Nemzzz: If You Can Build It
At 20 years old, Manchester rapper Nemzzz has earned a seat at the top table of British rap alongside the likes of Dave and Central Cee. He’s out-streaming his idols, put his city on the map and been credited with creating an entirely new genre. But he’s not listening to all of that – there’s work to be done
A playful energy permeates the room as Nemiah Emmanuel Simms tries to work the arcade machine in the London studio where his Crack Magazine cover shoot is taking place. “These things are so cool,” he notes. “I just got a Mortal Kombat one for my house.” He speaks with a rich Manchester lilt; his voice is friendly and turns even the bluntest words into something inviting. Once he’s figured out how to get the machine working, his face swiftly turns from goofy to concentrated. Those in the vicinity feel his vibe shift: now locked in, he will complete the task at hand.
At just 20 years old, the Manchester-born-and-raised rapper is possessed of a clear understanding of who he is, what he wants and how best to get it. A good student at school, he was encouraged by his parents – his mother was a producer, his father a reggae and bashment vocalist – to work hard and be ambitious, and this sense of drilled focus colours our interactions throughout the day. “The only way you can have a long-lasting career is if you’re original,” he says, sounding like a seasoned pro as he gets shoot-ready in the makeup chair. “I feel like too many people nowadays are trying to sound like whoever is hot, and that’s why no one is standing out. It’s very important to set yourself apart.”
Nemzzz has done precisely this by putting a distinct and original stamp on UK rap that feels refreshingly unshowy, introverted and unrushed. Like Central Cee or J Hus before him – giants on streaming and socials who have sidestepped traditional media – Nemzzz doesn’t need to shout to be heard. It’s a characteristic that clearly resonates – his achievements are stacking up fast. His breakout track Elevate has over 100 million streams on Spotify, placing him behind only Central Cee and Dave as the country’s most-streamed rappers. Meanwhile, PTSD – from his 2024 debut mixtape Do Not Disturb – and his 2023 track 8am in Manny have received over 10 million and 7.5 million plays on YouTube respectively. He has also been the beneficiary of co-signs from some of the biggest names in rap, including Drake, Lil Yachty, influencer IShowSpeed and Central Cee, who brought him out at his album launch last month.
Right now, though, he’s still basking in the afterglow of Do Not Disturb. Released in March last year, it features collaborations with Headie One, K-Trap and JayG, and was executive produced by his longtime collaborator Zel. “I feel really proud of that project,” he says, smiling to himself. The title of the mixtape comes from a habit of putting his phone on Do Not Disturb mode, something he’s done since his teenage years. It makes sense: on the shoot, he’s present and makes an effort to introduce himself, maintain eye contact and interact with everyone. On record, likewise, he is all business: “I would rather grind and stay on the low,” he spits on tape highlight, Money and Vibes. The track features a bassline that slithers forward with an ominous tension and features a warped sample of Justin Timberlake’s Rock Your Body, flipping the sample from party starter to eerie afterimage.
Riding bouncy rhythms and pitched-up pop samples, Do Not Disturb’s catchy lyrics explore relationships, mental health and money problems (and solutions) – “I let this leng one take my pics, money can fix your problems quick,” he raps in Get Money. “Introverted” is a descriptor that comes up a lot in discussions about the rapper, and you sense the observation is spot on. He’s only in London for a few days to do back-to-back shoots, meetings and other projects, and is returning to his countryside home in the north of England, just outside of Manchester, later in the week. There, he enjoys taking walks with his dog, Milo, and has been spending his mornings at the gym with a personal trainer. “I love how isolated it is where I live,” he explains with possibly the biggest smile of the interview. “Everyone is on the same thing there – no one is phased if they see a fancy car. The people are nice, the food is nice and I have my space.”
It’s a stark contrast to where he grew up: Gorton, in Greater Manchester. An area with a history of industrial boom and decline, it is now often cited as being among Britain’s most deprived neighbourhoods – and the place where Shameless was shot. In Gorton, the noisy thrum of life was a constant; whether it was honking horns, chattering voices or music blaring from speakers, the neighbourhood was always a chaotic symphony of noise. Born to Jamaican parents, Nemzzz was put onto reggae, dancehall and bashment legends, including Vybz Kartel, from early childhood. At school, English was his favourite subject. He was drawn towards words and poetry, and liked writing poems in class. He originally wanted to be a footballer but quit because his coach would make him cover defence when he just wanted to shoot goals. Instead, music production quickly became his main interest: “We had a studio at home,” he says, echoing the stories of Windrush children and now grandchildren, whose Caribbean and West Indian heritage engendered a musical culture of catchy hooks, DIY instrumentals and determined battle mentality. It was through observing his dad in that makeshift studio that Nemzzz caught the bug. Although the space was officially off-limits, in case he broke the equipment, Nemzzz wasn’t easily deterred: “One night when my dad was working and wasn’t there, I just went in. And since then I’ve been hammering down the tunes.”
He makes it sound easy, but there was a lot of trial and error. The first track he remembers attempting at five years old – a precocious age – was what he jokingly describes as “melodic rap”. “I was trying to sing but it didn’t really work,” he laughs. As he grew older and moved to secondary school, he found more ways to wile away his downtime in his dad’s studio. “I never received any formal [music] education, I just taught myself,” he says. His dad, growing more relaxed about his son’s forays into the studio, was supportive. After school, he spent hours getting to grips with production software, writing bars and rhymes to go with his instrumentals, and laying down the fundamentals of his process – which he largely still follows. “I make the beat from scratch first, normally, before doing anything else,” he explains, adding that he now shares this process with his regular producer Zel. Watch the video for Us vs Them and you’ll see Nemzzz in a Trapstar x Central Cee hoodie, rapping in a makeshift studio with Zel half-visible from the glow of Ableton on a laptop screen.
Nemzzz credits his father as his “biggest inspiration”; the person who gave him his passion for the art of music-making. His dad, after hearing his music, encouraged him to work until he got it perfect. “I just always wanted to impress him,” Nemzzz says, slightly shyly. “He had a high standard for everything, so I knew that if I were ever to go to him with something, it would have to be amazing.”
“My dad had a high standard for everything, so I knew that if I were ever to go to him with something, it would have to be amazing”
In 2018, at 14 years old, he felt confident enough to send a demo to his now manager Alex Omisesan. Omisesan has joined Nemzzz on the set of the Crack shoot, and is casting a watchful eye over proceedings. “I admired his purpose and determination,” Omisesan says while the rapper tries out one of many red looks that have been selected. “He was very clear with what he wanted and his vision, and he wanted to make it happen. He was straight up and said he wanted to make music for a living and to look after his family. He had just finished year 10, and in my head, I was thinking he was so young, and I just didn’t know because of how young he was. I remembered I asked him to send me some music. He went home that night, made a song and then that made it out.”
“It was such an impulsive decision,” Nemzzz reflects, thinking back to the moment he clicked send. “I’ve always been about passion, I don’t care about the reception as much. My main goal is to impress myself.”
Nemzzz’s style has evolved in the years since he began releasing music in 2018, but there are throughlines. Listen back to 2019’s chilled-out Deep End, and you’ll be treated to emotionally honest bars like, “I need arm bands, I’m in the deep end/ Everybody say they love me but they pretend,” and a lo-fi sensibility; No Replies, from 2019, marries a minimal, disassociated synth line with booming 808s. “Whoa, we’re going way back with those,” he laughs when I mention these older tracks. “To be honest, I don’t really listen to much of my music after I’ve already put it out – once it’s out, it’s out.” Despite his protestations, he is perhaps more self-aware than he lets on. In May 2023, debut EP Nemzzz Type Beat formalised his influential sound across eight woozy, brooding tracks, with a vocal style that sounds like someone telling a story while driving – slightly distant with eyes fixed on the road ahead. Now, there are hundreds of tutorials on TikTok featuring people making their own Nemzzz-type beats, contributing in no small part to the microgenre anointed by some as chill drill. “I’ve established my own type of sound,” he boasts, proudly.
When it comes to bringing collaborators into his world, Nemzzz’s vision is equally assured. “I build relationships with people,” he explains. “They have to be genuine people. All the collabs on Do Not Disturb, I actually know these people. We’ve actually had exchanges and we’ve had some sort of conversation.” He gives the example of Lil Yachty, a rapper who, a decade ago, marked the start of a new age in rap where ground-level internet virality outweighed all other forms of traditional exposure. Nemzzz was 11 when Yachty first broke through, but this distance in time and geography didn’t stop them from connecting: Yachty featured on It’s Us after sharing a Nemzzz track on an Instagram story. “We had a back-and-forth and built a relationship over messages. Then we started sending beats [to each other],” he says, matter-of-factly.
Nemzzz is now gearing up to release his second mixtape Rent’s Due, out later this month. It represents a step forward for the rapper. Nemzzz’s palette is broadened, and his energy amped up, with nods to elements of Jersey club and grime. It’s also a milestone moment for Nemzzz as a cultural figure, with a proper rollout, merch bundles and cover art by Slawn, the divisive British-Nigerian painter seen by many as a driving force in the new Black British vanguard. Recorded quickly, on the heels of Do Not Disturb, Rent’s Due bottles the quicksilver energy of an artist in a flow state. First single Cold, muted and haunted by a sense of nostalgia, gets under the skin: “Apart from bro, when I ain’t have bread, me, I didn’t hear from no one/ I span that block on my pedal bike, and I didn’t see no one.” The track also features a voicemail interlude, “I don’t hear from you no more, bro. You good?” that only adds to the melancholy atmosphere. It feels like a natural development of Nemzzz’s reflective style, echoing those earlier tracks, like Elevate, where he raps about dealing with past trauma and letting go of what’s bad for you: “If I ever had to cut you off, bro, you was not good for my soul.”
“My writing is inspired by what’s going on around me at the time,” Nemzzz says. “If my friends are going through something, or if I’m going through something. I just try and keep it relatable so they can gravitate towards the song a bit more. It’s a nice feeling. Like, if I hear a song and I can hear something that I’ve been through, it makes me like the song even more.” He cites Lil Baby’s Never Needed No Help as a track he could deeply relate to and that he felt moved by. “It’s about him doing most things on his own and not asking people for help,” he says. “I’ve always been like that – I hate asking people for things. I’d rather just suffer in silence or until I can do it.”
“I hate asking people for things. I’d rather just suffer in silence or until I can do it”
This combination of introspection and vulnerability has won Nemzzz a legion of loyal fans from all over the world. One of them is 21-year-old Joseph Oppong, who flew all the way from Vancouver, Canada, with less than 24 hours’ notice to be an extra on this cover shoot. He found the opportunity on Instagram and immediately jumped at it due to his love for the UK’s rap and creative scenes. He first found out about the Manchester rapper through one of his friends showing him Elevate and has been keeping a close eye on him ever since. A ten-hour flight and a tube ride later, Oppong arrived in central London for the first time ever, with two hours until the shoot’s call time – ready to be involved in a Nemzzz-type project. “I’m a huge fan,” he says, while getting ready to be briefed. “I’m really into a lot of drill, and he’s been on rotation for a while. I’ve just been tapped into the UK drill and rap scene, and I’m really into fashion and clothing, so I’ve seen Nemzzz interact with that world too.” Seeing Nemzzz interact with his fans on the shoot is telling. He knows how to work a crowd, but every exchange feels personal and intimate.
By this point, around 30 extras have congregated on set, all briefed to wear black, most of whom had never met before and are chatting excitedly. Meanwhile, Tinashe’s Nasty plays out the speaker, barely masking the productive hustle and bustle of the crew sorting equipment and running errands. Despite the background hum of activity, Nemzzz remains utterly present, and his guard seems to come down, revealing a strain of vulnerability usually saved for his music: “I’ve definitely tried everything that you can think of: normal rap, wave rap, singing,” he takes a breath. “It’s been a process… it took me a minute to find my sound, but I feel confident in myself.”
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Rent’s Due is out 28 March on Nemzzz
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