Stormzy is back. Over two years after Britain’s most successful rapper ever all but vanished in a dramatic exit from public life, he returns with a new confidence and a new ambition.
At 29, the trailblazing star is poised to release his third album and is ready to settle down, emerging stronger from his years out of the spotlight.
It was in early 2020 that the platinum-selling star quit social media and stopped doing interviews.
In 2019 he had become the first Black solo British artist to headline Glastonbury, released chart-topping second album Heavy Is The Head, and been hailed by Time magazine as a “next generation leader, a trailblazer shaping the world”.
All this after launching the Stormzy Scholarship funding Black students at Cambridge University, which recently announced 30 more bursaries.
But as his long-term relationship with DJ Maya Jama broke down and haters besieged him online, the pressures of success began to overwhelm him.
In a no-holds-barred interview to be screened next week on BBC2, he tells Louis Theroux : “I just had this feeling of being overwhelmed, of thinking I can’t handle this. I’d often just crash out and get super depressed or super withdrawn and reclusive and just disappear. I’d just stay at home and smoke a lot of weed.”
Even his many awards and framed Time cover reduced him to tears. He says: “That’s a lot. I might have cried about that. There was a period afterwards when I was not in the best mind space and it was a bit overbearing.
“I was trying to figure out how to be the greatest artist. I was in a relationship, I am also a family man, a son, a provider, trying to lead in my community, and I was making an album.
“I felt overwhelmed, which was new to me. I would break down, it was super heavy.”
Leaving social media was a must after he was dragged down by critics online.
The star, whose third album This Is What I Mean is out next month, says: “If f***ing Tommy from Plymouth wakes up and says ‘Stormzy you’re a sh**’, that’s bearable. But it was becoming super destructive. I thought, ‘I can’t be coming on this place and consuming everyone else’s f***ing reality. I can’t hear my thoughts’.
“When I came off social media, I felt like I could hear God speak, I could hear myself, I had clarity.”
The last couple of years have clearly been transformative and the star, whose real name is Michael Omari, says he is now “100%” in a good place.
His split from 28-year-old Maya seems to have hit him hardest of all and he admits to having made mistakes in the relationship.
“My break-up was probably the biggest catalyst for growth as a man,” he says. “I didn’t do what a man should do to fully appreciate, love and care for his woman. I’ve learnt that if I don’t ever want to feel like that again, and if I believe that God will bless me with an amazing woman, and a family and marriage, I have to do all the necessary work to never be in that situation again.”
He is currently renovating a family home near his South London bachelor pad and says: “My idea of an amazing future is having my home and kids running around it and my missus being there. The big thing is the dinner table, everyone’s going to come round and eat together.
“My house is gonna be the Christmas house, with lights and a fake Santa and presents for all the kids. At Easter, we’re gonna do a big Easter egg hunt with all the kids. I’m just ready to be a grown man, I’ve been a kid for so long.”
Stormzy was raised with his brother and two sisters by Ghanaian single mum Abigail in Croydon, South London after his father left.
He says: “Me and my family are tight but we never sat down and had dinner together. You’re raised by the streets. It was rough.”
Stormzy worships regularly with his mum and sister, the DJ Rachael Anson, and holds weekly bible study groups. He has even found forgiveness for his dad, Michael Omari Sr, the subject of his rage-filled 2017 track Lay Me Bare. He says: “Leaving his kids was a massive mistake but I have the power to forgive.”
After this year’s 15-date nationwide tour he has a new confidence, continuing to back Black issues and “keeping it real” with his music.
He says: “My mission for my new album was to make the most beautiful album that makes people feel. It’s come from my soul. I am the artist I always wanted to be. I’ve made the music I’ve always wanted to make. I’ve never been prouder of anything in my life. It feels like I’ve arrived.”
Louis Theroux Interviews…Stormzy, Tuesday, BBC2, 9.15pm.
