UK grime-punks Bob Vylan stand tall, casting a bold and unyielding light upon the world with their new album, Humble As The Sun. They’re one of punk’s most vital voices right now— with their rallying cry for empowerment, championing a sense of revolutionary self-love, and their ever-present foundation of nurturing and growing community. They inspire us to dream big, persevere through hardship, and channel our anger for positive change. The sentiment that we have to heal, be strong in ourselves first and then we can be strong together permeates the album. It also dissects toxic masculinity, discusses colonisation, police brutality, racism, wealth inequality, and exploitation in the music industry—as always, they say what needs to be said.

Gimmie caught up with Bobby Vylan, the band’s vocalist, guitarist, and producer, for a fascinating insight into the album and their creative process. The conversation delves deep into topics like spirituality and life-changing moments. Additionally, we learn about Bobby’s early beat-making experiences on Playstation’s Music 2000, his love for Shakespeare, their commitment to the DIY ethos, and his experience walking in this year’s London’s Fashion Week.

BOBBY VYLAN: Music is a creative outlet. I really don’t know what I would do without it, to be honest. It’s been a constant throughout my life as a way to express myself. A way for me to communicate how I feel about certain things. It’s important to me because it keeps me sane, to a certain degree; it keeps me here.

You’ve been making music for a long time, even before Bob Vylan, you were making music through Music 2000 on PlayStation. 

BV: Yeah. Exactly. I’ve been making music for a long time, in various different forms, various different degrees of seriousness, by which I took it. I was introduced to software, games, and stuff that allowed me to make music, get into creating beats and backing tracks, and then I got into writing lyrics. I started recording and getting into mixing, exploring the more technical aspects of creating music. It’s been an ongoing journey; it’s still ongoing in terms of learning the guitar, being able to play that more proficiently; and even my mixing ability, to be able to mix tracks and get them to a point where they’re ready for the public to hear.

I know that you completely love to explore things and lose yourself in them. What have you been losing yourself in lately? 

BV: To be honest, I’ve been losing myself in life a lot lately because there’s been so much going on. Things have presented themselves; they’ve come up, and I’ve thrown myself into it, which is good, but also tricky because I have to find time for myself. With this album coming out there’s so much to do on the business side of things. We have tours, festivals, TV appearances, and all kinds of things that have come up as the band gets bigger. On top of that, there’s been normal personal life change as well, which is quite beautiful, especially as it happens as the seasons change. 

Because I’ve been throwing myself into life, I haven’t been making a ton of music; I’ve been experiencing life. It’s important because it gives me something to write about later on. You can fall into a dangerous trap of not living life as an artist. You need to live life in order to have something to write about; I write about personal experience so much.

Yeah, it’s helpful for artists to realise that it’s all part of the process. 

BV: Exactly. 

Your new album, Humble as the Sun, still feels political like your previous work, but to me, it also feels like a spiritual album in a way.

BV: For sure. It’s political purely because my existence as a Black man is somewhat politicised in the country that I reside in and in so many countries that we travel to. Naturally, it’s because of that. Again, I’m writing about personal experience, so it’s bound to have a political aspect to it.

With this album, we definitely wanted it to feel more uplifting and empowering. A spirituality aspect is needed for that: to believe in yourself, to feel as though you hold some sense of power; recognising the power that you hold as an individual, and what we can do with that power as a collective. It’s definitely a lot more spiritual than the other albums, for sure.

This is because of the space that I was in when creating the album, both physically in terms of the studio space that I was afforded to use and mentally. I had worked so long and hard to get to a position where I could make music, and this could be my life. So it would have felt disingenuous to to only talk about hardship and not talk about overcoming that hardship. There is a lot of hardship that I overcame in order to be able to do what I’m doing and I want to address that. 

I get that, especially as a Blak Indigenous woman myself. When we make art, people often expect us to create from our trauma. Sometimes, obviously, that’s important for us to do for ourselves and our community. But I think it’s revolutionary and healing in another way to write about our joy as well.

BV: Absolutely! I completely agree. 

I understand that Humble As The Sun got started and inspired by meditation. What drew you to it? 

BV: The studio space—it was in the back of a residence. You had the main house that some people lived in, completely unconnected to the studio space, and then there’s a garden in the back. I’d find myself in that garden, meditating, watching nature, and enjoying the sun, seeing how the seasons would change in that space. The cat prowling around, looking for a mouse to eat, or the bird that would come and take some of my lunch and fly off back to its nest—it was quite eye-opening for me because I was very much lost in the city, in all of the hustle and bustle of it. Also, the hustle and bustle of being a touring musician, going to festivals every weekend and doing tours for two, three, four weeks at a time. That studio space really offered me a place to slow down.

Sometimes, I would go there and not even necessarily work on music or anything. I would just go there and sit and listen to music on the speakers that they had there, or I would watch videos on YouTube or a TV show. Other times, I would sit in the garden and peacefully take in everything that was happening around me in a very meditative state—no phone, no computer, just sitting and being and watching and trying to clear my mind as much as possible, not think about work, not think about personal life, not think about the traveling that I’ve got to go and do, the business side of things. I’d just try to clear my mind and be present in the moment. That heavily influenced the message in the album for sure.

I love how at the end of song ‘Hunger Games’ you talk about being present. The lyrics really resonated: Here, now / You are stronger than you think you are / You are love / You are not alone / You are going through hell, but keep going / Be proud, be open / Be loud, be hopeful / Be healthy, be happy / Be kind to yourself / Be decisive / Here, now / Do not live every day as if it is your last / Live every day as if it is your first / Full of wonder and excitement / As you wonder along, excited / Marvelling at the possibilities of all that stands before you / Here, now. That feels like the essence of being present; what does being in the present mean to you? 

BV: It’s a tricky thing because I find myself wandering with my thoughts, and I found that to be very helpful. I am not Eckhart Tolle, where it’s like, I’m here constantly, I’m present constantly, always in the now. That type of attitude would serve me if I wanted to be like a Yogi or some sort of guru, but it doesn’t serve me for the life that I live.

It’s finding a balance of being here in the now but also allowing my thoughts to wander because they allow me to play out different scenarios and see which is the better decision to make and which choice I should be making. If I do this, I’m not constantly present in the moment, but I find myself realising when I’m wandering into toxic thoughts, and I can be like, just take a minute, take a beat and be present right now and try not to worry about what may or may not come. Accept what is, and that doesn’t necessarily mean don’t look to change anything.

It’s not accepting it in a very passive way, but it’s accepting it in a way of doing what is within your power to do, in terms of the change that you can have in your own life and other people’s lives in the world in general.

Yeah, that’s a really important point. I did an interview with Dick Lucas from the Subhumans for my book and he was saying that, ‘If everything is taken away from you and you’re beaten black and blue, even if you’re at the point of death, you can still think for yourself. That is the bottom line, you have to keep your thoughts intact no matter what happens, from thoughts come everything else, words, expressions, ideas, creation—life itself.’ 

BV: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s something I try to remember as well as much as possible. It can be hard though. Life’s really difficult. 

It is. I’m so glad your new album is uplifting, in a way, countering and balancing all the crappy stuff out in the world.

BV: Yeah. You know, the record is made for myself. I need this music. I didn’t make it because I’m like, ‘Oh, the world needs this music.’ No. I need this music! I need this album. I’ve been enjoying the album for ages. I’ve been listening to it over and over again. Actually, now that it’s out, I’ve probably listened to it far less because I listened to it on repeat every day for months and months. I picked it apart and asked myself, ‘Do I want to say this? No, I want to say that.’ Then when I got to a point where I’m like, ‘Oh, this is done, it’s perfect,’ so it’s finished. And I listened to it and I enjoyed it; I was no longer critiquing it. Like, is it mixed right? Now it’s out there. I’m listening to it far less because I’m like, everybody else has it now so it’s not mine anymore.

I really love the song ‘Dream Big’! It’s very inspiring and puts a smile on my face every listen. By the time the song’s finished, you feel like you can go out and do anything. Where do you think your self-belief comes from? 

BV: It comes from a lot of different things in and around my environment. Some of it is definitely down to where I was growing up. But some of it, is nature. It’s just something that I have. My father tells me stories of when I was a child and I was very headstrong. I wasn’t necessarily rebellious without a cause. I just knew what I wanted to do and I knew what I didn’t want to do. That all plays into my self-belief.

I grew up in council housing. It wasn’t a terrible area by a long mile; there were areas in this country that are far worse. We didn’t have tons of money, but we didn’t go without. I definitely knew that if there are things that I wanted, I had to figure out a way to get them myself. My mum always did an amazing job at making sure that me and my siblings knew that.

Though we didn’t have everything that we wanted or needed necessarily, we always were exposed to other ways of living, certain things that other people in our environment weren’t necessarily exposed to. My mum really wanted to make sure that we didn’t fall into the trap of just accepting our place in society is here. I thank her a lot for that. That definitely helped in terms of my self-belief.

It’s funny, because when I would express certain things to her, she would be like, ‘I don’t think you can do that. I don’t know about that.’ But that’s her fear for her son, if he’s gonna commit himself to a life of artistry, he’s gonna be poor forever. That’s not fun because she was working so hard to get by and keep us afloat. She probably thought, ‘I don’t want that for him’.

My self-belief comes from a feeling that I don’t want what is given to me. I know what I want. I know what I want to do in this world. Jim Carey said: you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love. If you can fail doing the thing that you don’t want to do, that you have no interest in doing, but you’re doing it because you’re fearful of doing the thing that you do want to do or people have pushed you into this direction, I would rather fail at the thing that I want to do. I’ll give it a go because otherwise, god forbid, I’m one of these people that are like, I could have done this.

Yeah. I think as human beings, the things that are most important, obviously after having the basics to live, is love and connection. That’s the foundation of everything. 

BV: Yeah, absolutely. And, it can be hard to focus on that. Sometimes when you’re focusing on so many other things in the world, like trying to survive, trying to keep a roof over your head and everything else, it can be hard to maintain connections with friends or family. It’s important to try and make that time for people. 

It’s something that I’m getting slowly better at.Taking a little time away, focusing on myself and my loved ones around me. The things that you value the most as a creative is the time that i have to create. I also value the time that I have to experience things like what we were talking about earlier, living. I value having conversations with friends, family and people in my community. Learning things. I value being able to have the time to think and feel. I value being able to put into words, all of the things that I’ve been experiencing. 

Do you remember the first time you realised that your words had power? 

BV: I don’t think it was a conscious realisation, but it definitely would have been when I was a child and I said something and I saw how it got me in trouble. Like, I saw what I said upset somebody. The realisation of, I know how to get under this person’s skin. I’ve got siblings, so that offers a perfect training ground, right? [laughs]. To figure that out, how powerful your words can be, that clicked probably when me and my siblings were arguing about something.

So you’ve always kind of been a bit cheeky?

BV: [Laughs] That’s usually the word that people would use to describe me. I always acted in good faith. I was very, very rarely acting out of malice and trying to actually hurt somebody who didn’t deserve it or upset somebody who hadn’t upset me, you know. I wasn’t a bully or anything like that.

Again, I knew what I wanted to do in this world. When people would present obstacles, whether that was a teacher in the school or a friend telling me that you can’t do this thing or do that thing, I would be sure to let people know that ‘No, I’m capable! You might not be able to do it because you don’t have that belief, but I could do it.’

I’ve always been this way too. I had an English teacher that told me I would never, ever, ever be a writer. Yet that’s been my career for the last 30 years since I was a 15 years old!

BV: Yeah, exactly. That’s it. People tell you those sorts of things for various reasons. Sometimes so they can upset you. That’s all their aim is, to upset you and discourage you. Other times, it’s to protect you, or they think they’re protecting you from a life of hardship or pain or upset. Then other times it’s just because they don’t believe in themselves, or it didn’t work out for them; they feel it won’t work out for you too. 

I always had this opinion of, I’m watching people on TV doing the thing that I want to do. So it worked out for them. That is somebody flesh and bone and blood doing it. If they can do it, then I can do it. Why would I concentrate on the people it didn’t work out for? I’m not watching them on TV. There’s absolutely no reason why I could’t.

That’s what you’re talking about on the album closer, ‘I’m Still Here’? 

BV: For sure. That song is the biggest testament to resilience on that album. It’s talking about how I grew up, where I grew up, what I was doing, and all of those things that I’ve gone through, and of my friend that is currently locked up. All of these things I’ve seen that I narrowly escaped, and those that I didn’t escape.

Of course, there is an element of being calculated, streetwise, and smart, avoiding certain things. But it’s also by luck, by chance, by the grace of God. Even when I was going through all of those things, I always had that in my mind of like, what I’m doing right now, how I’m living right now is not necessarily my forever. It doesn’t have to be my forever. This is not as good as it gets for me.

For a lot of people that I grew up with, they had it in their mind that, this is as good as it gets. This is as good as it gets for us. If we could be career criminals and not get caught or only do a handful of years in prison, life will be good. That wasn’t my thinking. That wasn’t my lot in life—I always thought there’s more for me. I don’t know where it is or what form it takes, but there’s more out there and I need to find it.

Have a moment with Bob Vylan where you felt like things really have changed and that they won’t be the same in your life anymore? 

BV: Absolutely. There’s certain things that they happen and it’s like, this is a turning point. For example, when We Live Here, the first album and single from that album started taking off, it was during lockdown. I didn’t realise at the time, I suppose, to what degree it would change things, but I knew something was changing. We’d put music out before and no one had really listened to it. And then I saw the audience find us. I was watching the YouTube views go up in real time. I was like, wow, we’d never gotten 10,000 people watch a video before. Then it’s like 15,000, then 20,000, then 30,000, and on. I saw at the top of a Reddit thread: listen to this! Then seeing it getting shared on like Facebook, and people with blue ticks following me and saying, Hey man, I heard this song it’s so cool!’ They were from other bands that I’m a fan of or they were actors or whatever. I thought, ‘This is cool.’ It was that moment where I could feel something’s changing, you know, but then there’s other moments that are not so, I suppose, they’re not so.

Sometimes those moments are not so joyous, though. You might go on tour, and you’re away for home long time, long periods of time and you come back and things have changed at home, maybe with friends or with family. I’ve got a daughter and I come home and she’s grown. I’m away for three to four weeks, in that time, she’s learned something new. She’s doing something new. She’s got this new thing that she’s saying. And I’m having to play catch up to her. Like, ‘Oh, what’s that? Where did you hear that? Where did you learn that?’ Even just seeing her, it’s like, ‘Did you grow?’ You realise things won’t be the same as they were when I was sat here and I was watching her do this stuff in real time. So some of those moments of change are joyous, and others are harder to come to terms with. You have got to be accepting of both.

Totally. I saw you walked in a show at London Fashion Week at the start of the year. That must have been pretty surreal, especially growing up in the world where you’ve come from.

BV: Yeah! It was for a brand I was familiar with, Saul Nash, I’d seen their clothes in the store and I really like them. Saul’s clothes are great, he’s got a great eye and he’s very innovative in terms of how he approaches sportswear. To get asked to do that was great, it was a lot of fun and an experience that I hadn’t had before. So, again, getting those opportunities is really cool. I met a friend there, we’ve worked in the future together. The person that was overseeing all of the hair on the Saul Nash show, then worked on my hair in the ‘Reign’ video. I love meeting people and forming connections and friendships. It’s really beautiful when you get those opportunities.

But it’s important not to get lost in those sorts of things, though, because they’re fun, but it’s not real life. I feel lucky, I feel very fortunate, that I’ve got people, the majority of my friends and my family are not in the industry at all in any sense, they work 9 to 5s. I get enjoy the opportunities when I’m in it, then I come out of it, and I get to just be how I am at home.

You mentioned the ‘Reign’ video, which I love. What was the inspiration for the visual elements in it? 

BV: There was a lot of things that me and Taz [Tron Delix ], the director, went back and forth about, we had a couple of meetings and talked about what we wanted to get across with it. 

For me, the African Moors that conquered Spain (and they were present in Malta – I’m part Maltese), so I wanted to present this visual representation of regalness and royalty that wasn’t stiff and stuffy like the English monarchy, but is more like the African monarchies. The Moors are extremely extreme. The most popular representation of a Moor in popular culture is Othello. Othello is a Moor—I love Othello. It’s probably my favourite Shakespeare play, though it is the saddest one. I took my dad to watch it not too long ago. Othello in that play is presented as someone extremely strong. He’s a leader, but then he has the potential to be corrupted, to be swindled. He’s a human after all. And so for that video, we wanted to create this idea of royalty but have it rooted in today. We also wanted it to feel relevant to what Bob Vylan is doing. 

You also have Jamaican heritage too? Does the culture influence your creative choices? 

BV: For sure. It influences the music a lot. ‘Ring the Alarm’ for example, on the album, is very, very much inspired by Jamaican culture and reggae and dancehall music. Even some of the drums are played on the album. They’re jungle drum breaks, the way that they’re played coming from this mix of Jamaican people bringing reggae music over to the UK and then mixing it with electronic music that was happening here in the UK; those fast drum breaks with reggae samples thrown in there. It definitely influences a lot of the music in terms of the sonics and the production.

Visually, I suppose, maybe I’m even less conscious of how that culture is pulled on. Except for ‘Wicked & Bad’ for example, where we shot the video in Jamaica. I really wanted to do that. The way that I wear things, the things that I decide to wear, my personal style that’s obviously influenced.

I grew up around a fairly big mixed Jamaican and white community. We pulled a lot of things from our parents, and then mixed them with things that were happening now in the UK and in England. Meshed the two things together to find our own or create our own identity.

How did it feel for you to go back to Jamaica, back to where your family are from? 

BV: It was great. It’s a beautiful place. It’s troubled, though, because of a lot of corruption that happens over there. It’s a shame that such a beautiful island has got such a violent past because of its colonial history—the British occupation of the land. There is a lot of sadness in seeing that because you realise what that place could be. It’s unfortunate that at the moment, at least, it’s not able to be that, but hopefully at some point, it’s able to be; it’s able to live up to its full potential. That it’s able to remove its connection to the British and become its own country.

We speak about independence and it is independent to a certain degree, but there’s still a heavy, heavy hand from the British in that country. I would like to see that removed completely and to see the country be everything that it can be. We see culturally what it exports; that is absolutely incredible. One of the biggest musical stars ever has come from this tiny island—Bob Marley is arguably one of the biggest musicians ever in history. Reggae music and the popularisation of weed, and Rasta culture, and the Rasta religion, it’s all from this tiny island. So what it’s done artistically and culturally for the world is absolutely incredible. But what it receives in return pales in comparison.

Yeah. There’s even that connection to punk rock with Bob’s ‘Punky Reggae Party’ and how Don Letts would play the reggae at The Roxy (the UK’s first live punk rock venue), and then you’d get bands like The Clash who were heavily influenced by reggae. 

BV: It’s influenced the world over.  Look at the origins of rap music. It all comes from DJing and MC culture, like the toasting culture of Jamaica. As I said earlier, you get jungle music, it comes from reggae culture. It’s been extremely influential culturally and artistically from really the beginning of time. 

Absolutely. One of the reasons I love Bob Vylan so much is that you mesh together so many different things to created this whole new thing. You’ve built on what’s come before and you’ve taken it in a new direction.

BV: That’s important to us, to not, not tread old ground. To constantly look for ways by which we can push things, and push them in new directions. We don’t want anything to sound like the punk of the 80s, that’s not what we’re trying to do. We want something new, something fresh. 

Last question, what’s something that’s made you really, really happy lately? 

BV: The sun and the sea. A couple of days ago, it was really nice weather here, and I sat by the sea, listened to the waves, and just relaxed after a busy week of playing shows and promo for the new album.

I got home and went and sat by the sea. I saw that people were enjoying themselves in the sun, and kids are running about and splashing in the water. There was something where I was like, yeah, it just feels complete in terms of, I’ve had such a busy week promoting this album, and I’ve gone through a roller coaster of emotions because I’d been sick just before we put the album out.

The day before the album came out, I’d been violently ill, I was throwing up. Then Friday we played shows and I was still ill, then I slowly got better. We’d put this album out and we’d been running around the country trying to play shows and do signings. Sitting at the beach, I kind of just took a moment and acknowledged everything that I’d done that week, and looked to start the new week fresh and at peace.

Follow @bobbyvylan & check out their music: https://bobvylan.bandcamp.com