Introducing MC Angel (@mcangeluk)

Q. You star­ted as a poet per­form­ing at Lon­don’s Soho Theat­er. What then lead you to become a hip hop artist?

I always enjoyed music. I would rap and sing with my mum and her gui­tar. We did our first gigs togeth­er at the Roy­al Exchange in Cam­den. I was per­form­ing at Plan­et­mans event in May­fair and he got me to get a DJ and Beat­box­er DJ Shorty and Bass6 and we toured the coun­try sup­port­ing lots of uk hip-hop artists. I love the power of words and the power of music, hip-hop is the per­fect plat­form for rhyth­mic­al poet­ic expression.

Q. What mes­sages do you try and put out there with­in your music?

I aim to bring mes­sages of hope, peace and unity, to share my stor­ies and struggles hop­ing to inspire strength and cour­age for us to take con­trol of our lives.

Q. How affect do you feel hip hop can be at open­ing people’s con­cus­sion to what is hap­pen­ing around them on a daily basis?

Hip-hop as far back as the Gri­ots in Africa has been used as a tool to inform com­munit­ies of loc­al news. Now we live with the inter­net and can glob­ally com­mu­nic­ate hip-hop can open minds to inter­na­tion­al issues and spark a uni­fied voice for change. Hip-hop is a power­ful tool for strong voices to be heard, for those want­ing to listen to a broad­er con­science will be reached.

Q. Where do you draw your inspir­a­tion from with­in your music? 

Life is the biggest inspir­a­tion, con­nec­tions with oth­er people and artists. The spark when work­ing with an amaz­ing pro­du­cer and the ideas just flow from the divine. Hard­ships, les­sons, bless­ings the whole jour­ney, and want­ing the beat to feel the passion.

Q. You have set up Lyr­ic­ally Chal­lenged at Passing Cloud. For our read­ers could you explain what Lyr­ic­ally Chal­lenged is all about? 

Lyr­ic­ally Chal­lenged is a spoken word and hip-hop event is Dal­ston, ori­gin­ated as a spoken word event set up with a monthly ‘lyr­ic­al chal­lenge’ instead of being a slam where poets write to gain big points from the audi­ence, we work as a net­work to inspire each oth­er to write new pieces and to share in a wel­com­ing environment.

We are now a two floor event start­ing out with spoken word we then move into hip-hop, we have all 5 ele­ments rep­res­en­ted. Beat­box­ers, dan­cers, rap­pers, turntabeism, graf­fiti and sing­ers. Unit­ing the hip-hop com­munity speak­ing for free­dom through art forms. We have stalls where people sell their cre­ations at the event, pro­mot­ing a united com­munity cre­at­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and open­ing net­works. We have spoken word open mic, and hip-hop cyphers bring­ing back the old school with a circle to share rhym­ing wis­dom. Lyr­ic­ally Chal­lenged is a move­ment speak­ing up for change pro­mot­ing unity, shar­ing love!!

Q. Lyr­ic­ally Chal­lenged has just released their first mix tap. What can people expect from it?

Expect, hip-hop, drum n bass, dub­step, dub. Mixed and scratched by DJ Shorty. Lots of per­son­al stor­ies about over­com­ing our struggles, the mix­tape is called ‘trust your struggle’ that reflects in the music.

Expect real raw rap, deep con­scious lyr­ics, catchy hooks and soul­ful singing! Expect a music­al and lyr­ic­al journey.

Q. Lastly what can we expect from mc Angel in the future?

Inter­na­tion­al Inspir­a­tion­al artist, tour­ing the world per­form­ing and deliv­er­ing work­shops on liv­ing our dreams. Lyr­ic­ally Chal­lenged to be a glob­al hip-hop exper­i­ence, work­ing for ‘love and growth through hip-hop’.

Fol­low Mc Angel on twit­ter @mcangeluk

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Arash Shari­fi