At the height of the pandemic, Cristale marched across the heart of London’s rap arena with punchy freestyle flows and emphatic rhymes—at odds with all the life experiences the Brixton-born MC had faced up to that point. “Dealing with everything has been mad,” she tells Apple Music on her whirlwind rise. “I’ve only just finished uni [studying fine art at the University of the Arts London]. Now people all over the world are dancing along to my voice, millions of streams here and there—my first festival last month, it’s been a lot to deal with.”
In 2022, as dancehall-infused single “Bong Bing” went viral, Cristale opted to turn the timeline of her story backwards for her debut project, What It’s Like to Be Young. “That track is more about my life now,” she says. “But this EP is the story of how I grew up, how I feel, and things people around me have experienced.” On seven eclectic rap cuts, Cristale’s fiery lyrics explore the depths of her lockdown frustration (“Morgan”), her coming-of-age journey (“13 Going on 30”), and private battles with anxiety and impostor syndrome, on the way to becoming Brixton’s latest local champion. “In my head, sometimes I'm like: ‘What if the audience doesn’t take me in? What if I'm not hot enough? What if it gets the best of me and I crumble onstage?’ But the minute I touch the stage? It’s all gone.” Below, Cristale talks us through her debut EP, track by track.
“Morgan”
“Through the first lockdown I bought my own equipment and stuff, like my mic, and I used my student loan to invest back into myself. And I was sitting on the floor in my room, feeling wronged. I chose to go to uni, and now there’s this lockdown, and no form of care for students as students, only as people that will grow up, make money, and pay tax. I was frustrated—so I laid it all out in this song.”
“Merryland”
“This track is symbolic of the mind, and having a happy place. That's why the music video [with a merry-go-round] represents being a kid. Because sometimes you revert to your original state, in your mind, to something very childlike—I wanted to represent that.”
“Militant”
“This track is about a lot of things. It’s about how I like to get things done, and how I'm very persistent to the point of annoyance. And it’s also about occupying male spaces, about fighting authority, which I do and did—especially in school. I was frustrated about a lot of different things [in school]: I didn't know how to communicate, because they would put children in anger management, but not teach them how to manage their anger. ‘Militant’ is about finding out why, and expressing that.”
“Damage”
“Growing up, you get to a certain point where people do things that you never thought that they would do. Like one day you’re in maths class with your bredren and the next, they’re selling drugs, or in a gang—but you still love them anyway. It’s about deciding whether you're going to move away from this person, or just continue to cause damage to yourself. It’s about changing your perspectives on what it means to be damaged, too.”
“Braids”
“Hair is a symbol for continuous growth. And 'Braids' is about growth as a whole; sometimes hair breaks, you might try and change it. Sometimes it could be a positive change, but other times not. It's all about figuring out where you're supposed to be in life.”
“Hold n $queeze”
“I'd say this track is about choice. And a lack of choice. Even when people say, ‘Yeah, you chose to be on the road, you chose to do this, you chose to do that,’ I agree with that, to a certain extent—but people are products of their environments, which is something they don’t necessarily choose.”
“13 Going on 30”
“This is pretty much on the nose. It's all about growing up. It's about your youth. And this song was written and recorded in my room on the day I found out one of my primary school friends was dead. He reminds me of my whole childhood, and that’s why I referenced him from the beginning when I said, ‘Rest in peace, TI’—that’s who I’m talking about.”