Mickey Lightfoot on politics, the media and Needy Bruises
Ahead of the release of his new EP Needy Bruises, London artist Mickey Lightfoot talks to us about the "complexity of black experience"
“If you don’t fuck with politics, politics will fuck with you. Hard.” It feels only right to be talking to Mickey Lightfoot (real name Osei Amponsa) in the aftermath of the 2017 general election. The British-Ghanaian musician’s eclectic sound, which draws from the entire spectrum of diasporic black music, is implicitly politicised in its reflection of the multicultural landscape of 2017 Britain, and his native south-east London in particular. In an ongoing period of instability, with continuing xenophobic, class-based and racial tensions driven by debates surrounding Brexit, recent terrorist attacks and relentless Tory austerity measures, Amponsa’s nigh-unclassifiable music feels utterly necessary.
Amponsa is one of several black British artists whose output – musical and otherwise – explores what he describes as the “complexity of black experience” in the UK today. Alongside the likes of GAIKA, Young Fathers, Kojey Radical, Azekel and Dean Blunt, Amponsa creates music that eludes the one-dimensional, more ‘palatable’ image of male blackness represented in mainstream circles. When we ask him about the difference between his work and that of, for instance, recent chart-topping grime figures Skepta and Stormzy, he explains that “we need to start looking beyond what is presented back to us as an image of blackness.
"It’s a simplification. I’m not always a happy guy, I’m not always a sad guy. I go through many emotions everyday. Black experience as a whole needs to be communicated in all of its nuances, as it’s a complex multiple experience.” Amponsa stresses he doesn't have a problem with grime, and its influences can be found in his own music. Rather, he suggests that with one musical representation of British black men – the hyper-masculine grime/road rap stereotype – dominating the charts and becoming ‘normalised’ in the public eye, it makes it easier for those in control to compartmentalise (and therefore oppress) black British youth.
Needy Bruises, the new EP from Amponsa's Mickey Lightfoot (out on Waylynn Wolfe), continues his musical dissolution of this singular representation. While Amponsa is clear about not being overtly political in his lyrics, the diverse sonic influences throughout the record (executive-produced by Grammy Award winner Om'mas Keith) illuminate the multiplicity of black experience. Its tracks feature beats that evoke genres as distinct as dancehall, electronica and Afrobeat, with vocals drawing on R‘n’B, road rap, hip-hop and soul.
On opener PSBS, Amponsa’s West-Indian patois melds with a trip-hop beat and watery backing vocals, finding the connections between separate forms of post-diasporic musical expression. The more minimal Tasting features abstract production, soulful vocals and an anthemic, almost blues-esque chorus matched with muddied guitar samples, while the synth-scape of Sea and Sand is topped with old-school rap lyrics about living solo.
The many sounds never feel forced together or wilfully experimental – instead they fuse naturally, creating stunningly addictive songs that are simultaneously excitingly new and comfortingly recognisable. These sounds, which he describes as an “ongoing dialogue” with the British media’s portrayal of the previously-mentioned ‘normalised’ idea of blackness, define the post-colonial black experience more fluidly and expressively.
The few explicit moments of political lyricism cuttingly engage with the inequalities and prejudices at play in contemporary British society. On the tracks Bus It and Bus It Outro, perhaps the EP’s most melodic moments, Amponsa sings about the restrictions of a ‘fucked’ system. On the former, over a garage-like beat and heavily distorted guitar, he simultaneously dismisses the notion of difference (‘I’m just a man before any colour’) while acknowledging the ways that the media looks to perpetuate it (‘But I don’t blame you when the papers lead you’). The blurring of the boundaries and limitations of genre is reflective of the deconstruction of these binaries that separate us – in terms of race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality and religion – everyday.
On the latter song, a brief soundscape of blurry minor piano, bird samples and reverb-laden vocals, he laments the ‘ignorant’ and ‘macho’ mindset promoted by the British tabloids and broadsheets: ‘We see in black and white / We believe, no questions […] / For the media truths, we seal up our tongues’. Indeed, when asked about the role of these (largely) right-wing media outlets, Amponsa celebrated their apparent demise in light of the recent election: “The papers’ power was shown to have weakened. They were very pro-Conservative, but Theresa May ignored the growth of social media. She had no connection with the online world, and underestimated the level of the young voters’ political awakening,” he says.
The overt critique of these media on Bus It and Bus It Outro comes across as a reminder of their propaganda for young listeners, with these papers creating divisions with the goal of retaining power for the few. He is cautious when we suggest that this might indicate that social media is empowering young people, however. “Social media can become an echo chamber, and it is easy to become radicalised when we tweet or post something and a lot of people respond in agreement. Look at the difference between 1980s protests and online protests – they just aren’t as effective.” The implication is that posting political messages online just isn't enough – people have to be actively engaged to enact real change.
Amponsa notes that he was “lucky” to have come from a politicised household, with his father bringing him up to follow politics closely. He explains that “young people think that politics is this separate thing – it is everything. Popular culture is an escape, and the danger comes when we spend all of our time in the phone or lost in celebrity stories; we stop feeding our brains and become vacant.”
His social media activity seems largely aimed at getting young black people invested in political activism, encouraging them to vote and drawing attention to the problems of heavily racist and classist austerity measures. He has promoted his latest loose track, Trey(esa) Don’t Care, through these platforms. It's biting in its assault on the Conservative government, and feels desperately pertinent in the wake of May’s disturbing lack of empathy after the Grenfell Tower fire: ‘They got everybody fighting for a piece of this British dream / They bomb the whole world then they’ll tell you they ain’t extreme […] / It’s like everyday, everyday, more cuts more stabbings yet they act like it don’t happen’. While he may not be as quick to dub Jeremy Corbyn the alternative Messiah as others have been, recognising that he would face difficulties if in power, Amponsa is very clear that “the other [Conservative] option is so ridiculous that I can’t put my name or ethics in line with it.”
At the core of Mickey Lightfoot’s music, then, is the search for new ways of communicating and representing blackness in a country that continues to create divisions and repress people-of-colour. Tracks such as 600K – a preview single for Needy Bruises released earlier this year – search for new escape routes from an unfair system. On the surface, opening line ‘I'm trying to raise capital to get out of capital’ suggests an ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ mentality, but it feels equally like a revolutionary statement, a reminder to disenfranchised young black voters that they are just as important to the system as those that seek to marginalise and silence them.
Mickey Lightfoot's uncategorisable sound, which eludes restrictive genre labels and distorts ‘normal’ musical representations of male blackness, allows him and other independent black musicians to erode the limits of what has been presented as black British culture in mainstream media to date. He ends our conversation by reiterating his refusal to be constrained, keeping his future actions as spontaneous as possible: “Keep an eye on what I’m doing. I might release something tomorrow, or I might release something in a month.” Whatever Amponsa’s next project is after Needy Bruises, rest assured that it will be impossible to define in conventional terms.
Needy Bruises is released on 18 Aug via Waylynn Wolfe
Mickey Lightfoot plays Rye Wax, Peckham, London, 17 Aug