Some wouldn’t call our first link-up a meeting, but stay with me here. It’s a weeknight in 2022, early in the year. Someone’s offered me tickets to Dave’s headline show at The O2, which, being a fan, I quickly accept. There are no trains or Tubes running that night, so I find myself in the queue of cars crawling, painfully, towards the arena. But when we arrive, it’s worth it. Dave is, by all turns, magnificent and has the arena glittering with lights from phones desperate to record a souvenir of the moment. Then, about halfway through the gig, an undeniable drill beat starts up, guitars start being strummed over skipping hi-hats that has everyone lose themselves for a moment, or as I think good music and art does, brings you closer to yourself, gets you out of your own way to make space for some honesty. Here, that honesty takes the form of limbs being flung this way and that, of lyrics being punched in with the accuracy of the rapper on stage, of whoops and cheers and excitement. As he performs, I nudge my friend and ask, “Who is that?” He looks at me confused, like I should know, and when it becomes clear I don’t, he says: “Cench. Central Cee.”
A year later, at the end of a three-week, 17-date tour for my new novel, I’ll take a plane to Barcelona to meet my younger brother and sister and their friends, just in time for Primavera Sound, where we’ll learn that in Europe they do festivals a little differently. I grew up going to London’s Wireless and Lovebox, where, if you were lucky, if you succeeded in racing through the crowd after the headliner left the stage, managed to sneak into the Tube station before restrictions were imposed, you might get home by 11pm. But in Europe, and here at Primavera, the main acts go on from around 9pm. That’s how we find ourselves waiting until just after midnight for Central Cee to come on – and when he does, the crowd transforms into a horde. The mass of people that had been previously simmering in energy begin to press towards the front as Cench emerges, several chains glittering from his neck as he glides across the stage.
When we meet – this time for proper – a third time, in the lobby of a members club in London earlier this spring, he’s fresh from the gym, which he later tells me is the only guaranteed part of his day. Coffee in hand, hood pulled tight to his head, he’s clearly a little tired but flashes me a quick smile, takes my hand and pulls me into an embrace. Up close, he’s quiet and unassuming, but as soon as you’re within his orbit he commands attention. It’s a real presence he holds, though, despite the mature demeanour – I don’t want to diminish the boyish excitement I get a glimpse of. As we walk, he’s quick to ask me questions first: “What ends are you from? You come round these sides much? I heard you write novels…” His eyes light up when I confirm there are audiobook versions and he continues to delve, asking me to divulge, prying into specifics around the process, nodding knowingly when I talk about not just having to maintain my voice but also my spirit. “That’s what it’s about,” he says. “Delivery. Heart.”
It’s hard to deny that Cench isn’t just having a moment but is on a seemingly never-ending run, with cosigns from some of the genre’s greats (Skepta and Chip), a slew of collaborations from music heavyweights and an increasing presence in the fashion world – he’s previously collaborated with Trapstar and Corteiz with his own lines, featured in the Nike & Nocta collaboration and fronted Jacquemus’s Neve World collection in 2022. All of these brands are synonymous with his own style: the tracksuit he heralds as uniform, a uniform I’m sure many of his 11 million Instagram followers have taken as their own too. When I ask him when he realised life might have changed for him, he laughs, recounting a trip to New York in 2022, a place he’d travelled to numerous times, but on this occasion, he says, “I couldn’t even walk down the street. People were mobbing me. Even all the way over here, people didn’t know who I was but they wanted photos. It was crazy.”
Cench’s rise has been meteoric – if his anecdote about New York wasn’t confirmation of his global reach, his Spotify numbers are (around 23 million monthly listeners with five billion combined streams, with “Doja” and “Let Go” accumulating the most solo streams). With his own unique – and extremely successful – take on UK drill, a genre characterised by 140bpm and skipping triplet hi hats, he is, put simply, the biggest young star in British music, leading a charge of UK musicians who are ushering themselves into a uniquely modern limelight, while also stepping onto the global stage: Olivia Dean and Holly Humberstone have both completed extensive tours; you’re likely to find Jyoty or Shygirl spinning in any club around the world; and between Flo and Ezra Collective, they’ve stormed the stages of Coachella and Glastonbury. British musicians are everywhere. This is in part due to the rise of social media (Cench tells me, holding up his mobile phone: “This allows me to reach anyone, anywhere”), but also because wherever they go, they’re only trying to be themselves – often eclectic, often raw and vulnerable, often brimming with emotion. British musicians are as ready to have a party as they are to open their hearts, to bare their souls. They’re constantly acknowledging how music and fashion go hand in hand. A tracksuit is not just a tracksuit, a dress is not simply a dress, it’s how we say: “This is who I am.”
When we arrive at Cench’s place, one of his friends is sleeping on the sofa. Despite his apartment clearly being new, it feels like I’m in a family home – not messy, but lived in, shoes lined up in one corner, boxes of merch tucked into another, bikes balanced against a wall. His brother, 19, who was with Cench when we met, heads straight to the kitchen, unpacking eggs, bread, beans and, to my delight, chicken nuggets from shopping bags, ready to prepare brunch for anyone who’s awake. Halfway through our chat, another bleary-eyed friend emerges from a bedroom. Another appears a few minutes later, holding a DSLR, recording what might become a documentary or might just be archival footage for the family.
Cench, born Oakley Caesar-Su, pulls up a chair for me at the kitchen island, where we perch watching his brother cook, and tells me he never really misses home when he’s away from it, on the road or on tour. Born in Ladbroke Grove, he grew up in Shepherd’s Bush with his mum (who is English) and younger brothers (he’s the eldest of three, with an additional half brother), but left his west London home at 14 – due to clashes with family – and ever since has been living a nomadic lifestyle, ready to get up and go when he needs to. But as he speaks, with those he loves, those he trusts, circling around him, the people who ride with him everywhere, it becomes clear that he doesn’t miss home because home is always with him.
Music arrived early for Cench. He recalls having a tiny MP3 player that his Pops (of Guyanese and Chinese heritage) or cousins would load tracks onto for him. The first song he made was when he was around 12 or 13 years old, when he rapped over Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “Otis” beat in his bedroom – which, he says with a broad smile, only happened because Krept and Konan had done the same. I ask if he still has the song, if it marks the beginning of something for him. He nods, saying it’s somewhere and the song didn’t just mark the beginning for him artistically, but from a commerce side too. He knew, even then, he wanted to put music out into the world, wanted to find a way for it to reach listeners, wanted to find a way of making a living from his work too. For many artists, it’s the art for a long time and then business arrives almost as an interruption. For Cench, this is something he’s been thinking about since the beginning: “How do I reach people?” which I think is another way of asking, “How do we shorten the distance between one another?”
He’s currently in album mode. I often think, as artists, there are two versions of the work that exist: the public version, that perfect package that we all get to engage with, and the private version, the thing that takes on many forms in the process, which can be beautiful and ugly, frustrating and rewarding, but ultimately becomes worth it, not because of what you end up with but because of how you got there. Until now, he’s only put out mixtapes and the album is pushing him in ways he didn’t expect, ways that are clearly emerging from his own internal compass rather than a public expectation. “Bigger!” he keeps saying. “The album needs to be bigger. Better.” When I ask if his process has shifted to accommodate this desire, he shakes his head. “The process,” he says, “has to be fluid, organic.” He wants the work to feel like a stream of consciousness, like a poem that emerges as a reaction to the sounds. Often, when he works, it’s just him – no other writers, no producers in the room, just a phone with his beats loaded up and something to write his thoughts down with. He knows what he wants but he’s not worried or concerned. He already has a raft of hits under his belt; rather than start anew, he’s looking to build on what he’s already started.
As we speak, Cench is open, warm, immediately trusting of me. But, I gather, it’s not always like this. I wouldn’t call him paranoid but he’s clearly cautious of who he lets into his space, who is allowed to join the family. “It’s all about the person, first and foremost,” he says. He must like who he is doing business with. He’s learning to trust when he’s drawn to people, an instinct that has fed into his recent collaborations: “Nice to Meet You”, a gem on PinkPantheress’s album, a scene-stealing verse on J Cole’s “HYB” and, of course, Split Decision, his joint EP with Dave.
When I mention Dave, the grin returns. The pair orbited each other for years, exchanging mutual admiration from a distance before connecting. Likewise, they didn’t rush the collaboration. “Trojan Horse”, the first track of four on the 2023 record, was done a year before the rest. When Split Decision dropped, it gifted Cench with his first No1 single, “Sprinter”. Despite having a genuine chemistry with Dave, the tape’s success surprised him. “All of it,” he says – pointing to himself, his life – “is surprising.” But he’s learning to celebrate himself. A few events in the past years – his Pops getting sick, the death of a friend who aspired to be a musician too – have encouraged him to take stock, to really engage in how humbling an experience what he does is, to appreciate that what he creates in private could be celebrated in public. “I have to try and celebrate as much as I can,” he says, “’cause it can all be over so quick, bro.”
I ask him about his influences on his music and style. Across our chat, he mentions Krept and Konan, Skepta, Lil’Durk, NBA YoungBoy, Michael Jackson, The Notorious BIG. But when I ask specifics, he’s quick to say, “Everything. Everyone. I’m always taking stuff in.” And style? He looks down at himself, at the tracksuit he’s wearing, a version of the outfits he wore for his Vogue shoot and for his appearance at the 2022 Fashion Awards. “This is me,” he says. He wears the clothes he’s comfortable in, the clothes for the day, the clothes that best show who he is. Skepta, he says, made it possible for him to wear a tracksuit in the way he does, but the embracing of it as an everyday, every-night uniform is all him. He’s not necessarily trying to be relatable, but he is trying to be honest. He is trying to be the most authentic version of himself. That’s what he’s trying to do with his music. “I don’t wanna be seen as a character,” he says. He wants to distil the range of emotions he experiences in his words. He’s always trying to communicate that specific vulnerability that comes with saying: “This is who I am.” As he speaks, I look intently across the breakfast bar at a young man, surrounded by his family, wearing what he wants to, being who he wants to be. What I’m getting, what we’re all getting, is him.
“I’ve really been doing this music thing for the past four years,” Cench tells me, which coincides with the largest seismic shift in both our lifetimes: the pandemic. Music has always been a combination of who surrounds you and who you might discover on your own. As for the former, I remember many years ago being handed a recording of Dizzee Rascal on a cassette by an older friend – suddenly I could hear a version of myself, of people I knew. Then came whoever was playing on the radio or MTV Base or Channel U, whoever your Pops or cousins had loaded up on your tiny MP3 player, whoever might be on stage opening for your favourite artist when you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with a stranger at a gig, sharing the intimacy of discovery with someone you might not ever see again. And yet, for a brief moment, you will share a kind of love.
Music can be a vehicle for our emotions. A place to process our joys or grief, to celebrate each other or simply have fun. In the wake of those lockdowns, those endless moments when mortality was our main anxiety, I think many of us spent time trying to get back to ourselves, only to realise that those people no longer existed. At that point, we had to be honest with ourselves about a world we were longing for, a world that no longer was, and I think music makes space for that. Whether it’s the space to feel, or just be still, or to move – to really move – music can take us to our most honest selves, even for a moment.
During the pandemic, I found myself reaching towards intimacy in a time we didn’t have any. More recently, as the world has opened back up, we’re still searching for those brief moments of closeness, to others but also to ourselves. We’re finding new ways of being close to our loved ones, of being close to love. Even as venues and spaces across the country close, music – British music, with its unique intimacy, ease, verve, wit, imagination and style tribes – is thriving. Communities where you can hear it, and feel your feelings and just be you, persist, whether it’s Recess’s huge takeover of Dreamland in Margate or at a Touching Bass party (the multi-hyphenate label run by Errol Anderson and Alex Rita) or listening to jazz at London’s “Mu”. Whether it’s simply pumping from your headphones or pounding out from your car, a swathe of incredible UK musicians and DJs are pushing boundaries across the country and onto the world stage: from Shygirl’s booming hyperpop to Olivia Dean’s tender and vulnerable lyrics; Mercury Prize-winning Ezra Collective’s dance-floor-ready jazz; rising group Flo, who are looking both forwards and back with their take on R&B; Jyoty’s sweaty, freeing DJ sets; or Holly Humberstone’s direct line to a new generation.
I think we’re all asking, where do we go where we can be ourselves? Where, for a brief moment, might we be close to one another. For Cench and other musicians leading UK sound in the 2020s, the answer is obvious: here.
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Grooming: Nicola Svensen. Hair: Cyndia Harvey. Make-up: Lynsey Alexander. Nails: Jenny Longworth. Production: Partner Films. Digital artwork: Output London. Model: Mona Tougaard