London rapper LYAM is over the UK mainstream

It’s 9:30pm in Central London and LYAM has just hit the stage for THE FACE’s New Noise show. Dressed in all black with yellow tinted shades, he performs his inimitable brand of alt club rap with conviction. In the crowd, a denim-clad partygoer in multiple diamanté necklaces gently sways, closing his eyes and taking in the left-field ambiance. To the audience’s surprise, LYAM then drops the bombshell that it’s been four years since he last performed live.

It’s been a long road to LYAM’s debut album The Art of Letting Go, released this month. About nine years ago, he joined TTY (The The Youth), a sprawling collective of artists and musicians whose members included John Glacier, producer Ethan P. Flynn and indie-rapper Jeshi. They signed to Young, hosted an NTS show, threw a bunch of parties and released an album, Cry, but Go, in 2019. But they never released official press shots or a music video to clarify the collective’s members. There was also a rumour that the group’s marketing budget was blown on a trip to Japan.

​“We built this musical mystery of an extremely enigmatic group of people and we really tried to keep it that way but the industry needs to put a face to everything,” LYAM says of TTY. ​“We tried so hard to combat it because it was getting us attention, like, who are these kids? How many of them are there? At some point even I didn’t know who was part of it because people came in and out.

​“It disbanded because it is very hard to control a bunch of teenagers who generally don’t care about the business of music,” he continues. ​“When money started getting involved, it was really hard to delegate who earns what, who should take what.”

LYAM went solo and in 2020, he dropped EP Trust Issues as well as Origami, an anthem for London’s underground scene featuring John Glacier and Shygirl. He then went largely quiet before rolling out The Art of Letting Go – a ​“therapy session” as he puts it.

The album sees him collaborate once again with John Glacier and underground artists such as Hanabii and New Liqa, New York’s Ratking and super-producer Mura Masa. LYAM met Mura at a Christmas party in 2015 hosted by Irish singer Cosha, and he was immediately drawn to him.

​“I was like: there’s something about that guy I need to understand,” LYAM remembers. ​“And then, lo and behold, it was Mura Masa.”

They’re still friends to this day. In fact, on the day of the New Noise show, LYAM is still a little bleary eyed after going too hard on the August bank holiday weekend (a weekend that involved attending Mura Masa’s album release party before rolling through to Notting Hill Carnival after just three hours’ sleep).

LYAM prides himself on picking his collaborators well, and he stresses the importance of community in the music industry: ​“I stand for collaboration,” he says. ​“Two heads are better than one and having a group of friends to make amazing art with, that’s the main thing.”

Any chance of a TTY reunion then? LYAM shakes his head. ​“There is someone who I’ve been working with who was part of TTY who is looking to bring [it] back, but not call it TTY. Maybe in October you’ll see something…” Keep your eyes peeled.

Hi LYAM! You’ve just dropped your album The Art of Letting Go. Why did you go for that title?

It deals with getting rid of a past life and using music to get the negative emotions out of me rather than letting it eat me up. It’s a genuine mirror for me to see my growth. Covid came and stopped me from touring my first album, and that kind of put me in a bad mood, then relationships with people didn’t go really well, money, life, my grandmother going through Alzheimer’s… all these things were just building up within me. I needed a way to express it.

I love the track Reapers featuring Wiki. How did that come about?

I made it a very, very long time ago and the hook is all about not losing focus, being driven and going for what you want. In terms of the feature, I normally go for underground acts so Wiki is my biggest feature. I’m under Warp Publishing and Wiki had just signed to them so was looking to collaborate with Warp acts. He heard the beat and was like, ​‘Yeah, I want to get on this.’ He’s one of my favourite rappers so that was me going for something I wanted, and it stuck.

Are record labels important?

Nope. They’re important for budget for PR people and radio pluggers and getting on playlists. But if you’re kind of an up-and-coming act and you meet a label that offers you a small deal, don’t do it, just walk. The fact that a label is interested in you already means there’s going to be more to come, so just stick it out and wait until you have more leverage.

The album ends on a touching voice note from a friend about closure. What’s the story behind that?

When it was sent to me, instantly, I knew it would go on the end of the album. I didn’t even have the song, I just had the voice note because it answered all my questions. It encapsulates the whole of The Art of Letting Go so shoutout to my friend who sent the voice note to me – she could tell I was a bit all over the place!

You dropped Origami with John Glacier and Shygirl in 2020, what do you think has happened to the London music scene since then?

I think the London music scene is going in such an amazing [direction]. I feel like the acts that are coming out are extremely individualistic, extremely creative, very thoughtful and very independent. Now, some of my favourite UK acts don’t buy into labels too much. I also feel that London’s underground music scene is becoming genreless. There isn’t a blueprint of what you should make. I’m really, really excited about what is to come next from everyone from the underground. I feel like we’re gonna take over and shake the room a bit, which we need to do. Because I’m over the UK mainstream. I want something a bit more edgy.

The Art of Letting Go is out now would you believe.