Words by Declan Whelan January 16, 2020

Clash is a part of the culture and as a fan of UK Grime – or rap in general for that matter – you love to see it. When it’s between artists in the scene’s utmost echelon, as seen over the last two weeks with the Wiley-Stormzy feud, it really is something to savour.

After months of sending for Stormzy online to no avail, the twitter beef finally bubbled over, yielding five diss tracks in a matter of days. Now that the dust has settled, Stormzy has come out publicly with his take on the situation. Currently on a press run through the US to promote his recent album Heavy Is The Head, there was no way interviewers weren’t going to ask about the ongoing Wiley beef. And so it proved on Hot 97’s staple breakfast radio show ‘Ebro In The Morning’.

Throughout the clip, Stormzy touches on his respect for Wiley the artist, if not Wiley the man. “He started the whole genre. He’s literally like the figurehead, pioneer, sound creator.” He also said: “There was probably some good nature in his intention, however, for man, not even in an arrogant way but like, I’m busy. I’m kind of tunnel vision [looking] ahead. And then BOOM. You get [hit by] a bazooka, and it’s like, YO. But to be fair, it’s a big conversation because that’s the essence of grime. That’s what it is. It’s sending [for people].”

Stormzy then nods to the fact that despite commercial success, he’s an MC first and foremost and that he’s, “super happy to have done that and got the W. I won it… Before anything I’m an MC. I’m a barrer. I’m a rapper. I’m a spitter. And that’s where I’m most comfortable. So for me it was a bit ironic, and a bit of a private funny joke to myself, getting to this stage of my career and people are like, ‘Oh what’s he going to do?’ Like bruv, are you dumb? Tsk. Are you lot crazy?” Check it out in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1lfjdNVknw&t=592s

As one of the rap industry’s most experienced and trusted voices, Ebro makes the point that we’ll probably never know Wiley’s true intent behind sending for Stormzy. Maybe Eskiboy is the purist he makes out to be and just misses the clash. Maybe he was hoping for Jaykae and landed a bigger fish. Maybe he really thinks ‘Heatwave’ is less of a commercial track than Stormzy’s slow jams and Ed Sheeran collabs. Maybe all of this is doubling as album promo and deflection for the heavily delayed Godfather III. Whatever the case may be, at a time when most conversations around rap music in the UK are focused on drill, Wiley and Stormzy have got everyone talking about grime again.