SNS meets Central Cee

A talented lyricist and self-marketing mastermind, Central Cee’s come up in the music industry - both in the UK and internationally - was an inevitability waiting to happen. Starting to write and record music from the age of 13, and wasting no time to upload his tracks onto the internet for others to discover, Cench approached his career with serious care, planning and hard work. Successes from his debut mixtape Wild West and the most recently released album 23 have pinned him on the music map as London’s hottest drill artist right now, although Cench himself doesn’t like being pigeonholed into that one category.

For the West London artist, recording sessions in the studio are never just fun and games. Purpose constantly drives him. SNS London caught up with Central Cee in the studio last week to chat to him about his creative and strategic process when it comes to making music, and how he works best in the studio environment. We also captured a live recording session with him which will drop in the coming weeks.

Check out the interview and BTS images of the session below.

SNS : Hey Central Cee. Thanks for letting us join you in the studio. What’s your favourite type of studio environment?​

CC : I’m yet to find that out still. That’s why I know I’m still in a progressive stage because I don’t go to the studio enough to find my preferred environment.

SNS : So where do you record?

CC : Anywhere. I’ve never been to the same studio more than once. I go everywhere. I haven’t really found a base yet.

SNS : Do you want that base?​

CC : Yeah I do but I’m not in a rush to find it because I know the music will improve a lot when I find that. People are happy with the music that I’m making at the moment so I don’t feel the need to improve that much. I’m just taking my time with it. I’m chilling.

SNS : So it sounds like you don’t have a set in stone process in the studio then?

CC : All I know right now is that for me, the whole studio isn’t for a vibe only. I go to the studio to record what I need to do. I work and I leave. I don’t want to drink alcohol or smoke wild, talk to anybody, or bring girls to the studio. I’m yet to do any of that funky stuff. I just go, put the beat on, rap and I leave.

SNS : Who do you need with you in the studio? Specialists, engineers, sound recorders?

CC : I’m yet to find that. I’ve never worked with an engineer more than once either. I don’t have my own engineer… I swear I’m not even a professional rapper.

SNS : So how do you record your songs?

CC : It would have been different for each one. But I’ll tell you, for example, the mixtape 23 I went to one studio for two weeks. I didn’t leave the entire time. We slept in the studio every day for two weeks and I recorded the whole mixtape there and then. I left that studio in August. I dropped the tape in February this year. But since August when I made the mixtape I haven’t been to the studio since then.

SNS : Do you think you need those things?

CC : I don’t really need it because it’s working, innit. It’s like, don’t fix what’s not broken. That’s the mindset I’m in. When I start realising that people are slowly getting bored of my thing then I might go and step it up. I’m giving myself space to grow.

SNS : When you go to the studio and you’re about to make a song, what exactly do you do before? Does a producer make it in the studio with you?​

CC : Yeah sometimes. I like that way. I like when they’re just making the beat around me, bare melodies until you get the right one. That’s basically how I write.

SNS : What advice would you give to someone who wanted to get into the studio or wanted to record a tune, or even wanted to get into music?​

CC : Maybe a piece of advice would be to go buy the RØDE microphone, it’s like £119 or something. Go get a laptop from anywhere, download Logic, rip it off the internet for free. Go buy the Scarlet interface which you could probably get for £60. Then go and record yourself. That’s the most cost efficient and creatively free way to record, still. That’s what I’d say.

SNS : And how would you advise someone working on their first or next project, let’s say, what would you say in terms of planning that out from the start?

CC : It would be bespoke to everybody’s thing. I couldn’t give every person the same piece of advice. It’s not general. I can’t generalise it. It sounds a bit cliche but my thing is live yours. It’s specific. You have to do your own thing. Everyone’s got a different sound. A different thing going on. That’s what’s inspiring innit, and that’s the beautiful thing in music, because all sounds and all songs inspire me and probably inspire others in their own ways.

SNS : How do you know when a song is finished? Or a song is 3 verses instead of 2?

CC : You just feel it. There’s some stuff that’s strategic and then there’s some stuff that’s entirely based on feeling. Them lot that know music will know. You can feel it when it’s a banger, you can feel it when it’s finished. More time anyway, when you get in the groove of things. It didn’t always feel like that for man. For time it was like I was floating but now that I know what I’m doing, I know the formula. It’s just a feeling now innit.

SNS : That’s why you’re so relatable, because you explain yourself so well in your music. How many songs do you have now that you’re not going to release?

CC : I don’t have much unreleased music init. Everything I make, I release. I don’t have much music, I don’t go to the studio a lot. I’ve been making music for a long time innit, for over 10 years now. Man’s had that phase of creating music for fun. Now I’m going to get the job done, do the song, like the song. And if I’m writing, I’m not really practising no more. If I’m writing and it feels like I’m not going to release this, then I’m not going to carry on.

SNS : That’s really interesting.

CC : I think it’s good when artists aren’t too eager to release at the same time though. Sometimes that’s a bad thing. The first song I recorded, I dropped it, 14 years old. I didn’t give a fuck, it was shit. Even for time after that, I’m just recording shit music and dropping it because I didn’t have that quality control.

SNS : Do you ever think about TikTok whilst you’re making a song?

CC : I think about some of those things yeah, that’s what I was saying to my bredren the other day that’s making music as well. It’s all cool making music, and it’s subjective innit, but for me, sometimes I got to have an incentive to make a song. I can’t just go to the studio and vibe, vibe, vibe. I kind of do think about what would work for TikTok. People say “don’t make a song for radio,” but for me I actually kind of need to think in my head about that. Or when I wrote my Daily Duppy, I know I’m writing my Daily Duppy. If I’m putting an Insta video up, I’m writing for my Insta video.

SNS : It’s cool how you’re saying you’re not just going to the studio to create a vibe, which a lot of artists are seemingly doing these days. You’re a testament to feeling the opposite of that. You have intent every time you go to the studio.

CC : I personally don’t think I’ve missed out. I like all the music that I’ve put out. I like it. It’s all consistent. They’re all good. If you think one song is good, you’ll think they’re all good. If you think I’m shit, you think I’m shit, it’s cool init.

Say I had an album and I was picking out of 60 or 70 songs like some other artists, I think it’s easier to miss that way. But that’s just me innit.

SNS : Thanks Central Cee.

Photos: Bryan Aseya Words: Nova / Marianna Mukhametzyanova