks. And so all I did was

32:15

meet up with this girl, and then she

32:17

ended up taking my virginity and leveraged it

32:19

to try and make her boy jealous. So

32:21

it was just. Oh, that's what it was.

32:23

That's all you were. Yeah. Yeah. You lost your

32:25

virginityidity. to grow older than

32:27

you. Yeah but I mean I couldn't

32:29

have been consenting more. I

32:31

was I was fucking buzz in

32:34

poo. I could not have been

32:36

consenting. Where's the consent form? And

32:38

I actually remember I remember as

32:40

well that I had like the

32:42

early forms of video porn had

32:44

started to come about and like

32:46

people could get video on their

32:49

phone and I remember someone and

32:51

showed me like a video of a blow

32:53

job and I remember being like What the

32:55

f- like I remember when I lost my

32:57

virginity I was almost more excited about it.

33:00

So I was like this is an insane

33:02

concept like that you could just pleasure someone

33:04

with the mouth that's mad like it was

33:06

a it was actually that was also definitely

33:08

a two-way thing because I didn't see at

33:10

that point also there was no conversation or

33:12

whether I would do that I'm not a

33:14

hundred percent I went down on a like that

33:17

was just felt you know and then that was

33:19

again a thing that became a thing you know that

33:21

like I was somebody who went down on phone

33:23

girls. And I always have done always

33:25

will do absolutely a door for play.

33:27

I think it's fucking brilliant. I feel

33:30

sad for people who don't. Oh, so

33:32

you said it became a thing. So

33:34

you became almost shamed for going down.

33:36

Sometimes, yeah, with boys, there's a whole

33:38

time for it, Bo-cat, you know, which

33:40

actually stemmed from Jamaica. But like, it's

33:43

some power thing, I don't know, that's

33:45

been, you know, repackaged and thrown

33:47

into youth culture, but, um, I didn't

33:49

get it. And then also it helped

33:51

me because girls were like, well, that's

33:53

great, you know, exactly. I get a

33:55

bonus from this guy. But so just

33:57

to move us out of Brighton is.

34:00

You fall in love with music, I would

34:02

imagine. But the

34:05

question that I have

34:07

is rap, hip

34:09

-hop in particular. At what point do you

34:11

fall in love with hip -hop? I

34:14

mean, man, listen. I mean, I'm

34:16

giving my age here, but there was once a

34:18

time. There

34:20

was a time

34:22

where UK hip -hop

34:24

was predominantly a space

34:26

in which people would voice their

34:29

struggle. Like, the true legends of

34:31

UK hip -hop would be that jest,

34:33

chest -to -pea, Task Force, foreign beggars.

34:35

Hip -hop was this form of,

34:37

like, you know, I've got no money,

34:39

I'm scrounging, I'm trying to do something with

34:41

my life. You know, the currency in rap

34:43

at that point was, how many words could

34:45

you rhyme in a sentence? That was rap.

34:48

The rappers you'd hear would go, oh, my

34:50

God. Like, there's a rapper called Charlie Tuna

34:52

from a group called Jurassic Five. That group

34:54

inspired me in Harley to make Rizzle Kicks,

34:56

right? Charlie Tuna is known for multi -syllabic

34:58

rhyme schemes, cadence, delivery. That's what we

35:00

were listening for. And Jurassic Five spoke

35:02

often about, they were quite anti -capitalist. They

35:04

were talking about not wanting to be

35:06

celebrities, not wanting to be stars. They

35:08

spoke about community and the genres they

35:10

liked, and they just were fucking around,

35:12

you know? That was the rap that

35:14

inspired me at that point. So I'm

35:16

like, fuck, I can get down with

35:18

this. This is the kind of shit.

35:20

My first raps were about, like, rumors

35:23

in school. One of my first

35:25

raps was a diss on my

35:27

school form tutor. Oh, well. Like,

35:29

that was... It was a channel

35:31

for me to express my frustration

35:33

with something in my life. But

35:35

I didn't feel like I couldn't

35:37

use it because couldn't do anything.

35:39

Like, I was really talking

35:41

about, like, quite minimal experiences, you

35:43

know? Like, going to a house party or, like, playing

35:45

spin the bowl. Like, I would literally rap about these

35:47

things, you know? Interesting. Because that's what I... I

35:50

didn't feel like there was any barrier.

35:52

It was just how am I saying

35:54

it? What words are rhyming when I say it? And

35:57

now, I guess, it's another conversation, but

35:59

now it... There was a massive shift around

36:01

that time and now you have to really

36:03

look for those artists. Hip-hop and rap

36:05

I think has got this, it's been

36:07

tied in quite heavily into consumerism and

36:10

you might talk about having

36:12

struggled but you're definitely ending it

36:14

by telling people how well you're doing

36:16

now. You know, and like those wrappers

36:19

before that were talking about where they

36:21

were at, they're like, you know, they

36:23

struggle to sell records. So, like selling

36:25

a dream is kind of more marketable.

36:27

It sure is. So at that point

36:30

though, I would imagine that you're not

36:32

necessarily thinking, okay, this is a

36:34

career, this is a profession, it was,

36:36

this is a passion, and I'm pursuing

36:38

it. I made, this is a passion,

36:41

and I'm pursuing it. I made music

36:43

because, well firstly I made it genuinely

36:45

because I just wanted to express myself.

36:47

I know it sounds mad, but it

36:49

really was it. And I guess my

36:52

mom, you know, I'd grown up, you

36:54

know, reading my mom's lyrics, six or

36:56

seven I remember every word every lyric

36:58

you know so the idea of writing

37:01

lyrics to express an experience or a

37:03

self that wasn't out of the that

37:05

wasn't an alien concept my dad was in

37:07

a band called the self and I'd hear

37:09

his music and you know he's had a

37:11

song called conscience like you which was just

37:14

like rock song and all like you know

37:16

so I felt like that was already something

37:18

that I could do to express

37:20

myself where it might surprise you is

37:22

I fundamentally didn't understand what I

37:25

consider to be the time wasted

37:27

with people just hanging out.

37:29

It's sad that in hindsight. At school.

37:31

At school, I didn't. If they went,

37:34

oh Jordan, we're going to go to

37:36

the park. For me, I don't understand

37:38

what, to do what? To just

37:40

sit, didn't understand. I'd

37:42

rather, I'd literally rather watch a

37:44

film. At least, at least, I

37:47

had this insatiable desire to be

37:49

moving forward. Okay. And so... At

37:52

the same time, you know, my mom, she's trying

37:54

to make it as a psychotherapist.

37:56

Money's tight, she's doing mad hours, trying

37:58

to finish her. and I wasn't really

38:01

helping, I wasn't really helping it out

38:03

around the house and now understand why,

38:05

with what I've learned about ADHD, but

38:07

I really struggled. So I was like,

38:09

all right, cool, I know what I'll

38:11

do. I will make myself so good

38:13

at creating websites, so good at making music

38:15

that I will get us out of the

38:17

situation. And I had that focus from 15

38:19

years old, like 100% and actually I got

38:21

voted most likely to be famous in the

38:24

school year, but first year I wasn't even

38:26

there for the end of the end of

38:28

year. I was somewhere else, it's a whole

38:30

other story, but I knew that if I put

38:32

enough time in on my own time, I

38:35

could get out. So I made this music,

38:37

I had a paper round, I'd use the

38:39

money from the paper round to pay for studio

38:41

time, I'd make these demos, I'd then

38:43

print these demos, I'd print these

38:46

CDs, I'd print the CDs, I made

38:48

press packs, I put press packs through.

38:50

all the record labels doors, I emailed

38:52

people like constantly, I had no shame,

38:54

no worry, no embarrassment, people were mocking

38:56

me about it. They were. Oh my

38:58

God, I got people, one guy made

39:00

a banner on his MySpace that said

39:02

like if you think, they used to call

39:05

me Rizzle back then, if you think

39:07

Rizzle's a dickhead text, this number, and

39:09

it was my number. So I would

39:11

just get a random text saying, Dickhead

39:13

for other day, which was just, but

39:16

it didn't, it didn't, for whatever reason,

39:18

I had this armour at that point.

39:20

I was like, all right, cool. I'll

39:22

chat to you in a couple of

39:25

years. And actually that same person came

39:27

to see me in their story. So, so

39:29

it's like, I just had this desire.

39:31

I would discourage this in my

39:34

child personally, because I was trying

39:36

to escape. I wanted me and my

39:38

mom out of this. whole, you know, as

39:40

she was stressed. I wanted to give

39:42

my mom money. My dream throughout my

39:44

whole life was for my mom to

39:46

be happy. My mom focused a lot

39:48

of her intention on me being happy

39:51

and gave a lot of herself to

39:53

me being happy. But of course, as

39:55

you'll know, children, they pick up

39:57

how the parents also treating

39:59

themselves. and it broke my heart like

40:01

every day I could see that my

40:03

mum wasn't treating herself with kindness so I

40:05

went okay well I'm gonna go

40:07

ahead and and and sort this out for

40:09

us which I shouldn't have really been thinking

40:12

as a teenager I should have felt more

40:14

guarded I think by both my parents

40:16

but it is what it is

40:18

they're both doing their best so that's why

40:20

I stuck to music because it felt like something

40:22

I could 100 % do I entered every

40:24

single music competition possible

40:27

I literally would google

40:29

UK music competition and I

40:31

would just enter every single one about

40:33

where it was applicable that I

40:35

could enter it okay and once one

40:38

of these websites was called Go

40:40

Basker they went congratulations

40:42

you've won um our

40:45

bursary I'd given one of these songs

40:47

that I had made with my

40:49

my um paperboy money okay so we're

40:51

gonna give you 500 pound and I

40:53

was like 500 fucking pound yeah

40:55

and they were like all you have

40:57

to do is show us that

40:59

like what you're buying is musical okay

41:01

can't I get the 500 quid

41:03

and like buy a tracksuit which I

41:05

almost did so I remember I

41:07

bought I must I might have bought an iPod

41:09

maybe because obviously I wasn't really want to

41:11

get an iPod and then the other thing

41:14

was I bought these three beats off

41:16

this guy called Dagnabbit um

41:18

and one of them later became a

41:20

song called Down with the Trumpets which

41:23

is to this day the biggest Rizzle

41:25

Kick song release that I made when

41:27

I was 15 16 years old you

41:29

can tell by the chorus but it's

41:31

but it's a banger it's a a

41:34

banger you know and it was really

41:36

made out of that kind of desire

41:38

over a million sold right single

41:40

oh yeah single yeah over a million over a

41:42

million all right so it was that was

41:44

it that song that allowed you to get the

41:46

deal actually I think the moment where I

41:48

was like oh something's going on here was was

41:50

when I so I was doing all this

41:53

stuff on my own actually like the first time

41:55

with the trumpet song it was just me

41:57

it was just rapping in and the whole thing

42:00

And then I was at college and

42:02

Harley, the other member of Rizzlekicks, he

42:04

was studying theatre at Brit. And so

42:06

we'd get the train in. There was only

42:08

like eight of us from Brighton who were

42:10

getting the train into East grade and every

42:12

day. And I heard this song by the

42:15

streets where there's a singer singing the

42:17

end of Mike Skinner's lines. The student

42:19

at the street? Yeah. And I went,

42:21

oh, that's so cool. a singer at

42:23

the end of the Rapper's Lions.

42:25

So I said, Harley, do you

42:27

mind coming to the studio and

42:29

singing the end of my Lions? And

42:31

it was like, yeah, yeah, because I knew

42:33

you could sing. And the more we were

42:35

there, we were like, oh, do you want

42:38

to just jump a verse on this

42:40

song? And I put that song on

42:42

my MySpace. And then suddenly, everyone around

42:44

us was like, oh, this is

42:46

cool. And then that was the

42:48

moment where I'm like, kid and

42:51

play. Yes. You know. Nice and smooth.

42:53

Yeah, there's all types of, you know,

42:55

double acts, but, um, nice and sweet,

42:57

yeah. But certainly in that space at

42:59

that time, that seems like a unique thing.

43:01

A singer and a rapper had been done

43:03

at that time. So I was like,

43:06

let's do this. And from that point

43:08

onwards, everything we kind of did seemed

43:10

to go on on more attention. And

43:12

then you get the deal. My mate

43:14

was having birthday drinks, if I hadn't

43:16

have gone to my friend's house, and

43:19

met his cousin's boyfriend. We were

43:21

a wedding photographer, showed me the video

43:23

function on this camera, and I was like, God

43:25

damn, that's amazing. This is where Shadow Depth

43:27

the Field was like in insane concepts. And

43:29

I was like, want to shoot a music

43:32

video? And he was like, yeah, right? You know,

43:34

I wouldn't mind using the function more,

43:36

shot a music video, 100, 100,000

43:38

views. What music video this is? So

43:40

it's actually not online, but there's an

43:42

original version of down with a trumpet.

43:44

Down with a trumpet. Down with a.

43:46

Like in the new version you can

43:48

see a video at the beginning of

43:50

the old version. Yes. The old version

43:52

got assigned. Is that the tape going?

43:54

No, no. Yeah, that's the tape going

43:56

on. Okay. Yeah, so we had already

43:59

shot another video. and when we got

44:01

signed the label took it down and

44:03

me and Harley were like what the

44:05

fuck there's a hundred thousand views you

44:07

man crazy and they were like shoot

44:09

another video we'll release it and then

44:11

it's you know some like 26 million

44:14

views or something yeah but it was

44:16

it was just us and this and

44:18

tobe and we our videos cost barely

44:20

anything and they all got millions of

44:22

views and we became a sensation momentarily

44:24

yeah look at that you said momentarily

44:27

you said momentarily relative to you know

44:29

my life yeah So when you look

44:31

back, I'm sure you're proud of that

44:33

chapter of your life. Yes. Are there

44:35

any regrets? Yeah. Oh, loads of regrets.

44:37

Do you? Yeah, of course. Specifically. Are

44:39

you on the side of, if I

44:42

asked you if you had regrets, would

44:44

you say? Yeah. Well, you know what

44:46

I think I do is, I take

44:48

that and I pull the lesson out.

44:50

Yeah. And then I say, you know

44:52

what? I couldn't have received that lesson.

44:55

Unless. Right. Right. And I mean, are

44:57

there moments that I wish I could

44:59

get back? I wish I can get

45:01

them back, but at the same time,

45:03

then I always counter it with. With,

45:05

I learned that thing. Does that make

45:08

it, does that make it not a

45:10

regret that? For me, that's what makes

45:12

it not a regret. Yeah. But what

45:14

I mean, so when you think about,

45:16

I've got regrets. Specifically. Well, I just,

45:18

I just think I've career. The music

45:20

career. What are your, what's, what's your

45:23

top regret. I don't like

45:25

our second album cover. And I had

45:27

to, because we, we, Rizzle Kicks, me

45:29

and ours, we released an album for

45:31

the first time in 12 years or

45:33

something, like literally last month, and we

45:35

were doing signings, you know, our approach

45:37

to it nowadays is a lot more

45:39

low-key, you know, we're not trying to

45:41

reach the heights of pop stadium that

45:43

we kind of accidentally fell into all

45:45

those years ago. But we were doing

45:47

a signing and people would come with

45:49

you know our first two albums on

45:51

vinyl and I remember looking at the

45:53

second album cover and being like I

45:55

fucking hate that shit I hate it

45:57

and it was me It was me,

45:59

I was so high on drugs at

46:01

the time, I was like, this is

46:03

a good idea. And it just was

46:05

not a good idea in any sense

46:07

of, it was so, and we had

46:09

shot a whole other album cover with

46:11

an incredible up and coming, videography, ended

46:14

up working with ASEP Rocky and you

46:16

know, I don't know, Paul, I don't

46:18

know what the lesson is out there.

46:21

I don't know what the lesson is

46:23

out there. Don't do drugs, don't do

46:25

drugs. But other than other than the

46:27

album. What is a top

46:29

regret on just the music career?

46:32

I think if I was to be objective

46:34

about music careers. Yes.

46:36

Like 181920 being that

46:38

famous was now I'm

46:40

realizing completely like what what do

46:43

I do with that? How do I

46:45

do? I don't know who I am.

46:47

I hadn't developed as a as a

46:49

person a human being. I'm being constantly

46:51

criticized because we had ended up

46:54

in the pop sphere. There's a

46:56

whole other level of of

46:58

Snobbery attached to that pop

47:00

star. And people just assume,

47:02

for example, that pop stars a

47:05

morons for a start. So, and

47:07

also, the irony is, I was a

47:09

moron at 20, 21. What do you

47:11

expect from a 21-year-old boy? You

47:13

know what I mean? So, if I

47:15

was given an option and choice,

47:18

objectively, I'll be like, no man,

47:20

chill. Do exactly what you want to

47:22

do, make the music you want to do

47:24

for as long as possible, and crescendo. for eight

47:26

years, nine years, and then boom. And then once

47:28

they're there, they have that resilience. It's like,

47:31

you know, it's like a butterfly coming out with

47:33

cocoon. Whereas for us, we knocked on the first

47:35

door, Paul, and it opened them and went

47:37

ew up, boom. Number one, we had like eight

47:39

top 20s. I don't know what it was, but it was astronomical

47:41

so fast. To the point where people thought we

47:43

were industry plants, they thought that some people didn't

47:45

believe us because they didn't see our us because

47:47

they didn't see our journey because they didn't see

47:49

our journey because they didn't see our journey because

47:52

they didn't see our journey because they didn't see

47:54

our journey. to headlining the introducing

47:56

stage at Reading within a

47:58

year to like 15,000 people. It was

48:00

really one month of our

48:02

lives, July 2011, just shifted

48:05

everything in our lives. You

48:07

know it's so interesting about

48:09

what you're saying is that, now

48:12

I'm reflecting back on

48:14

guests, especially artists like

48:17

Jamilia, like Sheryloid,

48:19

and they were trying to escape

48:21

something. I mean, it's hitting

48:23

me for the first, right now.

48:26

They were trying to escape something.

48:28

They got it young. there were issues

48:30

as a result of... massively.

48:33

It's uncontrollable. Uncontrollable and also

48:35

you know we have a

48:37

society maybe or I don't

48:39

know if that's an overused term

48:42

but we obviously celebrate

48:44

in my opinion quite

48:46

nothing material we have

48:48

this obsession with materialness.

48:50

So I was told quite early on

48:53

don't complain about fame you

48:55

know because look what you get you

48:57

get you know get free clothes. get

48:59

taken places in cars, you know,

49:01

I have an instant alleviation from

49:04

the poverty I was in before,

49:06

I tried to pay off my

49:08

mom's debts, but at what's going

49:10

on spiritually, that doesn't, or emotionally,

49:12

you know, I've got stuff I've

49:14

got to work through, you know,

49:17

I haven't had a right of

49:19

passage, I've not gone through that pain

49:21

and I'm stuck in a suspended

49:23

state where I have a social

49:26

currency and now I'm privy to

49:28

rejection. Like it's a lot. In

49:30

that fame, and I want

49:32

to go to connect it

49:34

to your book. Yeah. Okay.

49:36

So I said this when

49:38

you walked in, but I

49:41

want to make sure that

49:43

everyone hears me say this,

49:45

is that I believe that

49:47

your book is, so it's

49:49

avoidance, drugs, heartbreak, and dogs,

49:51

right? ADHD, right? I believe

49:53

that this is one of

49:56

the best books that I've

49:58

read this entire year. people.

50:00

It's phenomenal. That means a

50:02

lot for me honestly. It

50:04

is phenomenal. I encourage everyone

50:06

to read it. You know,

50:08

just for those, just to

50:10

give it context, my book

50:12

is centered around me cheating on

50:15

my ex-girlfriend, telling her that

50:17

I cheated, her leaving me as

50:19

a result, I feel rightly, and that

50:21

pushing me or almost triggering

50:23

me into a desire to rewire

50:26

myself slightly, go into a

50:28

state of recovery. feel like

50:30

there is actually a kind

50:32

of crisis in terms of

50:35

men being able to be

50:37

honest about how they're

50:39

feeling about life and

50:41

society in the West?

50:44

Oh, absolutely. I think all

50:46

over the world, you know, men,

50:48

we have a challenge around

50:50

identifying what the

50:52

emotion is. And what I noticed,

50:54

and I do this with a

50:56

lot of the television shows, it's

50:58

funny enough, I was filming, I

51:01

guess I could say it, I

51:03

was filming Married at First Sight

51:05

yesterday, and there was

51:07

a gentleman that I was working with,

51:09

and I asked him, I said, so

51:11

tell me what emotion do you

51:13

have in this moment right now, as

51:16

you sit with your wife, what emotion

51:18

is it? He had no

51:20

words. And he wasn't armed to

51:23

be able to articulate the words.

51:25

He doesn't know what an emotion

51:27

is. So I said, if you cannot

51:29

tell me what the emotion is, you

51:31

can't tell me what the feeling is.

51:34

Therefore, you definitely can't tell me

51:36

what your partner's emotion is.

51:38

And you definitely can't tell me

51:41

what your partner's feeling is. And

51:43

if you can't tell me what

51:45

your partner's feeling is, then you

51:47

can't hold space for them. No.

51:49

That means you can't connect with

51:51

us. Like the most important

51:54

thing. It is. And you said it? It

51:56

is. It is. Like, do we start like

51:58

a heartbreak high or? You know, just

52:00

some space where we can just,

52:03

why at school is that not

52:05

the utmost priority to be, I

52:07

think it's one hour a week

52:09

in the UK, PSE, personal, social

52:11

education, one hour a week. Well,

52:13

when I went, one thing that

52:16

all children and young people need

52:18

to understand is how they feel,

52:20

how they engage with people, interpersonally,

52:22

every day of their lives. Yes.

52:24

And this would, and I bet

52:26

you feel the same, this will

52:29

definitely get us both into trouble,

52:31

but I'll get me into trouble,

52:33

is. Trigenometry. Yeah. When I was

52:35

in isolation. Use that today, right?

52:37

Yeah, I was going to say,

52:39

I have not used trigenometry. Oh,

52:42

what? Since I was, but yeah,

52:44

cute angles there. Yeah, no, we,

52:46

I have no idea. Like, I

52:48

don't even know. It's like, it

52:50

is, it is almost pointless. Yeah.

52:52

If not pointless, right. However, being

52:54

able to identify your emotion and

52:57

feeling is everything. in life. Everything,

52:59

everything in life. Like I'm saying,

53:01

this is what spins me out.

53:03

The basis of these huge political,

53:05

social, economic shifts is a human

53:07

being. Yes. Like a human that

53:10

is feeling something and that feeling

53:12

is a part of the fucking

53:14

decision. Yes. Sometimes I look at

53:16

like the House of Commons. Yes.

53:18

And they're talking about this massive

53:20

change of policy. Well, someone's fucking

53:23

asleep. Well, I definitely want them

53:25

to be awake. Like, when, do

53:27

you know what I mean? Like,

53:29

how will we not, like, like,

53:31

if it's not to me, there'd

53:33

be having, you know, therapy is

53:36

a, is a note that you,

53:38

that is, you're in therapy, 100%.

53:40

If you're making decisions, but my

53:42

whole country, I want to know

53:44

what you're eating, how many hours

53:46

you're sleeping, and who you're talking

53:49

to, like, putting so much, like

53:51

how much better would decisions be

53:53

if we were emotionally regulated when

53:55

we made them? That's all I'm

53:57

asking. Yeah, yeah, and this is

53:59

the reason why. I think one

54:02

of the most toxic places for

54:04

men, other than the

54:06

internet, is so important,

54:08

this is the reason

54:10

why normalizing these

54:12

conversations with friends,

54:15

especially among men, you

54:17

know, one thing that I notice

54:19

is that, you know, I think

54:21

one of the most toxic

54:23

places for men, other

54:25

than the internet, is

54:27

the barbershop. Brilliant.

54:30

Uncle's telling old stories,

54:32

I know. And you know, it's

54:34

so funny. So clearly, I don't

54:36

have to go to a barber

54:38

shop, right? But my boys did.

54:40

The one, yeah. And so this

54:42

is, this is, this is, this

54:44

is, this is, this is, this

54:46

is, this is, this is, this

54:48

is, this is, this is, this

54:50

blew me away. So for years,

54:52

right. Like they don't care, right.

54:54

Then I brought him to the shop.

54:57

Yeah. I can't keep them in this. No way.

54:59

Because they were bringing stuff back. So I was

55:01

like, I'm going to bring them home and I'm

55:03

going to cut there. Then I thought, this is

55:05

bad parenting because they're going to get

55:08

exposed to it anyway. So what's the

55:10

best? What's best is, okay, I need

55:12

to be there so that we can have conversations

55:14

around. And you can go and chat to

55:16

the other guys around it. Oh my God,

55:18

but what is said? is just, and

55:20

this is not, in UK, every

55:22

barber shop. In London. But this

55:25

is in London, we're in barbershops

55:27

in South London, you're in South.

55:29

And, and, and, and, and, and,

55:31

and what's again, I'm not throwing

55:33

all of our, all of these

55:36

barbershops under the bus, but, but what

55:38

I am saying though, is that I

55:40

think that you're going to get it

55:42

for this, but, but, but what we do

55:44

need is we need to have.

55:46

conversations around these topics

55:49

that we're talking about. Yes.

55:51

In the shops. One of

55:53

my biggest frustrations with with

55:56

obviously I'm being I'm generalizing

55:58

it but with the community

56:00

is this internalized homophobia definitely rooted

56:03

in misogyny where anything outside of

56:05

this heter normative framework right anything

56:07

is just is just it's gay

56:09

it's you know there's all these

56:11

kind of phrases that are thrown

56:13

around like why why feed out

56:15

or no homo pause like all

56:18

of these phrases are and I

56:20

said gay as an insult when

56:22

I was a kid which is

56:24

hilarious because I was so I

56:26

was so not homophobic, I was

56:28

just trying to fit in, you

56:30

know. I think everyone did my,

56:32

in my generation as a slur,

56:35

you know, and culturally it was

56:37

way more acceptable to be like

56:39

that about it. But it doesn't

56:41

make any sense to me. I

56:43

honestly, I cannot get my head

56:45

around the concept of homophobia. So

56:47

I just asked myself questions, what

56:50

can lead to that? And I

56:52

think there's a lot of issues

56:54

in society that are rooted in

56:56

this immediate limitation on boys. sense

56:58

of intimacy, you know? Like there's

57:00

so much in the world that

57:02

seems to be as a result

57:04

of boys and men who, if

57:07

not gaining that intimacy from a

57:09

woman, there's no chance that that's

57:11

happening from their male friends because

57:13

there's this fear. And I remember

57:15

seeing these pictures online, like there

57:17

were these photo shoots that used

57:19

to happen in like the late

57:21

1800s or something, I don't know.

57:24

And there were men who were

57:26

best friends and you can look

57:28

at the positions that they did,

57:30

they sat each other's knee. head

57:32

on the shoulders. Yes. They were

57:34

very tactile and then there was

57:36

an introduction of heterosexuality and homosexuality

57:39

as a means of understanding this

57:41

human psyche. So you're saying that

57:43

in essence society has shamed us

57:45

into performing this script. This is

57:47

why I sent it so much

57:49

of my work I'm doing now

57:51

around trying to push back against

57:53

this self-hate that I think festers

57:56

within men. because of course you

57:58

have to understand the beauty. of

58:00

another man or the attractiveness of another man

58:02

in order to have an understanding of

58:04

your own beauty and attractiveness And

58:07

there's you know, you know, it's interesting

58:09

is I'm with you entirely. Yeah,

58:11

and for me

58:13

And I'll never so I grew up

58:15

in the States playing American football Mm -hmm, right

58:18

and there were many things that we did

58:20

in the locker room that I would think

58:23

You know it's interesting We

58:25

as a team as players we would

58:27

never do in public, right? Right, you'd

58:29

smack somebody on the butt like as

58:31

they're going out but you would never

58:33

do that outside of the context of

58:35

of football and I think that I

58:38

grew up Being

58:41

shamed Into this script that

58:43

you're talking about and I will never

58:45

forget the moment that I decided to

58:47

break out of it Is I was

58:49

visiting Turkey. I was in me. I

58:51

don't know maybe my 20s late 20s.

58:53

I'm visiting Turkey and One

58:55

of my good friends we're on the

58:57

boss for us. We're walking and

58:59

he tucks his arm in He

59:03

it was We locked arms and we're walking

59:05

arm -at -arm and as soon as he

59:07

does that I pulled my arm back Yeah,

59:09

I was like, what are you doing? What

59:11

are you doing? He said, what you talking

59:14

about? We're walking We're

59:16

walking He said this

59:18

is within our culture. This is what

59:20

we do and I realized

59:22

at that moment that I

59:24

was falling victim to

59:26

this societal script and

59:28

I lock my arm

59:30

and arm and we walked and

59:34

I thought I Need

59:36

to I need to figure

59:38

out I need to do my own

59:40

Yeah, have you done or looked

59:42

at the Kinsey research at all?

59:44

No, what's that? Okay, so this

59:46

is interesting because when you said

59:48

this I thought I was like He's

59:51

talking about research here, right because

59:53

there is so one of the

59:55

most I think famous studies around

59:57

sexuality is done by Kinsey in

59:59

the 1940s And you know what

1:00:01

his what his what his findings

1:00:03

are? Well that the majority

1:00:05

of people are bisexual. That's

1:00:07

his findings to the tune

1:00:09

of 80 some odd percent. Listen. And

1:00:12

now there's lots of pushback

1:00:14

especially recently all exactly bias in

1:00:17

the survey the data you looked

1:00:19

at who they're speaking to etc.

1:00:21

So yeah we have to take

1:00:24

that into consideration but in essence

1:00:26

what he's saying is is that

1:00:28

if you have someone who

1:00:31

is interested in same sex

1:00:33

purely here, someone who's

1:00:35

interested in heterosexual relationships

1:00:38

here, what Kensey is

1:00:40

saying is that the

1:00:42

majority of us 80% are somewhere

1:00:44

in that spectrum. And

1:00:47

what's interesting is that you

1:00:49

are, without even having read

1:00:51

his research, going back to

1:00:53

the 1940s, you are saying

1:00:55

from your observations, you're in agreement.

1:00:57

fluidity as a concept, you know, waves.

1:01:00

This is something when I had to

1:01:02

learn in myself about emotion that a

1:01:04

lot of the bigger emotions that I

1:01:07

had struggled with and now less so

1:01:09

were because they are non, they're not

1:01:11

fixed. There's not a fixed principle. You

1:01:13

know, grief isn't a fixed idea. It's

1:01:16

something that will, like the sure, you

1:01:18

know, in and out, obviously I don't even

1:01:20

tell you this. Yes. These are facts. Yeah.

1:01:22

So, so it's just odd to me that

1:01:24

something as free as sexuality

1:01:26

as sexuality. Has to then be

1:01:28

forced into this space and and

1:01:31

I think what it results in is

1:01:33

a lot of people who are Angry

1:01:35

as a result of having to

1:01:37

suppress a side of them or

1:01:40

they Yeah, or they are ostracized for

1:01:42

being brave enough to be like

1:01:44

yeah, that's cool. Yeah, absolutely. All

1:01:46

right. So then from there this

1:01:48

is the perfect segue to religion.

1:01:51

Tell us what the bridge is

1:01:53

a bridge. So that yeah, just

1:01:56

to contextualize I had written

1:01:58

during this hug. I wrote

1:02:00

an article for The Guardian about

1:02:02

my perception of masculinity at that

1:02:04

time. I was heartbroken, I was

1:02:07

left by my ex in the

1:02:09

middle of the Me Too movement,

1:02:11

which was quite a wild time

1:02:13

to have been the cheat. It

1:02:15

was like obviously that we were

1:02:17

looking at the extreme cases, but

1:02:20

there was a much, as you

1:02:22

know, there's a much more watered

1:02:24

down social discussion going on generally

1:02:26

around behavioral patterns. So it was

1:02:28

seriously like, wow, what the fuck.

1:02:31

Anyway. I was invited to this

1:02:33

retreat called The Bridge. The retreat

1:02:35

is a six-day transformational course dealing

1:02:37

with grief. It's essentially group therapy.

1:02:39

You deal with these issues as

1:02:42

a community, as a community, as

1:02:44

a community, as a group, as

1:02:46

a community, as a group. And

1:02:48

I had, I instantly had the

1:02:50

impostor syndrome, you know, I went

1:02:52

in there and I'd hear these

1:02:55

stories, and some of these stories,

1:02:57

like, you know, like, some of

1:02:59

the things people had seen or

1:03:01

gone through, like... No, that's not

1:03:03

how this works. There's no comparison

1:03:06

in grief. It doesn't work like

1:03:08

that. It's relative. And yeah, you

1:03:10

build up over six days to

1:03:12

write these two letters and those

1:03:14

letters are then read out and

1:03:17

the facilitator with decades of training

1:03:19

will sit in front of you

1:03:21

and then challenge some of what

1:03:23

you said what you said in

1:03:25

order to summon. these buried truths

1:03:28

and realities and if you're if

1:03:30

it works, you have a trauma

1:03:32

response, which I did twice and

1:03:34

many people did and You feel

1:03:36

literally a stone lighter and The

1:03:38

lust for life kind of returns,

1:03:41

which is just insane. Yeah, yeah,

1:03:43

it's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah,

1:03:45

it's beautiful. So then lessons hop

1:03:47

to lessons from the bridge for

1:03:49

me personally. There were two lessons

1:03:52

that stuck in my mind One

1:03:54

was the relationship between feeling and

1:03:56

movement, you know, a lot of

1:03:58

the work on something. feeling was

1:04:00

shaking yoga, Pilates, you know,

1:04:03

these things that perhaps, again, because

1:04:05

in the, maybe in the pop

1:04:07

lexicon or like in the spaces

1:04:09

we share, these concepts could be

1:04:11

tainted, you know, like yoga's seen,

1:04:14

oh, lulu, lemon, yummy, mummy,

1:04:16

you know, we're like, we're

1:04:18

shaking, you know, you're shaking?

1:04:20

All animals who experience anxiety

1:04:22

ever. Yes. They're going instantly,

1:04:24

and yet we don't. So

1:04:26

just those principles first lesson.

1:04:28

Second lesson, which is fucking hard

1:04:30

for me, Paul, because I'm a people-pleaser.

1:04:33

I'm working on being less of

1:04:35

a people-pleaser. Care-taking was banned

1:04:37

in the bridge, which is oddly therapeutic

1:04:40

work for me, specifically. Maybe not

1:04:42

other people, but there was a

1:04:44

handful of caretakers at the bridge.

1:04:46

And just to give your audience

1:04:48

and understanding of what I mean

1:04:50

by care-taking is when people are

1:04:53

processing these quite profound emotional experiences,

1:04:55

you know, they had to experience

1:04:57

it on their own. Which is

1:04:59

hard. So you could be with someone, you

1:05:01

wake up that morning, you have

1:05:03

breakfast, you're chatting, you're telling, you're

1:05:05

joking, you do an exercise, you

1:05:07

got to write down, you know,

1:05:09

what was your first memory of,

1:05:11

this person breaks, you have to leave

1:05:13

them alone. Number one rule, do not touch

1:05:16

them, do not ask them if they're

1:05:18

okay. You let them have their moment. Crazy.

1:05:20

Because I'm there, I'm personally like,

1:05:22

like, let me make you feel

1:05:24

better. Right. Because it makes it

1:05:26

about you. And not consciously. I'm like, hey,

1:05:29

look at me, I'm a nice person. It's

1:05:31

just a, I don't like that. I don't

1:05:33

like that that's happening. I know I can

1:05:35

make it better. And what is better

1:05:38

in that context? We're so used

1:05:40

to better being not crying. Or

1:05:42

better processing. Because it's not, it's

1:05:44

not happy, it's not bright. But

1:05:46

actually that could be the best

1:05:48

moment that person's gonna have that

1:05:50

week, because the other side of

1:05:52

that is freedom, release, release, release,

1:05:55

He and I? Yes. Yes. This is why I always

1:05:57

talk about how it's so important. Like

1:05:59

we're... we're all we're all either

1:06:01

in the fire you know heading

1:06:03

towards fire etc but you have

1:06:06

to allow someone to go through

1:06:08

it yeah and that sounds like

1:06:10

precisely what's what's what's happening yeah

1:06:12

and obviously there are you know

1:06:14

I wouldn't go wouldn't take it

1:06:16

as extremely as to be like

1:06:18

if my girlfriend now was feeling

1:06:20

sad I wouldn't just leave her

1:06:23

to there's a different context yes

1:06:25

you know what I mean for

1:06:27

like there is a space where

1:06:29

you can hold someone I mean

1:06:31

Take this as a lead of

1:06:33

being like, they're processing, I'm not

1:06:35

going to. I'm not going to

1:06:38

talk. Yeah, no, it's not that.

1:06:40

It's very specifically in the therapeutic

1:06:42

context. Here's something I've learned from

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here for Mint Mobile. The

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fees extra. See full terms at

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mintmobile.com. Consitive topics, including suicide. If

1:09:44

this is a tough subject for

1:09:47

you, please watch with care. We've

1:09:49

also added links to support charities

1:09:51

in the episode description. At this

1:09:54

point, though, you are famous. Yeah.

1:09:56

You have your in and

1:09:58

out of relationship. at this

1:10:00

point. Yeah. You know, romantic

1:10:02

relationships. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I

1:10:04

was sort of, I was chaos.

1:10:07

Right. You are abusing drugs. Yeah.

1:10:09

Get about your life. Where,

1:10:11

did you feel alone? I

1:10:13

mean, yeah, there was, there

1:10:15

was one point where, it's difficult.

1:10:17

You might have actually, you might

1:10:20

have actually found the point

1:10:22

where a boundary. and because

1:10:24

it involves someone else but

1:10:26

there was a there was also

1:10:28

a point where I was very

1:10:31

close to a suicide as

1:10:33

well and the suicide implicated

1:10:35

people around me just just

1:10:37

because of the support network that

1:10:39

this person had had I'm trying

1:10:42

to find polite ways of discussing

1:10:44

it and I was literally

1:10:46

on tour when I kind

1:10:48

of came off tour to

1:10:50

deal with the repercussions of it.

1:10:52

And that I was, everything in

1:10:55

and around that led to

1:10:57

not only me having to

1:10:59

engage with like the least

1:11:01

mature and most confused parts of

1:11:03

me, but also this suddenly this

1:11:06

desperation for me to have

1:11:08

have someone, you know, like

1:11:10

I by that point I

1:11:12

was probably the making the most

1:11:14

money in my family and was

1:11:16

siphoning that out, but I

1:11:18

don't think I was quite,

1:11:20

I definitely wasn't emotionally stable

1:11:23

enough to be like the anchor

1:11:25

of my immediate family and yet

1:11:27

I found myself in a

1:11:29

space where I was trying

1:11:31

to be. That felt, that

1:11:33

felt really interesting because I wished

1:11:36

for anything in that moment that

1:11:38

I had someone above me, like

1:11:41

to just scoop you up

1:11:43

and take me up and

1:11:45

take me to a place.

1:11:47

that they have and that they

1:11:49

own and that and that and

1:11:51

that and protect me from

1:11:53

kind of my own idiocy

1:11:55

and also help me understand

1:11:57

what happened and what decisions I

1:12:00

should make. Fair enough. Fair enough.

1:12:02

Stop me where you want

1:12:04

me to, but the topic

1:12:06

of suicide is one that's

1:12:08

come up in several of the

1:12:11

conversations we've had and we need

1:12:13

to talk in an area

1:12:15

that I think has been

1:12:17

very helpful for the audience

1:12:19

has been when that ideation happens,

1:12:22

those thoughts arise of taking your

1:12:24

life, how do you move to

1:12:26

a space where you don't,

1:12:28

right? How do you stop?

1:12:30

How do you prevent yourself?

1:12:32

How did you? How did I?

1:12:35

Yeah, so I definitely, so that

1:12:37

in that moment, the last

1:12:39

thing I could do very

1:12:41

much was myself. put my

1:12:43

that was also an added pressure

1:12:46

you know at that moment of

1:12:48

learning this as a because

1:12:50

because it was in proximity

1:12:52

to that having happened actually

1:12:54

to a full extent having lost

1:12:56

someone to suicide oh that wasn't

1:12:59

I couldn't even dream about

1:13:01

that myself later on when

1:13:03

I've gone through this particular

1:13:05

heartbreak that has basically torn all

1:13:07

the plasters of whatever I was

1:13:10

put over this abandonment wound there

1:13:12

was a point in that

1:13:14

situation where I was like

1:13:16

Oh man, I was just

1:13:18

like, this is, this pain is

1:13:21

unbelievable. I just, no one had,

1:13:23

I didn't know it was

1:13:25

possible to feel so alone

1:13:27

and so like, alone, not

1:13:29

necessarily alone actually, I had a

1:13:31

lot of people around me, but

1:13:34

just so profoundly damaged, you

1:13:36

know, like, I would go

1:13:38

to sleep and not wanna

1:13:40

wake up, I just, I did,

1:13:42

I preferred being in my dreams,

1:13:45

even if they were nice,

1:13:47

because I'd wake up and

1:13:49

just have this crushing feeling

1:13:51

of anxiety straight away that I

1:13:53

was. in this situation I had

1:13:55

no control over, I felt rejected,

1:13:58

I felt wrong and... I

1:14:00

was, wasn't quite stable enough to avoid,

1:14:03

I mean, to be fair, I

1:14:05

went sober and maintained that for

1:14:07

a period of time, but I

1:14:09

was smoking a lot, cigarettes. And, um,

1:14:11

and so yeah, you know, I thought crosses your

1:14:13

mind, there was one point where I

1:14:15

was too scared to get the tube,

1:14:17

because I just thought, you know, like, who

1:14:19

knows? Like, we all have that imp of

1:14:22

the perverse, like, we all have that

1:14:24

imp of the imp of the perverse,

1:14:26

you know, so achievable. It feels like,

1:14:28

achievable. So I know but I was fortunate

1:14:30

enough to have a friend and I expressed that

1:14:32

with I said look I know this sounds really

1:14:34

mental but like I feel like I can't even

1:14:36

get the fucking tube home like I just come

1:14:38

and stay with you for a few days and

1:14:40

he did and I love I love him with

1:14:42

one my heart and I was lucky with that

1:14:45

but the real wake-up call for me and again

1:14:47

I don't speak a bath of everyone

1:14:49

everyone a lot of people have different feelings

1:14:51

or well suicide but the real woke up

1:14:53

call for me was when my mom called me and

1:14:55

I was on the way to the way to the way

1:14:57

to the way to the way to the And I think

1:14:59

I even recorded the song that explicitly said that I wanted

1:15:01

to kill myself. Not like, again, as you know, there's

1:15:04

different stages. I was certainly one, two, I wasn't

1:15:06

anything more, I wasn't planning things, I wasn't the scary

1:15:08

stage where I'm actually happy. Because I've made the decision,

1:15:10

which is, as you'll know, as a surface, that's the

1:15:12

most dangerous place anyone could be when they're suddenly okay.

1:15:14

And so my mom rung me. And I was like,

1:15:16

yeah, you know, I've just feeling I've just feeling, I've

1:15:18

just feeling, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I

1:15:20

feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I feel

1:15:22

like, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like,

1:15:25

I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I

1:15:27

feel like, I feel like, make she feel sad now but like hearing

1:15:29

my mom it's a response

1:15:31

to that like having like knowing

1:15:33

that like I put my mom

1:15:36

in a position where she could

1:15:38

have to think about losing

1:15:40

her son like while she was alive

1:15:43

like that for me that was

1:15:45

that that ended it for me

1:15:47

in terms of of of that

1:15:49

being how I was going to

1:15:51

deal with the pain I was

1:15:53

in because I just gonna put

1:15:55

my mom through that and

1:15:57

actually one

1:16:02

of the most beautiful pieces of

1:16:04

and such like most articulate simple

1:16:06

concise ways of explaining how I

1:16:08

feel about suicide now is we're

1:16:10

actually expressed by Dave you know

1:16:12

the rapper Dave yeah he has

1:16:14

an album called Psycho drama and

1:16:16

there's a lyric which is if

1:16:18

you're thinking about doing it suicide

1:16:20

doesn't stop the pain you're only

1:16:22

moving it lives that you're ruining

1:16:24

and you know I remember hearing

1:16:26

it, and you've read it only

1:16:28

like 21 or something, and I

1:16:30

was just like, fucking, that's it

1:16:32

for me. If I'm ever down,

1:16:34

like, I can't do that to

1:16:36

people around me, and I'm now

1:16:38

in a place where I can

1:16:40

believe that people love me. For

1:16:42

a long time, I couldn't believe

1:16:44

that. But I believe that people

1:16:46

love me, and for that reason,

1:16:48

I will live for them more

1:16:50

than anything. That's powerful, and I

1:16:52

appreciate you sharing that. You know,

1:16:54

you know, it's interesting seeing that

1:16:56

you were at a place that

1:16:58

you were at a place where

1:17:00

financially, you were probably, You were

1:17:02

at your top, right? Yeah. You

1:17:04

had paid the debts for your

1:17:06

mother, so in essence you had

1:17:08

moved her out. And if you

1:17:10

go back to Brighton, all you

1:17:12

wanted was to move her out

1:17:14

of that situation, right? So you

1:17:16

wanted to move her out. But

1:17:18

then here you are at a

1:17:20

place where you're considering taking your

1:17:22

life. So you had made her

1:17:24

happy, but it was that idea

1:17:26

of removing yourself, how that would

1:17:29

have crushed her. Yeah, I would

1:17:31

have pressured happiness and how that

1:17:33

that in part saved you, but

1:17:35

then also talking to your friend

1:17:37

You know, and I think that's

1:17:39

a part that we all need

1:17:41

to We all need to I

1:17:43

think think about embodying and that

1:17:45

is is that when these ideas

1:17:47

begin to perculate To talk about

1:17:49

it to someone that we love

1:17:51

and trust because just that can

1:17:53

reduce the ideation of suicide. 100%

1:17:55

you know and in studies support

1:17:57

that. 100%. But to be clear

1:17:59

actually, I think it's an important

1:18:01

point. I hadn't made my mom

1:18:03

happy by helping her with their

1:18:05

debts or helping her with money.

1:18:07

Actually, the biggest shift was eventually

1:18:09

after that point of engagement where

1:18:11

I was like, fuck, that was,

1:18:13

you know, hardcore that I said

1:18:15

that my next process and most

1:18:17

important process in the relationship between

1:18:19

me and my mom was I

1:18:21

actually kind of broke up with

1:18:23

my mom. I wanted to get

1:18:25

to this. Yeah. I wanted to

1:18:27

get to this. So let's do

1:18:29

it. Yeah, we're already there. Yeah,

1:18:31

we're already there. So you broke

1:18:33

up with your mother. Yes. This

1:18:35

is the, this confuses me. Yeah.

1:18:37

So help me understand. It's complex

1:18:39

with moms and sons, I think,

1:18:41

because there are, again, a lot

1:18:43

of social, there are loads of

1:18:45

social politics to support the idea

1:18:47

that it's a massive green flag

1:18:49

for moms and sons to have

1:18:51

a good relationship, you know, to

1:18:53

love your mom to be openly.

1:18:55

outwardly loving of your mom is

1:18:57

a is a good thing but

1:18:59

I've come to understand of course

1:19:01

that that love is a good

1:19:03

thing if it's not codependent you

1:19:06

know and naturally again I thought

1:19:08

of my mom or dad's no

1:19:10

I would have might have inherited

1:19:12

some tendencies towards co-dependency anyway but

1:19:14

I'm a single child and a

1:19:16

single mother for being that for

1:19:18

most of the situation avoiding co-dependency

1:19:20

is not impossible unless you have

1:19:22

an emotionally secure parent. And so,

1:19:24

you know, I was realizing that

1:19:26

my mom's decisions would still upset

1:19:28

me, you know, or I'd be

1:19:30

nervous on the account of my

1:19:32

mom. She would be nervous on

1:19:34

the account of me. Her critique

1:19:36

of my work would be really

1:19:38

important to me. My mom had

1:19:40

to like it. Otherwise, I didn't

1:19:42

like it. You know, there was

1:19:44

this in meshment. And I had

1:19:46

just given her everything I could.

1:19:48

Like, anytime I got something, money,

1:19:50

I'd give it down. Like... It

1:19:52

got to the point where I

1:19:54

tried to give her a flat,

1:19:56

I tried to give her like

1:19:58

a whole... property that I had

1:20:00

and which is a dream by the

1:20:02

way yeah for many especially boys who

1:20:04

don't come from much money boys and

1:20:06

girls anyone but unfortunately it came in

1:20:08

the expense of me having a house

1:20:10

so I I had you know give my mom this place

1:20:13

I then had a fucking my life to

1:20:15

blow up and then suddenly I didn't have

1:20:17

anywhere to go I barely had anywhere to

1:20:19

go and that for me was quite a literal

1:20:21

representation of me giving so

1:20:23

much that I'm actually leaving myself of not

1:20:25

even a place to repair what good am

1:20:27

I going to be right? If I'm like that,

1:20:29

so I had to stand up and go, I can't

1:20:32

keep doing this. I can't. And by the

1:20:34

way, from my mom, and my therapist will

1:20:36

be like, Jordan protecting her, but this

1:20:38

is a public podcast. My mom isn't

1:20:40

encouraging this. My mom's not going, where's

1:20:42

my flat? Right, right, where's my money?

1:20:44

No, never in life. This is me

1:20:46

being like, I want to do this

1:20:48

for you, I want to do this

1:20:50

for you. But, and in doing so,

1:20:53

obviously, a part of codependency is

1:20:55

allowing for your boundaries to have

1:20:57

been crossed. The person who was

1:20:59

crossing your boundaries, sometimes it isn't

1:21:01

even aware that they're doing that. Yes.

1:21:03

So, yes, we've got to the point

1:21:05

where, you know, she had this dominion

1:21:08

in my life, and so I was like, no, I

1:21:10

need my flat, I need my place, need my

1:21:12

space, and I need us to just step away

1:21:14

for a moment. And this is when

1:21:16

I was most heartbroken. So for her,

1:21:18

of course, it's complex on a few

1:21:20

levels. Yes. Because she wants to be

1:21:22

there to support me. In me, my personal

1:21:25

experience, from that point onwards,

1:21:27

the relationship to my mom and I

1:21:29

has been incredible. And there were

1:21:31

moments after that where I pushed back

1:21:34

on her expectation of me, be that, like,

1:21:36

even to stay at my house unannounced, to turn

1:21:38

up at my house or something like

1:21:40

that, which should... Again, to many people,

1:21:43

this is very usual, but specific to

1:21:45

me. And it hurt doing that because I

1:21:47

felt like it came at the cost

1:21:49

of my mom's, like momentarily the cost

1:21:51

of my mom's emotion. But since, Paul,

1:21:53

right now, me and my mom, best ever,

1:21:55

best ever in life, like our relationship. Same

1:21:58

with my dad. And it's both come. from

1:22:00

me sitting down, I mean with my

1:22:02

mom I wrote her letter, with my

1:22:04

dad I sat down in front of

1:22:07

him and had it out, and just

1:22:09

was like this is, I don't like

1:22:11

this, this is a good for me,

1:22:14

I want us to be separate. And

1:22:16

then we can talk again as adults.

1:22:18

To some people they're going to receive

1:22:21

that and that will be gospel to

1:22:23

them. That's going to be refreshing to

1:22:25

hear and it's going to be a

1:22:28

new idea. you know this idea of

1:22:30

breaking up because in essence you didn't

1:22:32

break up with her what you did

1:22:35

is you initiated boundaries yeah all in

1:22:37

your relationship you know and I think

1:22:39

it's very important for us all to

1:22:42

include boundaries in any relationship any have

1:22:44

platonic professional definitely romantic and I think

1:22:46

also the term boundaries end up getting

1:22:49

conflated with other things because boundaries in

1:22:51

essence are not what you're putting around

1:22:53

yourself boundaries or what you put around

1:22:56

your entire relationship and say in order

1:22:58

for me to be able to sustain

1:23:00

this relationship with you this is what

1:23:03

I'm going to need yeah and if

1:23:05

this happens then I can show up

1:23:07

as my best self yeah exactly right

1:23:10

and that's exactly what you did you

1:23:12

know so for that I'm proud and

1:23:14

I love how you used a letter

1:23:17

yeah I did I wrote that a

1:23:19

big thing and she wrote one back

1:23:21

and there's a moment of frustration but

1:23:24

then that's dissipated dissipated I held my

1:23:26

own, you know, I stood by my

1:23:28

word even though that was pushed by

1:23:31

it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So

1:23:33

I'm gonna go home and get a

1:23:35

letter. I'll probably get a letter from

1:23:37

my 11 year old. He's more likely

1:23:40

to give it to me, but your

1:23:42

life is fascinating to me because throughout

1:23:44

each stage, even though you walk through

1:23:47

the fire, you walk away better. That's

1:23:49

how I that's how I look at

1:23:51

like you walk away with the lessons

1:23:54

like the the armor is etched You

1:23:56

know it's it's It's not a nice

1:23:58

clean plate of armor. Oh no, it's

1:24:01

got many, many scratches. But because it

1:24:03

has all those scratches, you have more

1:24:05

dexterity the next time. You know, that's

1:24:08

how, at least, that's how it's felt.

1:24:10

Yeah. Especially as it relates to your

1:24:12

relationships. 100%. And that's, that's, that's kind

1:24:15

of this last trunk that I want

1:24:17

to get to. And I was going

1:24:19

through here. You know, I was having

1:24:22

my little scroll on your name, looking

1:24:24

at photos and looking at different relationships.

1:24:26

And there was one that popped up

1:24:29

that I didn't see you right about.

1:24:31

And that is Chloe. Yeah. Yeah. Who

1:24:33

was Chloe? In real life. I mean.

1:24:36

for like there's a type that you

1:24:38

yes there was a time yeah yeah

1:24:40

in terms of like physical beauty physical

1:24:43

beauty okay so so what was your

1:24:45

type relationship wise I just had I

1:24:47

just often found myself of like white

1:24:50

brunette women white brunette who had kind

1:24:52

of but my friend was a pixie

1:24:54

features pixie features yeah I mean it's

1:24:57

it's not too far from just like

1:24:59

the fucking image which they're shoved on

1:25:01

offroads in the west anyway okay you

1:25:03

know Okay, it's like if I was

1:25:06

to pick one of the friends, it's

1:25:08

Courtney Cox, you know what I mean?

1:25:10

It's that look. Okay, okay. So, so,

1:25:13

so in the book, Susie and Chloe.

1:25:15

Friends been a good example because I

1:25:17

wouldn't have even had a black one

1:25:20

with a juice from. It's, I mean,

1:25:22

I'm inviting, you know, Charlie, I guess

1:25:24

Charlie, Ross, his girlfriend, anyway. Yeah, yeah,

1:25:27

yeah, there was nobody on it. Black

1:25:29

people in New York, during that whole

1:25:31

night, during that whole night, you. Yeah,

1:25:34

it, it's, it's, it's crazy, it's, it's

1:25:36

crazy, it's crazy, it's, it's crazy, it's

1:25:38

crazy, it's, it's, it's crazy, it's crazy,

1:25:41

it's, it's crazy, it's, it's crazy, it's,

1:25:43

it's crazy, it's, it's crazy, it's crazy,

1:25:45

it's crazy, it's, it's crazy, it's crazy,

1:25:48

it's Same like, yes, yes, yes, yeah,

1:25:50

yeah, yeah, the versions of the same

1:25:52

type, yeah 100% Yeah, okay, all right,

1:25:55

so then let's let's get to then

1:25:57

Jade, yes because Jade

1:25:59

doesn't, she doesn't fit

1:26:02

that situation. No. So

1:26:05

how is it that you and Jade

1:26:07

come together? During lockdown, I did a lot

1:26:09

of work on myself because I went

1:26:11

through, I broke up with, actually got back

1:26:13

with the ex that spurred all this

1:26:15

and then we broke up rightly so after

1:26:17

having a decent rekindling, but we just

1:26:19

saw on different pages, so different and I

1:26:21

just sat with myself and was like,

1:26:23

you know, I've had a bit of a

1:26:25

glow up, I think personally, feel I

1:26:27

look pretty good, my hair was growing out,

1:26:29

like, and I thought like, let me

1:26:32

sit down and ask myself, what do I

1:26:34

want from love? There was a point

1:26:36

towards the end of that relationship but she

1:26:38

asked me it, she said, what do

1:26:40

you want from this? And I couldn't, you

1:26:42

know, something was vivid in me. I

1:26:44

know exactly where I was driving at the

1:26:46

time, I was driving around the back

1:26:48

of Waterloo, I remember it so vividly, because

1:26:50

I just remember being like, I don't,

1:26:52

I don't know. You don't know what you

1:26:54

want. I had lost, I had completely

1:26:56

lost I was so focused on being a

1:26:58

good boyfriend in because

1:27:00

of what had happened in the past.

1:27:02

I had just forgotten that like, I myself

1:27:04

require things from love. I wasn't afraid

1:27:06

this time of a breakup because I

1:27:08

had gone through what I'd gone through and

1:27:10

I knew that if the feeling passed

1:27:13

and I knew that I could rebuild

1:27:15

myself and my soul needed it. So I

1:27:17

sat down and went, all right, I

1:27:19

literally wrote a list, I literally went,

1:27:21

what do I want from love? And I

1:27:23

started writing down qualities that I wanted

1:27:25

in a future person and then had

1:27:27

all this spare time. I'm in lockdown. And

1:27:30

I was like, oh man, I fucking love

1:27:32

Lil Mix. This is like, I've always loved Lil

1:27:35

Mix as a group. And I had this

1:27:37

memory of a friend of mine being like, oh,

1:27:39

you'd really get along with Jade. So I

1:27:41

just like texted it and was like, dude, is

1:27:43

Jade single? Like, is this a vibe? Like,

1:27:45

what can we, yeah. And then me and Jade

1:27:47

started talking and I was there. Wait, wait,

1:27:49

wait, wait, give me some more detail so you

1:27:51

text your friend. So yeah, so the story

1:27:54

is I texted my friend. I said, I knew

1:27:56

that Jade was single actually. And I said,

1:27:58

like, can you pitch me to Jade? I said,

1:28:00

can I, that's all I said. You said, pitch me. Pitch

1:28:02

me. And he's just like, he

1:28:04

like, screenshot that and just

1:28:07

send that to Jay. Yeah,

1:28:09

and then, and then, and

1:28:11

then, but then, but then,

1:28:14

I get this, I get this, I

1:28:16

get this, uh, I get this, uh,

1:28:18

I get this, uh, I get this,

1:28:20

uh, I get this, uh, I get

1:28:22

this, uh, I get this, uh, I

1:28:25

get this, uh, I get this DM

1:28:27

out of the blue in lockdown. I

1:28:29

just remember like getting this DM, you

1:28:31

know, and she's a superstar, you know,

1:28:33

he's like, obviously I'd done well, but

1:28:35

like, and actually oddly, we'd almost made

1:28:38

a song about seven years before, that's

1:28:40

whole other story. I'd never met her and

1:28:42

she popped in and she went, what's your pitch

1:28:44

then? Like straight out at the M.

1:28:46

Yeah, what's your pitch? Show me. And

1:28:48

so I was like hilarious, firstly hilarious,

1:28:50

and then so I made this PowerPoint

1:28:52

presentation, which was, Awful like I meant I'm meant

1:28:54

to make it bad. So that's up my sense

1:28:57

of humor You made a power point I made

1:28:59

a power point straight off the bat I was

1:29:01

like cool. Give me a minute So I went

1:29:03

in and I basically wrote like there's one page

1:29:05

was like reasons to like me and I

1:29:07

was like I've got more of I've got

1:29:09

five mates I could definitely have more My

1:29:11

dog loves me. She obviously had a funny

1:29:13

funny so we start talking and I'm chatting

1:29:15

on a little mix like But

1:29:18

then I was like, oh, this is

1:29:20

a viable, you know, I said to

1:29:22

my boy, like, yeah, you know, I'll

1:29:24

see how it goes, you know, wait

1:29:27

till these restrictions get lifted,

1:29:29

have a little. But then I

1:29:31

do a couple of these Zoom dates.

1:29:34

I don't know, I was just

1:29:36

like, looked at this list. And

1:29:38

I was like, and I was like,

1:29:40

and I was like, oh, like,

1:29:42

she's all these things, like, like,

1:29:44

what am I gonna do? Do I? You

1:29:46

know, I can't remember the list

1:29:48

exactly, but there were some important

1:29:51

factors. One was actually humor, which

1:29:53

everyone would say. It wasn't like

1:29:55

this was separate to what I'd

1:29:57

already experienced. It was just like...

1:30:00

a conscious focusing on it. So

1:30:02

like humor was massive. Fun, funny,

1:30:04

dancing was really important to me.

1:30:06

And this is bizarre, but like

1:30:08

dancing because I started to visualize

1:30:10

my future with, and that being

1:30:12

such an important element of it,

1:30:14

you know, moments, you know, you'll

1:30:16

know this with your wife, you

1:30:18

know, you go away, there's music

1:30:20

and then you want someone you

1:30:22

could fucking dance with. And it's

1:30:24

good that it's true. Right. Exactly.

1:30:26

It did also help that Jade

1:30:28

herself is mixed race. Just because

1:30:30

I hadn't had the ability to

1:30:32

connect with a person in my

1:30:34

immediate romantic space that had also

1:30:36

had that complex lived experience. Now

1:30:38

I don't, this isn't to say

1:30:40

again that this is that everyone

1:30:42

should just mate with people who

1:30:44

have this shed, you know? but

1:30:46

for me specifically with my history

1:30:48

of dating I was massive for

1:30:50

me you know for to meet

1:30:52

her mom her mom's black her

1:30:54

mom is Yemeni Egyptian you know

1:30:56

she's half Arabic and half Jordi's

1:30:58

got a wonderful father Jimmy who's

1:31:00

like yeah Jordi I don't know

1:31:02

what that is Anglo-Saxon but like

1:31:04

but she had had that complexity

1:31:06

she was she was raised in

1:31:08

South Shields in a little town

1:31:10

where I mean now in London

1:31:12

she would be seen as as

1:31:14

light-skinned in Jordyland they were fucking

1:31:16

right signing off on her yearbook

1:31:18

saying like good luck selling camels

1:31:20

this kind of shit real racist

1:31:22

shit wow so like so she

1:31:24

had that understanding of just like

1:31:26

the confusion of of of of

1:31:28

of that and I felt that

1:31:30

is you know it's just another

1:31:32

value that we share which is

1:31:34

another lived experience that we share

1:31:36

and so yeah so so so

1:31:38

so so so all of that

1:31:40

kind of amounted to me ringing

1:31:42

in being like well this is

1:31:44

a bit fucked didn't it's a

1:31:46

bit fucked in it because I

1:31:48

fancy her. She has all the

1:31:50

qualities that I've deemed important for

1:31:52

me to have a loving relationship.

1:31:54

I'm definitely ready because I had

1:31:56

a mature, certainly the rekindling was

1:31:58