COMPLEX: We’ve crossed paths many times over the years, but this is the first time that we’re properly sitting down to talk music. From what I know of you, you’re that production genius who prefers to stay lowkey and just do the work. Why don’t you ‘pop out’ like the other super-producers out there?
Show N Prove: Firstly, I just want to say: I appreciate this, JP. You’re a legend, man! I’ve seen you on your rise and you’ve seen me on mine, so it’s a pleasure to do this interview. When it comes to popping out, though, I think it’s just about letting the music speak for me. I mean, I do pop out every now and again, but I’m very much about letting the work speak. And obviously, just being behind the scenes, a typical producer, scared of the camera—that’s all a part of it, too.
You’re from Scotland and you started out working with local hip-hop acts in Edinburgh. Scotland has always had a strong underground rap scene, so that makes a lot of sense. But why hasn’t anyone from there broken through in the wider rap scene as of yet?
That’s a good question, especially seeing, like, in recent years, how Manchester and Birmingham are just as successful as London. But with regards to Scotland, to be honest, I don’t know… I think the accent is a big barrier, but like I said, even with Birmingham, it was once upon a time as well, and then something shifts and something changes and it’s all of a sudden acceptable. Similarly, with Irish drill, that had a moment. There’s not really been a moment, I guess—sad to say—since Shogun’s big freestyle. And even that, as skillful and amazing as it was, some people took it as a bit of a gimmick, a novelty, when it was far from that. Ransom has been doing some really good stuff as well, but I think once we get past the accent thing, it’ll all click into place.
You’re pretty much a Londoner at this point—do you miss home?
I do, man. I miss home. I’ll be in London for a long period of time and then it’ll hit me, like, “I miss my friends, my family—I miss my home!” Then I’ll go home and literally a day later, I’m like: “Get me out of here! Get me back to London.” I love the grind in London, but it’s nice to not be from here and go back home and kind of enjoy that peace. I enjoy it in a different way to when I lived there.
What year did you move to LDN and who was the first known artist you worked with while here?
It was Baby Blue. 2005! Even before I moved to London, I did a song with her and would travel down to work in the studio with her. I went to the video shoot for the song I produced, met so many people that were massive at the time, and it really just clicked in my head that this is where I need to be and what I need to be doing. And then, not too long after that, a guy called Tec—who’s in Show Dem Camp now—I kind of came in under him and worked with a load of up-and-coming artists, as well as closely with Baby Blue, and that was the start of everything.
