Broughton's "Miss Me" Is a Heartfelt Rap Banger

Broughton's "Miss Me" is dark and hard-hitting. The song has an unmistakable rainy and lonely vibe often found in UK electronic music. Broughton's lyrics deal with death and love. We talked to the prolific rapper about the way he writes his bars and picks his beats.

— Your songs have different styles, tempos and moods and yet all of them have a cohesive Broughton sound. How would you describe that sound? How do you choose the producers for your tracks and how do you work with them?

— I think it's hard to describe my sound, it's just me. It's unique, it's Broughton. I can get you hype but then at the same time make you cry. I've got all types of songs I don't like to be boxed in or put in a bracket. I just like being me. Doing whatever I want to do or what feels right.

Picking beats & choosing producers is a weird one for me. I've spend hundreds of hours on YouTube listening to type beats & random producers it just comes down to what speaks to me, I always know when I hear a beat if I could make a song to if or not. It's very natural & organic. I don't really like to force anything. I like to just spark a spliff & listen to beats, & whatever I start vibing to I'll end up writing to. It's a feeling for me. There's a few producers that I'll probably always go back to RXR being one, LCS Beats & a few others. If it's off YouTube I'll just buy the beat & just hit the studio

With RXR it's a little bit different because I've spoken to him & worked on songs together. But most of the time I just buy the beats & record whatever I've written & then put it out myself.

— When you have a beat that speaks to you, how do you start working on the lyrics? Just freestyling or writing with a pen and paper or using ideas from the notes on your phone? Or smth else?

— So most times I'll just keep reloading the beat & listening until words come to me & I'll start freestyling saying whatever comes to mind. & then if I like what I say I'll usually type it on my iPhone or my Blackberry.

Then the process continues – I just keep reloading the beat & rapping the same bars over & over until I reach the end of the song. Sometimes I write continuously & forget about a hook/chorus but other times I'll think of the hook first & then write the verses after. It just all depends on the structure of the instrumental & how I start rapping.

On Isolate I just kept rapping until I got to the end of my verse, put a little hook, then kept rapping, but other joints like Ocean Thoughts I wrote the hook first & then wrote the verses, so it's just all a vibe thing.

— What are some of the lines of yours you are most proud of? Or if not proud then really satisfied with. Maybe clever punchlines, or something really emotional, or really precise in conveying what you mean.

— Wow that's a hard question I've got so many. ????????

My favourite bars of late are probably from Ocean Thoughts in the second verse:

Aston Martin over any Porsche that's my 007 Sauce
I just need Quantum of Solace
Cuz Tomorrow Never Dies if I'm honest
Never Live And Let Die
Just bill and get high
Cuz You Only Live Twice, I mean once
That should suffice
Drowning in Pussy Galore is my vice
I'm The Man with the Golden Gun
don't get hype

Even simple lines like "Happy on the outside but on the inside I'm sad"
I love because it's so relatable but still hits hard. That's from my latest release Broken.

Weed smoke be my therapy
Then I'm ghost distillery
You don't want war
But if it GHETTS to dat I'll draw for the
AR ARTILLERY

That bar there is for all my Ghetts fans! One of my inspirations for sure. That's from my song Things Change.

Then any lyric from R.I.P Joyce just means the world to me. Out of all of my songs that's my most special & the one I hold closest to my heart.

I could keep going but we would be here all day. ???????? I think being so in love with the art & rapping & thinking of clever punchlines & wordplay it's hard to only pick a few but these are the ones that come to mind right now.

Listen to more of Broughton's songs – spacey Neptune and meditative Sometimes.