Interview Master Peace: Ready Or Not

When Peace Okezie, otherwise known as Master Peace, was named as this year’s recipient of the hugely prestigious Ivor Novello Rising Star Award back in May, the 24-year-old’s subsequent red carpet conversation was loaded with the experiences of what had come before. “To get appreciated and seen for my work - for more or less the first time properly,” he noted. “It’s mad.”

Awarded to the country’s most promising songwriters (and decided by a team of songwriting experts), the win came among a year of objective successes for the Londoner. In March, he released critically-acclaimed debut album ‘How To Make A Master Peace’ - an Indie Sleaze 2.0 record that cherry-picked from the most hedonistic ends of ‘00s Britain in ways that fell right on the zeitgeist. In 2024 alone, he collaborated with Metronomy and Santigold, dance star TSHA and rapper Wale. Live, he’s a proven force who’ll round out the album cycle this month with a hometown show at Camden’s 1,500-capacity Electric Ballroom. And yet, says Peace, every victory has been an uphill struggle.

Ahead of the album’s release, he requested to be let go from his previous record deal with EMI. “I wasn’t dropped, I wanted to go. I just didn’t like it there and I didn’t think they cared so let’s not waste anyone’s time,” he says. “I’d sell out shows and do more tickets than half the artists on their roster. I wasn’t streaming well but I had fans. But then a kid can walk in and get a through ball into the stratosphere and it was like, ‘what the fuck?’. I’ve just always got to work harder and it’s been like that since the beginning of time.

“I was asking Santigold how she stays motivated and she just said, ‘This is it. This is just how it’s always been’,” he continues. “Name me one Black pop superstar in the UK right now on the level of someone like Harry Styles? There’s not one. And when you deep it like that it makes you look more into it. Same with indie music - okay, Bloc Party, cool, but who else is there? So for me, I can win an Ivor, I can sell out a tour, I can get in the charts but it’s still [very hard]. Whereas everybody else, they’re hailing them. I’ve sat down and spoken to Rachel [Chinouriri] about it and it’s like, they don’t want us to come through. We’ll give you the crumbs.”

In conversation Peace is charisma personified, delivering each answer with the kind of warm yet incredulous laugh that’s surely come from years of being proven unfortunately right. But underneath his affable demeanour, the point remains: despite cosigns from all the right corners, Peace has still found himself fighting to get a look in.

A current bugbear is with the rapid ascent of The Dare - essentially, the American electroclash counterpart to the resurgence Peace has spent the past few years trying to bring back on UK shores. Fuelled by memories of listening to The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem and MIA on the soundtrack of ‘00s sci-fi drama Misfits, with an album cover shot by iconic Skins photographer Ewen Spencer and an Adidas trackie aesthetic, ‘How To Make A Master Peace’ was the perfect party precursor to BRAT summer. “Then The Dare gets the [fast pass] and now it looks like I’m his son, whereas if you do your research then that’s my son!” he hoots, half-laughing, half-serious. “So again you find yourself thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But I ain’t a victim. I come from the mud. So it goes over my head because I know what the bigger picture is.”