Grime artist Wiley has said he “hadn’t done enough” to be recognised for pioneering the genre until last year.
The London-born rapper was speaking as he arrived to collect an accolade for his contribution to music at the NME Awards on Wednesday evening.
Speaking on the red carpet he joked that failure to be recognised for his contribution had left him “smashing my head up against the wall every year”.
He added “But I’m all right, you know what it is.
“Everything happens in time it will happen if it’s meant to happen. As you get older you learn that.
“When you’re younger you want it and you do a bit of work and you think you’ve done the work for it it’s not. Nah, you hadn’t done enough.
“I’d rather have what’s right for me than have it a different way.
.@VO5 NME Awards 2017: @WileyUpdates' most memorable moments throughout the years https://t.co/Vomjllyy6V pic.twitter.com/tNmgAVEyA8
— NME (@NME) February 15, 2017
“I used to think ‘Oh God next year’ in actual fact you can’t say anything you’ve just got to do it.”
He said the grime scene was in the best place it had been in, for years and compared it to “like a gelled England team”.
He also confirmed he would love to play Glastonbury this year and said he had “some apologies” to make after criticising the festival previously.
