The North-West London rap favourite is in scintillating and introspective form on his all-new sophomore album. He talks grime, past lives, and philosophical musings.

namesbliss arrived in the UK alt-rap conversation with his own dictionary. Lively. Call it neo-grime, call it jazz-rap: the Kilburn-raised artist has made a signature sound entirely his own, one where raw lyricism, grisled energy and skippy flows meet a measured poise to occupy the same space without either conceding ground. 

The roots run through his Dad’s jazz record collection and post-church afternoons with Miles Davis, mixed with East Coast storytellers like Nas and academic griots like Noname, meshed with the teachings of UK pioneers like Kano and George the Poet. An English Language University graduate who worked in education before he decided to go full-time in music, bliss writes from the belly of lived experience rather than the outside of it. 

His 2024 breakthrough debut album Lively Experience (home to the five-million-streamed “Iniesta Flow”) translated into sold-out headline nights at London’s 100 Club and Scala, festival slots from Boomtown to SXSW London, and a cross-generational fanbase of old-school grime heads and younger alt-rap converts. Now a 2026 MOBO Best Newcomer nominee, he returns with his second LP Where’s Bliss?, a title that’s both a tongue-in-cheek lyrical motif and genuine question about where he stands, in life and career, at this moment. At the Standard in Kings Cross, Bliss caught up with Wonderland to discuss his music, the journey to date and how it’s all led to this moment on his sophomore album release.

Listen to Where’s Bliss?…

Read the interview…

The title – where’s bliss? – is a punchline and it’s a question. Is that you reflecting on where you are right now?

It’s multiple places at once; I contain multitudes. There’s an inside joke I have with my supporters: there’s a 90% chance that on any song, I’m going to say where I am geographically. “I was in Watford Junction.” “I’m in Acton.” “I was on Blackhorse Road in the cold.” On “Time It Takes”, at the end I say, “I don’t even know where I was that summer”, and that’s a joke in itself, because you expected me to tell you.

Why do you think you do that?

With storytelling, the more specific you can get, the more relatable it is. People think they need to be broad to be relatable, but if you hone in on a really specific part of the human experience, people project themselves into the story. Even with “ADHD”: you might think talking generally about concentration would reach more people. It’s not true. Make the story deeply personal and honest (you don’t have to get the experience right, you had the experience) and it becomes more relatable, not less. So “Where’s Bliss?” is the humour, yes, but it’s also: where am I psychologically? 

So. Album two. Sophomore drop. The place where artists take the bigger swing. So – tell me, why is this one better?

The production level is higher. There’s more live instrumentation, more intention behind the instrumentation. I worked more closely with the producers: on the first album some beats were sent to me and I picked them out, whereas a lot of this album was built from scratch. I recorded 90% of the album at Qube (Big up Qube), building songs from the ground up with the producers, saying yes and no on things. It’s a more immersive experience too. The fans are literally on the album [intro]. If I have to sum it up in one sentence: I just tried harder.

You’ve been releasing since the mid-2010s. Coming into 2026 as MOBO Best Newcomer, how does it feel getting the “newcomer” tag when you’ve been in this for over a decade?

First off: RIP Kanya King. Rest in power. Providing a platform like that, for artists like myself and for music of Black origin to be celebrated that way, legendary is the word, and I don’t use that word lightly. To answer the question: I think my fans were offended, and I wasn’t. There’s a Jay-Z quote: “I see the world as it is, not as I want it to be.” Sometimes we centre ourselves too much. The MOBOs is an award ceremony for music that’s breaking through culturally in a way that’s considered popular. If you’re a niche act, you can be a niche act for ten years; then in your eleventh year you break past that and start bubbling up nationally, internationally. It’s not surprising to me that the year of my second tour, the year of social media milestones I’ve never experienced before, is the year I get nominated. I was ecstatic to get Best Newcomer; it used to be called Breakthrough Act. What they’re saying is my trajectory is on the up: “this is an artist you need to be paying attention to.”

Lively as a brand [bliss’ rising apparel brand which operates alongside his music], is an idea, a concept which has taken on a life of its own. The ad-lib, the hats, the spirit, the guiding principle. Where did it come from?

It’s me. I’ve always been hyperactive; I’m a lively individual. Honestly, “lively” is a stim. Back in the day, I’d get a reload on sets, and I’d say “lively!”, and from there it just got incorporated into the songs, and I ran with it. I’ve always had catchphrases. I used to make up language in school. I’d create words, and the furthest one of my words ever spread was maybe two schools, and then it died down, and I was sad my product wasn’t travelling. (laughs) So I’m the same guy now. I don’t think we change much. We are who we are, and we build on it. And in an industry where some people want to cosplay as nonchalant, Lively is the counterpoint. 

There’s a real thread of humour in your writing: the wrestling references, the football nods. How deliberate is the wit?

It’s my personality. I like playing with words, I like telling jokes, I like surprising people with a nice joke here and there even if I don’t know them. And people know I can rap at the highest levels, but when you can rap at the highest levels, you can deliberately break the rules and be slick with it. On “Run It” with Paul, I start the verse “taking the biscuit, taking the custard cream.” It means nothing and everything at the same time.

100 Club to Scala is a big upgrade. Talk to me. How was managing that evolution?

The reality is: I did Hackney Oslo and that’s where my agent found me and off the back of “Lively Experience” I just wanted to do a show, so I picked Oslo, sold it out, and the emails came: “want to do a tour?” So I did my first tour.

I was injured, though. I tore the tendons in my leg playing football two days in a row with an inadequate warm-up which left me on crutches, then it deteriorated; I couldn’t walk properly for about seven months. And all this while things are bubbling career-wise. I did that first tour literally going to venues in a wheelchair, then standing still on stage and just murking it.

I’d already done Oslo, so we did a collective show at 100 Club, like a Christmas special and that one was about the legendariness. Then 2025 was about scale: all the UK dates (Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham) ending at Scala, as a statement: can I sell out Scala? And we sold it out with a day to spare.

Before music you were a SENCo and a safeguarding lead: responsible for vulnerable young people. How much of that version of you is still operating when you write? Do you still carry that social conscience, that “I need to be bigger than a musician”?

I feel that throughout, particularly on the storytelling songs and the more introspective ones. The intro on the album is another one, and “Nervous System”. I feel like it’s a voice for niche experiences that are also quite widespread at the same time.

I grew up with a Mum who’s a prayer warrior. Looking back, my Mum’s definitely neurodiverse. A lot of that praying, when I look back, was her way of keeping her nervous system calm. Regardless of what people might believe, yes, she was praying for me and protecting me, but it also anchored her. That was her way of dealing with the chaos of being here without papers at the time, going through the stresses of that. Prayer was her solace.

For me, music is cultural expression: you’re meant to be a voice for a particular part of the culture. Mine is: born in the 90s, Nigerian, born in London, religious family household, living in an area that isn’t too safe, trying to figure out your identity because you want to be cool in school, while feeling very guilty for doing the wrong thing at the same time. It’s that duality. So yes, I write from a place that’s bigger but the music itself is the most important thing.

And the SENCo thing, leading teams, I think that came from wanting to be enough. I grew up with my dad saying “you guys have to be great.” Not “you guys are great”. It was “you have to be.” It felt like pressure, but I actually think it’s a big driver. If you’re already content thinking you’re great, you might not work. It was: go and make yourself great.

Finally, if you could change anything about how you entered the scene, knowing what you know now, what would it be?

I would have trusted my instincts a lot earlier. There was a time I was making more traditional grime but on a lot of innovative beats; I was “the guy that raps on the really interesting instrumentals.” I made “Style and Grace” with Manga [Saint Hilare] in 2018, and everyone was mad about the beat; it went off, JME co-signed me. That was my first moment. But looking back, I was playing it safe. The pre-chorus had a drill-pocket flow; I was mixing and blending genres so the young Gs loved it and the old heads loved the instrumentation. Really, at that point, I could have gone fully left-field. I had songs that were way more alternative that I just didn’t put out.

Words – Damola Oladapo