Wretch 32: Heart First
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PHOTOGRAPHY: FILMAWI / STYLING: CARA HAYWARD / CREATIVE DIRECTION: CHARLOTTE MAYUMI PHIPPS / SET DESIGN: JULIA DIAS / GROOMING: BIANCA SIMONE SCOTT / WORDS: SETH PEREIRA
Our names can be very powerful indicators of the lives we’ll eventually lead and the people that we’ll become. Most people know him as Wretch 32, but he was Jermaine Sinclaire Scott long before he’d be revered as one of the greatest wordsmiths of the modern era. To the naked eye, the surname Scott seems unremarkable, but the linage boasts a rich history of important community activism in his home town of Tottenham. Stafford Scott (Wretch’s uncle) is the director of Tottenham Rights, a community organisation set up to combat the systemic racial injustice that has continued to be a blight on Tottenham and the country as a whole.
So radicalism and resistance was in the very air which he breathed, he saw his Dad on GMTV in the mornings before school speaking about these many injustices, the community meetings took place in the family home, and while his contemporaries had posters of celebrities and musicians on their walls growing up; Wretch had Winston Silcott - one of the men wrongly convicted of the murder of PC Blakelock in the Broadwater Farm Riots in 1985.
An obsession with music quickly became embedded alongside the radical worldview, and seeing his father DJ at a christening gave a young Jermaine the chance to witness the magnetism of music firsthand. Exposure to early Garnett Silk records would flick a switch in his head, as he began to develop a real appreciation and understanding of the power of the words which accompanied the sounds and rhythms that he was drawn to. The soundscapes would invoke a feeling, but the lyrics would tell a story and present a chance to document history and deliver a message.
Baring the Scott family name, some might say that it was destiny that lead Wretch to become a griot, as opposed to just a rapper that would churn out a constant stream of electro pop leaning hits and not much else. These chicanes would come later, Wretch got his start like many of the first and second generation Grime MCs, honing this scared art through appearances at impromptu cyphers and by having his voice beamed across the capital by the makeshift aerials that were tucked away on top of tower blocks, that punched through the London skyline like the arms of concrete giants reaching into the atmosphere trying to pluck the sun out of the sky.
You get the feeling Wretch 32 has been here before. Not just in the room, but in the moment. Comfortable. Clocked in. Watching everything. He speaks slowly but never drags. His sentences feel considered. Not premeditated, but precise. Like he’s been sharpening them all his life.
If he weren’t a rapper? He’d be an aspiring one. “Handing out CDs, mixtapes, all of that.” It sounds like a joke, but it’s probably not. There’s still that grind in his voice. The same one that made him believe he was cold the first time someone he didn’t know drove past, windows down, playing his tape. He didn’t even clock it was Wretch in the passenger seat. But Wretch clocked everything.
Risks have defined Wretch’s career, and he’s always pushed for more whether thats becoming a published author, co founding a CBD company or more recently landing a top job at 0207 Def Jam as the creative director. Whatever his incredible exploits outside music are, Wretch still remains driven by actually being a creative and this continues to motivate him despite all the success he’s had. There’s a core belief that never left. “The first part of being a creative is having the belief that you are something. My something? I believe I’m one of the best writers.”
“So if you’re one of the best writers, then you have to have the best book, the best fire in the booth, the best verse, the best display. You have to prove it.”
Heat FM was the pirate radio station that Wretch frequented, the lyricism was wordy and lacked the incisiveness of his later works, but it was packed with promise that he’d soon realise. Although freestyles and throwaway 32 bar verses were the bread and butter of the MCs that fought for precious morsels of airtime on pirate radio, Wretch was also squirrelling away songs alongside the purpose built reloadable 32 bar verses. This would eventually culminate in his first body of work, Learn From My Mixtape, Wretch fondly recalls this shift in momentum after compiling this project: “I think each time I wrote and I got better, was on pirate radio, spitting, spitting, spitting, and then, like, people liked it. Actually, this was the time when I knew I was sick. Someone drove past me on my high road, playing my mixtape, and I didn't know them. Before that, only people I knew played my music.” The tape was well received amongst the Grime heads that voraciously consumed everything that popped up on their radars, but it would take five more years and six more releases for the rest of the nation to begin to realise what a master craftsman Wretch 32 truly is.
This was a period of growth for Wretch, one in which he developed as both an artist and a writer. The major label debut album Black And White, housed some of his bravest choices artistically, with songs like Traktor, Unorthodox and Don’t Go; proving that he really is a tempo specialist. The writing had evolved significantly, Wretch was no longer trying to fit hundreds of words in his verses, instead he was picking them more carefully, hoping to have a greater impact by saying less. For Wretch, proof isn’t bravado. It’s craft. Vulnerability. Control. With these new processes, trying his hand at singing seemed like a natural progression, but Wretch still considers it the biggest risk of his career to date: He points to ‘Six Words’ — the moment he sung a full song, no bars, no rap, just melody and emotion. It was a risk. But he needed people to see who he really is. It worked. Top 10, crowd singing it back at festivals, his kids walking out beside him. “A monumental, colossal, magical moment.” Even if they’ve forgotten it, YouTube hasn’t. “That helps,” he smirks.
But this isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about legacy. Wretch isn’t thinking about how his son sees him. He’s thinking about great-grandkids. “What kind of person are they going to think I was through my music? That’s what I’m conscious of now. I’m trying to leave gems for the ones that never get to meet me.”
Everything he does now is stitched with intention. Even when the subject drifts to fashion, there’s nuance. If he could steal anyone’s wardrobe, it would be Steve Harvey. Not the whole thing. Just the jackets. The long coats. Colours. “That rainbow wardrobe.”
He says it with a grin, but that sense of duality runs deep. Reflection and flair. Stillness and movement. One moment he’s unpacking the weight of soul music, the next he’s talking about click battles with his fingers. “Hundreds. Just keeps going. Don’t stop. See?”
He knows who he is now. Slower in the studio. Smarter with words. More deliberate. “There was a time when I never swore in my songs. Then a time when I always did. Now I’m trying to get back to the first time.”
“It’s about consciousness. Not just for my kids. But for the ones I’ll never get to meet. I want them to hear my music and know what kind of man I was.”
That doesn’t mean he’s over it. He’s still obsessed. Just now it’s Muay Thai clips on YouTube. Watching fights. Techniques. “I’m decent still,” he says, half-laughing, half-serious. The discipline. The energy. That’s his thing.
When he talks about writing, the words land like gospel. He only writes in the studio. Never preps. Doesn’t scribble in notebooks. Doesn’t carry bars in his head. It all happens live. “If I think of a line at home and actually write it down, that line must be cold.” Most of the time, it’s walking around the booth, working out the feel. No plan. Just presence.
He credits storytelling as his foundation. Even in school, he was the kid who got to recite poems if the class behaved. He remembers another kid writing about grief. The class went silent. “That day I realised that sometimes truth hits harder than imagination. That honesty can be colder than any clever rhyme.”
That ethos lives in the way he mentors, collaborates, supports. Wretch’s recent single Black and British is quintessential Wretch, a track designed to nourish and entertain in equal measure, a balance Wretch has been striking his entire career. On the new single with Simz he says the biggest impact didn’t come from writing verses. “I'm fortunate to spend a lot of time with Simz in the studio and just really like, being a brother. Like, the thing that people don't understand about like, having peers that you like, care for, love and respect is like, sometimes it's not about a verse, sometimes it's a conversation And I think just being able to be there for her in any capacity that she needed as an artist, I think is the reason why we got to make Black and British and it feeling how it feels and it being so special.”
“Music’s subjective. Once it’s out, it’s out of your hands. You’ve got to accept that. Every song gives you something different. Even number ones aren’t all equal.”
There’s a dinner party he imagines. Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Muhammad Ali. All visionaries. All voices. But he says he’d be the one bringing the jokes. Dry humour. Sarcasm. “I’m a comedian. People just don’t get it. I’m into that Ricky Gervais kind of thing. Is he joking? Is he not? Even he doesn’t know.”
He says his most prized possessions are his kids. Everything else is just something he could afford. And when asked about his superhero of choice, he doesn’t hesitate. Captain America. “Everyone else can fly. He can’t. But he’s still the leader. He’s cold.”
And that’s Wretch. Calm. Composed. Built different. Not flying over the top. Still the one they all look to. One step ahead. One word away from timeless.
