May 1 2006
One Lovers,
I arrived in
London about ten days ago for the RCT blitz 2006, and have since performed in
Morpeth, Wigan, Uttoxeter, and Birmingham.
What, you've
never heard of most of those places?
Well neither had
I until last week, but this tour is allowing me to explore new geographical
horizons. Over the winter I had a
booking agent in London working on my behalf to program shows all over the UK,
and she managed to get me an average of three or four gigs a week for the next
three months, so I will be visiting many strange shires and boroughs across
this pastoral isle. You can view
the details of the tour via the link below, and if you know anyone who lives in
any of those areas who might enjoy the show, or a pint afterwards, please feel
free to make introductions. I am
also open to staging performances whenever and wherever possible, so if any of
you know someone with an interest in setting up an event somewhere in the UK
between now and mid-July, lay it on me.
One of these
Northumbrian folk traditions is a dance with five men holding opposite ends of
two-handled swords, weaving in and around each other in a circle to create
criss-cross patterns with the swords.
This is called the "Rapper Dance". So the festival organizers made a big deal of putting me on
whenever the Rapper Dancers were doing their thing, to create an international rapper
showcase. I was slotted to perform
after the Scottish Highland Pipers and before the Rapper Dancers. Picture me on a circular stage in the
middle of Morpeth Commons Park, with elderly Northumbrians and their families
crowded curiously around to watch me freestyle about the festival over the
instrumental for "Ready or Not" by the Fugees (with the Enya sample
at least giving the performance a slight Celtic twist). "I'm more of a wordsmith than a
swordsmith / But I can still spar with any rapper in Morpeth / Backed by the
Spanish armed forces / After they re-enact their past attacks on English
fortresses..."
Morpeth was
followed by workshops and performances in Wigan and Uttoxeter, where I taught
rap writing techniques to everyone from professional jazz singers to twelve-year-old
prep school kids. Then I returned
to Birmingham in the West Midlands to perform again at a school I had visited
last year as part of the Cambridge tour.
The teacher who booked me was the effervescent John Kennedy, and for the
past three days I stayed with his family and chummed around B'ham with his
sons, Ben and Tom, who are in a band called Liner. They have just released their first album and are starting
to get a solid rep in UK indie-rock circles, which means you might well hear
more about them soon. You can
listen to their music here:
http://www.myspace.com/linerband
Now I'm back in
London re-grouping, and tomorrow I fly to Belfast for the Cathedral Quarter
Arts Festival and my first taste of Northern Ireland.
Another exciting
announcement is that I now have a confirmed booking agent programming my tour
of the Eastern US in the fall to support the book, which will be published in
September. I will be touring
"The Rap Canterbury Tales" to US college campuses, theatres, and
other venues in October and November of this year, and I've just confirmed
Harvard as one of the first stops.
This tour will be confined to the vicinity of New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, and surrounding States, and right now the dates are pretty wide
open, so I'm just putting it out there.
Gotta keep this show on the road.
All the best from Greenwich,
baba