HEARTBEAT OF A CITY

I found rap because of Linkin Park. They did a song with Jay Z; before that, I’d be in the local barbershop, a Jay Z track would be playing and I’d be like, sure, cool, he’s raised the standard. But I loved Linkin Park and when that motif at the start of Numb/Encore hit, that was it. I’d be messing about with my Taz and JP, who are now the guys behind Mountain Cloud Boys - I’d just record myself rapping in my room, and I showed friends and they started to like it. We settled into it. We’d get on the mic at house parties round here - our original stuff - and people would go nuts so I started putting it on Instagram. The sound engineering was terrible but the hunger was there; it captivated me. I was like, I can do this - I’m good at this. That was the beginning of the page.

We used Instagram because that was where we all were at the time. If we were big into Tiktok we’d have used Tiktok. People loved the vibe that we were giving off and we wanted to extend that, so Instagram was where that space continued. If people come up to me in the street now, they're often talking about tunes from that time still. And then we got on our first lineup: NE Rising. I met artists who I wouldn’t have otherwise - that show just sped everything up. As soon as I walked out of that space I knew we needed to create something like this - it was immediate.

Mountain Cloud Boys, Ouseburn. Image: @yung.villain | Instagram

The local sound is so fluid, but it’s made up of three different call signs, three pillars. You’ve got NE4 who cover drill; we don’t see gigs from them, drill can boil over into real life and you’ve got to be careful. NE Rising are all over the Boombap UK rap. New York 90s influence, that kind of thing. My boys and I, we bring the cloud rap. Cloud rap comes from Memphis, infused and layered with wispy and wavy sounds - 80s synths with a trap beat on top. ASAP Rocky does it well. I love The Beatles and old rock. I grew up on them, and it lends itself to cloud rap. And then there’s rage rap, influenced by Playboi Carti and the like - beats where it’s all about the projection and it hits you like electricity. Dr Know is infused with that. Rage rap’s energy comes from oppressive northern rap and from rock music that came out around 2000, the sound of Rage Against the Machine, this vengeful attitude pulsing through.

Dan Swift (left) and 97Renn (right) At Mountain Cloud Boys’ No Delay, The Cluny. Image: @yungvillain | Instagram

When I think of Newcastle’s rap scene before us, it’s Kema Kay and Simba Shore who are the real names - they’re who I was watching. The biggest one who encouraged me to rap was Simba Shore. I think back to them and it’s cyclical; the people I’m laying the foundations for now, I haven’t met them yet. There are people younger than us doing great things, like Dan Swift, but I’m thinking of the ones after them. Someone who won’t feel like they have to generate this noise because everyone else will be making it for them.

It was Odd Future who paved the way like that when I was sixteen. I’m not going as wild as them, but the fact that they were just being themselves and expressing what they wanted to do, that drove me to then be myself and do what I wanted to do. If I looked around too much, I’d get lost; everyone else was chasing different things and there’s pressure in rap to live up to the bravado. But Odd Future were just being idiots, making everything. They were multidimensional in a way that I hadn’t imagined would work, or would be received by crowds here - and now here we are.

Newcastle’s not a transactional city, it’s a relationship city. People are important - whether or not you’re from here, as long as you’re here and giving to the place you’re a part of it. But at times it feels like one culture; when people have come from different places they’ve assimilated instead of settling in pockets like Brixton or Hackney. So the diversity here isn’t as pronounced and you lose some of that catalyst that encourages newcomers. People only encourage you if they see in you what’s come before.

We have our eyes on branching out to different cities. When people get recognised in other cities, that legitimises it for the crowd here; If Simba Shore hadn’t gone to London and come back I don’t know the drill scene would have expanded like it did. It has to be real - I've seen people try and bring their flavour to us and they don’t necessarily understand the place; what they’re doing just withers and dies.

It's definitely time to experiment. This moment’s so rich here, so dynamic, it’s energising me and everyone else. I’m saying to everyone who’ll listen: branch out into the space and then come back to your genre. If you only focus on one thing you become numb to it, just like listening; if I listen to too much lyrical music the lyrics won’t hit me. And that’s what I want when I’m rapping, producing, writing. All I want is for people to remember what I’m saying.

Listen to 97Renn’s latest release on Spotify now.

Renn is a founding member of rap and fashion collective Mountain Cloud Boys; keep an eye on Instagram to catch the ticket drop for their upcoming event Open Mind.

Feature image: @steelriverblues on Instagram

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