Stormzy recalls advice his “true friend” Adele once gave him

Stormzy has opened up about the advice his “true friend” Adele once gave him.

The Croydon rapper, whose third album ‘This Is What I Mean’ came out last Friday (November 25), recently sat down with Zane Lowe for a wide-ranging interview on Apple Music 1.

• READ MORE: The story of Stormzy in 10 seminal moments

During the conversation, Lowe mentioned that Adele had at one point told Stormzy: “You need to walk away and you need to take a break. You need some space. Protect your energy.”

It came after the artist touched on his decision to leave social media, and said he was “sensitive”. “On this place, I can’t protect my energy,” Stormzy told Lowe. “Because it’s just flying at me from a thousand different avenues.”

He continued: “Adele, I love her deeply. And we’ve always had amazing conversations. And that’s a true friend of mine, that’s not like a music friend. So whenever we kick it, we’ve had really beautiful and deep conversations.

“And at that time it was like we weren’t going on holidays, we weren’t kind of enjoying the fruits of our labour. Do you know what I mean?”

Stormzy added: “And more so, it’s more like you just get caught in the rat race of just life. Just the business of life and the distractions of life. And I think she just reminded me that it’s important to have time to yourself, and to have a space of peace and silence, and where you can hear yourself think.”

The rapper went on to recall going on holiday to Jamaica with Adele, Cleo Sol and Inflo. “It changed my life,” he said. “It was the most beautiful… I can’t even explain, it was really, really beautiful, and really healing, and really peaceful. God was on that trip. God was with us.”

Stormzy recently attended the opening night of Adele’s Las Vegas residency, and hailed the performance as “probably the best show I’ve ever seen”.

“And I’ve seen a lot of shows,” he added. “In terms of the intimacy of it. It was very like… you’re in there but it’s like a small theatre but it’s fucking Adele.”

Stormzy also remembered being “extremely starstruck” when Adele came to watch him play live. Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show, he said: “I’ve always been a big fan. She came to my London show and I was very, very starstruck. Extremely starstruck.”

In a four-star review of his new album, NME wrote: “With ‘This Is What I Mean’, Stormzy continues to lead the way: another goal ticked off on that checklist, then.”