{"id":255319,"date":"2025-12-28T07:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T07:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/255319\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T07:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T07:57:13","slug":"a-lot-of-men-dont-open-up-kidwild-the-uk-rapper-unafraid-to-bare-his-soul-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/255319\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A lot of men don\u2019t open up\u2019: Kidwild, the UK rapper unafraid to bare his soul | Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

From<\/strong> Newham, London
Recommended if you like<\/strong> Dave, Bashy, Nemzzz
Up next<\/strong> Debut mixtape planned for spring<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a measure of how quickly Keaton Edmund, AKA Kidwild, has speed-run his way through a performing arts career that the rapper describes himself as being in the \u201ccomeback part of my life\u201d at age 20.<\/p>\n

As a child he was acting opposite Beverley Knight in The Bodyguard in the West End and toured the production around China. He had a main role in four seasons of CBBC football drama Jamie Johnson and appeared on Casualty. You can see him dancing in the video to Stormzy\u2019s 2017 single Vossi Bop, a baby-faced scamp swinging a baseball bat into the camera lens. It all made him grow up fast. \u201cI was spending bare time alone, bare time with older people. So I just started seeing life for what it is. You get time to sit with your thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bored during Covid, <\/strong>he ordered a microphone and began crafting rap songs of his own. Half a decade on, he now has millions of listeners drawn to his candid storytelling about his life\u2019s struggles. But not until after a false start.<\/p>\n

By 17,<\/strong> he had signed to major label Atlantic Records \u2013 so young that his mum had to chaperone him to the signing. But after Edmund had released two tracks, the person who signed him left, and he was left in limbo. \u201cFor everything to just go cold, you start second-guessing yourself,\u201d he says, speaking with expansive, gentle gestures on a Guardian office sofa, his features still almost as boyish as in that Stormzy video. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of degrading, because you\u2019re meant to be the next star, as they said, and then you just exist.\u201d After a third track \u201cdidn\u2019t live up to their expectation \u2013 I don\u2019t know what their expectation was\u201d, he was dropped.<\/p>\n

But that newfound freedom left him feeling \u201clike I came out of jail\u201d. He felt charged up at the prospect of making a career on his own. When his self-released track Indecisive started gaining traction in October 2024 \u2013 it\u2019s since been streamed 29m times on Spotify \u2013 he was visiting family in St Lucia. \u201cEverything I ever wanted was happening, and I\u2019m just sitting at my grandma\u2019s house in the village.\u201d He flew home, then a day later he went to the studio and \u201cin a flow state\u201d wrote the hook to Redemption \u2013 one of the biggest British rap tracks of 2025. \u201cHow can I stop when I come this far? \/ I smile outside, deep down I\u2019m scarred\u201d, he rapped. Later in the year, on superb JBee collaboration If I Lose, he tells a lover: \u201cI just want you to hold me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vulnerability has soared in rap over the last decade, but Kidwild is particularly soul-baring over his atmospheric, drill-adjacent beats. Is it taboo for men to be so open with their emotions? \u201cIt\u2019s true \u2013 you see it in the suicide rates in men compared to women,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of men don\u2019t open up. With songs where I\u2019m quite vulnerable, people message me and say: I relate to this so much. If they are one of them people who don\u2019t like to speak on their emotions, at least they have Kidwild to relate to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most potent of these tracks is his recent single Forgive Me, about his relationship with his father who was imprisoned for a number of years. \u201cI was calling your phone, never got no reception \/ The only pic I got of us is me in Reception,\u201d Kidwild raps, crestfallen. \u201cI remember the first time I got a call from jail,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to speak. I said hi, and that was it, just gave my mum back the phone.\u201d On the track he spits out: \u201cIs it a crime if I say I\u2019m glad he got sentenced?\u201d But after five years of no contact, they are beginning to reconcile. \u201cWhen we speak about it now, I laugh because it\u2019s like, now that I\u2019m older, I understand life more. I see why I was angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

A forthcoming mixtape is \u201ca chance to talk my truth\u201d and chart his difficult youth. \u201cA lot of music now, there\u2019s not much topic, it\u2019s just like \u2026\u201d Vibes? \u201cVibes, yeah \u2013 which is good! I like vibes music. But I wanted to add something different, get in depth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Newham, LondonRecommended if you like Dave, Bashy, Nemzzz Up next Debut mixtape planned for spring It\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-255319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115796131452166299","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}