Masculinity in Minor Keys, NIPPA Takes a Deep Dive Into his new EP (Interview)

Nippa is one of UK R&B’s most compelling new voices—genre-blurring, emotionally astute, and refreshingly self-assured and has arrived with his highly anticipated third EP, Hope She Hears This. Hailing from Tottenham, north London, his music fuses buttery smooth melodies with sharp, rap-adjacent lyricism, rooted in a rich palette and wide ground of sonical influences that fall between the genres of Motown to US and UK rap. Since stepping into the studio in 2019, Nippa has crafted a signature sound that feels intimate yet expansive, garnering co-signs from Billboard, MOBO, and a growing global fanbase along the way, who have been awaiting the next musical instalment from the singer.

Hope She Hears This is a 9-track introspective body of work that captures the emotional nuance of heartbreak, healing, and masculine vulnerability. Building on the foundation of last year’s INDUSTREETS, the new EP marks a musical and personal evolution for Nippa, having spent time working on his craft, but still releasing frequent soundbites to the world. The introspective 'WYD HERE?' and buttery ballad 'Kiki's Brown Eyes,' sees Nippa invite listeners, new and familiar, deeper into his world—unpacking the process of healing, while redefining what it means to be a young man expressing real feeling in today’s day and age.

Looking ahead, Nippa is not just chasing hits, but track by track, is building a larger sonical story that will continue to narrate the exciting creative journey that lies ahead of him. With a headline show under his belt, millions of streams, and a strong creative identity shaped through collaborations with brands like Nike and creatives like Slawn, he’s proving that artistry is more than just the music. From intimate confessionals to club anthems, Nippa is shaping a world that’s solely his own—and this is only the beginning.

Hope She Hears This - this EP is only sixteen minutes, but such a complex and emotional sonical journey. The first thing that struck me was the title - There's a little longing there, some remorse and unspoken emotion. Break this down for me.

"Hope She Hears This is a message from me to her. We always hear the woman's side when it comes to heartbreak or when it comes to being done wrong by someone, so Hope She Hears This is to every girl, but from a man's point of view.

"Nowadays, everyone wants to do the toxic masculinity thing of boasting about how many women they’ve been with - but when you find that one, and things don't go the way you want them to, all these feelings get brought up and you might not necessarily know how to address them - whether its feeling insecure, or vulnerable from putting them first and not realising your self worth - that's where the project came from - that’s Hope She Hears This."

I’m hearing a lot of contrasts in your work, especially when I think about INDUSTREETS and the 'Gangsta’s Ballad' snippets you've posted on Instagram recently. What does keeping these two sides to the music - the emotional part, and the hard-hitting musical part - mean for you as an artist?

"INDUSTREETS was a big part of my introduction - it was me realising, ‘Yes, I'm an industry standard artist now, but I'm still in the streets and still in the ends. I'm still around, but I still dive into what I dive into.’  With Gangsta Ballads - I still believe that I'm hard to the core, but I'm also accessing my emotions there. 

"It’s cool to long for something, and I guess the growth from INDUSTREETS  to now is really and truly down to the subject matter. 

"INDUSTREETS was about being in music, and juggling a street life and trying to be on the right path, and this new EP is about true feelings. I think the juxtapositions in the music come with you not necessarily expecting to hear this from someone who looks like me, or from someone who is from where I’m from.

"You wouldn’t necessarily expect to hear it being sung out, being sung like this. You’d expect a n*gga to express his emotion via rap, or expect that toxic masculinity would be the focus of the approach. But sometimes I feel vulnerable, and that doesn't make me a b*tch. I’m human, and it makes me more of a man to act this way with my emotions and express them."

Double entendres appear a lot in your lyrics - On tracks like ‘Kiki's Brown Eyes’, and on WYD -  two different states of mind are represented. We see brown eyes, but you see Hennessey. Being an artist, are there any stark double entendres in your own life that cause these entendres to constantly make it into your art? 

"Everything in this EP is from me. Everything in this EP, I’ve been through. ‘Kiki’s Brown Eyes’ specifically - that song describes the point you get to where you’re so high on the love, that the most minor details of the person excite you.

"Rather than saying ‘This woman looks beautiful’, your thought process turns into a ‘Your eyes are so light brown that they remind me of Hennessy and whiskey,’ - and it takes you back to the first time you spoke to them. I was at the peak of love, and expressed it in a way that was personal to me. I didn't want to come on some shit and say ‘You're the baddest of them all, nobody got anything from you - nah,’ I wanted to say something that one girl and one girl alone can relate to, because there's nobody else like her.

"I had to be specific because it's not like every girl has brown eyes like that - some have green, some have blue. But it was specific to her, so I needed to direct it towards her and her only. 

"With ‘WYD Here?’I was painting a picture of bumping into an ex. As a man, when you bump into an ex out of nowhere, your palms get sweaty, you don't know whether to side hug her, or give her a handshake - you just don't know.

"You might feel a little awkward, and those are the things that you’re thinking about - ‘If I give her a handshake, will she feel my sweaty palms?’ ‘We know each other, but does she know me now? ‘Do I know this new version of her since I’ve left her?’"

"I wanted to paint a picture of feeling overwhelmed with your thoughts when you bump into someone that you once shared something special with. The contrast of ‘WYD Here’ and ‘Kiki’s Brown Eyes’  worked really nicely because ‘Kiki’s Brown Eyes’ is demonstrating how you can resonate with a person so much, you're so in love, you know each other so well, and by the time we get to ‘WYD HERE?’ - you’ve become strangers.

"I’ve just spoken about how her brown eyes remind me of Hennessy and whiskey, and how it reminded me of the first time we spoke, and now I’m all nervous to shake her hand - there's a strong contrast between the two - the same girl, but two different feelings. How does a thing like that happen?

"And then travelling further into the EP to unfair, it gets to the point where you’re on some ‘F*ck you’ thing. I've gotta realise my self-worth, because you did me wrong. But on ‘INSECURE’, I can recognise that I've still been done dirty, and done wrong, but I’m ready to solve it. Maybe I'm a bit too proud of this project."

What was the cutting room floor looking like for this EP? Were there songs that hurt to leave out, or was it always clear which ones made the cut? When you’re  curating a feeling, on a project, is it always a case of some songs having to wait their turn to be part of another story?

"There are certain songs that, I'll be honest, I won't use again. I’m working on my next project now, and although I've released short EPs before, this is the first time I'm settling down and creating a body of work that has songs that flow into each other. Now that I know how to do that, the aim is to have a project full of ‘wows’. With certain songs, you get a ‘wow’ moment, you get those goosebumps - ‘Kiki’s Brown Eyes,’ did that, ‘INSECURE’ did that, and so did ‘Unfair’ for me - they all gave me that ‘wow’ moment. 

"In a project, the more personal a song is, the more real it is. The more you're able to get whatever is on your chest off in a real way, the more people will hear the real emotion behind what you're saying. If you have certain songs that are there to help with the flow and fill the project, when you take them off for a ‘wow’ song, the levels aren't the same - because now you have a quality standard.

"When making a project, it’s about being on a learning curve. ‘Kiki’s Brown Eyes’ wasn't the first song I did like that, maybe it was the fifth, but I had to do one, two, three, four to get to that. And those four, while they’re all hard, they don’t amount to that ‘wow’ moment, and therefore, they won't come out. It’s what happens after the fact-  I need to ask myself, ‘What have I made after this, that’s topped ‘Kiki’s Brown Eyes, for example? It’s the wow moment that you chase."

You’ve now released three EPs, each with its own unique story. Nippa, INDUSTREETS, now Hope She Hears This. You're a project-minded artist, and I feel like Hope She HearsThis is your most eloquent storytelling yet. Are we a step closer towards a larger body of work? 

"I’ve always wanted to be a project-driven artist, but I've lost myself in the numbers game before - chasing the streams and the hits. I remember I wanted my songs to be played in the club, and they were played at some parties, and so I’ve done that now. 

"Now it's like, ‘What do you love, Nip?’ I want to make music, and express myself - so I’m working towards projects, bodies of work, and stories to explain my journey.

"If you hopped on the journey today, yesterday, this year, next year, you're seeing the journey and you’ll understand that I’m no longer the same boy who made ‘Situation’, and ‘Where They At’ - I’ve grown, and in that, I’ve learnt how to make music in a better way. 

"I just want to be able to connect like that. I want people to, rather than love Nippa’s songs, love Nippa the artist, and I hope this project does this, and really touches some people. The same way that I feel about some of my favourite artists - sometimes I feel like some artists create music for me, and me only.

"That's how I want people to feel. I want them to think, ‘Nip tapped into my head and made this completely for someone like me, and now this song is my song,’. It’s all about the journey."

The soundscape of R&B is changing - and male R&B is too, especially in the UK. Theres more  of a balance between that traditional emotional vulnerability and that more confident and assertive tone - do you try to reflect this melodically?  How do you see that cross-pollination between the genres of Rap and R&B, the genres you're known for embracing?

"I don't know. What I do know is that in anything I do, I want to outdo the last, and push boundaries. Whether that's combining the R&B sound and some of the rap lyrics or the rap tone - I just think that's me. That's just who I am. There are certain songs where I go full R&B, but people notice the rap influences there too.

I like rap, so I’m going to make music that is based on the things that I like, and my influences. As much as it's pushing the boundaries that I want to be pushed, there's still your core influences that count for the reason you have your cadence because there’s nothing like what you grew up on. I grew up on R&B, and Rap, so I guess it's only right that the two are combined, but however I do it is very subconscious."

We've spoken about the multiple hats that you wear in music. You've fronted Nike, Cortiez, campaigns, and collaborated with Slawn - is it significant for you to have a creative identity outside of the music?

"Yes, definitely. As much as people can listen to your music, some people are trying to know you and what you're into and what you like -  I’m from the ends and we wear Nike all the time - getting to be a part of the Nike campaign was a massive moment for me.

"I'm still figuring out my creative identity outside of the music. But I think that's the beautiful bit - you're figuring it out - and everyone watches you figure it out - so they see growth.

"Slawn is one of my best friends. I live close to him, that's my brother. It's only right, I was part of the Slawn Club Campaign - it’s love all the way. I think it’s good for people to see that the scene is connected somehow. Slawn knows nothing about R&B, but somehow, thats my n*gga."

On 'INSECURE', the production takes us on a journey. The track starts very quiet, and production builds and then retracts again. Had anything in your artistic journey reflected the journey of this track? Something that has started out small, grown, and then settled again?

"I feel like the more I grow as a person, the more my artistry grows. I've done a lot of self work and there’s been a lot of constant growth in my life. I feel like I was very ignorant, and very institutionalised as a young boy. Now that I’m getting older, I’m realising certain things.

"I think in life everything starts as so grand, everything builds, and then when things settle, the vision is clearer now. The noise begins as is loud, everything is in your face, and you have to think, Hold on, let's tunnel vision that. I have to ask myself what the goal is and then think of one thing at a time.

"I feel like my personal growth has definitely been vital in my music career - there's so many things you're constantly  thinking about at once that you can't control. If you address them one by one, your load will get lighter and easier, and you’ll learn to accept the things you can't control. But everything you can control, it’s important to mitigate it, and make sure that it's done to the best of your ability."

Ending the EP with 'Unfair' feels like a deliberate choice—one that could be interpreted as airing your final grievances or frustrations. Is this your way of leaving listeners with unresolved tension, or is it a cathartic release? 

"That's exactly what it is. Originally, we ended the project with ‘WYD HERE?’, and that felt like the end of a project, but the fact that it ended like that, it didn’t sit right with me.I felt like it couldn’t just end on a ‘WYD?’  It had to end in a more grand way, because the journey’s never done.

"I love music, and I’m a true artist, so the journey will never be over. When you get into the career you want, if it's what you really wanted, you wont change careers. If you love what you do, you’re doing that till you’re fifty, or eighty. Even if that looks like coming out of being an artist, and starting to write music or produce - always doing something with music is the key part.

"That's why I think a song like ‘Unfair’ needed to end the project, because you're like ‘Whoa, what comes next?’, and the next thing comes, because everything leads into another thing, but the journey is never done. There’s always something leading up to something else, and there always has to be a ‘To be continued’, always. It's always the start, and never the end. This music will continue forever."

Lastly, when she does hear this, what would you say, or would you let the music speak for itself? 

"I’ll let the music speak for itself. Everything I’ve wanted to say has been said on this project - nothing has been missed. 

The good, the bad, the mediums - it's all been said there so, take it how you want it."

Listen to Hope She Hears This, out now on all platforms