Hit ’em UP

The first hip hop album I ever bought was Wu-Tang Clan’s 36 Chambers on cassette tape.

I listened to it everyday for at least a year. Then I discovered 2pac and his music changed my life forever. I remember when I was 13 I copied out all the lyrics to his song ‘Brenda’s Got a Baby’ and tried to pretend it was my song. The only problem was all my mates knew it too, so they just laughed at me. That’s when I realised I had to start writing my own music.

‘At their best, these [hip-hop] artists respond to their sense of being rejected by society at large, of being invisible in the society at large, with a subversive critique of that society. It has to do with both the description of the conditions under which they are forced to live, as well as a description and depiction of the humanity preserved by those living in such excruciating conditions. It then goes beyond to a larger critique of the power structure as a whole.’ Twitter