Going back to the roots of hip-hop

q&a Following a recent gig at Alpha Club in Dubai, the Sri Lankan rapper MC Jibberish explains the musical approach of his hip-hop crew, Diligent Thought.

Diligent Thought: Clockwise, MC Jibberish, Sol-Phonic, DJ Solo, Toofless.

Following a recent gig at Alpha Club in Dubai, the Sri Lankan rapper MC Jibberish explains the musical approach of his hip-hop crew, Diligent Thought.

Our beatmaker, Sol-Phonic, who is Sudanese, had been drumming in a metal band for a while, but he quit that and at some point he met Neil (DJ Solo), who had all the DJing equipment and technology, and Sol was fascinated by it. So he got his own equipment and taught himself. He met Toofless at a cipher (jam session), where a group of rappers kind of jam together. Toofless is also Sudanese and had been doing it for a while. I knew Sol-Phonic from university, and he said why don't you try rhyming, so I gave it a go and wrote my first rhyme - and it was awful. A year later I saw him again, I gave it another go and this time he liked it and we said, OK, let's take this seriously.

I've always liked hip-hop - my uncles are from England and they used to send black music over to me, which isn't really available in Sri Lanka, where I grew up. My family are Malaysian and I grew up in Sri Lanka, but I did the British school system, with O-levels and A-levels - I can hardly remember my native language now.

When we're not playing, we listen to that kind of music - jazz and funk and stuff - and anyway, we're from the third world where everything's much more laid back; and remember that Dubai doesn't have a lot of aggression. We show you can make hip-hop that's not vulgar and violent - we are holding on to the values we were brought up with. Some people think all hip-hop is aggressive - which came first, violence or hip-hop? But I've seen the effect it has, with kids wearing gang colours and so on. People get fascinated, but we're saying let's take it back to what hip-hop is really about.

A lot of musical styles are about a lifestyle, but hip-hop is a mentality that involves holding onto what is really human - it's a language laymen can understand. It's asking what are people talking about on the streets. It's about anything that can relate to people on a human level, having fun, being young - holding onto your youth. And it's about activism as well. Everything the authorities do affects us. It started in America with people saying: "We're not ashamed to be poor and black and broke." We hope that eventually we will be able to use Dubai slang - that mix of Hindi, Arabic and English.

The beats come first. Certain pieces of music will give you a particular feeling - there's a track on our MySpace site with a mellow trumpet and that made me feel like rapping about the inner person. There is an element of "bragadaccio" [swagger] to it, but it's not just random words: it's putting words together that make sense and sound good. Toofless and I are different, though: like two sides of the same coin. He's a really talented MC with a sound that I think is very unique even on a global scale. If he does not feel the song he cannot bring the words. I'm a bit more playful.

What better way to stand out than in your hometown? We get a lot of support here. But while there are good studios, as with anything in Dubai you get people who were hired because they were in the right place at the right time, but don't always know what they're doing. Also, studio time is a bit expensive. The youth have no spending power, but they're the ones that come up with the revolutionary ideas, and the licensing system is hard to deal with here, too. Why can't I just go to the park with my boombox to jam and see what happens? But there has been a boost recently, which had a lot to do with [the Dubai funk band] Abri's success. If you're doing it well then you inspire the younger people to try it. We might not make it, but we might get a young kid interested who will come along and rip it up.
@email:[e-mail]