It’s a brave musician who dares to challenge the tautly defined, closely
guarded territories of genre. Time was, you stayed in your lane. If you rapped,
you were a rapper. If you played guitar, you joined a band. The end.

Luckily, times, and expectations, have changed. There exists among us
stubborn creatives who refuse to be constricted by genre or type. Take Jovel
Walker AKA Random Impulse, for instance. A fan of both Jay-Z and Jack
White, the onetime Grime MC, who has engineered for everyone from Wiley
to Tinie Tempah, wanted to reflect influences from all of his musical worlds.
He wanted to be indie and hip hop. Play guitar and rap. Be left and right.

There was however, one small obstacle standing in his way. Jovel didn’t play
guitar. In fact, he didn’t play any instruments. Not one to be deterred (this is a
guy who taught himself to produce and engineer two years before), he looked
up tutorials on YouTube and got playing. Practising literally morning, noon
and night, he was determined to master the art of music to his best ability.
“The band that really helped me believe I could do it was the Arctic Monkeys,”
says Walker. “I read they’d only been playing for three years before they
released their first album. I’d assumed you had to play the guitar since you
were 11 years-old but that’s not the case. I’d get 3 or 4 hours sleep a night
and practise. Just practise, practise, practise.”

Although a full live band now backs him onstage, those early years of
doing it alone were key to his development as an artist. It was his unending
determination to play guitar that helped him to understand not only indie
music but its history and culture too. “I haven’t got it down to a fine science
yet, but I do think I’m one of the few people that authentically bridges the
gap,” he says of his thunderous live show that has more in common with The
Clash than Tinie Tempah. “You have to pay homage and understand the
history.”