We Live Here—and its take-no-prisoners title track—was inspired by Vylan’s young daughter, who randomly announced, ‘We live here!’ one day while playing in the family’s front room. “She often says very beautiful things with very little reason behind it,” he explains with a laugh. “But I knew it was going to be the title for something. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that she’ll have the same experience that I did. One day someone will call her ‘n—r,’ and I can’t shield her from that.”
“This is the England I know,” he explains. “I was born here, but when someone calls you ‘n—r’ at a very young age, you realize you’re never gonna be English in that sense. I’m in this country, but not of it. You have to come to grips with that. But the other side of that is, ‘No—fuck that. This is my country.’ There’s no ‘Go back to where you come from.’ This is where I come from. I am England. This is what England looks like now.”
“Great Britannia is no longer,” he says. “It’s not fly the flag and crusade. Let’s get over that. It’s the reggae parties and the warehouse raves with garage and grime music. It’s the backstreet pub with indie music; It’s the curry houses; it’s a multicultural land. Whether they like it or not, I’m here to stay. And there’s plenty of people like me. So I’ve got to figure out how I’m gonna make this place better.”