Interview: flowkidd – The Scottish Hip-Hop Scene, Understanding UGLY, Award Winning, and potential collabs

Following the No Stopping Scotland Awards, which celebrates musicians and music-led projects across Scotland and uses creativity and sound to inspire communities, amplify voices and a positive social impact, I linked with FlowKidd for an exclusive interview. Coming off the event where he won Best Artist, we spoke about his journey, creative process, and what fuels his momentum. The conversation reflected both the inspiration sparked by the awards and FlowKidd’s music going forward. 

How did it feel being recognised at the No Stopping Scotland Awards, winning Best Artist? 

Being my first professional award I have gotten, I feel recognised and accepted as an artist in the Scottish music industry. Great impact on my work ethic as it helps with my motivation. 

Do you feel the Scottish scene gets the recognition it deserves, or do you think there’s still a long way to go? 

With the talented artists coming out to express themselves more I feel that the Scottish rap scene has got huge potential, being an Afrobeat/Rap artist from Nigeria makes it harder for me but with more shows and opportunities it will get better! 

To piggyback off that, does having Nigerian roots and living in Scotland influence your sound or the way you approach making music? 

Yes, very much, I’m trying to make my music also relatable here. I develop my sound every day and work twice as hard to get recognition. In terms of show availability and pop outs. 

You dropped a project called UGLY back in December. Can you expand on what that title means and why it was important for you? 

UGLY means ‘Undeniable Greatness Lives in You’ . Even when you think it looks ugly, there is beauty within. It’s talking about the journey and sweat to achieve greatness. I thought about this during my days at high school. The project had a track titled Lagos to Malawi which did well. We had to shoot a music video which featured locations like Paisley, Pollok Park and Devil’s Pulpit. It will be live on YouTube soon.

It’s a project that’s very personal for you. How do you approach this?

Most times when people think about a personal project, they assume it needs to be heavily rich in lyrics. That’s [sometimes] true but it’s not a must. I mostly focus on the way my songs sound: how it makes you feel, visuals, substance and, most importantly, branding. A personal project should be a body of work. UGLY is a project to show my potential. I’ll definitely drop something way more personal where my fans can look back at my last project and feel the growth. 

Is there a sound or direction you haven’t explored yet but want to in your next project?  

I am trying to make a project where I put 100% of my creative touch to it, where I direct or design my own production, mix, visuals and album cover, so it can really be from Flowkidd to you. 

As you said, there are many talented hip-hop and hip-hop adjacent artists coming out of Scotland right now. Are there any you would love to collaborate with in the future, and why? 

After collaborating with talented artists like Hannymoon, Dromon and Svg, I would really love to collaborate with Aod, Begho and Loki. There might be some names I have missed but like I said there are a lot of great talents here. Also in the future I would love to work with my idol Wizkid.

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