In Hood 2 Farm, a 76-year-old shepherd is explaining his daily routine. “There’s only my wife and I, and when she gets out of bed, I get in, and when I get out of bed, she gets in,” he says. The south London rapper Fekky pauses, before saying: “If you don’t mind me asking, if she’s getting out of bed, you’re getting in bed, when are you … hugging up, man?” The farmer laughs and replies: “It’s not happening, chap!” to Fekky’s clear horror.
This kind of interaction is common on Hood 2 Farm, a unique and genuinely inspired YouTube series about the rapper’s attempt to become the steward of his own farm. Across eight 30-minute episodes, he meets farmers from around the UK and learns basics such as milking cows, shearing sheep and driving tractors.
The resulting show wraps genuine insight about agricultural practice in the screwball energy of classic British comedy, thanks to Fekky’s perpetual fish-out-of-water spirit – he is fond of wearing a Gucci cap on the farm – and clear passion for nature. With some episodes netting well over 100,000 views, the unconventional series has been a hit, and Fekky says he plans to continue with future seasons.
Fekky, 38, says the idea began before lockdown, when he went on holiday to Thailand to decompress from the pressures of life in the music industry. As a rapper, Fekky has played to crowds of thousands, appeared alongside Dizzee Rascal, collaborated with Skepta and started his own label, F Music, but has often talked about his struggles with alcohol use and anxiety. “After my long music career, I just decided to have a break – a lot of it gets very busy and gets wild,” he says over a video call. “I just fell in love with nature in Thailand.”
When he got home, London was plunged into lockdown, and he began gardening as a way to pass the time, documenting his progress on social media. “I realised there were a lot of people that were engaged and loved seeing me doing it, I think because I was a fish out of water,” he says. He decided he “wanted to live in nature full time”, so he bought a plot of land – which he has dubbed F Manor – and decided to leave London for good, while continuing to post farm content. “I just said to myself that I should basically learn farming but show everyone that’s watching, especially the youth, what I’m doing – so as I’m learning, they can learn,” he says.
The posts were a runaway success, and people began messaging him asking when his next piece of farm content would go live, “so it made sense for me to do a show about farming”. The only problem, of course, was that he “didn’t know nothing” about farming, and had never set foot on a farm until he bought one. His family back in Nigeria are farmers, he says, “so I knew it must be something in the family, but I had no idea”.
When he decided to visit other farms, he was shocked by how little he knew about where our food comes from. “A pig farm is like … I thought pigs were small, like that” – he holds his hands about 10 inches apart – “I didn’t realise pigs were, like, massive,” he says, still astounded. “You see food on a plate, but you never think about where it’s coming from. The first thing I learned about having chickens was like … it’s weird to think you’re eating chicken … but then I love my chickens, if that makes sense.”
You can see Fekky experiencing all this in real time on Hood 2 Farm, which rivals some sitcoms in its laughs-per-minute ratio. It’s amazing to see how game Fekky is to puncture his own tough-guy rapper image. In the first episode, he gets hit in the face by a cow’s tail while attempting to milk it, admits he previously thought a cow’s teats were “willies”, and asks a farmer whether milk is actually just semen – to her dumbstruck confusion. In Fekky’s mind, there hasn’t been a single wildest moment of learning to farm – the entire process has been totally shocking.
“A cow tried to hit me!” he says. “Even sheep, I was trying to herd sheep, and it was just crazy – they’re going everywhere! And I never thought I would have 10,000 bees all over me. You’re just walking straight into that craziness. Just being comfortable around animals was the hardest part – all the animals are big, and if you run into something where you don’t know what it can do, there’s a danger element. But it didn’t end up being dangerous, you just feel a bit, like, out of your depth.”
The feeling of being around the animals, he says, isn’t so dissimilar to being on stage. “You’re stepping into the unknown every time,” he says. “The similarity is the adrenaline rush you get when performing on stage or when I’m with animals – because, like I said, it feels dangerous – but then after that, it’s like, it’s all right.”
Since making the pivot to farm life, Fekky has found that his friends and family have been more than supportive – “a lot of my rapper friends all want to come to the farm” – and have been amazed to find that growing your own food can come with benefits on multiple levels. “When I give my eggs, which I get from my chickens, to my friends, they say they taste so much better than from any shop,” he says. “I think I’ve opened people’s eyes to eating food that you’re growing yourself. Something about it just tastes real.”
The greatest benefit for him personally, he says, is on his overall mental health and wellbeing. “I think nature in general is very healing, and we live a very wild lifestyle as rappers; hotel to hotel, show to show,” he says. “Going into farming gives you the balance. We shouldn’t pigeonhole ourselves to one thing in our careers. After a while, you should start thinking about how diverse you can be, and what else can you do in life? Even if it’s just a hobby.”
That’s the lesson he wants to impart to black British kids who might be watching. “I just hope the youth understand that where you start in life is not where you finish. You have to explore the world and open your thoughts. I think when we grow up, you see people like myself being rappers or footballers, and these are the most cliche careers that people think you have to go into to make it. I want you to understand that you can be you, you can explore, you can do farming, and you’ll be accepted and find happiness.”
