[FEATURE] VIPER PRESENTS: KRILLZ

Hailing from North London and newly signed to Parlaphone, Krillz has been blowing up this year, get to know the rising star via this interview…

What five words define your sound?

I don’t really like corner myself into one sound or genre of music because I feel like my music just caters to my generation in general. But I’d say when it comes to songs like ‘Dubai’ and ‘Proved Me Wrong’, I’m ‘emotional’, ‘motivational’ and ‘real’. Then I’d say ‘fun’ and ‘lively’ for songs such as ‘Top G’ and ‘Boujee’.

Tell me something unique about your creative process.

When I hear the beat I’m writing the song to too many times, I sometimes get writer’s block, so I just change the beat as a whole and continue writing to that. Once I’m done, I just record on the original beat I was writing to in the first place.

Which song of yours would you like people to hear first?

Probably ‘Proved Me Wrong’. You can hear me talk about doubting myself on whether the music ting is really gonna take me anywhere or I’ll just fail. I guess that’s what helped me build a proper connection with the listeners because it’s like it made them root for me more and want to see me win. I guess it would be also motivating for the people to see my growth from that song career-wise and how the music ting worked out for the better because I kept going, never stopped and now we’re here.

What inspired you to make that song?

My life. I only really get inspiration from things going on in my life when I write my songs because I like to be authentic when making my music.

What’s the most vulnerable you’ve allowed yourself to be when writing/making music?

‘Proved Me Wrong’ is the song where I’ve been the most vulnerable and talked on some of the things man’s been going through. It also shows how much making it out with the music ting means to me because I’m not just doing it for me, I’m doing it for my family, friends and anyone else that’s coming from the same place I come from. Whether that’s my hood in Islington or anywhere else in the world with a similar, toxic environment where we don’t all get the same opportunities to make a change and be heard.

What’s the best/worst experience you’ve had on stage?

I’d say my best experience was performing up north in Sheffield in front of 2000 people, which was the most that could fit in the venue because the show had sold out. The energy was crazy and they’re deffo the ones to beat. I haven’t performed in London yet though. It’s mad to think about because that’s literally where I’m from but I’m confident they’ll beat Sheffield because that’s where most my core listeners are. I haven’t had a worst experience but I definitely don’t wanna fall off stage because that would be embarrassing.

What is your favourite song to perform?

My favourite song to perform was ‘Top G’ because the energy was always crazy when that song came on during my set. But I’m looking forward to performing ‘Boujee’ because I feel like that song would go off more than ‘Top G’ and will be fun to perform, I’ve performed the song before when it was unreleased so they didn’t really know the lyrics but they were definitely fucking with it, part of the reason I went on to drop it.

Which artist/song/album made you want to make music?

There wasn’t really an artist that I looked at and said, “I wanna make music because they’re making music.” I’d say it was the love I was receiving early on that inspired me to keep pursuing music. It wasn’t a conscious decision or dream from when I was little. Me and my boy DB literally just went to the studio to make a song for fun, because we had both been thinking and talking about it for time. We posted it back in July ‘21, it then brought a lot more attention than we expected on Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram, which is why we continued to make music because we thought, “Rah we could really do this.” Not gonna lie, I did get demotivated at the start of 2022 because of other things and a situation going on at the time, but my boy LJ knew the potential I had and literally forced me to go studio this one day. I remember not wanting to go that day but I heard him out and said, “Fine, I’ll come.” It’s mad though because that ended up being the day I recorded ‘Stuck’, which gained a lot of attention at the time for how big I was and gained buzz for me as a solo artist.

What’s the meaning behind your name?

There’s a couple meanings init but I’ll explain how I got the name initially. Obviously my first name starts with a K and in the ends I was always known for being brutally honest. It was simple really; if you didn’t wanna hear the truth, you wouldn’t ask me for my opinion. Even back in school days if you asked my teachers what I’d get in trouble for the most it would probably be not having a filter. If I had something to say I’d say it how it is and never sugarcoat anything for anyone, funny when you think about it because you can hear that side of me on my newest song ‘Boujee’. So as a joke people would call me. “kay too real” and so I ended up putting the words ‘Kay’ and ‘Real’ together and adding a Z on the end to make K-real-Z which everyone just pronounced and spelt Krillz. I’ve also been told by American fans that listen to me Krillz actually means money where they’re from, which only makes sense because I’ve always been a hustler from young and I’d get to the bag by any means, if you know you know.

If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing instead?

I don’t know. I never really knew what I wanted to do, but I always knew I was destined for something great. Now that I’m making music and I’m on the come up, I’ve figured it’s my purpose so I never really thought about what I would be doing instead.

What’s success to you?

Success to me – aside from charting, having a number one single and hitting the billboards etc. which are all goals I have and will reach – is making it out the hood with music really. Not just me but with all my family and friends, that’s what success is to me. Anyone can make it out on their own, it’s cheaper and easier; but what’s really gangsta is taking your mum out of the hood, taking the guys out of the hood and taking your relatives out of the hood. Not everyone gets the opportunities you get so it would be almost disrespecting God’s blessings if you don’t use them to help other people. Using your opportunities to give other people opportunities is essentially what I’m tryna say.

What moment in your life/career forced you to change direction?

I’d say losing my brother, my close friend Rom was definitely a wake up call. Before that happened we didn’t really care about anything, we were running around in the streets getting up to no good and never really took life serious. So yeah, him losing his life was a wake up call definitely, there was obviously a lot of shit going on around us but we didn’t really care until it actually affected us. I’ve been doing my best to use him passing away as motivation to do something good with my life rather than bad and end up being another statistic.

Where can people keep in touch with you?

People can keep in touch with me on Instagram or TikTok.