Even as a child, Cristale Da’Breu knew her creativity took her outside the box. “I don’t just wanna play with Barbie [dolls],” she remembers thinking. “What are you supposed to do with that? I want Barbie to get married to Mr Incredible, their kid is gonna be Mike Wazowski. My imagination was too broad.”
Thanks to her unflinching delivery and tenacious spirit, the 23-year-old is one of the most formidable talents to come out of UK drill in recent years. Cristale’s confidence oozes when NME meets her in Brixton days after the premiere of Netflix’s recent sci-fi/thriller The Kitchen, in which she stars alongside grime royalty Kano. Hair freshly done and dressed in her beloved Stone Island jacket, it appears as though drill is the tip of the iceberg for this young firestarter.
Born to a Guyanese father and a Jamaican-Montserratian mother, Cristale was a high achiever in whatever she put her mind to – and originally, that was never intended to be rap. Scouted to play football for Crystal Palace U16 and 18s, she went on to win poetry grand slams in school, and pursued a degree in Illustration.
But in 2019, Cristale stumbled upon drill; combining her talents in poetry, she began dropping freestyles on her social media and took off. There’s her ferocious collaboration with Teezandos for Plugged In featuring an impressive flow switch, and her dancehall foray with Laa Lee produced ‘Bing Bong’, which has been used by a whopping 630,000 videos on TikTok.
Over time, Cristale’s subject matter has evolved into a more conscious approach. Her 2022 EP ‘What It’s Like To Be Young’ chronicles her upbringing in Brixton, which she achieves with her characteristic empathy and personality. In an overwhelmingly male-dominated genre, Cristale’s artistry has won the respect of fellow rappers such as PS Hitsquad: “He was the first man in drill to approach me and say, ‘This ain’t dead. Bun what everyone else is saying – I believe in you.’”
Cristale reps so hard for Brixton that it led to her role in The Kitchen, which took inspiration from the neighbourhood, plus Peckham and Elephant & Castle, to create an apocalyptic housing estate. From there, she made a cameo in Top Boy and penned the track ‘Roadents’ for its fifth and final series.
Almost unbelievably, Cristale has been balancing her bustling career with her degree, which she’s finally graduated from. Now that she’s free, NME speaks with her to dig into her artistic philosophy and future plans.
NME: You recently starred in The Kitchen alongside Kano and directed by Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares. What was it like working with them?
“A lot of people have asked me what it was like working with Kano – like I’m supposed to turn around and say it was the worst experience of my life! But he was actually so nice to me. I feel very blessed because a lot of females try to navigate themselves in this industry, they’re not met with open arms.
“I text Daniel from time to time saying, “thank you for the opportunity, I’ll always be grateful for this.” He’ll be like: “Stop acting like you don’t belong here! This is your path, it’s where you’re meant to be.”
You also used to play for Crystal Palace – how has football influenced your creative process?
“Do you know what? I got scouted as a goalkeeper first. That’s because I would do everything in my power to make sure that ball doesn’t go in the back of the net. I’ll fly, do a backflip, I’ll jump off the goalpost! I’d do everything.
“In football, I would push myself to the limits of working out my muscles. In music, my brain is my muscle. I’m exercising that bad boy all the time. Sometimes it’s to the point where I’m overworked, but you’ve got to get through it, because my responsibility as an artist is to provide music.”
In your Daily Duppy freestyle, you speak about how people in the music industry often underestimate you. How many times have you found yourself in that situation and how does it feel?
“I’m always in that situation. I try to see what the other person’s saying; that’s why I wait until the last minute to open my mouth, because I want to see what that person’s attention is based on. If they come at me in a demeaning way and then after 30 minutes of letting them speak, I finally open my mouth and you’ve had to scramble your papers saying ‘I didn’t know she was going to be this smart’? It doesn’t make me feel good, I feel like I wasted my time.
“You’re looking at me as a way for you to make money. You actually have no interest in me, because if you did, then you know what I’m like based off of social media research, listening to my music, or any interviews you would have read.”
“You don’t need to shout for people to hear you”
There’s a lot of misogyny in drill music, with many often believing it’s too masculine for women to participate in the genre. What do you think?
“With any female that I work with, I always give them advice – I’ve had this conversation with Chy Cartier and Teezandos. I always say, ‘Remember you can delete comments. They send it because of something in their life that has nothing to do with you.’
“I agree that drill is very masculine. Being around brothers my whole life might have affected the expression of my femininity. Growing up where I’ve grown up, showing weakness in any shape or form will actually lead to you getting disrespected. From young, I was never the girl to be messed with: I had too many brothers! And even if my brothers ain’t there, I can actually hold my own.
“What people do is narrow drill down to speaking about violence, and they associate violence with masculinity. That is society’s issue. If you’re associating masculinity with violence, then women and men are going to grow up and exist thinking a man is only a man if he’s violent. A man is supposed to be tender, a protector. If a man is violent, he isn’t supposed to be violent to you, or willingly; it’s like, he doesn’t wanna do this. He’s not doing it to get some stress out.
“Some drill songs made by women actually take on the same structure as the drill songs that men do, speaking about what they do in these streets. I’ve never once said I’ve done anything in these streets. I’ve only spoken about if anyone wants to step to me about anything, this is how I’m going to deal with the situation.
“I’m discussing stories and things that I’ve had to experience growing up. I’ve never said that I’m on the road trapping. Don’t shoot the messenger, that’s all I’m trying to say.”
You’ve got this very specific, confident tone when you rap. How did you develop your unique delivery?
“In a lot of the recent drill songs, I’ve got a specific tone that’s similar to how I’m talking now. I don’t have to be angry, I can say what I wanna say and bounce. But it took a long time to get there.
“You don’t need to shout for people to hear you. I got lost from my wordsmith days, and I had to remind myself that what makes something impactful is the spaces between the words. That’s what I learned through poetry. With poetry, it was just me and the mic. If I’m gonna let someone take it in, I’ve got to create the spaces between the words and create a moment for them. Thinking about that, I stripped it back a lot.”
You’ve got a very empathetic perspective when it comes to your music, where does that come from?
“It all comes from my mum. She stands out from the way she was raised, that heavy, tough-minded Jamaican household. Growing up in that discipline, to turn around and not discipline me like that? Not be insensitive to my feelings? Because my mum’s had so much patience with me, it’s only right that I have patience with the rest of the world.”
You’ve had so many fingers in different pies, all at the age of 23 – where do you see yourself going?
“I just want to make the world a better place. I just want to be able to make people feel things, the world just doesn’t feel enough. I don’t wanna inflict pain on anyone, but feeling is very important. It makes you human.
“I got asked this question the other day, and a young man told me my answer was rubbish. He was like, ‘You don’t wanna be the best female Black rapper in the world?’ No. That means I’m gonna spend my life comparing myself to other people, and that’s not how I want to be spending my time. There’s room for everyone, why do I have to be the best?”
That’s a very different perspective than the braggadocio often expected in rap…
“I’m not like that anyway, but even if I’ve got a bar like ‘no one can outrap me in the UK’, why am I saying that for? If I’m considered in the eyes of the industry that I’m one under Little Simz, what about the person that’s one under me? I’m telling everyone else I mess with in the UK that I don’t mess with anyone – that’s how you make enemies! I don’t want any enemies.
“For me, I believe in building everyone up. There’s too much breaking everyone down in this ting. Everyone’s supposed to win, everyone’s supposed to eat.”