Rags To Riches

After years on the fringes of the UK hip-hop scene, Rory Graham – AKA Rag’n’Bone Man – has struck gold with his massive hit ‘Human’. Hamish MacBain finds the Brighton bluesman adjusting to a new life in the spotlight

- Hamish MacBain

The ‘Elton John Call’ has, for a long time now, been as sure a sign as you can get that an up-and-coming singer is doing better than OK. and Rag’n’Bone Man – AKA Rory Graham – has just had his.

“It was an unknown number,” he remembers. “and I don’t like answering unknown numbers. But all the people I was with in my manager’s office were like, ‘nah, answer it’. I answered and he’s like, ‘Dahhhling, it’s Elton!’ I just went, ‘F**king hell.’ he just goes, ‘F**king love you, I think you’re brilliant.’ he’d just rung to say how good he thought I was and how he loved my material. It was great!”

The song that piqued Elton’s attention – and a lot of other people’s too – was, of course, ‘human’, Graham’s bluesy, smoky lead single from his forthcoming major label debut. It’s one of those songs that has, for reasons that neither its creator nor anyone else can quite ascertain, taken on a life of its own. Intended as “a little ramp to the record”, it’s exploded out of all proportion since its July 2016 release: omnipresent and rising as far as number two in the Christmas chart, it was even performed on The X Factor by Emily Middlemas (“I thought she sang it quite well, to be honest,” says Graham), after which Simon Cowell declared, “no one has heard this song, but it’s going to be a huge hit.”