Lady Leshurr is not impressed with my scuffed-up creps, and I should have known better than to put them in her eyeline.
She laughs, grins, and says “It’s alright”, but not only are her Queen’s Speech tracks brimming with one-two jabs aimed at personal choices — from footwear to oral hygiene — her latest edition of this viral rap, dropping after nearly a year’s hiatus, was made in partnership with Nike.
“They came to me and I was like, ‘Yeah, why not? That’s near enough what I wear every day!’”
Assembling an all-woman crew to support Lady Leshurr’s vision, the video shoot for Queen’s Speech 7 happened a day before our interview, and she’s excited for it to come out. “Everyone knew what it was about, what it was for, and that’s what made it even more forceful and female. We smashed it!”
“It was totally opposite to working with all men — they’re more loud and aggressive and dominant and try to control it. But with females it was a really friendly vibe, everyone was just happy, the energy was good!”
Plus, it was bigger than ever before: “We locked off a motorway — who’s done that in the UK? Who’s got a camel in London just walking on the road? I wanted to do something really crazy, experimental, out of the box!”
BEAT: Like previous instalments, Queen’s Speech 7 references poor personal hygiene, but like Queen’s Speech 4’s command to “brush your teeth”, you bestow viewers with solutions.
Lady Leshurr: I take out my spray and I spray it because I feel like either people don’t bathe in the morning, or they forget to just spray. I’ve been on the tube multiple times and you know how arms just hang in the air and you can smell BO?
Standing at about 5'4", today dressed in a black Nike tracksuit, trying on different pairs of Nike Air Force 1 '07 SE, I wonder if Lady Leshurr’s stature regularly places her downwind of a musty underarm.
“I’m right under the pit! I can smell everything!”
BEAT: So everything in the Queen’s Speech series comes from personal experience?
Lady Leshurr: I always talk about things that I’ve experienced, or things that I’m bound to have experienced. It’s just a connection straight away. People can laugh about it, people can show their friends — even their stinky friends — because I know everyone’s got stinky friends that they can’t tell the truth to.
BEAT: Is there anything too gross to talk about in Queen’s Speech?
Lady Leshurr: There are lines that I can’t cross because it’s just like — why would you go that far?
Because though I can 100% imagine a kid with thirsty breath being taunted by cries of “Brush your teeth!”, Lady Leshurr is here for women and their conversations:
“As much as people can say, ‘Ahhh, the Queen’s Speech raps are putting down girls,’ it’s nothing to do with putting down girls. It’s shining a light on things that girls do and people will know about and can relate to.”
BEAT: There’s real power in those videos — walking through spaces that might otherwise feel unsafe.
Lady Leshurr: It’s true. Because the tunnel and certain places I’ve filmed are quite scary. I know for a fact I wouldn’t feel that comfortable if I was on my own walking down there. But at the same time I wanted to get the point across of just being a powerful female — that it doesn’t matter what clothes you wear or what you look like. You should never feel uncomfortable walking in a place.
BEAT: Why did Queen’s Speech 7 take so long to arrive?
Lady Leshurr: There wasn’t really anything to talk about. I just did loads of shows — my life became so busy at one stage I couldn’t even get in the studio, I couldn’t focus on that project. And to write a Queen’s Speech, I just need to be in a happy place.
And also, there weren’t really a lot of topics to touch on — there wasn’t really enough things to make jokes about and stuff like that.
BEAT: But Queen’s Speech 6, the Halloween-themed number with the refrain “Spooky!”, came out less than two weeks before Donald Trump was voted in as US president. It’s not as if you’re too scared to talk about him — you referenced him in QS6, calling him a “wasteman”!
Lady Leshurr: I mean, I just think he was a wasteman — he didn’t do his job. You see all these things online, all these videos coming out of him touching girls in a mad way, and I’ve just never liked him. His face is like the devil to me.
BEAT: You did a call-out on Instagram before filming Queen’s Speech 7, asking fans for topic suggestions. How did that go?
Lady Leshurr: Yeah! I just thought I’d see what people would actually want me to say. Somebody was like, “Stay away from politics!” But a lot of people were just like, “Oh, talk about Grenfell,” or “Talk about things in the news.”
But I kind of keep out of it myself, because it can get too political and I’m not in the know for that much. I’ll do my part, I’ll donate and stuff, but I won’t be on there trying to be the new mayor and talk for the youths.
BEAT: You do get political in Queen’s Speech 7, though.
Lady Leshurr: Yeah! “Who stood up when Grenfell? / Where’s all the money we raised then? / Theresa May is a wasteman!” And then: “Please don’t take no shots at me / We need more gun control.” Even Brexit gets a shout-out with “Make a bigger impact than Brexit.”
All the same, in our interview she recommends Akala as far more knowledgeable than her: “He’s so wise and he’s got legs to stand on. But a lot of people told me — politics, stay away from it.”
Funny, isn’t it, that a female rapper doesn’t even have to once mention politics to be told to steer clear of it by supposed fans, while the huge brand fronting her video’s budget is seemingly happy for her to swing a few punches upward.
BEAT: Sounds like Queen’s Speech 7 is your biggest statement yet.
Lady Leshurr: This is one of the most epic ones I’ve done. I always said if I was going to do it again, it had to be somewhere where people would think, “Oh, she’s taking the mick now!”