Setting The Agenda With JME & Julie Adenuga

Julie Adenuga: You.

JA: Wait, what!?

JA: Can I change my answer?

I am… a human being on planet earth, I was born into a Nigerian family with three brothers. People like when I talk, so I keep doing it [laughs]. And one day, I want to have contributed to this world in such a positive way, that a very small percentage of humans on this planet think of me in a good light — while I’m here, but also when I leave.

JA: I did an interview once where someone asked me how do I find new music, and I said I don’t like finding new music anymore because it’s not coming from organic places now. I remember the person that introduced me to Drake — I actually remember being in my bedroom when he showed me Drake’s mixtape So Far Gone. And then I found Comeback Season. I started my Drake journey, and I would listen to him every day and learn all the lyrics to it. I still remember those moments and now it doesn’t feel the same finding new stuff — instead someone messages me, ‘Yo, listen to this new tune’; I get a text and someone else sends me a link to a new tune; you sent me a YouTube video. I don’t like the avenue that new music comes through anymore. I miss discovering music the way I used to discover it, and I miss it having a story as well. So now I consume new music at the moment because it’s my job.

JA: I would listen to a lot less music. I listen to too much music — I don’t think you’re actually supposed to listen to as much music, because you can’t. You can’t take it. It’s impossible to take everything in. I went to L.A. last week. And I put on my Instagram story that I’m in L.A. and everyone texted me, ‘Julie, you’re in L.A.!’ – and then I spent seven days feeling so anxious because I didn’t get to see all the people that messaged me. And I thought, actually, if I didn’t put it on my story, I would have just had a good time with the people that I was there with. And that would have been it. And I wouldn’t be worried about the fact that I didn’t link up with Courtney and I didn’t meet with Daniel — and it’s the same with music.

I feel stressed, because I’m not listening. I’m not taking in everything, even though it’s around me. I’d rather have 2019: three sick albums that I love, and I just listened to them every day for the whole year and a couple of singles that I really liked as well. That’s what I would change. I would listen to less music and be more involved in it. It’s a gift and a curse, because I love my job and I love listening to music and I love playing music to people. [Laughs] So I dunno if this is me asking to get fired — stop making me listen to music please!

JA: The best example I can think of is Delilah — she’s ten years younger than me, I met her through the mentoring programme at ELAM, which is Will from Chase and Status’ music college. But now she’s like one of my best friends, and it’s weird because we get along so well but she’s from a different generation. She consumes music in that way of streaming loads of songs, and if there’s one main difference between us it’d be that she listens to tracks, I listen to albums. I wonder what that’s gonna look like in the future when you have a generation of people who love songs, not albums.

JA: Where do you think music is going in the next 30 years? Not just in music, but in everything, I feel like there’s more and more of a focus on what has been. People have started to do this thing now where there’s less new, so let’s focus on the old. Did you see they’re gonna cast James Dean in a film? People are giving up on what’s new. I think with music that’s something that’s going to happen — that people are going to go back to what meant something to them. It happens in music now but less obviously — you sample old stuff, right? Because you want that feeling. Even though some people are still trying to move forward, a lot of it isn’t moving forward. A lot of it is just a regurgitation of history, in different ways and in different forms. I think that there will always be room for creatives, though — but creatives in that 20, 30 years from now, I would hope anyway, are gonna go so far out there, going further towards being weird and left and just like shocking.

JA: I wanted to host Top of the Pops, and I wanted to be in the black family in Eastenders. That was the two things I wanted my whole life. And I haven’t done any of them. And there’s no more Top of the Pops!

JA: Yeah I guess. I haven’t watched it in ages — is there a black family? I guess there has to be.

JA: [Laughs] Um. I can sing, I don’t sing professionally.

JA: NO, Jamie, and I hate it! People always say ‘oh yeah, you and your brothers, all the same!’, but I don’t have the gene. No, actually, I’ve got the gene — I just didn’t put it into practice. You, Junior, and Jason, for whatever reason, found something that you love and did it every single day. I never did that. That’s one thing that always burns me — I don’t know why I didn’t do it. I don’t know what happened but with Junior it was drawing a little bit, and then it was just music forever. He did music through everything. Everything in our lives growing up, Junior was just doing music. I don’t know what it was, I don’t know what kind of tunnel vision thing he had, but it was the same with you!

You were drawing, you used to draw, draw, draw, music, music, music. Then Jason, same, drawing all the time, music, games. But with me, I was just hopping around like a flippin’ prick and I hate that about myself. I didn’t know what I wanted. Then I thought I wanted to be around everything, so I didn’t want to shut myself off from things — because if I just went with singing, in my head, I felt like I was shutting myself off from everything else. I felt like I would shut myself off from you lot as well — if I start singing and I’m going to singing school, I remember I went to Mount View in Wood Green for one term — a performing arts school. I just felt like I wasn’t with the people that I liked. I didn’t get to sit with Jamie, and I didn’t get to do this at home with Jason and Junior — I thought following the thing that I was good at which was singing was…

JA: Yeah exactly. It’s not a regret, because my life is amazing, but part of me does think: ‘if I had pursued singing, where would I be now?’

JA: Because there’s a thing in my brain that goes, ‘That’s not good’.

JA: Yeah, you’re right, you’re absolutely right.

JA: I have accepted death, and I am scared of dying. But I’ve accepted that I’m going to die. The thing about death that I’m scared of is the actual moment is going to happen and what is that going to feel like? I will never ever know until it happens. Basically, every time I get on a plane, I feel like I’m gonna die, I’m scared of flying.

JA: [Laughs] I always text the family group chat when I’m about to fly, and I say ‘I love you guys, I’m going here’, just in case. Maybe I’m gonna have to know that I’m dying, that’s what upsets me about it. I don’t want to know that I’m dying. I’d like to just die. That would be my ideal, which is a weird thing to say, Well, I’m gonna die one day doesn’t bother me. I don’t have an issue with that. Probably in part thanks to you, I’ve really worked on letting go of the ego of feeling like I am here and this life is about me. I’ve let go of that — it’s not about me. The thing that I am scared of is the people that I know dying.

JA: I would haunt you!

JA: It doesn’t have to be scary! I would haunt you for two reasons: one, because I know you don’t believe in people coming back from the dead; two, because you would explain it best to people who didn’t understand — you’d be like, ‘Bruv, Julie, Julie came into my room, and I was lying on my bed, my durag was on the side of my face, and I felt it move and I thought it was [JME’s wife] Sarah’ — you’d explain it in so much detail that people might actually believe I was there.

JA: Yeah you’d be the person who would handle it best. You’d be the only person who would explain it right, it would be wasted on mum or on Jason.

JA: I think I’ll be pretty much the same as I am now. The only thing that will have changed will be, I’ll be more of a guardian to the people around me — I think that’s my natural energy. I am the person someone confides in and asks for help or guidance from, I think that’s who I’ll be at 50.

JA: [Screams]

JA: If I could be a white man for a day?

JA: [Cackles] Oh my God! Someone asked this question before, and the person gave a really good answer — they said, ‘I would apply for a job that I knew I was unqualified for’. But what would I do if I woke up as a white man? I would use my privilege — I assume I would have some — to get some kind of discount and buy a home for our parents.

JA: I’m scared to interview T Pain, Travis Scott, Beyoncé, Kanye West, Eminem — I would be petrified if I was interviewing Eminem! There’s so much that I want to say, but normally if I’m a fan I can still put that version of me aside and do the interview.

JA: [Laughs] Yeah, there’s certain people who mean so much to me that I don’t want to interview them, because I’d be scared of throwing out all my questions and just telling them what they mean to me. I can’t really throw that professionalism out the door, because I will probably see them again.

JA: Yeah, you get to a point where you’re actually with them. So now, all those ideas that you’ve watched from afar, you’re part of them in some way, you’re part of the conversation. So not to say that, obviously, me and Beyoncé are going to become best friends, but there’ll be a bit where hopefully, fingers crossed, she would talk to me as she’s talking to all the other people that have been a part of all these things that she’s done.

JA: Absolutely! Because of our culture, I am the only Nigerian auntie they have. There’s so much of our culture that we don’t experience, and I wish I could teach them the language and the beautiful traditions.

JA: Something that has affected my whole life to this day is being the only girl in a family of brothers. Growing up as the only girl meant mum was always telling me to do something because — washing dishes or cooking. None of you were cooking, you were playing on the computer and I had to go down the kitchen by myself. And because of that, I’ve got to this point in my life now, where I’m so opposed to anything that is ‘for women’. I can’t wait for there to be no gender roles or expectations of any sex at all, except for, ‘Are you a human being and what do you want in your life?’.