TALKING HIP-HOP WITH PHOENIX DA ICE FIRE (@phoenixdafire)

Q. How did you get into the Hip Hop scene?

I used to be a grime artist and go under the name swiftly. At the time I got into grime I was going through a lot as a young teen grow­ing up on an estate, the frus­tra­tion I felt seemed to bode well with that aggress­ive sound. But after read­ing a lot of books and study­ing the right know­ledge I became more con­scious and needed a dif­fer­ent medi­um for the new expres­sion I had and the know­ledge I gained. I then star­ted listen­ing to more and more hip hop and began writ­ing music.

Q. How power­ful a tool do you think Hip Hop is to edu­cate and empower? How import­ant is it for you to do this?

Hip hop has shaped the world, it has influ­enced dance, fash­ion, spilled out onto the logo of the 2012 Olympic sym­bol in the form of graf­fiti. Because of the influ­ence hip hop has it has been sought after by cor­por­a­tions look­ing to con­trol the raw and unfiltered views and emo­tions of the oppressed. Hip hop used to be about social com­ment­ary, polit­ic­al views and know­ledge which a lot of music lacks today. It is there­fore import­ant for me to edu­cate, enter­tain and inform as best as I can like the way it was designed for.

Q. You have worked with quite a few artists from the Hip Hop scene, who have you enjoyed work­ing with the most?

I recently did a track called “The mon­arch” with hip hop vet­er­an Copy­write from the states for this new album I’m releas­ing this year entitled cine­mat­ic, he was so cool and down to earth, and it was a lot of fun.

Q. What are your thoughts on the cur­rent state of Hip Hop?

It’s weird but what I’m find­ing is that the entire world seems to be turn­ing to the UK for Hip Hop. I’ve been work­ing on a pro­ject with Billy Danz from MOP and he said the same thing, not to men­tion Dj Premi­er say­ing he wants to work with Klash­nekoff. The tide is chan­ging and I’m most cer­tainly going to be a part of that change I’ve got some epic fea­tures and con­cep­tu­al pro­jects to come.

Q. You received a massive response from your 2009 mix­tape ‘Bap­tism Under Fire’, what tracks in par­tic­u­lar worked for you?

That would have to be tracks like ‘Ear­gasm’, ‘Spir­itu­al Scrolls’ & ‘Use your ima­gin­a­tion’. A lot of fans said it was a clas­sic and that they could play it from begin­ning to end.

Q. When can we expect a new mix­tape from you, is there any tracks we can look out for in the meantime?

I have a mix­tape entitled “Sil­ver Cas­ket” (sym­bol­ic of bury­ing the vam­pires of the game in sil­ver) drop­ping with­in the next 3 months, me and my broth­er Black Chron­icle put it togeth­er. It will be com­ing out under the ‘Triple Dark­ness’ ban­ner and has been sup­por­ted by Joseph media. The first single from the tape has a video for it shot by rap­per tags D‑Facer, it is called “Tears of Pos­eidon” see link below.

‘Tears of Poseidon’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7jtWpfZKWs

Q. What do you like to do when you’re not mak­ing music?

I like work­ing on my com­ic book and read­ing books on ancient Afric­an history.

Check Out http://www.phoenixdaicefire.com/

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

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