Winner of the Renfrewshire Council’s Young Achiever Award how did that come about?

Its not as good as it sounds to be honest it just came about from having time on my hands in 6th yr at school. I was studying RE and I got on with the teacher pretty well, use to let her listen to some of my tunes whenever I had a new one on my ipod. Well just after she heard some of my tracks she was running a ‘Black Awareness Week’ within the school as it was ‘Black History Month’ and she asked me to write a track about racism, which at first I didn’t think it was right for me to do as I hadn’t really experienced racism first hand so I was in two minds, but shortly after up the shops a guy in school got jumped and it was thought he got jumped because of the colour of his skin so I was all for doing the tune for her. She sold it around the school and the money went to charity, it didn’t sell amazingly well but I was happy with it, from that the RE teacher put me up to the head teacher of the school who put my name into the young achiever pot so to speak, and I got my award just a silly award thing you get when at school I think.

What kind of people were you competing against were they all music or businesses?

Well it wasn’t really competition as in ‘I can achieve more than you’ kinda thing was like if your teacher thought u did something worthwhile then u basically had the award, other winners of it were sports people and smart people lol like head girls etc.

Where do the ideas come from?

Ideas come from everywhere, out my window out my eyes or even simply listening to a beat I start writing finishing the tune and realise I have a subject or a point to it that I wasn’t consciously intending lol usually my ideas are small things I’m feeling, happy or sad about say exams or women being bitches skint or happy as fuck after a night out with some mates. It’s easy really I just get my thoughts out like recently I’ve moved outta my house up on my own in a flat and lots of my tracks at the moment have the theme of missing dudes at home who I used to kick about with and all the new stuff I’m learning up in the west end. To put it simply ideas come from everywhere.

What the process for writing a rhyme?

Writing a rhyme starts for with me having a concept I want to write about first, finding a beat that suits my concept. Then I will just write to the beat write, write, write, takes a couple of days usually after that I will repeat the verses over and over making slight changes where it needs and maybe complicate it a bit more with multi’s and metaphors. Then I will just go over it and over it till I’m happy.

When is it finished and how do you know?

Erm tricky one, when I’m happy, when I can rhyme the whole song with out fucking it up really and I’m happy with all the content and I’ve made some remarks subtle etc usually u can just tell when its finished, I’m bad for rushing tunes though because I cant wait to record I look over things and just pretend there done and I’m rhyming the 2nd verse and realise I have to re-write a couple bars.

Metaphors how do you structure them within a rhyme?

I don’t try to force them, if there’s a chance within the song to write in a couple of metaphors I will do it but I wouldn’t structure the rhyme around a metaphor, never been to good with them to be honest.

Do you produce beats or do they get added after and how do you choose a beat to go with a rhyme?

Nahhh I don’t produce beats, I still stick with the free downloads from sound click usually or Roo BYM he has some sick beats. To chose a beat it has to grab me in and make me want to write, writing shouldn’t be an effort but something you enjoy doing so if the beat aint doing it for me then it wont do it for the people who listen to my songs you know? So the beat has to first of all grab my ear, second relate to my concept for example just now looking for a beat to do with my 2nd leg break and I’m looking for a happy vibe where I can reflect on all the stuff I’ve achieved through football so it has to have a vibe which makes me happy and smile I guess oh yeh the beat is the first thing I get, never 32bars or whatever then find a beat.

Do you ever need to alter a rhyme to fit a beat?

Not really because I write my lyrics to the beat so the rhyming pattern I have is unique to the beat.

Suppose you have plenty of time of thinking and writing with the leg so what’s next?

Haha yehh plenty of time, does my nut in, too much day time TV for me. Had chance to write a lot just needing the time to record it all now. I have a free album coming out early 08 called ‘Test of Time’ should get it all done in the weeks I’m off uni and hopefully people will open there eyes and ears to me. Also look out for me on Scuba Steve’s Scotland Stand Up Mixtape Vol. 2 on a track called, ’Remind Me’, is a real nice joint.l

www.myspace.com/synicaluk

Top