Peace of Mind

During writing sessions for the *Peace of Mind* EP, Master Peace was starting to lose faith. The usually ebullient singer-songwriter from South London had hit a creative dead end and wanted to leave the studio, go home, and shut the world out. Producer and YUNGBLUD collaborator Matt Schwartz sat him down for a heart-to-heart. “I don’t feel the hunger in you, what’s happened?” Schwartz asked him. “I don’t know, I’m just over everything,” was Peace’s reply. The producer told him to put that in a song and get it all out. The result was *Peace of Mind*’s snarling calling card “Country Life.” “I started writing down all of the things that were frustrating me,” Peace tells Apple Music. “It turned into me ranting on a tune and it’s probably the best song I’ve made. We made the whole EP in four days after that.” It’s a collection of songs that combine his love of ’90s Britpop and 2000s indie rock titans—where Blur’s playful observations crisscross with Bloc Party’s wiry, frenetic riffs. Each of these tracks stands on its own two feet, but if there’s a theme running through the whole thing, it’s Peace’s frustration at being stereotyped. “Everybody thinks a Black artist is supposed to be a rapper,” he says. “I’m like, ‘I’ve never dropped a rap song.’ Because I’m Black, it doesn’t mean I’m a roadman or make rap music. I don’t even listen to rap music.” It’s also an EP about living in the moment, he says, about capturing the heady rush of being young and in love, chasing the thrill of whatever life might throw at you. Making this EP, Master Peace got his mojo back. He takes us through *Peace of Mind* track by track. **“Country Life”** “I feel like this was either going to be received very well, or people were never going to understand it. But I understood it, so I didn’t care what way it went. The tune has a strong message for people like me and what I stand for. People like me that feel they’re unheard, being stereotyped, or put in a box, or feeling unappreciated, feeling injustice, feeling like they’ve got to work 100 times harder than the other person just because of a stereotype. I was hurting. So instead of making a sad, soppy song about it, I was like, ‘This is like a diss track.’ I’m saying stuff that I’ve wanted to say but been scared to say it in case it might come off a bit crude.” **“Achilles Heel”** “‘Achilles Heel’ is \[about\] when you’re not sure whether you should stay in a relationship. Your heart wants to stay in it but your head is like, ‘Things ain’t working out.’ It’s about love—and realization coming to you, like, ‘No matter how far I try to get away from you, you’re my soft spot, you’re my weak spot.’ I love the riff, it was inspired by The Police’s ‘Message in a Bottle.’” **“Veronica”** “This is a bit of flirty fun. \[It’s about\] when you meet someone for the first time and you’re so infatuated by them, and the butterflies when you first meet someone that you’re into. You go on your first date and you’re like, ‘There’s something about you that just makes me feel good.’ The singing in ‘Born Slippy’ by Underworld inspired ‘Veronica.’ I was like, ‘I just want to talk gibberish, I don’t want to say words, I just want to say whatever sounds good.’” **“Groundhog Day”** “This is based on the movie where things keep happening over and over again until you learn. That’s how I feel about my love life. I felt like I was never in the moment with relationships. I was always trying to pick out what was wrong, or trying to look for excuses just to get out of it. It’s like I’m always messing it up because I don’t feel like I’m worthy enough to be loved. The riff came from wanting to create my own ‘Song 2’ by Blur. But it’s more of an emotional song, like, ‘I’ve come to the realization that I’m always trying to avoid love. And I keep messing it up.’” **“Kaleidoscope”** “This is like a therapy session, like all these years I’ve been trying to be someone else, when I’ve realized that being me is actually the best thing. It’s about real life: ‘Don’t look up to me as a role model or as an inspiration, look at me as a human being.’ I go through the same things as my fans go through and it’s like, ‘Be yourself, don’t try and be like me because I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to be like anyone, I want to be Peace.’”