By "This is proper early," grumbles MC Grindah. "I’m a bit fuming, to be honest."
It's 11am, but you can forgive him for feeling a bit stretched. Grindah and the rest of the Kurupt FM crew – loyal lieutenant DJ Beats, DJ Steves and resident impresario and entrepreneur Chabuddy G – are on Zoom to talk about the return of their British Podcast Awards-winning podcast, which followed five series of the People Just Do Nothing documentary that put them on the map, and which lands ahead of a film outing next year.
Despite swearing to hang up the mic at the end of People Just Do Nothing, the gang have rarely been busier. Everyone's a bit strung out, especially Steves. His daily ayahuasca smoothies have been interfering with his rhythms.
"You came and dropped me a draw three days ago and said you hadn’t slept for seven days at the time," Grindah tells him.
"You were doing a Craig David," adds Chabuddy G.
"It depends on your definition of sleep, really," says Steves. "Sometimes I’ll just wake up and I’ve been on the floor for a bit."
How's your lockdown been? Have you got to see each other?
Grindah: I’ve been doing this thing, right, where I divide my flat into two halves, yeah? Coz I didn’t want to catch anything from Angel and Miche [Grindah's daughter and wife], and likewise, do you know what I mean? But in a way I’ve got more to lose. So I take the bullet and be on my own, and let them take the bedroom and the en suite, and I take the living room, the kitchen, and the spare bedroom and bathroom.
Beats: And the balcony.
Grindah: Yeah exactly. That was one of the most important lifelines for me in lockdown because Steves would cycle three times a week – is it a four-hour journey, Steves?
Steves: Six hour round trip, yeah.
Grindah: …to drop me a draw.
Steves: It was like Romeo and Juliet, I was climbing up onto the balcony. Your floor’s high too.
Grindah: I’d get him to stand there, do a 360-spin while I spray him with disinfectant, and then I’d let him go.
Steves: Once you get used to the routine of it, it’s not that bad.
Grindah: As a human race we’re survivalists, d’you know what I mean? Beats did come down and keep me company one day. Just stood outside my balcony for six hours while I was blazing up and chatting to him.
Beats: I’ve been Deliveroo driving, and I’ve been eating and blazing as much as I possible can. Lots of beige stuff: chips, hash browns, nuggets.
Steves: Build your immune system up.
ChabuddyG: I’ve heard wanking’s pretty good for the immune system. I think I’m pretty much immune for life. It’s purging. It’s like an exorcism.
Everyone was getting into new hobbies. Have you picked up anything new, or got back into something you’d got out of?
Grindah: Steves has had, let’s say, a particularly green finger.
Steves: Yeah, let’s just say the weed farm…
Grindah: No don’t say that.
Steves: Let’s just say plants that have been growing in my house have been very popular.
Grindah: Nah, that’s too much.
CG: You should’ve just said ‘photosynthesis’, something like that.
Grindah: Nah I’ve got one: let’s just say that the whole of Brentford hasn’t gone dry with weed because...
CG: Nah, nah.
Beats: The tomatoes are ripe for picking.
CG: Yeah, like that.
Steves: I’ve been growing tomatoes, and supplying tomatoes to everyone who wants tomatoes in Brentford. A lot of people have been smoking more tomatoes.
CG: Let’s just say the people of Brentford have been getting more than one of their five a day.
Grindah: That’s the one! That’s the one.
Beats: Grindah, you’ve been working on your stand-up routine haven’t you?
Grindah: God yeah. Just been sort of getting inspired by different things I’ve been watching, and every time something comes to me I voice note it over to Beats and he’ll write it down into my standup book.
Beats: We’re currently in the middle of doing the stand-up, autobiography and Grindah: The Movie.
Grindah: See the thing is with me, stand-up’s not so much gagging, it’s more observational, d’you know what I mean? So I’ll be like: what is it with the English weather? I go out with a jacket on coz it’s raining – the next minute it’s sunny! [The crew explodes with laughter.]
CG: That’s so true though!
Beats: Do the door one, do the door one.
CG: It’s smart.
Grindah: So this group of mates is sitting there, they’re just a group of mates…
Beats: Us lot, really.
Grindah: Don’t matter what group of mates. Not sure how they know each other.
Steves: From the radio.
Grindah: Nah, not radio. They’re a group of mates…
Beats: They work together.
Grindah: No, look, you’re butchering the joke.
Beats: Sorry.
Grindah: So they’re a group of mates, and some of them work on a building site, some of them went to uni. But they know each other. And they’re sitting there, they’re watching something. Not the point, but they’re watching something. They’re watching a comedy, so they’re already laughing. And then the door goes, yeah? And one of them goes…
Beats: Get the door!
Grindah: No, no, they go, ‘Oi Phil, go get the door’. Phil turns up, and he’s holding the door! [The crew explodes with laughter.]
Beats: He’s carrying it!
CG: He’s said ‘get the door’, and he’s gone and got the door!
Steves: You can’t write that kind of stuff.
Beats: One of the best jokes I’ve ever heard.
Grindah: It’s still in development.
CG: That’s perfect mate. Really smart, the way you did that.
Grindah: The way they’re watching a comedy before, makes you already feel funny.
Beats: You’re smiling, and you don’t know why.
Grindah: Tom, what did you find funny about that joke?
CG: Did you get it? Because you didn’t really laugh.
So I was laughing because these guys know each other from different ways, that’s funny.
Grindah: Exactly. Boom!
They’re watching comedy, so that makes you want to laugh, and the third one – the big one – is he’s got the wrong end of the stick.
Grindah: No, there’s no stick.
Beats: It’s a door.
Steves: He’s come in with the whole door. That’s not what they meant at all.
CG: Yeah, he gets it.
This is the second series of your podcast – what did you learn from the first one? What are you going to do differently this time?
Steves: We didn’t change anything because we actually won the best award that you can win in the whole of podcasting.
CG: We basically won an Oscar.
Steves: So we basically got told by them to do more of the same coz you’re already the best.
Grindah: But saying that, we have made it better.
Beats: We still don’t really know what a podcast is but Audible were just, like, ‘Here’s 300 quid each,’ so…
CG: I thought a podcast was a bit like an alien race, and they all live in a pod. I was gonna ask you Stevie, is anything with that, aliens?
Steves: Well there are the arachnid sort of aliens which come out of pods. Like in the film Aliens.
CG: But there’s no connection with podcasts?
Steves: I hope not.
Grindah: Don’t get Steves started. Point is, what we’ve done, instead of talking about the same subjects we’ve picked other ones.
Beats: I just learned that we can literally talk about anything for ages. We’re a lot cleverer than what I thought we were.
Steves: Thing is, there’s no-one there apart from Google to correct us. So whatever we say, we’re sort of right.
CG: To be fair, you can’t always trust Google. Who’s the person behind Google?
Beats: Zuckerberg.
CG: Yeah exactly. You can’t trust him. He looks like a bloody weirdo.
Grindah: And Tom from MySpace.
CG: Aw yeah, I trust him. He’s a cool geezer.
Steves: They’re all working together, they’ve formed a sort of new Illuminati – Tom Zuckerberg, Tom from Myspace… are they all called Tom?
CG: Yeah, Tom Gates, Tom and Jerry…
Steves: They’re all in on the conspiracy.
Grindah: Basically, next series is pretty much same but even better, but at the same time you don’t need to change anything coz we’ve already won an award, but yes it is better and it doesn’t mean the first one’s not good because that’s still better as well. It’s definitely not worse. Put that in there.
CG: We’re talking complete bullshit, but in a clever way.
Grindah: It’s lyrical parkour.
Steves: It’s high-grade waffle. It’s like Bird’s Eye. Proper waffle. Not the own-brand shit waffles.
CG: Proper ones that give you heart disease, or block you up for a couple of days.
Beats: Or you won’t shit solid for a month.
Steves: Proper salty, so you get chalk on the side of your mouth.
Now you’re on Audible, though, some people might say you’ve sold out your pirate radio roots.
CG: Why would you say that, Tom?
Steves: I didn’t get paid, so that doesn’t work for me. They gave us biscuits this time though.
Beats: They gave me £300, but I owed Grindah probably six grand in subs.
Grindah: Yeah, went straight into my account. I’ll answer your question, and I’ll tell you for why. I haven’t sold out. In fact, we’d already completed music. So you can’t sell out once you’ve completed that, d’you know what I mean?
Beats: We never sold anything.
Grindah: That was intentional as well.
Steves: You were fuming about that.
Grindah: No, no, that was part of the plan. And also, yeah, I spat all these lyrics for free for 15 years plus, right? And that day when I said I’d hang up the mic, a few days later I started MCing a little bit again on my own. So then I changed the rule: I’d hang up the mic, unless I’m getting paid for it. So now, we tried to pitch this as a fully lyrical podcast, they said no, I went: ‘Fine then, I’m not MCing. I will just talk for that small price. But, I will include a new track about the subject every week’. So in a way, it’s a give and take. And I’ve told you for why.
Steves: Thing is, you can hang up the mic as an MC, but then it’s hanging there, and that’s actually how the mics are in podcasting.
Grindah: We’ve all seen this on films or big artists going ‘Oh we’re gonna hang up the mic’, and I did that on my own TV show. I said, I’m hanging up the mic, I’m never doing this again. Now, as much as your intentions are there, as soon as you’re in that shower and the water hits your skin, you start MCing to yourself. And that’s it, you’re spitting lyrics again.
Chabuddy, you’re thinking of running for London mayor. What would the city look like after eight years under your rule?
CG: London’s pretty great, and I was like, how can we make London even greater? I was like, I’m gonna rename London ‘Greater London’, but the boys were like, that’s already a thing. So then we’re gonna call it ‘The Greatest London’. So we’re gonna extend it, coz everywhere that isn’t London is...
Beats: Pretty shit.
CG: We’re gonna push London out, so north London is basically Glasgow now.
Grindah: To prove your point Chabud – Tom, where you from originally?
Near Liverpool.
CG: In my London, you wouldn’t have to move from Liverpool. You know why they call it John Lennon airport? Coz it’s the first place he went when he got money. He pissed off.
Beats: The Piccadilly line’s gonna stretch from Glasgow to Uxbridge.
CG: South London is now France, basically.
Steves: And the Circle line is fucking massive.
CG: The Circle line is an absolute headfuck, but in a good way.
Grindah: And there’s a roundabout that connects Huddersfield and Handworth.
CG: The H-to-H, we’re calling it. And just as a sidenote, Wales is gonna be demolished. So vote Chabuddy G for mayor. They let Sadiq in; let another one in. That’s my campaign thing: ‘Let Another One In’.
The Kurupt FM Podkast series 2 is available to download from Audible.co.uk now
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