KBPS Interview: The Manor

The Manor are a 3-piece hip-hop act from South London who have recently released their new single ‘Don’t Like Going Places’ and we got to speak to Johnny from the trio, who had been up for thirty-six hours at the time ahead of the single’s release working and in the studio. Johnny and the rest of the Manor had been working at Relentless Studios for the three days prior to the interview, with things going well for them.

“We’re getting together our new album. We’ve got about twenty-five half-finished tracks at the moment and we’re just trying to work out which ones we’re going to put out on the album, which will be out later this year.

“We’ve got so much new production. We’ve been back in the studio with Yanaku, who produced a lot of the songs on the last album and we’re just trying to tidy things up, and luckily Relentless, the energy drink, have given us a fair bit of studio time to get things done, so it’s been very productive!”

With the energy drink helping keep the band awake for their recording sessions and other commitments, I was keen to chat to him about their new single.

“It sums up exactly what we’re about. Dan and I, after University, since we started the Manor, haven’t had the money to leave the country but everyone else has been going on holidays. It’s about how to enjoy staying in your local area, with the home comforts. It’s basically celebrating being normal.

“Not everyone’s got money and you almost learn how to accept staying indoors and enjoying the things that don’t cost that much and that represents exactly what our brand is about, which is enjoying the normal things and the less extravagant things in life.”
Reaction to the single has been incredibly positive, with support coming from BBC Radio 1 and 1xtra, including from Toddla T, Huw Stephens, Charlie Sloth and Mistajam.
“Since the video has come out it’s given the song a bit of an identity and it’s had a lot of views. We’ve had lots of interest from people who’ve heard the song.”

Creating the video, which sees the camera slowly tracking through the flat of the band, was a fun experience and a change of direction.

“Normally all of our videos are at house parties and we’re very drunk. [The director Elliot Simpson] has directed all our videos and for this one had a full team and it was planned days ahead. It was done in a day, and it was a lot easier than our normal shoots.”
The Manor had their biggest show yet at the start of April, a sold out gig in London, which had to be moved to the larger room at the O2 Islington Academy as the initial capacity sold out within nine minutes, with the rest selling out within two days.

“We were really overwhelmed with that. We were recording at the time and for the whole day we didn’t get anything done thinking ‘how have we done this?’.”

Challenges in planning the event was choosing the songs from their five years of being together and also sorting out special guests for the gig. “We’ve got so many songs that we love but we picked a set that we all finally agreed on!”

With the London urban and grime scene becoming increasingly popular across the country I was keen to find out Johnny’s thoughts on the genre’s popularity.
“I think it’s now the time that Britain [is making itself known]. We’ve spent so much time looking over to America. We’ve got to the stage that we can accept the good stuff that we produce. With artists like Stormzy, it’s not just the music but it’s the character and people are starting to relate to the grime scene a bit more, it’s more palatable whereas before it was ‘that’s what the poor kids do, this is what we do’.

“Now it’s being a lot of more accessible. It’s just us accepting our national identity and being proud of what we do, and hopefully this will last for a long time and do what they did in America twenty years ago where rap and urban became the pop music and I think we’re ready for it over here now.”

So where are the Manor heading now?

“We’ve got a few things planned. We’ve got a lot of videos from the last album we did that we need to release. We’ve got ‘Creps in the Rave’ which was played on Soccer AM and that’s the upbeat hype song of the album. We’ve got a song that we’ve done in collaboration with Relentless called ‘No Half Measures’ which is like old school Dizzee Rascal-style grime.

“On the album we had a French singer from Nice [so] we’re going to go over [to France] before the Euros start and shoot [videos] two of the French-sounding songs that we had on the album.

“Then we’re going to start thinking about the new album and getting some of the songs and visuals done. We’ve got some festivals coming up including ‘The Great Escape’ and more gigs coming up in late summer.”

With a headline gig planned for the autumn, things are looking incredibly positive for the Manor.

“We’ve always put our foot on the pedal and then eased off, looked around and given ourselves a pat on the back. This time we’re going to go full throttle with it. We’ve got so much material to come out, and it is all getting received well, so let’s just crack on!”

This interview will feature in KBPS #9 available Saturday 14th May.