‘Young, Black and female in Brixton is hard’: ​from football to Top Boy and wordplay, the inspiring journey of UK rapper Cristale

Crystal Palace FC or Oxbridge beckoned, but the multitalented MC kept forging her way towards music. She explains how she poured every aspect of herself into her debut mixtape

Two weeks before we meet, UK rapper Cristale was scrambling down a cliff face to a secluded black pebbled beach in Dover, racing an incoming tide with fewer than 90 minutes to shoot the video for her single I’m Okay With Being Lonely. She’d never hiked before in her life. “I was wearing head-to-toe Stone Island, no hiking gear, full face of makeup, edges laid and Mum was doing my touch-ups on a rusty ladder,” she laughs.