Following the release of his ‘Real Life’ EP in July, VIPER spoke to London rapper, AntsLive, about an upcoming international collaboration, the importance of mixtapes in an artist’s career, and his role in Relentless’ Freeform Forum.

What’s the summer been like for you since dropping your mixtape, ‘Real Life’?

I’m just trying to be consistent and challenging myself to keep dropping music that I enjoy making. I think that’s what ‘Real Life’ was about as well. It wasn’t specific to one genre of Rap, it was just music that I’ve really enjoyed making over the course of the last year or so. I’m trying to keep following that up. 

In the comments, people were saying ‘Sex On The Beach’ feels like a new vibe. Did you feel that when you were making it? 

Definitely but I made that song 18 months ago. I just hadn’t released it yet, because I think it’s important to make sure that the fans are on a journey with you, and you’re not jumping around all the time trying new things, because that’s selfish. I’ll make music for myself, but for other people to enjoy as well. So I feel like it’s important to make sure that the timing of everything makes sense. It was definitely something new at that time when I made it but since then, I’ve been singing more and I’ve been exploring and trying to be more versatile as well. Everyone will hear it when the time is right. 

You’re respected as a lyricist, did you feel that you had to stay in the Rap lane for longer?

It’s interesting you say that I’m a “bars” rapper because I never really thought of it like that to be honest. I take that as a compliment because I would say I’m more like a vibes rapper. I mean that in a good way, where hopefully it’s feel-good energy that’s translating through the music, as opposed to someone that’s really a lyricist. I never really considered myself that, so thank you I guess. What was the question again? 

Did you feel that you had to be a ‘rapper’ rapper before you brought the singing in? Or did you just want to make sure your singing was in a place where it was as developed as you’re rapping?

The second one. It had to be high quality and that takes time. 

I don’t want to disrespect any lyricists but nowadays that doesn’t work the same way because of attention spans. You maintain the hype and the energy, but you still have lyrics unlike rappers who just have vibes. 

I definitely care about the quality of the music across loads of different… I don’t want to sound like a nerd – but basically for variables in the music. That’s the sound, the melody, the bars, even down to my cadence and my pronunciation of stuff so that everyone can access it. I want my shit to be played at family barbecues as well as late night drives or fucking parties or whatever. I feel like you’ve got to check all those boxes. That’s really what I’m trying to do and whatever anyone appreciates from what I’m doing, gets to hear it. 

It’s interesting you said that song’s 18 months old, because I think a lot of rappers want to keep up with trends by switching genres too much. That’s quite rare in your generation to not want to follow the trends. 

In an ideal world, I want to create the trends, you get me. But, I feel like you can never do that by watching what’s going on around you too much. You have to stay inspired, but also look within your own musical journey and do what makes sense to you. When I made that song it didn’t feel right to drop it, but I always knew that I was going to drop it. The sun came out this summer, so I said it’s the right time.

Were you itching to drop again? 

Yeah I always wanna drop. Now more than ever, the climate right now is allowing artists to build their catalogues and not worry about, ‘is this one going to do 100 million streams?’ or anything like that. Let me just keep dropping music and let people hear what I’m doing and everything will make sense after that. 

What do you do to ensure that you’re pure and uninfluenced from sounds you’re not really feeling?

That’s a good question. I don’t really think about it that deeply when I’m listening to music to be honest, I’m very much just like; wake up, music on from the jump in the background, throughout the day. If I like something and I hear it, and maybe I’m inspired to create something like it, I’m always going to put my own twist on it because I’ve always been so stubborn. I know what I like and what I don’t like. I feel like it’s always going to have a “me” spin on the tune, just purely because I care so much. 

That’s more of an artist’s answer than the people that have to try to catch trends to make music with.

But you know what? More power to them as well! I’m not some stuck-up artist where I feel like, “yo, you have to be a purist in this thing.” I don’t consider myself a purist, I’m someone that just wants to enjoy the process. So whatever the outcome is, is cool. But do your thing as well, you don’t have to think about it so much. 

Your music videos are crazy! Do you ever think about just dropping a dead music video, just to make people think, ‘what happened?’

[Laughs] Nah.

Yeah, don’t do it. But how do you deal with the pressure to keep creating such iconic visuals? 

I don’t really see it as pressure, I feel like it’s always been something that I’ve wanted to do and that hasn’t really changed. Even though there’s a standard I’ve set, which obviously is not easy to maintain, I’m not gonna act like all the videos we do are easy, or it’s natural. It’s definitely hard work but I enjoy it, I really love trying different things and acting and letting people see what my perspective was when I made the song through the visuals. I promise you, it’s so fun for me to do that; so no pressure.

Would you ever consider doing an AntsLive film? 

For sure, if you want to pay for it, I’ll do it. One day that’s what I would like to do, some sort of longer acting stuff but I’m not there yet. I’m loving what I’m doing right now, we’ll see. 

Would you ever do a documentary about yourself?

Yeah, 100%. We’ve got a lot of footage, I’m with one of my camera guys pretty much at all times. When I’m in the studio, on a shoot or anything, there’s always someone doing some kind of BTS. So we’ll put it together one day.

What was the meaning behind the ‘Real Life’ title? 

A lot of the videos that I’ve put out are like caricatures, but the music itself and the content of what I’m saying, you can fact check; it’s all real. There’s no lies, it’s either something that happened to me, or something that happened to my bredrin. Maybe relationships that I’ve been in, etc. So for me, it was just kind of fun to have all this music that I felt was very authentic and then just market and display it in a way that was a stretch of the imagination. It was like a weird little contrast. Hence, the stretch limo is like a stretch of the imagination. 

‘Real Life’ was a summer release but ‘Just A Matter Of Time’ was a winter release. Did you feel any difference in how each project rolled out? 

I didn’t actually think about that. When I’m making a project, I’m not putting ten summer smashes on it because I’m dropping it in summer, or vice versa. No is the short answer. Someone will play a song to me, telling me this is their late night driving tune and it will make me want to dance. So I feel like everyone takes in music in different ways. I don’t really think too much about seasonal drops like that, unless it’s a single. But with the tape, it was just music I’ve been making over the last year, that I felt packaged together nicely. 

‘Real Life’ doesn’t feel like a summer drop, but there’s a lot of feel-good, fun, summer vibes through it. 

Yeah but that’s because that was just the nature of my life. ‘Just A Matter Of Time’ is very much a hustle album for me. The name is showing that I’m really grinding towards something and because of that, the music, sound-wise, reflects that emotion. And this one, I’ll be real with you, the last year has just been lit for me. So that’s why it was a bit more upbeat and feel-good.

Having dropped two great projects, is an album in the works?

It’s funny, when I was younger, I listened to a lot of mixtapes as well as albums, and I feel like… don’t overlook the mixtape phase of an artist’s life. They say a lot in those times and I feel like they’re as important in an artist’s journey as an album. I’m not in a rush is the short answer but when I do make the album, I really want there to just be a proper theme. I’m going to try and do the album differently to how I’ve done the mixtapes, a bit more focused on conveying a message, whatever that might be at the time, I don’t know. But for now, it’s mixtape season and I’m having fun with it. 

You’ve got some great featured artists on the project, you and Kairo Keyz must have been heavily demanded before it happened?

Me and Kairo have known each other for a minute so it was just an organic one, but I’ve seen it in a few TikTok comments before we dropped the song. It makes sense. 

Len, SL and Kairo Keyz, they’re all tucked into different scenes. Was that something you thought of, or were they just friends that you collaborated with?

It was a combination of both, all three artists are sick at what they do. I also feel like they exist a little bit out of the mainstream in a way that I see myself as well. So, it was kind of a situation like, I want to rock with these artists before they get their crazy buzz. I want to know that we made some really good music before we all took off. Even though some of them have been around for time as well, their moments are still yet to really happen. That’s how I see those artists personally. 

Representing great London music right now.

And then hopefully for the next one, you’re going to see me do some more international collabs. That’s kind of where I want to take it.

Any international scenes that you’d like to tap into? 

Everywhere, that’s the goal. I love Afrobeats so maybe I’d say Africa, but I’ve got a flight booked to go somewhere pretty soon to work with an artist. Hopefully that’ll drop soon and that’s not even in any of those countries. I don’t want to say too much because I want to make sure it happens. I don’t like to jinx it. 

You’ve been doing some mentoring with Relentless’ Freeform Forum, how are the sessions so far?

It’s funny because I went into it to mentor. But I’ve learned so much, which is the cool thing for me because there’s all these upcoming, talented artists. Everyone’s got their own angle and their own reason for doing this, I feel like I’ve learned more than them. It’s very humbling. 

It must be inspiring to see different approaches to music. 

It’s so interesting to see how people create music differently because my mentors aren’t all rappers. That’s why I say that for me, I’m just learning; I’m inspired by what they’re doing. That’s my favourite thing to be honest, I’m asking them questions.

So did you ever have a mentor when you were coming up? 

I’m very blessed, I have a lot of older friends who were making music back then. I feel like I had a lot of mentors, people that just believed in me from a young age and always supported me. So without a bunch of people, I definitely wouldn’t be doing this stuff, I’m very grateful for that. 

Do you feel like having a mentor is something every musician should aspire to?

A million per percent. But what’s funny is, in every respect, I’m the youngest. I’m the younger brother, youngest in the family, so I’ve never seen myself as the mentor. So at first, I didn’t really know if it was something that I was even ready for, to be completely honest with you. But when I was chatting to my friends, they said, ‘no, you have to do this, you have to give back. Even if you don’t see yourself as a mentor, people want to learn from you.” So it was really a few of my friends that even convinced me to do this. 

You might have had those links in the industry already, but you still know things they don’t about the industry.

Nah for sure, there’s no one way to do anything, everyone’s got their own approach to it. I’ll say something and they might not challenge me, but they’ll say, “what about this?” And I say, “yeah, do it that way if that makes more sense for you.” 

Generationally, there’s always new ways to do things faster, or better. 

I think the best thing that we can do as artists is just to stay inspired, stay learning. And therefore keep pushing the art. That’s why all these mentees are keeping me on my toes right now. 

Would you potentially collaborate with these artists in the future?

I think they can go wherever they want to go. Anyone as strong as they are and motivated enough to even find something like this and be a part of it, has a level of passion that could take it anywhere. I don’t want to be cringey but they can really do whatever they want to do. 

What would you say is the most important thing about applying to a program like this? 

You can never have all the answers yourself. So the more people you need, the more perspectives you can hear on different things, the more stories and experiences you can have, it’s only going to help you. So whether it’s a mentor course, or collaborating and networking with like-minded creatives, you can never do too much of that. You can always do more, and it’s always going to feed back into you and make you a better artist.

@antslive

Check out Relentless’ Freeform Forum Skills Hub to hear tips and tricks from this year’s mentors to support their own creative journey.

Interview by Lily Mercer