Blak Twang

Over the past decade, Twang's music has taken him to West, North and South Africa, Eastern Europe, the USA, the Middle East and the Caribbean, as well as most of the other countries that more traditionally appear on the itineraries of the world's hardest-working musicians. Like the biggest international rock bands he has recorded internationally, in Berlin, New York and Jamaica, and unlike all but a handful of his most enlightened rap peers he has stepped out on stage everywhere from Camden to Cape Town, Luton to Lagos. 

Part of this widespread appeal is easily explained the second you see a Blak Twang show: where other rap stars may offer a desultory plod through some loping beats, live performance has always been at the heart of what Twang is about, and his records have been made with live stage shows in mind. But another reason he and his music have been so readily embraced by people from so many different countries and cultures is to do with his attitude. Whether touring as an invited guest of the British Council or gigging in far flung countries because people there have heard his music and asked him to visit, Twang's worldview is all too rare in hip hop, a genre seemingly dominated by, and fixated with, success in the USA. 

In 2019 Twang joined forces with UK veterans Ty & Rodney to form the super group “Kingdem”. The trio toured all over the UK and released a four track EP on Tru Thoughts Records to critical acclaim.

Twang’s formative years were spent playing football and listening to the "golden age" rap sounds of Big Daddy Kane, KRS-ONE, Rakim and Public Enemy. He'd written raps for a while, but didn't seriously consider his chances of making much of his rhyming abilities until he heard the London Posse's epochal single Money Mad, and discovered that rap could give you the freedom to speak in your own voice, not one borrowed from New York.

His first forays into the music business were not entirely successful. His debut album, the ‘lost’ but soon to be re-released Dettwork Southeast – which would evolve into 19 Long Time: Live from the Big Smoke, complete with the same label complications - made Hip-Hop Connection’s top 5 UK hip-hop albums of all time. In 2002 Twang’s career got underway in earnest with the release of his third album, Kik Off, on which he blended metaphors from the football field with rap and production skills honed over a decade of active participation in Hip Hop culture. As well as providing the most coherent showcase yet for Twang’s expanding skills as writer, producer and performer, the record established him as a mainstream star with tracks such as the anthemic So Rotton becoming Blak Twang's theme song, as a performance captured on video at Glastonbury proves, in which Twang's raps are drowned out by the thousands singing along and collaborations with current transatlantic songbird Estelle on Trixstar. In 2005 Twang invited the world into the Rotton Club, (Where beats were made rhymes were traded and the legends of hiphop lit up the night). This fourth release unsurprisingly housed themes and concepts in abundance with tracks such as GCSE, Twang's attempt at filling in the gaps in sex education classes, to show his teenage listeners what they're risking by unsafe sexual practices and Travellin' talking about his experiences round the globe, My World used samples from Twang's appearance in early 2003 on UK national breakfast TV, where he found himself defending rap music from government ministers looking to scapegoat the music for violence endemic in parts of society starved of investment and deprived of hope. 

As well as winning a MOBO award and becoming so synonymous with the British hip hop scene that he is frequently called upon to comment on TV shows when the topic is rap, Twang has earned international recognition, including picking up a Kora award (the African equivalent of a Grammy), a World Underground Music Award, and a nomination in the USA's prestigious and influential Source magazine awards for Best International Hip Hop Act and more recently a nomination for Best British Hip Hop Artist in BET’s 2007 Awards.

There are two things (other than Twang's excellent and largely self-produced beats) that Blak Twang fans most expect from his records; clear-headed conceptual song writing, and plain-speaking on issues Twang thinks are important. From the beginning, songs like Red Letters which examined the tyranny of final demands and Queen's Head (a British take on the "dead presidents" US rappers often refer to money as) have shown that here is a rapper able to tackle complex issues as strongly as he used to tackle opposition players on the football field, and to do so with some skill and dexterity too. 

With six studio albums and 3 EPs under his belt and a wealth of upcoming projects Twang's elder statesman status means he’s a natural spokesman for home-grown hip-hop, whether defending the scene he helped put back in the shop window on prime-time television, or his battle-hardened tones meaning every track he blesses is given a thick coating of experience, knowledge and wisdom. But Twang has never been one for relying on high-fiving himself, preferring the oft-cited defiance of letting the music talk for itself.

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