Pete and Bas, the grandad rappers taking South London by storm

Old blokes have the same bodies as young ones, just a bit lower.

That’s not a worry for Pete and Bas, though, as they are not bench-pressing their way to stardom – they’re rapping.

The grandad duo have already notched up more than 10 million hits on YouTube – their biggest “banger” is Dents in a Peugeot, with 1.6million views.

The Drill sensations are “spitting” (ie reciting) witty lyrics over some authentically raw beats – that’s up-to-the-minute modern music to the rest of us.

Two grandads are not the obvious candidates to cook up a grime storm. But their latest single, Old Estate, released next month, may dominate the drill scene – and has every chance of crossing over (that’s reaching the pop charts, not going to heaven).

Old Estate features M24 and has a video filmed on an estate in Rotherhithe.

Pete, 70 this month and a grandad-of-six from the Peckham Rye Estate, said: “Who said you’re too old to break the scene? I’ve been in the BBC studios chatting to radio people, I’ve been in some of the biggest clubs in the country but all I want to do at the end of the day is stick my feet up and watch telly with the wife.

“My dad was a fanatical Millwall fan. If you cut him, he would have bled blue.”

Pete and Bas write everything themselves, with their grandsons and a couple of their friends providing beats and production for them.

“They give us the beat, and we provide the words,” said Pete. “I am a South London boy so talking fast is not a problem.”

The duo’s first song, Shut Ya Mouth, was released in 2018.

The pair are known in the drill scene after regularly featuring on its biggest show, GRM Daily, and they have had nods from Giggs, Camberwell’s Octavian and Headie One.

Their first gig in 2018 was in front of just 10 people at the Graduate in Greenwich.

Since then, they’ve played the Camden Roundhouse, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Reading, Oxford, and Brighton – as well as Ayia Napa in Cyprus.

Their Lads On Tour tour was scheduled for Autumn 2020, but has been postponed to October 2021 due to coronavirus.

As Millwall fans who can remember the playing days of Harry Cripps, they have long back stories to tell about what they used to do before their lives in the limelight.

Pete, a former leisure centre manager, then Royal Mail sorting office manager in Peckham, Deptford and Thamesmead, said: “It has surprised us. I was amazed by the number of plays.

“We love being recognised wherever we go – we get stopped by all sorts of people of all races. And they are always very respectful.”

Bas might just have been a piano teacher introduced to grime by one of his students.

Pete might have been a trading standards officer visiting a shop in Greenwich High Road, where Bas was teaching piano. They’re not saying – it’s the music which counts.

 

ELVIS FANS’ GUIDE TO DRILL WORDS

Drill – music, not a tool for putting up shelves

Bando – derelict flat, not an Italian beat combo

Banger – hit tune, not an old car

Bars – verses of a tune, not pubs

Blunt – cannabis cigarette, and nothing to do with balladeer, first name James

Booty – glute muscles, not what pirates bring back from raids

Bun – lighting cigarette, and nothing to do with honey, cream, Chelsea or a hairstyle

Crib – home, not a bed for a baby

Ends – home estate, not the oldest part of your hair

Flow – lyrical skill, not the speed of a tap

Grime – music, not dirt on your spectacles

Hoes – women, not garden tools

Mains – friends, nothing to do with a kettle plug

Rap – spoken tune, not what you do to presents at Christmas

Shorty – woman, nothing to do with a person’s height

Trap – ghetto, not a device for killing mice

Whip – car, and nothing to do with Indiana Jones

Pictured top: Pete and Bas