This Ain’t Lambeth!: Ceebo in Conservation

This article was originally published in Thee Cult Magazine Issue 3 (February 2025).

Music icon and innovator David Bowie (1947 - 2016) grew up just on the border of Brixton and Stockwell, where he earned a reputation as a fiercely independent and bright child with a defiant spirit. With that in mind, for South West London rapper Ceebo’s first cover shoot and feature, photographing him by the iconic David Bowie mural in Brixton felt fitting - two South London originals sharing visual space, decades apart.

Donning a furazhka and a balaclava, Ceebo - who has a self-proclaimed contrarian streak - stands with Bowie as a figure of authority and redefinition, each rooted in South London’s unique culture. While Bowie’s legacy was forged in the realms of glam rock, Ceebo is staking his claim to reimagine his home through LAMBETHNOTLA, his debut mixtape released last year August. With the Borough of Lambeth as his home and muse, Ceebo’s artistry bears the weight of the borough’s socio-political history, exploring the complexities of life in an area steeped in cultural and systemic challenges. Through LAMBETHNOTLA, Ceebo humanizes and reclaims the truths of the people and stories that shaped his community, crafting a version of home that speaks to both the struggles and the beauty of South London.

Over the course of our conversation, he spoke candidly about reclaiming the narrative of what it means to be from Lambeth, about disruption as a creative spark, and about how his latest project, LAMBETHNOTLA, channels those influences into a new, defiant chapter of UK rap.

SAINT: How do you feel about this, this year for you? Like releasing LAMBETHNOTLA ? How’s it been? Because when listening, it’s a line like on ‘DEVIL IS A LIE ’ where you say: “please don’t bell my line with some congratulations, I only hear the sound of misery in adulation”. I think that’s a common plight of the creative - this uneasy relationship with praise. And hell, you’re getting a lot of it [LAMBETHNOTLA was featured at number 19 on Complex UK’s Best Albums Of 2024 List.]. Let’s start here: where do you think that discomfort comes from, and how have you navigated it throughout the album’s release? Where does that come from?

CEEBO: It’s been a lot, first of all - it’s been a lot. Let me also say that I have enjoyed this year a lot. The tug-and-pull comes from the fact that I try to do a lot narratively with my music and the way I present it, and that requires a LOT- not just the creative or emotional work, but the admin stuff, too, oh my goodness. At the top of the year, I was very much on “go”, thinking, “Yeah, we’re gonna pump this full of narrative, and we’re gonna state our claim creatively and carve out our own space.” I think I did a pretty good job of that, but now I understand why people opt out - there’s a reason this is the road less traveled. One thing about making music with the goals I have in mind is that it can feel derealizing, in the sense that all you see is the finish line, not just for this project but five or ten years ahead. Everything I’m doing now is about getting there. But obviously, the trade-off of having a singular vision and that singular focus is that it's hard to see what's happening now as substantial. So when I do release a project like the one I did this year, and it illcits… a positive response from everyone that heard it, it's kind of hard for me to take the praise for what it is because, in my mind, this isn't enough. I see all the things that like, I need to improve upon, as far as why release this project, like, you know, would you call it, I find it hard to be in the moment. You know what I'm saying? That’s what I’ve found with this focus on storytelling, long-term goals, and the bigger picture. It makes those interactions - when people want to show love, give me my flowers - almost hard to accept. It feels weird.

S: Do you feel like people are getting the more long-term goals, or are they still figuring stuff out with you as an artist?

C: I think… I think people think that they get the long-term goal. That’s what I think. I think people see LAMBETHNOTLA and they see what I’m good at doing. They see that I have a flair for storytelling, the dramatic world building, all these things, but I think they don’t know how far I’m trying to take it, you know what I mean? Especially when I have conversations with other artists here - because I do talk to a lot of artists who are, like, substantially bigger than me - and a lot of those conversations are some iteration of, “You should definitely keep pushing; you’ll be able to make money off music soon.” That’s great advice for someone whose eyes are set on making money off music, but as for me, I’d say I’m dedicated to storytelling, and music just happens to be the medium I’m using for now. Everything I’m doing is with the intention of, “Okay, we’re gonna match this up, we’re gonna take the storytelling and do it through every medium I can,” you get what I mean? And that’s why I feel like, for many reasons, people don’t fully see it right now. The chief reason is that, throughout this year, I just didn’t have the resources and connections to do it the way I would have liked. It still came off pretty well, but there were things we didn’t or couldn’t do that, hopefully, in the future, we’ll be able to flesh out.

S: And I think that’s the frustrating thing: people are with you, but it’s more like, “Oh, we really rate and respect what you’re doing because you’re doing it in such a distinct way”, but that’s not really the point. At the same time, I think it’s part of the journey you’re forced to take as a creative. Because, for example, I feel like this project could be read as - and I think I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to something like good kid, m.A.A.d city. How does that genuinely make you feel? Sometimes I think about how I’d react if someone said that to me, because there’s that sense of people saying nice things but not really getting it. So how does that particular comparison make you feel?

C: I say this about this a lot - obviously, most people don’t really have the verbiage to articulate exactly what they like about my music, so the only thing they can do is compare it to the last thing that gave them a similar feeling. On its face, that’s high praise, but I can’t help feeling it’s a bit of an inadequate understanding of what I’m trying to do. Kendrick is definitely someone who’s been an inspiration to me, and I’ve learned a lot from him, but when I made this project, I wasn’t aiming to create a tribute to good kid, m.A.A.d City. I don’t want to be seen as the ‘poor man’s version’ or ‘UK version’ of that - that’s not how I want my vision perceived. A lot of people might be content with being the ‘next best thing’ since so-and-so, and that’s cool, but for me and my personal creative impulses, that would never be enough. I wouldn’t say I’m frustrated, but it does make me think, “Okay, I need to strike out more clearly.”

S: And okay, like, there’s a lot I’m going to get to, but I wanted to just ask in a more simple way. I could imagine you’re just - not exactly elevator-pitching it - but describing what this project is, and maybe giving a quick summary. You’ve touched on some of it already, but conceptually and narratively, what’s one way you want people to understand this project - in how you were understanding and crafting it?

C: In the making of this project, especially in light of the one I released before it, I wanted it to serve more like an anthology - a collection of emotions throughout time. LAMBETHNOTLA is really a look at the past more than anything, and how that shaped who I am now. It’s about my family history, my socioeconomic background, the fact that my parents were immigrants, our schooling - plus the effect of government policies on our lives and therefore on how we see life in a philosophical sense. And I wanted it to serve primarily as a humanization. Because as a rapper, especially from Lambeth, people already have preconceived ideas about what you’re going to say. And the first instinct for both consumer and producer of this content is, number one, as a producer, you want to make yourself seem larger than life - you didn’t just come from a rough background, you came from the worst concrete jungle in the world, leaning into that urban myth. And as a consumer, whether knowingly or unknowingly, you’re often looking for the spectacle, the bravado - that’s what people expect from rap. But I wanted this to be more grounded, to act as a midpoint between the everyday reality of life and the highs we often see in rap. It’s still entertaining, but I approached it the way you’d craft a movie, not just ‘Oh, let’s make 11 songs.’ We had certain messages we wanted to impart, and we wanted people to visualize - literally see what I saw, what we saw. By ‘we,’ I mean my community, my family, my friends at different points in our lives. That’s how I approached it.

S: The point about the spectacle of rap in comparison to how we navigate the mundane is really interesting, and I feel like it’s something you address on interlude ‘TRAUMA SOLD SEPARATELY’. But at the same time, it’s feels in ways that Ceebo is an anti-conscious rapper, particularly in relation to spectacle. Because, for example, what I've noticed, what I've noticed in the project is, whilst there is a unnerving rawness and honesty in how you see yourself and the world, you never really linger there on your personal issues.  For example, I hear a track like ‘RAP WON’T SAVE YOU’ and it opens a bunch of these questions that would normatively be explored in conscious rap. You know, religion, colonization etc. and it opens the question of how does he feel about that? You then completely pivot to ‘AMOR’, which is primarily showing reverence to and where you’re from. It makes me wonder how you decide which personal issues get fully explored and which ones you just touch on before moving forward. Is that a conscious choice to avoid the ‘spectacle’ side of rap, or is it more about how you naturally process your own experiences? And in that sense, where do we draw the line between Ceebo and Chris - does that separation even exist, or do they keep blending together?

C: I think people want to think that Ceebo is the conscious rapper, especially because of the way I present - I don’t hide the fact that I’m intelligent and know what I’m talking about, especially when you see how I am on social media. So all of that contributes to people thinking my agenda is spreading specific messages and staking a claim on things that are pertinent and impactful. And I will say that I do do that, but that’s because I’m naturally introspective. It’s not really, like you were saying earlier - even in conscious rap, that natural observation and commentary is wrapped up to eleven; you can’t just say something, you have to be Malcolm X about it, and that’s not real life, you know?

As far as me, I think the difference between Ceebo and Chris gets more blurred every day. Naturally, I’ve always had a lot to say - even if, when I was younger, it wasn’t always of substance - I was always talking. I see Ceebo as the filter for Chris, a way of tempering who I am so people can understand me. Going back to your point about ‘RAP WON’T SAVE YOU’ leading into ‘AMOR’, I did that intentionally because, in real life, so many things happen that I have thoughts on, but we just move past them, you know what I mean? For better or worse, me and my friends talk about these deeply impactful things, but at the time, we just carry on - maybe because we’re under duress from our environment. That’s what I wanted to capture with this tape. I wasn’t trying to preach for 45 minutes about what’s right and wrong, because that’d be like making a spectacle of the negative stuff, which I find unproductive. Doing that with positive messaging doesn’t feel real either. So, Chris is the one who experiences life, and Ceebo is how I transmute those experiences to the public, like, ‘This is life.’ Outside of that, there isn’t really a further agenda. I guess that’s why so many different things sit next to each other in my music -because that’s how I walk through life.

S: And I get that, because I think, again, with conscious rap, it’s kind of like, “Okay, I’m putting my feelings and emotions first.” But there’s something you do here as well, where I feel like Lambeth becomes a bit of a character on the album - in a more direct way, for example, with the first track. But mostly, it feels like there’s this protected characteristic about it. I feel a real heightened respect and reverence in how you’re portraying Lambeth. For a body of work at this stage, where you’re still building, it makes sense, but would you agree that in some areas you’ve put Lambeth before yourself in how you presented it in the project?

C: Yeah, definitely, you know, like, as far as the music I make now, like, this is a juxtaposition, like, is a lot more focused on me, whereas LAMBETHNOTLA was intentionally just the environment through my lens, you know? So it’s like, as far as the main character of the project, so to speak, I would definitely say that it was Lambeth. Like, as you’re saying, obviously, outside of the direct references and like, elaborate metaphor, on the first track, outside of that, Lambeth is an implicit character. Like, every single track, the environment dictates what’s happening. Like, the environment is the main character, even if I don’t say so. So definitely, yeah.

S: One thing I think you do really well is you give enough - particularly from a storytelling perspective - that makes your intentions and creative claims very, very clear. For example, on ‘TRAUMA SOLD SEPARATELY’, the interlude references Atlanta and how Donald Glover took the real weirdness, the real quirkiness, and the real surrealism of his environment to create Atlanta. I feel like that’s what you’re going for here, and I think that’s what makes it different from, say, a Kendrick comparison. I think that’s where the difference is. And I think now, speaking to you, it’s like, no, there probably is a bit more of a Donald Glover approach, because you’re not thinking just musically. Does that make sense?

C: Exactly, exactly. You know, I think that’s it. I always try and tell people that Lambeth is so weird as a place, you know what I mean? Like, if you’re someone that’s not from here and you come here, spend a couple of days amongst the locals, just speaking to people, observing things - it’s so weird. Do you know what I mean? And it’s not something you understand until you go somewhere else, live there, and then come back. That’s what it was for me. The seeds for this project were planted in my first year of university because that was the first time I spent an extended time away from Lambeth. Obviously, I was in Warwick, which is a starkly different environment. It’s a lot slower, there’s less going on, you have more time to think, and I was around people I never would’ve met had I stayed in Lambeth. And then coming back, it was like, “Hold on, this is a bit weird.” Like, I still love this place, but it felt different - like loving a pair of shoes you’ve outgrown. I always knew I didn’t want to portray Lambeth as a place I need to escape from. That’s something I don’t like about conscious rappers - they portray their areas as places you have to leave, like, there’s nothing there for you. But that’s not real life. Most people are born in these communities, and they stay there. One of my neighbors has been living on my estate for 60 years, you know? So for me, if I don’t want to portray Lambeth as this concrete jungle everybody has to run away from, then my goal is to portray it with all its quirks, characteristics, and everything that comes with being from here. That’s where I’d say I approach it more in a Donald Glover way than a Kendrick way.

S: And, I don’t know if you’re going to agree, but I think it’s interesting you say that because, for you - so, I feel like Warwick is basically South London. Black Warwick is just a bunch of people from South London, and then you’ve got other people, but the majority feels like South London. So that’s an interesting observation, that you felt like you had been completely removed from your environment. Do you not feel like some of those characteristics started to show up in the people at Warwick? Because, for me, some of the people from South London - because it’s the majority of Black Warwick is from South London - I’m like, you all have a way about you.

Do you know what it is, yeah? Again, this is where the schism is.  So, everybody I met at Warwick was from South East London. This was my first time spending this much time around South East Londoners. And I will say, actually, in first year, I was really disappointed coming to Warwick. Coming to Warwick, obviously, in my mind, I was thinking, “Oh, Russell Group - I’m gonna be amongst the best intellectuals, I’m really gonna be challenged, stimulated,” you know what I mean? Everybody here is gonna have an agenda. And then I got here, and it was just secondary school again, you know what I mean? The things you think will change don’t change. I saw a lot of stuff I’d already seen growing up, and then again at Warwick - it was the same thing, but for worse, do you know what I mean? But when I talk about Warwick, I mean the environment itself, literally where I was - because I was in CV4, and that’s a very slow place. It’s not loud at all, you know what I mean? Very quiet. You have a lot of time in your own mind. That’s where I see the bigger difference between Lambeth and Warwick. In Warwick, I guess I got to indulge my introspection a bit more, you know what I mean? But as far as the people - it was basically the same thing, you know what I mean?

S: But I also want to say, obviously, you’re a Politics and Sociology graduate. How much of your degree and just the sociological imagination informs your work? Because you could argue this project acts as a form of sociology in a way, and how you express Lambeth - there’s something sociological you’re trying to do there, too. So yeah, how does that synergy work between your academic background and your musical goals?

C: I think my academic background heavily influences the choices I make - not just in what I choose to say, but in how I choose to say it, and even in the music itself. I know there are going to be people who pick up on the messages in the musical backdrop as well as in my words, and all of that comes together to paint a picture of Lambeth and my view of the world as a whole. Where my sociological background really comes into play is with how people tend to have preconceived notions about rap and what rappers say or do. I’m aware of my standing as a rapper from the background I come from, and that’s not just about the politically charged history Lambeth has, but also how loaded it is to be a rapper from Lambeth in general.

LAMBETHNOTLA came from understanding all that - I wanted to subvert what people expected, and I do have a bit of a contrarian streak. But my education helps me do that in a way that isn’t just self-gratifying. It’s one thing to be subversive and go against what’s popular, but that alone isn’t enough. It’s what you specifically choose to say that determines whether you’re as important as you think you are. So I was very careful about which stories I told, even down to the more offhand lines people might not think are significant. If I was portraying people I couldn’t fully flesh out in a single song, it was still intentional - I aimed to humanize them or show their actions as part of something bigger. Overall, I wanted to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of my community, because that’s how I see it.

S: So, I wanted to spin back to a point you made earlier: you’ve said that the music you’re now making is a lot more vulnerable and introspective. Yeah, when you look back at this project, in comparison to the direction you’re going in next, do you feel like it’s introspective?

I feel like the project in and of itself - if I’m not comparing it to anything - it’s definitely introspective. Because even though the main focus is my environment, I do give my thoughts and feelings pretty much unfiltered. Especially when we get to the outro, I’m not holding anything back or pretending. These are just my thoughts and feelings at the time I wrote them. With LAMBETHNOTLA and its focus on the environment, I was looking at bigger picture things - like policing, the way Black people feel compelled to act in media, and even philosophical ideas like life and death. There’s a lot of heaviness in that.

But in comparison to LAMBETHNOTLA, the focus of my next project is much more on people - specifically, how people react to things that happen in their lives. It’s a lot more personal than LAMBETHNOTLA. It’s a real effort to zoom into the day-to-day things we essentially escape and see what they are rooted in. To do that, I had to look at the day-to-day things that I do and ask myself, “Okay, what are these rooted in?” and express that. We’re digging deep. I’d say LAMBETHNOTLA is introspective, but we’re taking it further.

S: Reflecting on LAMBETHNOTLA, I now understand it’s more focused on your environment and broader societal issues like policing and media representation. However, I’m curious about the level of introspection in that project. Do you feel that LAMBETHNOTLA sufficiently explores your personal inner world, or is it primarily an examination of your surroundings? In other words, while your new music is becoming more vulnerable and introspective, how did you approach introspection in LAMBETHNOTLA, and do you think it addressed the root of your personal experiences or stayed more on the surface by highlighting environmental factors? Listening to your music, it’s like - you see good in your environment… but do you see it in yourself? I do wonder if you think you’re a good person, because I’m not sure. I don’t know.

C: Hmm. That’s a great question, because I feel like that’s something that’s skated by people, you know what I mean? One thing about growing up in Lambeth - especially with the parents we have - is that, in order to make sense of everything we’ve seen, we’re entrenched in the church, the mosque, or whatever the case may be. That’s how we reason with the world, up until a certain point. But then you reach a point where you start to look at the things we do, the things we love, and the things we know as truth, and compare that to the things we’re taught to believe - whether it’s how Christ would want us to act or how the Prophet Muhammad taught us to act. These things are complete opposites.

And I think what makes it worse is that, because we’re still in this environment, we have to act a certain way - not even in extreme senses like violence, though that’s definitely heightened where we’re from. But even small things, like what it means to be a good Christian - being forgiving, turning the other cheek, not being spiteful, not being vengeful, being patient. You can’t really be those things. That’s what I found as a teenager, personally. Now, as an adult, looking back at my life, I see I’ve made a lot of choices that, at the time, felt necessary. They weren’t indulgent - they were things I felt I had to do. Whether it was for material gain, or how I acted in relationships - family, platonic, romantic - it was all out of necessity. But looking back, I have to ask myself, “Was that right?” And with that, I can’t say in good faith that I’m a good person.

I think everyone likes to believe they’re a good person. But for me, saying, ‘I don’t know if I’m a good person,’ isn’t about being contrarian - it’s about reasoning with all the things I’ve believed, done, or felt at different times. Am I deserving of the praise I get through music? Of the opportunities I’ve been given, whether through music or education? Because, essentially, I’m no different from the people I grew up with. It would’ve been easy for me to have had a completely different outcome - on either end of the spectrum. Whether becoming someone judged as a violent criminal, or a teenage father - there were so many possible outcomes that didn’t happen to me. Was that luck? Divine intervention? Coincidence? Because when I look at it, I don’t think it’s because I’m a good person, or because I made better choices than others. People tell you to go to church and testify, say that God did a good thing because you’re a good person. But I can’t help but see myself as undeserving in light of what I’ve seen happen to me and my loved ones. I’m here, and they’re there - not because of me, but because of circumstance.

Even with music, I’m not the first rapper from my area, or even my friendship group, and I wasn’t the best when I started. So, for me, it’s about understanding how circumstantial everything is. And when you think about it in a religious context, there’s so much angst that comes from living in ways that aren’t accepted in the church - or even in the smaller context of our area. Growing up with friends who were gay, or gang members, or thieves, and knowing the church didn’t accept them - or me - adds another layer of struggle. You start reasoning with all these big-picture things, and then you add the religious rearing on top of it, and it’s just a lot. I think that’s why LAMBETHNOTLA implicitly reasons with those ideas. Like you said, it’s in the subtext.

S: So my final question is this: since you have the interlude called RAP WON’T SAVE YOU, what would you say actually has saved you?

C: I honestly think that music, specifically the type of music that I make, it definitely has saved me. Because it’s like, even when I started younger and I wasn’t really taking music seriously, I spoke about the same things - I just wasn’t very good at it, you get what I mean? And it’s like, in talking about what I talk about, you’re forced to interrogate your life as a whole, you know what I mean? You can’t talk about the things I talk about without having accepted reality. I feel like a lot of times, to make it through the type of trials and tribulations that me, my family, and my close loved ones - and just people we know - go through, we’ll tell ourselves, in small ways or bigger ways, “Of course I’m a good person,” or “Of course I’m in the right,” or “I have to do this,” you know what I mean? Even the smaller ones like, “This is going to be okay because I’m going to be rich one day” or “That’s all gonna pay off”. All these things we say and do to avoid having to reckon with the reality of our situation -the reality and consequences of our actions on ourselves and the people around us, you know what I mean? With the type of music I’m trying to make, you have to stop doing that, you know what I mean? So yes music has saved me.

And number two, I will say the people around me - most importantly, actually the people around me - because they don’t know me for music, you know what I mean? They knew me before I released my first song. Even those who met me after the fact, they didn’t meet me because of music. They knew me through some other avenue. And having that grounding is important. As far as my colleagues in music, they have their own careers and might only know me as Ceebo who did LAMBETHNOTLA, and if you spend too much time in that world, it can take you out of reality, you know what I mean? Because after a certain point, the conversations are a bit meaningless in the grand scheme - talking about the music scene, everyone’s goals and ambitions. But for me, the things that keep me grounded, and the things that have saved me, are leaning on the people around me.

When you grow up in an environment where you’re constantly misunderstood and you feel like nobody wants or tries to understand you, it’s easy to spend your adult life leaning on that - playing into being antagonistic, defensive, and keeping your guard up so you don’t get hurt the same way again. But the people around me care and know me too well for me to do that in good faith, you know what I mean? In order to maintain the relationships I have, I have to let go of all that. I have to deal with a lot of the angst of being who I am, where I’m from, knowing who I know, all these types of things, just to be present in my relationships. But the bonds we choose to form in early adulthood, late adolescence, I think that’s what saved me in particular, you know what I mean? It’s freeing, especially when you’ve spent a lot of time on the defensive - just trying to reason with your arrival and keep it pushing. But after a certain point, you realize you don’t have to do that anymore. You can choose to just enjoy life now, you can choose to reclaim what was lost through circumstance - that kind of thing. And that’s ultimately what matters: the bonds we make. Because everything else is subject to change. I talk about it with my manager all the time: even the music itself, as gratifying as it is to make and how it scratches an itch, it’s perfectly possible that for whatever reason, I might not be able to make another project or another song. So I can’t stake my whole sense of self on music, you know what I mean? That’s what I was really trying to say with RAP WON’T SAVE YOU, particularly. Obviously, there’s a lot going on in it - there’s the religious subtext, commentary on how the word is preached, and the idea that music isn’t the be-all, end-all. What I’m actually trying to say is that our community, the pastor represented on RAP WON’T SAVE YOU - they end up at the same point of lack, or the same point of not having. And it’s the people, you know what I mean? You’re only as good as the people around you. That’s definitely what I’d say. So yeah.

Photographer: Panashe-Gwyneth Mushandu | Creative Direction and Post-Production: Me