terms & resistance: james massiah on black creativity beyond permission.
After a little break from posting, I’m back—and while it’s been quiet on here, it’s been anything but behind the scenes. I’ve been fitting in some brilliant conversations over the past few months, and I’m excited to finally start sharing them. First up in this new season: James Massiah.
I came to James Massiah’s work a little late, but over the past few months I’ve found myself drawn in—first by the music, then the poetry, then the interviews, and eventually, the worldview. There aren’t many artists I think deserve this kind of deep attention, but Massiah does. His work invites it. It demands it.
From early releases like Select Verses to the expansive sound of Bounty Law, his work has always been about more than form—it's about tone, energy, intention. Charm and cheek meet radical tenderness; moments of toxicity rub up against vulnerability. There’s a kind of wholesomeness to his work, but not the kind we’re used to—less moral, more honest. It’s rare.
What gets people excited about Massiah is that he’s purely authentic. Not just real-for-the-sake-of-it, but intentional. He’s thoughtful about how he’s framed, aware of the weight behind labels like “poet” or “DJ,” and open about the pressure to be legible in certain rooms. That awareness doesn’t make him cautious—it makes him sharp.
In conversation, he speaks as he writes: with clarity, wit, and an instinct for truth. Whether unpacking why people push Black artists toward “respectable” cultural references, or how introductions can subtly signal approval or containment, Massiah isn’t out to make himself more palatable—he’s out to make sense of his place in a complicated world.
This interview is less about genre and more about intention—what it means to be heard clearly, and on your own terms. Because while Massiah moves across many worlds, he never leaves himself behind.
A fixture of London’s underground scene, James Massiah moves effortlessly between poetry, electronic music, and rap—mediums through which he resists easy categorisation. For Massiah, the interplay between poetry and rap is not just stylistic but foundational. “Rap sits comfortably beneath poetry, yet it’s distinct,” he says. He recalls performing in a lecture theatre, where he spontaneously shifted from spoken word to rap: “It wasn’t what some expected. Context matters.”
That ability to shape-shift—moulding language and tone to suit the room—is key to his practice. It’s not just performance; it’s a way of navigating space and expectation. This fluidity underscores how deeply he considers not only form, but the frame it sits within.
Massiah’s reflections then expand into questions of race and legitimacy in the arts. “I say ‘poet,’ and they reply, ‘spoken-word poet?’ No—poet. Subtle digs.” The correction might seem small, but it signals something larger: the limited ways Black poets are often perceived and boxed in.
These subtle interactions reveal ingrained assumptions about what a Black poet is supposed to represent—often pushed toward the familiar, the respectable, the already-approved.
Massiah sees this play out not just in conversation but in how people respond to his work. “I’d often been told to read All About Love,” he says, referring to bell hooks. “But for me, it was the next one—The Will to Change—that clicked. That’s when I thought, ‘Okay, we’re in.’” On one track, he playfully critiques this dynamic—not mocking bell hooks herself, but the way people deploy her, and others like James Baldwin, as shorthand for acceptable Black thought. “If you knew my writing, you might not recommend that book. Love isn’t my language.”
The implication is clear: recommendations can sometimes feel like prescriptions—pointing him not toward inspiration, but correction. “They think, ‘These authors speak of love, so you should.’ Why not take me on my writing?”
Massiah is aware of the reverence these cultural figures inspire, but he resists being cast in their image just because of shared identity. “It was The Will to Change that meant something to me. I started reading and thought, ‘We’re dealing with a scientist, not just a writer about love.’” He positions his track as a kind of counter-narrative—a sparring session, not with bell hooks, but with the assumptions behind the name-drop. “It was me placing myself as an anti-hero in that lineage. Sparring with my elders.”
This sense of moralism in recommendation—of being nudged toward a more palatable or respectable version of Black art—isn’t unique to literature. “I had it with Prince and Kendrick Lamar—people said, ‘You should listen.’ Same with Tupac back in the day.” Now, he adds, he can appreciate those artists on his own terms. “I realise they’re great artists, writers, thinkers. But the way people recommend them—it’s like, ‘Here’s who you should be.’ Maybe they don’t like my lifestyle or my writing, so they send me to the canon.”
Still, he remains open. “With bell hooks, I read The Will to Change and humbled myself. Same with Kendrick—To Pimp a Butterfly—I respected the vision beyond what others think I should do.”
Even in something as simple as an introduction, Massiah feels the weight of these expectations. “It shows in how I’m introduced: ‘This is James, a DJ’ versus ‘James, a poet.’ The label changes the energy—signals I’m ‘one of the good ones.’”
The implication is subtle but potent. A DJ might be seen as cool, creative, maybe a little wild. A poet? Respectable, introspective, even virtuous. These shifting frames reveal what people want him to be, depending on the room.
This friction—between imposed expectations and authentic affinity—exposes a broader tension familiar to many Black artists: the push to embody a version of artistry that feels safe, noble, or legible to gatekeepers. Recommendations, introductions, even compliments can carry an invisible burden—the suggestion that to be understood, he must first be corrected.
Massiah isn’t hostile to guidance, but he’s wary of how easily it becomes a form of control. “Sometimes I just want to enjoy a reading without explaining myself,” he says. There’s fatigue in always having to contextualise your work, your voice, your presence.
Yet he doesn’t retreat from those pressures—he bends them. Even in poetry, he subverts expectations, using linguistic experimentation and tonal play as quiet rebellion. What might seem abstract or slippery is, in fact, deliberate—a refusal to make his work easy to consume.
Reflecting on earlier phases of his career, Massiah recalls moments when he might have sought validation from the literary establishment—when he still felt the need to prove something. Now, there’s a shift. “I’m tired of tests,” he says, plainly. The comment lands not as resignation, but as clarity: he’s done performing for approval.
He’s also earned his place. While some might now call Massiah a fixture—a bigwig, even—he sidesteps such titles with characteristic understatement. “Chameleon” is the word he prefers, a nod to his fluidity rather than status. Whether he's in music studios, fashion spaces, or poetry circles, he moves with ease and intentionality, weaving between them without explanation.
For some artists, this kind of versatility invites suspicion. Are they diluting the work? Are they chasing aesthetics over substance? But for Massiah, moving between different worlds isn’t about compromise—it’s a reflection of his reality. “People need to eat. I need to eat,” he says, not defensively but with pragmatic clarity.
This philosophy runs through his latest album, Bounty Law. The title, borrowed from Quentin Tarantino’s fictional Western series in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, deliberately reclaims a loaded term—“bounty”—to explore themes of confrontation, vulnerability, and authenticity.
The single “Doberman” captures the album’s tone best. “Raw and honest—ice-cold, heart on sleeve,” is how he describes it. The track blends grime, trip-hop, and synth-pop, a sonic collage that mirrors the eclecticism of London itself.
Across Bounty Law, Massiah positions himself in a symbolic Western landscape - the image of the lone outlaw isn’t just aesthetic; it’s metaphor. “I’m still a wild horse. Maybe I don’t want to be tamed,” he says. The frontier becomes a stand-in for creative freedom: exhilarating and always contested.
This isn’t rebellion for its own sake—it’s a negotiation. With every line, beat, and pivot in tone, Massiah is in conversation with the forces that shape and sometimes restrict Black artistic expression. His work doesn’t shy away from complexity; it invites it, daring the listener to keep up.
“Dig, investigate, find the references,” he urges. He wants his audience to do the work—to engage, not just consume. Listening is an active, participatory act with his music.
Massiah offers no easy answers. He doesn’t ask to be read through the lens of legacy or likeness. Instead, he insists on being understood on his own terms—unbothered, unbought, and unmistakably his own.