Meet the MC: V9

The tape features some of UK drill’s most innovative young producers, including Ghosty, AV the Producer, ZCBeats, ESTheProducer and Foreign Kash. “My first tape was typical drill bits,” he continues. “Normal shit like everyone would jump on. So I thought, ‘You know what? I need to make something different. I need to make my own sound’. You hear ‘Hello Hi’, ‘Ambition’; no-one jumps on beats like that. You’ve got to be different with it. The tape is done in moods. It starts off gritty. But from ‘Bruck It’, it gets jumpier and jumpier. You get it?” He pauses. “I’ve got to stop saying you get it!” he laughs. 

Despite the assured sound of ‘Yūdokuna’, and the tape holding such a strong narrative, V9 says he recorded it in just six studio sessions. The quickfire nature of the project is reflective of his writing process; he feels it’s the best way of delivering an authentic voice as an artist. “I don’t write outside the studio,” he explains. “There’s more of a vibe if I’m in the studio. If I’m at home, I’ll get distracted. I’ll get in the studio, play some beats, and if I click with a beat, I’ll start writing. If I write a quick eight-bar, I’ll lay it down, listen to it, then continue writing.”

He says the step up from ‘Homerton Sensei’ to ‘Yūdokuna’ came from a change in his own hunger to succeed as an artist. And part of this was a conscious decision to take on management for the first time through Bermuda Music. “I had no management ‘cause I felt there's no one that could do something for me that I can’t do for myself. I didn’t know no one like that,” he says. “Someone who can pattern me up. I was doing it all by myself. I was buying my beats. I was uploading the songs. All on my laptop. If you wanna evolve as a fucking artist, you need help. You can’t just do it by yourself. Since I got my management, and ‘Yūdokuna’ has come out, it’s more professional.”

As well as the Japanese theme running through his music (‘Yūdokuna’, ‘Homerton Sensei’), V9 makes regular references to anime like Dragon Ball Z, football (‘Andy & Dwight’), video games, and comic books in his wordplay — with his name a reference to the Marvel Comics character Venom. “It’s what I’m into,” he says. “I write about things that are relevant to me. I’m not gonna come and write bullshit. Talk about being in Afghanistan or something. I ain’t been Afghanistan. You get it? I’m going to talk about what I know, my experiences, and what I like. So I talk about Mortal Kombat.”

‘Yūdokuna’ landed with a series of videos that continue this theme. ‘Right Or Wrong’, featuring KO, sees V9 in a dressing gown eating Lucky Charms. ‘Drip Drip’, with Unknown T, features bespoke comic book imagery, with the video set in a Gotham-like world. ‘Hello Hi’, with Jimmy, takes place at a party — tying in with the narrative of the mixtape — and is shot alongside footage from Mortal Kombat. V9 says he recently recorded the visuals for his Billy Billions-featuring trap cut, ‘Gasoline’, which is to be the final video from ‘Yūdokuna’ — it also follows his recent contribution to the Daily Duppy freestyle series.

“See me,” he says. “I like to make my videos different. I don’t know what the fuck the Lucky Charms was about,” he laughs. “I don’t even eat Lucky Charms. At first I wasn’t really on it, as it’s not really me. I’m kind of a chilled guy, man. Unless I’m on the Hennessey,” he smiles. “It looked proper lit though, I’m not gonna lie.”

As well as his own prolific output in 2020, the original quartet of Homerton MCs, made up of V9, Unknown T, KO, and Jimmy — all friends since childhood — have been on unstoppable form too. Unknown T hit No. 14 in the UK Albums Chart last month with his own debut mixtape ‘Rise Above Hate’. The tape included ‘AVEN9ERS’, the first track to feature V9, Unknown T and KO together. “Mad innit!” he enthuses. “It was worth the wait though! There’s more coming. That was just a little somethin’ somethin’. A little teaser. You’ve got to scratch the surface first?”

Each of the Homerton MCs has their own distinct delivery. “You got KO with the wordplay, Unknown T with the flow, and I’m just there shouting and angry,” laughs V9. “Then Jimmy comes in smooth. But we’ve all got bars, so the fans love it.” Younger Hackney MCs like Hitman and DA, who feature on ‘Homerton2Holly’, also form part of a wider Hackney collective, who look set to take the next step in their unstoppable rise.

When he speaks to DJ Mag, it’s almost three years to the day that V9’s debut track, ‘Japan’, landed. So what was he like when he first started? “I was too shit man,” he laughs. “I’m not gonna lie. I was actually whack.” Last year’s ‘Japan 2.0’ — produced by MK the Plug — showcased an artist who’d honed his raw talent and was ready to deliver a tape as strong as ‘Yūdokuna’.

V9 flew out to film the visuals for ‘2.0’ in Japan. “That was a horrible experience,” he laments. “We couldn’t shoot nowhere. I got stopped by police more than I get stopped here. I'm walking down the street and I get, ‘Hi. Hello. Hello. Search? Search?’ I’m thinking, ‘Rah!’ But they’re so polite going, ‘Touch? Touch?” The cameraman told him to refuse to allow them to touch him when asked. “So I said to them, ‘Nah you can’t touch me.’ And they’re all taking their handcuffs out and that. I was like, ‘Nah! You’re just trying to get me arrested in Japan fam,’ he laughs. “Trying to lock me up. Fuck that.”

UK drill also finds itself in a very different place to when V9 dropped his first track in 2017. “A very different place,” he agrees. “Before it was an underground thing. It’s still underground, but it’s getting more commercial success. People are investing in it. It’s all part of the process.”

He says it has had an impact on the music — “I’ve watered it down a bit. You can’t be too violent ‘cos it won’t get radio plays or nuttin” — but that drill artists will never change their sound for the industry. “More times people are independent so they don’t care,” he explains. Despite its success, UK drill has been blamed by the police and mainstream media for fuelling violence. But V9 says its artists are just telling the stories of growing up in a major city — stories that ring true across the world.

“The thing about the UK and these pricks is this: if I had an American accent, the radios would be playing me all day long,” he says. “There would be no problem. But there is because of the police thinking, ‘Yeah, drill does this, drill does that’... When it was rock & roll, you’ve got Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a fucking bird. You don’t see drill artists biting off fucking birds’ heads on stage and talking about sacrifice. But that’s alright.

“Most of the time drill rappers just chat shit anyway,” he continues. “They’re words. They’re just making music. The police: I don’t know what is wrong with them. They’re weirdos. Imagine, one time we was at the beach, all the way in Kent. The jakes drove all the way from Hackney, an hour and 30 minutes, just to watch, like some fucking creeps, fam. That is fucking harassment. Leave us alone! “When it’s a function for young people, they’re always there. But when there’s anything for grown ups, or it’s a white people thing and what-not, they don’t lock you up for doing anything stupid. They’ll come with two officers, like, ‘Everything alright?’ If it’s Black kids, young kids, it’s a problem. They’ve got to bring a riot squad. All for a BBQ.