It's hard to talk about grime MCs without talking about where they're from. Since the early days of postcode wars, grime has always been inextricably linked with the idea of location and repping. Obviously, it started out the sound of Bow, and eventually became the sound of London. In recent years, it has surfaced in other parts of the country, like Birmingham, Glasgow, and even Blackpool, and that proud obsession with locale and region is still evident in the style and bars of new MCs. With a track on his new EP titled "It's A London Thing" – a fiery and bittersweet portrait of the city, littered with gunshots and arctic synths – it feels appropriate for Jammz to tour me round his ends.As we wander, he tells me how his cousin got him into spitting, and how he grew up with a radio for a best friend (a healthy diet of Kano, So Solid and "all the bait instrumentals"). As a teenager, he used to get grime bootlegs from the local Sunday market, and assures me that his "collection of old school grime tunes is deep. Ask anyone – if you want something, I've got it". But his musical heritage goes even deeper. His father was a professional jazz musician, playing anything from Fleetwood Mac to A Tribe Called Quest around the house. At a young age, Jammz would kill time at home by messing around on Akai drum machines, and use floppy disks to load up samples he could experiment with. The family computer, a black Compaq, would stay on for days as his dad used Kazaa to download reams of music software.Heard man say that I ain't on nuttin'
You was getting jumped, throwing grass in the bucket
I was in the studio, going HAM like fuck it
Tuesday I went there, bars by the dozen
Swear down, Friday I came out rugged
Don said he's working harder than I am
I had to tell my man: blud, don't mug it- "Warrior"
This month he released his brand new Warrior EP – five hard and candid grime tracks – and to say it is politically charged is to say a Dominos double cheese margherita pizza contains cheese. Grime is always inherently political, but there's something about the way Jammz overtly confronts issues that gives his sound a bulkier punch. "Right Now" (featuring Shemzy), for instance, is an angry attack on the existential malaise that has shrouded 2016, and left the British political sphere not knowing it's arse from its elbow. Theresa May even gets a lashing, because you're not the prime minister of Britain until you've been savaged in a grime bar. But one particularly poignant lyric has stuck with me since first hearing it: "It's ironic, if you wanna keep hold of your sanity / Then you've gotta be numb right now".Corporations move poor people out their homes
And they claim that they're fixing the ends
And apart from pushing up all the rent prices
These Starbucks ain't doing shit for the ends
And they must know that we ain't rich
But there's still bare William Hills in the ends
So fuck these Conservative leaders cause
Not one of them cares for the kids in the ends- "It's A London Thing"
Three days later, on a Monday night, I catch up with Jammz on the phone. I ask him to describe how it feels to perform like he did 3 nights earlier, but he struggles to put it accurately into words: "It's not easy to describe. Performing is just a different buzz. I always go into a zone, and go quiet. I don't know what I start thinking about in there, I just know everyone finds their thing in life and mine is performing."He sounds tired again during our chat, but with an air of the Duracell bunny about him. That's grime, only the fittest survive. The scene is about hard graft. It isn't a one hit industry, and we've seen what happens when major labels try to make it so. It's an elbow grease industry. It's a suffer and succeed industry. Even now, as it reaches global popularity, there is still little room for fakers or part-timers. The entire philosophy of grime relies on said artist believing they are better than and work harder than anyone else in the game. Jammz has all the tools at hand, but he remains, for now, something of an under-appreciated talent. One of those artists who could either explode into critical acclaim, or slip undeservingly into one of those "your favourite MC's favourite MC" categories.Throughout his lyrics, there are tiny slips of anxiety about this; little clues that he thinks more deeply about his career than most artists. "Everyone wants to progress," he says, and then pauses, "and there are certain things I don't ever want to do again… certain places or certain situations. These days, if I'm not moving forward, then I feel like something is wrong." We come to the end of our call, it's 9pm and I ask him what else he's doing tonight. He was working on his record label today, finished a photo shoot before our chat, now he's back into the studio to record a feature for another artist's track, then he's off to Phonox in Brixton, and then he'll be working on his own stuff. It's a matter of time until a wider audience locks into his vision, and something about him that tells me he won't stop until they do.You can follow Joe Zadeh on Twitter.Jammz headlines The Old Blue Last in London on Thursday (Dec 8) alongside Spooky, Big Zuu, Coco, Mic Ty, Tiatsim and Jack Dat. Get free entry here.(All photos by Ashley Verse)We see too much news and turn numb to the drama
And end up with lazy brains
And now we're scared to investigate
Prefer to live blind in the hope that it fades away
You can't blame no one for mentally living in a box
Like say their name's David Blaine
You can't ask kids why they don't expect shit
When the government lies at a daily rate
And we're working class around here
We don't fuck with Theresa May, so say something- "Right Now"