“It’s very simple,” Stormzy says. “We need more slow-motion cutaways. And I need eight black kids.”

It’s 1:30 in the morning, and he’s shooting a video for his single “Cold,” which is already cool, he says, but has the potential to be iconic. The shoot was supposed to wrap tonight, and the assistant director is meant to fly to South Africa tomorrow. Now, he looks alarmed. Stormzy steps outside and drags contemplatively on a Benson & Hedges Dual cigarette.

“We need to do another day,” he says.

All night, Stormzy, who is 23, has performed spectacularly, jabbing and shrugging and sometimes dancing, his angular 6'5" figure gliding across the set. Between takes, he walked straight to the playback monitor, catching small things that could be improved, noting that he should vary how he wears his hood, and giving out instructions on the camera angle. The team around him have been quiet while he speaks, deferring to him like they would a director. He could be: though no one will confirm whether it’s Stormzy, the clip is credited to a pseudonymous “Floyd Sorietu.”

As he smokes, his idea pours out fully formed. He wants to dress the children in suits, doctors’ uniforms, football uniforms, royal regalia — to make them feel “G’ed up.” To him, “Cold” is more than a gassed-up grime tune. It’s a song about self-belief, meant to empower his younger, black, working-class fans. He won’t put out a video that doesn’t carry the same resonance.

This isn’t surprising: Stormzy is known to not settle for less. When The BRIT Awards, the U.K.’s Grammys equivalent, failed to nominate any artists of color in 2016, he responded with a freestyle asking, “What, none of my Gs nominated for BRITs?/ Are you taking the piss? Embarrassing.” As a result, he took a meeting with BRITs chairman Ged Doherty, who later invited 700 new judges to vote for the show’s 2017 installment.

Some critics say that there’s no point looking to the BRITs for validation. The MOBO Awards — for “Music of Black Origin,” founded in 1996 — are more than good enough. “But The BRITs is a place where they basically say, ‘These are the elite artists of the British music scene,’” Stormzy tells me. “I am trying to be respected as one of those elites. I always say: infiltrate.”