Never has the distance from the FA Cup second round to Wembley been so close.
This evening (Saturday), Matt Robinson will lead Dagenham and Redbridge into battle against Gillingham determined to take a scalp. On Wednesday, he will be at the arena next to the home of football hoping to win the Mobo award for best grime act.
Footballer by day, rapper by night, the 28-year-old known in the music industry as Kamakaze admits there are moments where it is difficult to balance the two. But as the east London club eyes a Football League return and his secondary career lifts off, for Robinson this is merely reward for years of hard work.
“These are things I’ve worked for intentionally,” he says. “Especially my football career, I’ve been working for it my whole life. With music, since I was about 14 or 15 seriously.
“Now I’m reaping the benefits, seeing the flowers come to bloom. It’s humbling, a position of honour to be up for a MOBO but with football it’s been my job for 10 years. It’s just nice to be in good form.”
At the heart of Kamakaze’s music is a self-awareness that is admirable but does not always make for comfortable listening because there is a need, as he stresses throughout our conversation, to “be real.”
Growing up in Leicester, far from grime’s east London heartland, Robinson started rhyming with friends in a park to beats downloaded from Limewire.
“The first thing to acknowledge is a lot of it came from my dad’s taste in music,” he says. “He listens to a wide spectrum of quote unquote black music - he listens to soul, reggae, blues and then when I was growing up rap.
“The influence of grime was just that it was British. In my early teens, or not even a teenager, Dizzee Rascal was bursting on the scene and Kano was getting signed. Those were the early records that I had that became the influence there.”
But if a lot of grime’s forefathers were focused on the realities of street life, Kamakaze needed to find his own niche to stand out. Again, it would not “be real” for a teenager who spent most of his time on a football pitch to rap about something that did not affect him. Even now he doesn’t even touch a drop of alcohol.
“The difference was my life wasn’t that,” he adds. “I had to describe my life to stay true to myself. I was always on a football pitch, if not with my friends. It was about reflecting who I was. I’m not the mould for a rapper, really. I wasn’t involved in crime so that wasn’t something I had to speak about, respectfully.
“It became a release because football became a job at a young age and there was a lot of pressure, it was stressful. It was a way to release the tension, I guess. Some people play golf, smash a ball down the driving range. That’s what they do to release tension, mine was a little more expressive and personal to who I am.
“The topics have changed over the years. I find myself talking about fatherhood, relationship singular because I’ve only really been in one with my fiancee. And just growing up and growing as a person. That’s the subject matter at the moment.”
As his prominence in the rap game grows, opponents on the pitch are becoming increasingly inclined to have a go at winding him up.
One team blasted his music from their dressing room before and after a recent game, which Dagenham lost, while an unnamed midfielder unsuccessfully tried to wind Robinson up by criticising his rhyming ability during a game only to approach him at full time and say he was actually a big fan.
“If you put yourself in a public domain, people can use it to poke fun at you or try to rile you up or twist your arm the wrong way. I’ve never been uncomfortable or shy. I wouldn’t be a rapper if I was. So for someone to say something to me …”
He shrugs as if it is water off a duck’s back.
But it must be difficult to compartmentalise the different aspects of his life? As a footballer open to taunts from the terraces, does inviting attention not risk putting him off his game?
Especially because the themes Kamakaze deals with are often so personal - not least a future release about his best friend being diagnosed with terminal cancer and a writing process in which Robinson broke down several time.
“It’s me being real,” he says. “I run stuff past my fiancee, ‘If you don’t want me to talk about this, I won’t’ because at the end of the day me as an artist is other people’s experiences too.
“There’s a song I’m working on for the album that is about my best friend having terminal cancer. I asked him if he’d mind me doing it. It’s my experience but he might not want that out there or he’ll feel a certain way about it.
“He said ‘Bro, I’ve always loved your music.’ But I think it might have been hard for him. It was hard for me to write, hard for me to rap. I broke down numerous times recording it.
“So it’s about being respectful of the people around you as much as the experiences as you get older and things become serious with relationships. How much you divulge isn’t always your say because it’s other people’s business. You as an artist take a conscious decision to be relatable and try to help people through your music. That’s not always your choice.”
On the pitch he and Dagenham have hit a purple patch. After a sticky start to the season, with injuries to key players affecting the balance of Daryl McMahon’s squad, they have lost just one of their past 10 in all competitions.
Gillingham, second from bottom in League Two, will not be feared. “We won’t approach it any differently to another game,” Robinson adds. Having been part of the Luton squad that shocked top-flight Norwich City in the 2013 fourth-round, the first time a non-League team had beaten a Premier League side, it would nowhere be the most seismic shock of his Cup career.
