YouTuber Turned Musician KSI Talks About His Music Career

“It’s a lot more fake, there’s a lot more sly people,” says KSI about the music industry, compared to the world of YouTube.

The 27-year-old is still practicing life as a successful recording artist.

He now has six of the top ten songs in the UK, alongside his first album to number two.

But despite his grand success, KSI isn’t getting complacent about his future within the industry.

What Did KSI Say?

“If you flop a few times, then everyone just kind of runs away. Then you’re like, ‘oh I thought I had friends’,” he tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

“You need to take it with a pinch of salt and not take anything too personally. Because ultimately it’s a business. I’m starting to learn that.”

It’s a different thing on the platform on YouTube, the thing that has ruled the world for years.

“With YouTube it’s a lot more friendly, everyone’s actually just cool and it’s not like everyone’s trying to backstab.

“I don’t want to make it sound like a bad music industry, obviously there are good parts in it.”

For KSI – whose real name Olajide William Olatunji or JJ for friends and family – most of those big hits came last year.

“The annoying thing is that I really blew up during the lock,” he said.

“I’ve never had the opportunity to go to any of these crazy parties like I am now, compared to the past when I was nothing in the music industry.”

KSI’s Ultimate Aim

It did not stop him from making friends with some of the most successful artists, including Anne-Marie, Craig David and Yungblud.

The latter features on KSI’s latest single Patience but he says he’s keen to make music by himself.

“That’s also another thing that people like to say, that I get carried by features.”

“I’m excited to do a song where it’s just me, no features, and prove that I can get another top 10 by myself.”

His ultimate goal is a number one single and a number one album.

Stage Performance

The YouTuber, who became a boxer, became a rapper – now with more than 22 million subscribers on his channel – will be playing for thousands of fans on the big stage in Reading and Leeds in August.

It is warm to his trip to the UK and Ireland in October which has already sold out.

But it wasn’t easy to walk. Two years ago, KSI said he found it even harder to sell tickets to his gigs.

During a set of shows in Europe he says, slightly embarrassed, a venue actually had to reduce its capacity and corner off certain areas so it looked like there were more people in the crowd.

“There were only 15-20 people there,” he adds. “It was just hard”.

Then came 2020. Seven UK Top 40 hits and a debut album that only narrowly lost out on top spot to The 1975 – the band’s fourth consecutive number one album.

New Album In July

They will be another album, “hopefully in July”.

“There are some great American artists who will be on this album,” he said.

“I have a few top UK artists too. It’s just a good mix.”

And that’s not all, last month he launched a new record label called The Online Takeover with his manager Mams Taylor and he has got pretty big aspirations for it.