Tinie may top the charts but is an accountant at heart

Tinie Tempah may be the only rapper in history who dreamed of becoming an accountant. “No one dreams of becoming an accountant,” I tell him. “I know. Even my accountant doesn’t want to be an accountant. He wants to be a rapper. But I always wanted to be an accountant,” he shrugs.

The 27-year-old, who has had more No 1 singles than any other British artist this decade, is no ordinary rapper, however.

After all, how many spent their formative years in a quiet street of a middle-class British suburb?

In those days, he went by the rather less snappy name of Patrick Okogwu, the son of hard-working Nigerian immigrants who had done well enough to move the family out of a rough London estate.

His father was a barber-turned-social worker and his mother an NHS administrator who told her children they had to work four times as hard to prove themselves.

Frustrated at his lack of early musical success, Tempah started a video blog called Milkand2Sugars, in reference to his favourite drink.

Indeed, his working day is still fuelled by endless cuppas – and, yes, he takes two sugars. I gently admonish him for his sweet tooth.

“Sugar’s killing us, I know,” he says, smiling.

It is a source of disappointment that, for all his tie-ups with Nike, Veuve Clicquot and various other luxury goods brands, he has yet to secure a commercial deal with his favourite tea brand, despite rumours to the contrary.

It’s perhaps not the conversation I expected to be having with the man who’s topped the charts more often than Queen.

We’ve met in his offices in Haggerston, in London.

It is also home to the headquarters of Disturbing London, Tempah’s burgeoning business empire.

From here he runs a fashion label and a music business, which manages not just Tempah but a clutch of young up-and-coming rappers.

Yet he is keen to talk not about his next, long-awaited third album but about accountancy. Or rather, the need for schoolchildren to apply themselves.

He is an ambassador for LifeSkills, a project sponsored by Barclays, which goes into schools and youth clubs to teach children some of the basics about getting on the job ladder, such as writing a CV and securing work experience.

This is not obvious territory for a rapper, even one in the running for the title of Politest Man in Pop, who still gives away his spare trainers to his Catholic church, St Peter’s Woolwich.

Before our encounter, I observe a small number of young people in his office asking questions and listening to his advice.

Though most of the exercise is done for the benefit of TV cameras, he seems genuinely keen that these children should make the most of themselves.

His advice is sensible. When asked how they should handle rejection, he says: “Sometimes there are things to learn. Sometimes you should embrace it and ask why it happened. Was it because I was late? Was it because I wasn’t presentable? And maybe you need to change these things.”

These kids nod in rapt attention, but Tempah believes that when many of their generation get turned down for a job, they are unable to handle it.

“I feel Millennials have grown up and won’t accept a ‘no’, because they can just go online and find instant gratification,” he says later.

“You take a picture of us and put it on your Facebook, and you check your phone and in two minutes you see how many people like you and Tinie.”

Many, he feels, do not realise how much work is involved in following one’s dreams, as he did, and lack the kind of work ethic that was instilled in him by his parents, who insisted he sit A-levels in case his dream of being a rapper failed.

“People thought it was quite far-fetched. It is like saying, ‘I want to be an astronaut’.

“There’s always going to be a point at which your mum and dad say” – and he puts his hand on my knee in an impression of parental concern – “‘Listen, son, this isn’t going to happen’.

“Because it was music and because everyone said it was a far-fetched dream, I didn’t want to push it past my 20.

“After that, you are getting irresponsible.”

So he set himself a target. If he hadn’t got a recording contract by the age of 20, he’d “sack the whole thing off”.

He signed one just four weeks before his deadline and celebrated by going out for afternoon tea.

Since then, he’s never stopped analysing other artists, trying to figure out how to be more successful.

It is therefore no surprise that he soon discovered it wasn’t easy to become a millionaire from music alone in an era of streaming, where each track listened to earns him a fraction of a cent.

So how about going down the Taylor Swift route?

The American pop star removed her entire back catalogue from the music-streaming service Spotify last year, in a move seen by many as a ploy to drive up her record sales.

Tempah is a fan of Swift – “she can do no wrong” – but thought her Spotify decision was “very, very clever marketing”, as much as a legitimate protest at the slim royalties musicians earn from streaming platforms.

With his large digital fanbase, he says, “I just couldn’t do that. I had to use a lot of these platforms to be discovered. But I hope during this transitional period from buying singles to streaming, they will fix the problem. People need to earn fairly from it.”

As a result, success for him is no longer about the platinum discs in his office, though he does admit to worrying about how well his third album will do.

Nevertheless, much of his energy is now spent building his fashion labels, touring and doing brand endorsements.

Not bad for a working-class kid from south London, as he acknowledges. — The Daily Telegraph