Camden
So much of the ebb and flow of London life is dictated by the boundaries of its central boroughs. It’s a city built from concentric rings, a fact relayed and reinforced by its nine transport zones. The sights and landmarks of the first and innermost circle are so famous they’re known to nursery children on the other side of the world; Zone 9, meanwhile, can seem so remote and imperceptible that there must be many Londoners who don’t even realise it exists. But the boroughs clustered around the Thames seem to be demarcated in a way that ignores TfL’s logic completely, cutting haphazardly across the different zones as they stretch away from the river. This is how you end up with Hackney, Islington, Lambeth and Southwark, domains that – splayed over Zones 1 to 3 – bite chunks out of the capital and end up cradling wildly different neighbourhoods, council blocks and private palaces living cheek by jowl. Arguably the best example of this is provided by Camden, a borough comprised of London’s richest and poorest, its most conservative and most liberal, its most famous and privileged living under the same jurisdiction as its most invisible and voiceless.
Dozer Carter is an MC who’s spent his whole life growing up and working in the borough. The soulful hip-hop he makes – both alone and as one half of OthaSoul – wouldn’t be what it is were it not for the jarring, stirring friction that characterises life in Camden, whether that manifests itself in formative teenage tear-ups or the sorry sight of people sleeping rough outside luxury residences.
“Living round here, Kentish Town and Camden are at that perfect barrier between wealthy and poor London,” he explains. “You’ve got rich places like Highgate and Hampstead, but they’re surrounded by poorer areas, so whatever school you went to, there were always gonna be rich kids with big yards, who were always gonna be stupid enough to have house parties. At the same time, you’d have people from the very bottom. It makes Camden very well balanced, but you’ll also see homeless people literally laying on the pavement outside a million-pound house.
“I can only really write music about what I’m seeing and experiencing,” he continues. “I get a vivid picture every day. There’s always something different or surprising – not always good, but nothing’s boring round here. Every song I’ve ever made has directly referenced this borough.”
As a chaotic inner-city enclave with a history of attracting left-wing idealists and young musicians on the hustle, not to mention the kind of late-night economy that lends a place a touch of threat and menace, Camden has become over the years the epicentre of hip-hop in London, particularly the soulful, boom-bap kind that Carter most loves and creates. Taking cues as much from jazz and soul as it does from anything your dad would recognise as rap, Carter’s is laid back, diaphanous music that lyrically rides the line between the public and the personal with poise. There aren’t many global conversations that London can feel unfairly shut out of, but to an extent the story with this kind of considered, conscious hip-hop over the years has been one of a closed shop: America dominates and below that MCs from other nations operate below a glass ceiling. Maybe, though, that’s all about to change – young people in this country, and in London especially, are now engaged with politics in a way they haven’t been for generations. It would make a certain amount of sense if the music that Carter makes started to find its way into more ears, hearts and minds.
“London has an amazing history when it comes to hip-hop,” he explains, “but it didn’t quite hit overseas or in the rest of the country ‘cos people couldn’t relate – and that’s fine; that’s how grime started and that went on to become a movement. Our influences are mostly American artists but in terms of soulful hip-hop, it’s literally happening right now in London, there’s never been a better time to be trying to break into this genre. I think young people are becoming more political, too – and that’s how change starts. Music, throughout all of history, has been a huge part of that.”
The nod to grime feels pointed; it’s a scene that, after an initial burst, seemed to die away almost entirely before enjoying an ongoing resurgence that has seen it taken to the hearts of many Americans in a way that no other MC-based British music ever has been. Carter’s “first exposure” to anything resembling rap was to the initial wave of grime as a Camden schoolkid – “you couldn’t avoid it round here when I was 12, 13,” he recalls, “everyone downloaded [music production programme] FruityLoops ‘cos they thought they could make a grime beat” – and even though what he’s doing bears no resemblance to the work of Skepta, he’s enjoying the renaissance the Tottenham-born MC is leading: “You have to give Skepta credit for going, ‘I’m not listening to anyone any more. I’m doing exactly what I wanna do.’ He refused to compromise and opened the door for everyone, getting that far just making the music he wants to listen to in his room.”
To date, Carter’s personal journey has taken him from those teenage nights with FruityLoops to open mic events in bars and clubs, from freestyle “cyphers” (like battle rapping, minus the warfare) at the London Lyricist Lounge to “life-changing” OthaSoul support slots for inspirations Talib Kweli and Slum Village at Camden’s Jazz Cafe. Now – working with partner in crime Louis VI – he’s shaping up to explore the possibilities of what he can do alone. His official debut solo EP arrives in late summer, the first single from it, “Out Here with Bowie”, preceded in May: “It’s basically about a letter my dad wrote me quite recently, detailing why he couldn’t be around more when he was young – he was a musician out on tour with David Bowie, doing his thing,” Carter explains. “As a musician now I can respect that but when you’re younger you don’t quite understand. The second half of the song is about him seeing me perform live for the first time up in Manchester recently, and it almost going full circle. I thought he could have some relief from his doubts and guilt, seeing I was OK and doing what he used to.”
The parallels are striking though there are, of course, many differences between Dozer’s career to date and his father’s time playing in a touring band. Principal among them in a creative sense might be the MC’s attachment to place – his music feels anchored in home turf, if not always in love with his patch of London then at least endlessly interested in it: “You walk down the road in London, you hear ten, 20 different languages in the space of a minute,” he says. “You’d assume that means you’d come across these people more often, but you actually don’t, communities tend to keep themselves separate. The reason why nightlife is so important to Camden and London in general is that it fuels the collision culture that brings people together – no matter what your race or religion, we can all relate through the arts, and music is key.”
It’s a sentiment that neatly sums up Dozer’s music: extrovert yet thoughtful, incisive yet inclusive. It also speaks to the divisions and dichotomies that exist in his home borough, a weird, vertical strip of land in a circular city that captures not just the best and worst that North London has to offer, but also all of the fascinating grey areas in between.