Meet Octavian: The rapper who went from homelessness to winning the BBC Music Sound of 2019

"My mum, the last thing she told me before I left was, 'You're either going to be in prison or you're going to be big.'"

Octavian - who has just got a step closer to the big time after being named winner of BBC Music's Sound of 2019 - is recalling the day, at the age of 14, that he was thrown out of his mother's house.
"She was bare angry at me, so it was weird that she said that," he says. "But I always kept that in my mind.

"I knew I'd be big because I didn't want to be in prison. So I kept myself motivated just through that."
The French-born, London-based musician - full name Octavian Oliver Godji - spent the next few years homeless, jumping from sofa to sofa, trying to keep that dream alive.
He won a scholarship to the Brit School, which taught artists like Adele, Amy Winehouse and FKA Twigs, but eventually dropped out. His argument: "I don't believe you can teach someone to be creative."
The friends he made at Brit School stuck with him, though, helping to produce the beats and visuals on Octavian's melodic, genre-defying mixtapes 22 and Essie World (a reference to his SE London postcode).



His breakthrough came with 2017's Party Here, whose ominous intro unexpectedly gives way to a euphoric chorus, where the 23-year-old promises himself: "You're gonna blow, it's just timing."
He couldn't have been more correct. Weeks later, Drake filmed himself singing Party Here at a Golden Globes after-party. Octavian's phone hasn't stopped ringing since.
Recently signed to Black Butter records (home to Clean Bandit and Rudimental), he's just moved into his first flat and has been working with Diplo and Mura Masa as he prepares his debut album.

Let's go back to the beginning, when people still called you Oliver Godji...
So for everyone who doesn't know, Octavian is actually my full real name. I'm Octavian Oliver Godji but people just assume Oliver is my real name because it sounds "proper".
Do you know where Octavian came from?

I don't - but I Googled it and it's like a Roman emperor, and it means "the eighth child".
When you were growing up, who was the first artist you obsessed over?
Michael Jackson. I think everyone did at one point. Michael Jackson is a big part of my life. He was inhuman, almost.

When did you start writing music?
When I was seven, I used to go to primary school and rap bars on the way home. I never wrote, though, I always used to freestyle with my friends.

You got a scholarship to the Brit School but you left under a cloud. What was the main thing you took away from that experience?
Before the Brit School I thought there was only one conventional way to succeed. When I was there, I learned that being talented and having creativity can make you successful. That changed my whole life. I was like, "What? I'm going to be a rapper!"

So if you didn't go to the Brit School to become a musician, why did you enrol?
I just didn't want to do maths! Can I say that?! Maths, for me, is the worst. I can't do it. It bugs my brain.
So I wanted to do something I was good at, which wasn't acting or music at the time. It was literally just not doing maths. But they accepted me and I did a course called community arts practice, which is basically teaching the underprivileged the arts. It was lit. It was good. I liked it a lot.

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