LargeUp Interview: Five Steez Talks Jamaican Rap

Words by Nico Simino, Photos by Alique Archer—

Hailing from Kingston, 25-year-old Peter Wright, better known as Five Steez, has quickly made a name for himself as one of few true hip-hop acts in Jamaica. Armed with beats that recall the classic sounds of hip-hop’s early ’90s Golden Era, with lyrical skills to match, Five Steez is a fresh, welcome addition to the underground rap scene. We recently spoke with the MC, who’s just released his debut LP, War for Peace (hear and sample it here), about where he comes from, the inspirations for his music, and what his future plans are.

LargeUp: Tell us about your background…

Five Steez: I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica all of my life—born here, raised here. [I] came in contact with hip-hop at a very young age. I had older brothers, and they listened to a lot of hip-hop music, from Run DMC to Public Enemy to EPMD. All of that type of stuff from the late 80s I was exposed to from the early 90s, when I was just five years old. I pretty much lived a typical life as a Kingston youth, coming from what you might call an uptown area. I live in a place called Havendale, so definitely a middle-class background, but still kind of working class, ’cause through education my family has been able to make something out of themselves.

I went to a high school called St. Georges College. In Jamaica, we have a lot of ties to our high schools, and that’s where I learned a lot of different things. That’s where I started rapping, and meeting a wide cross section of Jamaicans, made other friends that I used to rap with. We started doing mixtapes, selling them to our friends, doing shows here and there, and from that it just led to getting more serious about the music.

LU: How old where you when you got serious about hip-hop?

FS: I’ve been recording since I was about 13, and I was putting stuff on the computer and Internet message boards when I was 15. Me and my friends had a group called the BP Army, and we started doing shows after a while. It was about three years ago that I really got serious about music. I was working at a corporate job, and I was still recording and planning performances, but being that it was a 9 to 5, I never really had the energy or focus. After that time, I really started making some moves trying to get my name out.

LU: Where were you working?

FS: I was working at this company called Corporate Research and Advertising, which was a PR company, for about 19 months, fresh out of college. I went to the University of the West Indies and studied media and communications.

LU: Tell me a little about your music…

FS: So I’m a genuine hip-hop head, and I came up exposed to hip-hop at it’s best, at a very young age, from the early 90’s on. Even though I was just a child, I could see certain details of what they were talking about. From when I was like nine, I started listening to the Wu-Tang Clan and Rakim. That was the music I gravitated to from that age, so that’s definitely what drove me into the music.

LU: What other types of music do you listen to and enjoy?

FS: Growing up [in Jamaica], naturally you listen to dancehall and reggae. At a young age I was listening to Bounty [Killer], Beenie [Man]—whatever was popular with reggae, I was listening to at the same time. But the older I got, I just started listening to hip-hop more because it was appealing to me in a certain way that dancehall wasn’t. I was hearing a lot of lyricism, diverse perspectives, different stories, different themes. I never thought about writing lyrics until I got more into hip-hop, and I found a way that I could express myself and be comfortable. I didn’t really have to fit into the boxes I saw within reggae or dancehall.

LU: Name some of your influences…

FS: I’ve definitely been influenced by other local rappers, but not really any names that you’d recognize or even the Jamaican public would recognize. There is a rapper that everyone [in Jamaica] knows named Beast because Beast was being played almost every Saturday on Fame FM. A lot of people that grew up in the 90’s would hear this guy on the radio… There are not many other Jamaican rappers out there that are known. Even he himself never really took it much further than that. His claim to fame is that he always got played on Fame FM early on Saturdays. In terms of local rappers that have influenced me, it’s more about my peers. There is a guy named Inztinkz, he produced “Slaving on the Plantation” as well as some other songs on my album and he’s been rapping and making beats from a long time ago.

LU: Has dancehall had any influence in your music?

FS: To some extent, I think… it’s something I’ve thought a lot about, even among us local rappers, there is something about the way we flow and the way we approach a beat, even though it might not sound like dancehall. We try to ride the beat a little more than the average American rapper, that’s one thing, I think. It’s very subtle but it’s something that I’ve pick[ed] up, as a difference between Jamaican rappers and rappers anywhere else. There is also the slang and certain perspectives from our own culture, that are reflected in the music. While it might not seem like dancehall, if you look under it, there is a Jamaican sound and culture that we are trying to bring to the music. It doesn’t really sound like Bounty or Beenie, and we do get criticized for that, but at the same time it’s because we don’t necessarily identify with it, as much as others might and we might not necessarily feel comfortable expressing ourselves like that.

LU: Have American artists had a bigger influence on you, or Jamaican artists?

FS: Well, considering the genre that I’m doing, it’s American artists that have had a bigger influence on my artistic direction, but not necessarily my cultural orientation.

LU: Is there a certain message that you are trying to spread through your music?

FS: I’m always trying to tell a story or bring across something. I can only speak on this album in particular, War for Peace, and I think I would say that the message is try to get knowledge of self, because with knowledge of self and self determination, you can do anything you want. That’s kind of the message of the album, and what I’m trying to show people. Overall, I’m just trying to spread good knowledge, good vibes, bring dope art to the table, bring good lyricism, good beats, and a perspective that people have never heard. The hip-hop community has never really heard what it’s like to be in Kingston, aside from reggae artists and dancehall artists. I feel there are certain parts of the picture that they’re not really painting, and I feel like, with our artform, we can really bring that out.

LU: Are there any specific Jamaican-based artists that have had a big impact on you, across all genres?

FS: One of my favorite local artists right now is Jr. Gong, I think that most people my age would agree. Even before I signed on to this call, I was talking to someone online saying “Gong is probably the dancehall artist of our generation.” You can’t put him into one box—he does both dancehall and reggae, and he can even rap. He used to be a rapper before anyone knew of him. A lot of people don’t know that. He’s really taken dancehall to the point where he can make full dancehall songs and make a dancehall album. A lot of artists aren’t really taking it to that level, and I mean there’s some like him, I mean you have people like Aidonia and to some extent a Vybz Kartel. All of these people are people you grow up listening to, and influenced me a certain way, but isn’t always reflected in the most obvious ways.

LU: When I listen to your music, I notice that there isn’t a lot of patois. Was that a conscious decision, or when you rap does it just come out naturally like that?

FS: People criticize us, especially people in the local community, and say “oh, but it doesn’t sound Jamaican.” But what I found is, if I’m making a form of music that is expected to have a certain sound, and the audience I’m going for doesn’t always understand the way we speak, I can’t really express myself in a way that’s going to force me to compromise my message, and do something that won’t allow me to reach my audience. On the album there is a song called “Blazing,” where it’s a reggae-influenced beat, and basically I’m going from patois to English. That was definitely a deliberate attempt to show people, hey, we can do this as well and [get] people who listen to reggae and dancehall to listen to hip-hop without even realizing they’re listening to a hip hop song.

Generally, I find it easier to rap in English than in patois— it’s challenging to rap in patois without it sounding like a dancehall artist. I feel like we are getting there. We have the best of both worlds because we can flip the patois and make it sound original and then we can come with the Yankee slang, the slang you guys use where a guy in New york, like you, would be like “hey he sounds just like us.” As long as we do both of them the right way, it can work.

LU: What about Kingston is pivotal towards your inspiration, that you can’t find anywhere else?

FS: I think Jamaica is a very special place in the world. I feel like what everyone says, it’s the heart of the world, everyone wants to be here and live here just because of what they’ve heard or what they’ve seen. And it really is a paradise. But because of what they heard or what they’ve seen about Kingston is that it’s not only a paradise but also a slum, and there is so much stuff going on from the level of blatant corruption in the government to the amount of police killings, to just corruption all over. Everyone is trying to find a way to survive no matter what. There is a lot to write about. This is the place that produced Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, and even helped produce the hip-hop culture itself by way of Kool Herc, so it’s only right for Kingston to have it’s voice in this medium. That’s all I really wanted to bring to the table, cause a lot of the rappers I listen to were from Queens and Brooklyn, and the stories they are talking about are not much different than in Kingston.

LU: Where do you see yourself a year from now?

FS: I would love to know that my album it is well received by the hip-hop community. That’s my aim. Doing hip-hop locally, there is not much love we are going to get here, unless it’s from the people who are genuinely into hip hop. It’s just people who are fronting and hate what you’re doing. I would love to travel more. I see bigger things in the future and I like that way it’s shaping up already.

LU: What are you doing right now to reach out more to the global hip hop community?

FS: I was in Canada last year, for the Manifesto Festival—it’s a big festival that happens in Toronto, and I’m actually a part of Manifesto Jamaica, which is the sibling organization. Afrika Bambaataa was at one event building with Che Kothari, the executive director of Manifesto, and he’s starting up a new chapter of Universal Zulu Nation, which I’m also going to be a part of. And this new chapter will have an initiative where we’ll have a global hip-hop festival union. We’ll have promoters and organizers from literally all over the world, coming together to share information and resources and basically discuss how we can have different artists performing at different places, and have a big, global hip-hop event.