Grime Kids – Meet Juwon Adedokun (Bayo)

What is the premise of Grime Kids?

It’s a coming of age story shown from the perspectives of young Londoners – It’s about a bunch of kids growing up in Bow. It’s their last summer holiday, as they’ve just come out of year 11 and they want to spend time together during the summer before they go off and start doing their own things. One of us comes up with the idea of becoming artists – a producer, a DJ and a rapper. The series shows the different stories of the boys’ lives and shows the different stories that can occur for just normal people living in an estate in that community back in the day.

The cast are brilliant actors so it was great to get to work with them. The writer, Theresa Ikoko, and her scripts are just sensational.

Why do you think viewers will be able to relate to Grime Kids?

We’re talking about a story that is basically about the youth of London, it’s their childhood. Some viewers may feel real nostalgia. I didn’t live through this time but to try and portray that story and encompass everything in that era of time is cool but a lot of pressure. We had a lot of great support from Target, Theresa and our directors. Target used to come on set bringing friends to show us how things ran during that time and how we could do certain things to bring out that aspect of that world and time. They made it easier for us to delve deeper into our characters. Theresa really captured that era – she’s such an amazing writer and she really allowed us to engross ourselves into that world.

You don’t really see these stories in the media unless people from those communities tell those stories, like Target did with his book – to show us what they had to go through to get to where they are today.

What can you tell us about your character, Bayo?

Bayo is a young Nigerian boy growing up in London but with a very ingrained Nigerian mentality – very strict rules and perhaps not quite as open to the world as a boy growing up in London would be. Because of Bayo’s joy and persistence and consistency, it allows them to be like ‘oh ok, maybe we can just be happy’ even though there’s many things happening around us that can bring us down. Bayo is going to always be there for his friends, no matter what situation they’re in.

Which character has the best wardrobe?

Kai, it just has to be Kai. The guy dripped out in Avirex, Moschino jeans – like fully Moschino from head to toe so I’d say Kai was definitely best dressed.

What was your favourite location during filming?

I have quite a few. One of my favourite places was Rhythm Divisions – the location was just beautiful. Target came in for that one and he said he felt like he was taken back in time. The Pressing Plant was a similar feeling too – to see the equipment they used and they had some records there that people came there to press. You could see names signed on the doors too.