![]() ![]() Gonzales was born not far from the pub we are sitting in. You can certainly see why the latter accusation might rankle. “When someone says: ‘Oh, he’s just a rich kid, he got money from a budget.’ And it’s just like: it’s the complete opposite of that.” Some people think that, with his clear diction and smart clothes, he’s a posh kid parodying UK rap, which particularly infuriates him. Some people think his videos are one of those wearyingly self-conscious millennial jokes, where irony is piled on to irony until it’s unclear whether it’s meant to be funny or not. Some people think he’s an outsider artist. Some people think he’s a witty, autodidactic pop genius. Reading the comments underneath them, you get the full range of opinions about what he may or may not be doing. It’s something from my culture that I was doing, so I put that in the video.” “That was in the past, and I only did it to, you know, release tension, relieve stress. “The first thing to say is: I do not encourage that,” frowns Gonzales, when subway surfing is mentioned. There is also a lot of perilous-looking messing around on tube trains, something that caused Transport for London to intervene and have the video for Subway System (“Damn, yes, my Northern Line is running / Peng little line, goes far to Morden, man – that’s something”) taken down. Jimothy in a now removed video of Subway System. “A lot of the moves that you see in the videos, I really can’t do again, because it was just freestyling, done in one take.” ![]() “Those dance moves come from the same thing that the music comes from, where it’s like: I’ve got no rules, I’ve not been taught anything so I’m just going to make up my own thing,” he says. In his self-directed videos, meanwhile, he wanders around London, dancing with gleeful abandon on the top of bus shelters and with pensioners in an Ikea car park. “Life,” runs his deadpan catchphrase, “is getting quite exciting.” Over the top, he sings and raps in a soft, guileless tone that’s more or less the same as his speaking voice, dispensing idiosyncratic homespun wisdom and positivity – “You can’t be doing more drugs than Kate Moss” “I’d rather know a language than learn boring maths” “Let’s make some money, let’s make mum happy” – and outlining his vision for his future, in which he becomes hugely successful, makes money and shops “at Waitrose almost every single day”. If his music doesn’t really sound like anything else, the fact that a recent Spotify playlist he curated featured lushly melodic 80s soul by the Jones Girls and Loose Ends among the hip-hop tracks seems to give an indication of his inspiration. His tunes – created at home, although the equipment he uses is “a secret” – are infernally, inescapably catchy, clearly the product of someone with an intuitive understanding of how pop works. Everyone seems to agree that Jimothy is now, officially, A Thing, although precisely what kind of thing has been the subject of much debate. Their online success has led to media attention, European tours and a record deal with Black Butter, home to Rudimental, DJ Khaled, Zara Larsson and J Hus. It was the first of a succession of viral hits, followed, in short order, by FUTURE BAE, Subway System, DRUGS, Fashion and I Can Speak Spanish. In fairness, you can see how people have jumped to that conclusion in the 18 months since Gonzales posted a video on YouTube for a song called Getting Busy!, as Jimothy Lacoste (a name he adopted because “I always want to be unique and it just sounded nice to my ears” he has subsequently dropped the Lacoste). So that really, really offends me when people say that.” He thinks for a moment: “But if people think that, I’m not going to be upset with them, it’s fine to think that, do you know what I mean?” “It pisses me off when people say that, because it’s like … this is something, in a way, that’s not really been done before which is: self-taught directs his own videos does his own instrumentals doesn’t use samples gets his friends to do this and do that puts work into it – and then someone says it’s just a joke. S itting in a Camden Town pub with a glass of water, immaculately turned out in a style he describes as “dressing casual, dressing like a millionaire, dressing a bit like an American dad” – neatly tucked-in polo shirt, Burberry jacket, spotless trainers – Timothy Gonzales is insisting that what he does is not a joke.
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