A face on the scene for a good few years now, INC seems to be standing out at the minute as an individual with a promising path ahead. Known for being a battle mc on the London scene and supporting major acts such as Datsik, Necro, Rusko, Plastician, Caspa, Hatcha, Ghetto, Devlin, Virus Syndicate, Andy C, Foreign Beggars, The Pharcyde, Stenchman, Jehst, Skepta, JME, Jammer, DMZ, Datsik, Logan D, Klashnekoff, Sukh Night, GDC and the legendary Taskforce.
With animal delivery and wordplay which I can easily describe as frightingly vile (in other words SICK) I’m looking forward to hearing and seeing more. I caught up with him so as he could give us a little round up of what’s been and what’s to come.
Now a lot of people will be aware of you from being a battle champ in the JumpOff league, what’s your feelings on the current leagues like Don’t Flop and End of the Weak which you placed in a couple of years ago?
Yeah i used to do a few of the battles like JumpOff, Lyric Pad, Battlescars but they all seemed to die and i lost interest and now this whole new scene has popped up. I used to watch some of the Don’t Flop ones and to be honest i think its pretty appalling, i can’t watch them anymore. It’s like Cuthbert and the gang have discovered rap i just cant do it. Apart from Tenchoo and the Liverpool guy O’shea who is probably the funniest person alive i cant co-sign it. As for EOW i love that stuff. I think what Snuff and those guys have brought to the table is QUALITY. I’d probably look to enter again ’cause its a lot of fun to enter.
How do you feel that the majority of the battles now are pre-prepared as opposed to on the spot improvised?
Even when the battles used to be ‘freestyle’ everyone had some lines to fall back on. I dont really care if it’s all written if it’s still good, but it can become a bit boring when there’s no spontaneity involved.
Now it could be seen that you’ve moved away from the hiphop side of things to the grime/dubstep scene, why is this?
UK Hip Hop seemed to die out a while ago, it became boring for me a few years ago listening to same shit, people moaning about shit i couldnt give a fuck about. Grime brought a bit of life back into music for me. I also started a night in Leeds called Vagabondz back in 2007 which catered a lot for the dubstep fans so this in a way forced me to listen to more of it. Over the last 2 years ive been doing a lot of radio, both pirate and internet streams, with hightzlive.co.uk and dubstepfm.co.uk which are run by my DJ, Jacko. You can catch his sets on Friday 10-12pm and Saturday 12pm-2am.
What currently has been your favourite / most memorable moment for you while doing this music ting?
Playing in Croatia at Outlook Festival 2008, 2009 and 2010 were all amazing times. Any time playing abroad are the best gigs for some reason. I played a show in Slovenia a month ago which was also one for the books, the crowds in Europe have no inhibitions and just go sick.
What should people be expecting to see from you, any releases or gigs coming up?
Release wise i’ve got an album coming out with Higher Elements and Brisk which is mainly grime with a bit of dubstep. Thats got features from Byron, Illaman, Rowdy, Marvill and Shatterstar from Sheffield with production mainly from Higher Elements but there’ll probably be a couple others in there too from Red Skull, Diverse Concepts, Formula (LDZ), and Whisker Twister from Israel. I’ve got a feature on Dilligence’s album which features everyone big in UK hiphop and a couple things coming out with Ral Dukes from the Squid Ninjas.
Related Links:
- youneedstoknows.blogspot.com – Dutty Harrys blog
he not that good blud