CAUSING A SCENE - CHAPTER ONE: THE COOL KID

Leicester’s rap linchpin Sainté has quickly gone from new kid on the block to the spokesman for his city and frontrunner of the country’s burgeoning alt movement. He invites me to his now-East London residence, reflecting on his odyssey up until this point, ready to take things up a notch or two.

As I step off the DLR in far East London, a curt February wind persecutes my features. I push the hair out of my face and walk down the steps and out into the mid-afternoon. My surroundings are a peculiar dichotomy; new-build apartment blocks look down on weary, lugubrious pavements, the only street-laden stragglers are the type you’d think best to avoid.    

After some navigational strife, my place of reckoning beckons: I’m in the living room of one of UK rap’s biggest breakout stars of the last five years. Sainté’s home is bare yet cluttered, seemingly only half decorated but homely nonetheless. US rap music videos play on loop via YouTube in the background on his television. Sainté carries an effervescent, almost child-like buoyancy to his manner. He puts the kettle on (before forgetting the fact he did so), sits on the chair a few feet away from me to the right of the sofa, and opens his body language as if physically welcoming my questioning. I find him obtaining a new-found focus, poised for the release of his debut mixtape, “Still Local”, the following month.

“I’m feeling good, bro, I’ll be real,” he grins. “I feel so excited – not that I've not been excited – but now it's close to the feeling of when I first started making music. I'm still trying to figure out why that is but, I don't know, I feel like it's just things working in themselves and time happening. You learn and consume a lot of information every day, you know?”

Born in Zimbabwe before migrating to England as a child, Sainté grew up in the East Midlands cultural hub of Leicester, a place that he invariably holds dear. “You gotta run with your city, not run away from your city,” he says. “It's just identity, bro. That place plays a key role in the type of person I am and I can't neglect that. There are so many important people and memories in Leicester; it's a place I can't ever, and don’t want to, disconnect from.”

In his youth Sainté found enjoyment and talent in basketball, with music an interest rather than an ambition (he would freestyle for “banter” with his boys on the bus home from games). COVID lockdown saw that change, though. At first “a thing of boredom” more than anything else, he began writing and then eventually releasing, without expectation. “I don’t know what to say when people ask how I found my sound. At that time, I wasn't necessarily calculating anything because I wasn't trying to be a musician.”  

He recalls, at first, flirting with “[Playboi] Carti-type beats” before the Midlands MC found his niche thanks to a shared sonic connection with American producer Parker Jazz, whom Sainté had reached out to on a whim. Sainté released his Jazz-produced debut EP “Local Mvp” in 2021’s incepting days, bereaved of the pretence of success; purely as a means of entertaining himself and his friends amid an otherwise derivative lockdown existence. “I remember explaining to [Jazz], like, ‘Look, I'm not trying to do anything, it’s just for fun, I wanted to use your beats and want to know if it’s cool for me to rap on it.’”

Before long though, the EP began gaining momentum as the streaming numbers rapidly increased; a mystery to Sainté at that point in time, who was unversed in the intricacies of music marketing. “It was meant to be—[drop the EP] and then I’m back to [basket]ball. [The EP] hit 10k, was stagnant for time and then after a while it started going [up to] 15, 20, 30, 50, 100, 200 [thousand streams]. We're kind of like, ‘What's going on?’ because it was never on a playlist. I didn't know about the playlist thing like that, I didn't know anything...” He shrugs, smiling, “I guess we snuck into them algorithms.”

The EP, somehow, was planted within the attention of the wider industry, and three years later “Local Mvp” goes down in UK alt-rap folklore. Amongst the most bountiful rapper-producer alliances in recent hip-hop memory, Jazz’s breezy, groove-laden and lavish West Coast-tinged palettes offer Sainté an endoscopic and almost ostentatious backdrop to peruse around. His mellow, extemporaneous flow is rich and distinctive, his flex-tinged yet organic bars oozing bravado. Brisk and somewhat bohemian, the EP put Sainté, and his city, on the map.

As his numbers surged and the rap scene started to heavily endorse him, Sainté was somewhat perplexed at being touted as the UK’s next rap trendsetter. “I was thinking the same thing that everyone else was thinking, ‘Who is this kid from Leicester?’” With popularity comes the pressure to grow in skill and sell-ability, but the unassuming yet assured Sainté wasn’t phased, instead earnest in his drive to improve, basking in his elevated situation. He quit his Nando’s job, made the move down to London, and began to experiment with his sound beyond the foundations that he’d built his early hype upon.

Sainté’s sophomore EP “Out The Blue” was released nine months after his debut, and sees him dive deeper into a divergence of oceans. “I was just excited to try to make music,” he says. “I was still finding stuff out. You can hear the experiments I was doing. I knew that I could make [music like “Local Mvp”] because I already did. I want to be a three-dimensional picture; it's like, ‘Okay you want that? Go there and get that.’”

“Out The Blue” is an impressive augmentation of its predecessor; an objectification of Sainté’s vision, an exemplar of his craftsmanship, and an eponymous ode to his hometown. Musically, it’s eclectic and striking, and yet confined within its own immersive, synth-heavy and hazy atmosphere. Lyrically, the project finds Sainté open, observant and opulent, constructing a characterful narrative trail as he grounds himself in topics more provoking and emotional than the modest hedonism of his debut. It’s also the rapper’s first foray into artist collaborations, enlisting a plethora of voices, including UK alt-rap forefathers Knucks and A2 on standout cut “Summer Is Blue”, to compliment his own matured style and to add detail to the EP’s tone.  

“‘Vacation’ came out the same year that I went on a plane for the first time [since] coming to the UK,” Sainté reminisces on the release of his third EP from October 2022. The project sees the rapper revelling in his successes; older, wiser, more experienced, merging the luxury of his debut and the experimentation of the sophomore into a more cultured and cultivated sound. “That one sounds closer to home [than “Out the Blue”], but still experimental because that was me making music for the first time in different places. From just making music in my bedroom, then going out of the country and seeing people actually listen to my stuff, realising the support system I have in places like France, Germany.”

Off the back of Sainté’s three EPs, particularly the debut, a new sub-sound within the UK underground has emerged, seemingly inspired by Sainté’s laidback energy, marauding flow and the West Coast influence of his beat selections. From the memorable bar on “Compare” – “Too many man wanna sound like Sainté” – the rapper surely agrees.

“You think so?!” he exclaims, the pitch of his voice rising several tones higher in surprise when I explain my thoughts on his influence. “It’s a cool thing to think that I have. I feel like I’ve probably seen inspirations in small ways [in the scene] but I’ve never thought of it like that. That is something I do want to do though, inspire people. I want to have an impact in a positive way on music.” He pauses, sniggering, as if he’s contemplating whether or not to say something further. He gives in to his instinct: “Someone sent me something yesterday—they literally have a song dropping which is called ‘Sainté’.”

We laugh and I tell him that the endearing occurrence is an illustration of his footprint and that he needs to give himself more credit. “People say that. I’m shy bro!” He blushes, unsure how to deal with the compliment. “Well, I’m shy when it comes to myself. With the new stuff, I’ll be closer to those thoughts. There’s a lot more to do, I gotta pull my socks up still. I always think, ‘I ain’t done nothing yet.’ It’s too early, no? But that’s something I leave in the hands of the people and the Lord.”

Sainté has never considered himself to be an essential cog of UK rap mechanics, but there is a long-established respect mirrored by the UK underground and the Leicester artist alike. He recognises its burgeoning momentum and rises in co-existence. “The scene grows every single day,” he observes. “It’s weird because I’ve not always been aware of it, I tap in and out naturally. But you can see how it’s inspiring stuff now that’s more mainstream. It’s definitely only the beginning, and it’s always great to see people get their flowers who deserve them. Good music travels beyond, I’m a solid believer of that.”

Which brings us to now—and “Still Local”. The new 14-pronged project feels like a full circle moment for Sainté, a homage to the core of his artistry and culture whilst being his most explorative and extravagant work to date. To reach this pinnacle in a career that is still in its tender youth, Sainté has meandered through life and musicianship, sometimes unbeknownst of their nuances, his natural charm and drive standing him in good enough stead to continue climbing the stairs of stardom’s skyscraper. “I think for me, it was finding myself a bit,” he offers. “I’m not lost, but you know…I guess it was finding myself enough to then push at the right time, and at a time where it feels right for me. I feel like now is the time to push; for myself, my friends, my family, my city, and all the people that are in my shoes or have been in my shoes at some point in their life.”

It’s too early to tell the impact of “Still Local”. On early analysis though, the tape is deft, cinematic and atmospheric, with a shrewd feature list (Essex rapper and MOBO winner Potter Payper proving the standout on the mixtape’s thoughtful closer). There’s a new-found accessibility to his approach, a commercial vitality and an emotional depth that was left unexplored on the previous EPs. Sainté sounds resilient in staying true to himself, impelled by a desire to be authentic, and is, perhaps most importantly, the self-effacing Leicesterite that he always has been.

“I’m dropping a mixtape—if I’m not trying to level up my artistry, what’s the point?” he questions. “No one wants to go on a journey and, at the end of it, think, ‘Why did I just do that? Where did I even go?’ [The mixtape] came from a lot of thought and TLC, because at the end of the day, if I’m explaining my journey to people, I need to make sure it’s understandable and consumable. I just wanted to make sure it was the right feeling to express myself. I just want to tell you, like, I’m still local.”

Yes, it may be one of the most toe-curling music journalism cliches, but Sainté is, in fact, in a lane of his own. He’s sculpted his own sound, ascended through the UK rap ranks, synergised with fashion (a Billionaire Boys Club capsule and frequent work with New Balance, for example), and now looks set to take his already US-friendly sonics to new global heights. He’s the paradigm of what an artist should be in the modern age: passionate about his craft, humane in his attitude, and indelible to who he is and where he has come from.

“Some people might think that the growth of Sainté was fast, which it kind of was,” he muses heartily when we meet up for a second time at his Causing A Scene shoot a week or so later. “But at the same time, it was long. I remember the time of having dramas, my parents would just want me to study. There was always something in my head thinking, ‘This is so not running in my household.’ To get my mum to actually see that I wasn't messing around, I had to firm a meeting with a label in front of her. She hears the offer and then she looks at me – I can see her in my peripheral vision – and I’m like, [mouths] ‘I told you so.’”

Photography by @cashmerre

Styling by @jamesloachco

Interview and words by @tibbitsben

Editorial Director @charlottejmorton

Editor-in-Chief @ellaxwest

Creative Director @jeffreythomson

Art Director @harry_conor

Assistant Art Director @beth1owri

Production Director @bencrankbencrank

Production Assistant Lola Randall

Grooming by @shamirah_makeupusing @diorbeauty, @glossier and @mariobadescu

Lighting Director @alejandromartinezcampos

Special thanks to @scotchofstjames