Q&A: Master Peace Refuses to Pick a Lane — The Artist on Making Music Without Boundaries and Finding His Own Sound
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY ALICIA ZAMORA ☆
MASTER PEACE WAS NEVER MEANT TO FIT IN—Master Peace has spent his career somewhere between worlds. His music pulls from indie, pop, R&B, dance and everything in between, but there’s never been much interest in keeping those sounds separate. Instead, he lets them meet wherever they want to, creating something that feels less like a genre and more like a world of its own.
That instinct has been there from the start. Raised in East London, Master Peace grew up around music and eventually carved out a space for himself within it, building a career that took him from releasing music independently to Glastonbury stages and an Ivor Novello Rising Star Award. Along the way, he’s continued to make room for the unexpected, trusting his own instincts even when they lead somewhere unfamiliar.
Now, Master Peace is entering a new chapter with if i don’t love you, who will ?, his second album, arriving this October. With “act like you know ?” featuring Muni Long offering the first glimpse into what’s ahead, he’s opening the door to a world that feels bigger, bolder and entirely his own. For an artist who has never been particularly interested in staying in one place, maybe the most exciting part is not knowing where he’ll take us next.
Read below to get to know Master Peace.
LUNA: For anyone discovering Master Peace for the first time, how would you introduce yourself and the world you’ve created through your music?
MASTER PEACE: I would say I'm a magician. I make really interesting music. I don't really have a genre, but I just tap into everything that I feel like tapping into.
LUNA: “act like you know ?” brings together your guitar-driven sound with Muni Long’s R&B style. What made you feel like Muni was the right person for this song, and what did you learn from working with her?
MASTER PEACE: Muni Long—she's just the GOAT. Her songwriting credits are just crazy. When I made this song, I was like, “I need an R&B artist on this.” I kept listening to it, and I was like, “Muni Long would sound crazy on this.” So then, yeah, I just reached out [to her via] DM and was like, “Hey, I love your stuff. I would love it if you could jump on a song that I've written.” She was really helpful, and she did it. I think she actually spun me on the song, if I'm honest. She smashed out her part. So I'm very happy.
LUNA: How long was that process for you guys? Was it a quick turnaround?
MASTER PEACE: It was, to be fair. She actually did it quite quickly. Sometimes, especially when an artist is bigger than you, it can take a while because they have to go through their team. But she was really engaged and went back and forth with me over text. She was just really lovely about it.
LUNA: Your music has always pulled from different worlds—indie, grime, R&B, pop and everything in between. Do you feel like you’re still figuring out what Master Peace sounds like, or have you reached a point where you don’t really think about genres anymore?
MASTER PEACE: I don't really think about genres. My whole thing is about the voice. Whether I'm on dance music, pop or anything else, as long as you know it's me, that's what matters. I think I have a distinctive voice that people recognize. So it's more about the voice than the actual genre of music. I feel like you can put me on any genre, and I'll do what I need to do.
LUNA: You’ve said you never felt like you completely fit into either of the musical worlds you grew up around. Now that you’ve created your own sound, do you feel like you’ve finally found where you belong?
MASTER PEACE: I feel like in recent years, I've definitely gotten a lot of props for what I've done in the scene and the industry. It feels good to finally get that recognition in different ways. I feel like I'm becoming someone people look to when it comes to this kind of sound.
LUNA: You’ve gone from being written off at school to winning an Ivor Novello Rising Star Award, playing Glastonbury and becoming a major touring artist. When you look at that journey now, is there a moment where you really thought, “Wow, I actually beat the odds?”
MASTER PEACE: Yeah, I think probably when I dropped my debut album and it got on the charts, that's when I really thought, “Wow.” I don't have any industry connections, so everything I've done has really been from the ground up. I was in a session recently in Nashville, and I was talking to the guy I was working with. I told him, “I never thought when I started making music that it would ever amount to this.” Music is such a long-shot dream sometimes. Even if you really want it, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get what you want. I've just managed to be where I'm supposed to be at the right times, and that turned into success.
I don't think there was ever one moment where I thought, “Yeah, I beat the odds.” There wasn't really a checkpoint. But when that album came out, it started to sink in. Even the thought of making an album felt crazy to me, and then suddenly I was actually making one, and people believed in it enough to put money into it. Putting an album out like that is insane to me because I come from an area where a lot of people make music, but nobody really made it out. I felt like if I was going to do this, I wasn't going to be one of those people where they say, “Oh, yeah, he didn't make it out.” I was going to make it out. And I managed to do that, so I'm very happy.
LUNA: You’ve described Stupid Kids as a project for people who have been misunderstood, underestimated or written off. After putting something that personal into the world, did the response change how you think about being vulnerable in your music?
MASTER PEACE: I think people just related to it. I looked the other day, and it's been streaming so well, and I didn't realize how much it had connected with people. When you're putting out songs, you're just like, “All right, cool, next one, next one,” so it feels good to see that people have really connected with it. It's definitely made me want to be more vulnerable, and I think this album brings that vulnerability out for sure.
LUNA: You recently had “Los Narcos” featured in Netflix’s Tires. Congratulations, by the way! What was your reaction when you first heard your song in the show?
MASTER PEACE: I was laughing out loud. Even when I wrote that song, I was so drunk. For the take I did, I was absolutely wankered out of my mind, and I was on shrooms too. But we were just having such a good time. Obviously, I'm not encouraging drinking or taking drugs, but it was just funny to see a song I made completely out of my face end up on a Netflix TV show.
And not just any show—it was an Emmy-nominated TV show with Shane Gillis. I couldn't believe it. When they said it might be on there, I was like, “Oh, yeah, sounds good. It probably won't be on there, but whatever.” Then my friend sent me the link and said, “Watch it,” and I literally couldn't stop laughing. I was just screaming in my Uber like, “Holy shit.”
LUNA: Your second album, if i don’t love you, who will ?, is coming out in October. How does this album feel different from How To Make A Master Peace now that you’ve had more time to grow into yourself as an artist?
MASTER PEACE: I just think it's a bit more sure. It kind of leans back into my old roots, you know, what people knew Master Peace for, which was bedroom pop, emotional indie and quite quiet. It's very, very personal. I kind of lean into talking about real-life situations I've never really spoken about before, especially my love life and what that looks like.
I feel like loads of people put their relationships online, and they pop out with their boyfriend or girlfriend, whereas for me, that's never really been my bag. But to have an album that has stuff about that, where the person I know I'm talking about will relate to it, and I'll relate to it, is really special. It's me talking about my flaws and the things that I get wrong, but also being kind of braggadocious and talking about my swag, just feeling a little bit swaggy.
LUNA: Was there a moment while making the album where you thought, “Yeah, this is exactly where I want my music to go?”
MASTER PEACE: No, because I'm like a chameleon. I'd be chopping and changing all the time. I'd be traveling and changing things constantly. I'll make demos and go and play them for the band, show them the tunes, and, you know, they'll give me feedback on what they think is sick and whatever. But then I could show them demos from months ago and be like, “No.” I'm one of those guys.
LUNA: If “act like you know ?” is one piece of the bigger picture, what does it tell us about where you’re taking your sound next?
MASTER PEACE: “act like you know ?” is definitely more swaggy, more braggadocious. But then also the melodies and the chords are very, very much where I see my music going next, on a bigger scale. Some of the songs, I feel like I’m being quite surface-level with it, but I do want to be surface-level with it. I don't want to go into that too much. But the new stuff I'm making after this album is sounding very, very insane.
LUNA: What do you think will surprise people most when they hear the full album?
MASTER PEACE: I think hearing Muni Long on my album is crazy. She's Grammy-nominated, she won a Grammy last year, and she just dropped a song with Zara Larsson last year. So it's like, I have her on my album. That's insane to me. I was like, I don't even care how the album does. Knowing that Muni Long is on my album is crazy. That's just such a flex.
LUNA: What do you hope someone who feels a little out of place takes away from your story?
MASTER PEACE: I hope it shows that we're all flawed and that, you know, love isn't as easy as people think. You can wake up and choose that person every day, but you probably don't want to do that all the time. It's about just being a little bit more human about it.
LUNA: Looking at everything you’ve learned so far, what’s something you know now that you want to carry with you moving forward?
MASTER PEACE: You can't cheat the grind. That's definitely one thing I stand on. I feel like developing your sound, you're always meant to be where you're supposed to be. I'm starting to learn that. Not every day feels that way, but I feel like I had to go through certain things to get to this place, and this place will get me to another place. In a year's time, who knows where I'm going to be? So it's just like, you can't cheat the grind. You've got to enjoy it because you're never going to have this moment again.
