A natter with Ghily
Disclaimer, this interview was far far too long to be transcribed in full. So to spare you, we’ve just put the first quarter of it. You’re welcome :)
Justin: Ghillwise… why do you live in London?
Ghily: hahaha…. “We all hate you, go away.” Why do I live in london… I live in London because I studied a music degree and my parents decided to leave the country and I was left thinking what I should do? And my decision was to move to the most expensive place in the UK. I drank a lot of coffee through uni obviously and got quite interested in it, and when I had a moment of oh…what am I going to do? I thought I would get a job in music in London and then to facilitate that I just got a job in a coffee shop to see me over.
‘I will definitely get a job in music at the age of 21,’ not naive at all. Then I started working at Tap Coffee, RIP and quickly within the first few days of training realized how much went into it. I still very much wanted to do music and then 6 months into that job someone left the roasting team and I was straight in there begging them to please let me join the team which was mad looking back, working on a 5kg roaster. There was a day where we did 75 batches in a day…we were only allowed to roast on one day! It was nuts, we were roasting just for us. So that was 3 shops. I would help out on a roasting day and then the following day we would cup but I would be on a barista shift, where we cupped was down stairs so I would make some coffees, run down stairs, hope that I could taste then get told off by the staff upstairs. It was very stressful. Then eventually we got an additional day to roast. I think once they opened a fourth site they realized they had to give us another day. It was still 30-40 batches a day but much more manageable and still pretty intense.
Justin: Talk to me about music, what do you play?
Ghily: What do I play? Well I am (I was) a drummer. I haven't drummed in a very long time. I learnt a bit of keys in my early years and then I kinda just stopped because I wanted to skateboard and chase girls and underage drink, in that order. I don't really play the drums anymore because it's really hard to play the drums in London and working full time. If you're a musician, you sing or play the guitar. But walking around with a full drum kit is really hard. When I started working full time I realised I wasn't going to get time to play which is why I started producing hip-hop.
Justin: I Love it, you're a hip hop mogul!
Ghily: Yeah man I guess sort of am. Lo-fi boom bap stuff but still very much glad everything worked out with coffee, very happy where I am, very happy with the people I've met in the industry. I’m looking at you, for those of you reading. I thought about it a lot over the years, and thought I would have loved to tour the world, but actually now I think I would have hated it and I'm glad the music is just for me.
Justin: One more question about music, what part of music gives you the most joy.
Ghily: Oh man… so hard to answer. We've all been through phases.
Justin: I'm still in one.
Ghily: It really depends on the day. I'm always going to have a real passion for jazz. I also like extremely heavy music, Hip-Hop obviously, and then just like funk, soul. I go through phases of being like, i'm going to listen to the temptations, and listen to the whispers and dance around the roastery. And then there are days I just want hard hitting Boom Bap, and then there are times when I want to listen to nails which is like listening to pure hell. It's quite positive.
