II.

OUR HEROES ACTUALLY FIND OUT WHAT RAPPING IS

“We don’t want to go in there, guys.” Said the barman who looked like a student.

“Actually, we are kinda here for the festival.” We said.

Could he have guessed that three young men had visited his city to watch men in waistcoats and shorts dancing about with knives?

We got there just in time to watch our first ever rapper dance. The team was Stone Monkey from ... There was no time to find seats, so we stood close to the action, feeling slightly out of place. However, we soon got into it once the dancing started. One thing that we hadn’t counted on was the flips. These are called “tumbling”, I think, and they add instant awesome to any dance routine ever: flips will always be cool. A great first rapper!

I think that we were fortunate to see Stone Monkey first, as they were followed by Dorset Button who were, in comparison, a bit lack-lustre. Their dance had a theme – Dad’s Army – which they did a little too well: shuffling footwork akin to Private Godfrey and Corporal Jones.

After these two shows, Aled, Kevin and I got a chance to talk to the Stone Monkey team – what I loved about the whole festival is how friendly everyone was – and we found about how the DERT competition actually works. As far as I remember, the teams are judged on a number of different technical categories. We used this information to judge the subsequent rapper dances we saw over the weekend. The categories included footwork, sword-work, acrobatics (air time!) and atmosphere – this is called “buzz” in the rapper world and refers to how the dancers pump the crowd. If the stamping, sword-play and tumbles were not enough to send a beery crowd into whoops of ecstasy, there is one other element of rapper that I have not mentioned yet.

Most rapper teams have a hype-man to introduce them and get the crowd worked up, a tradition that, one would presume, was passed down from the first rapper dances. We can see this kind of thing spanning various genres of modern music: Flava Flav (Public Enemy – “Yeah Boyee!”), Erotic Volvo (Misty’s Big Adventure) and Bez (Happy Mondays). In rapper these characters are called “Tommys”. They are easy to distinguish from the dancers as they have their own distinctive look which can vary from the formal to the thematic or the comical. There are also female equivalents to Tommys: “Bettys”. Bettys, more likely than not a bearded man in drag, add more comic or narrative aspects to the rapper which can be affective if you find pantomime dames hilarious... The best Tommys / Betties interact with the crowd in a spontaneous manner, like a front man would do at a gig, and when it words it really works!

For each team that we watched, we marked them out of five for each category in order to find the best team. This also meant that we focused much more on the dancing and we got a lot of respect from the regulars we shared our ideas with!

Rapper’s Delight: DERT 2011. Part 1

OUR HEROES ARE RE-UNITED

What is rapping?
I’m no expert but, as far as I know, rapping is sword dancing invented by northern miners, performed in pubs. The tradition was dying out until some guy created the DERT festival, a national tournament that has rejuvenated the sport. This year it was hosted in Oxford.

Why did we go?
There were several reasons that we went to this seemingly random festival. We are all partial to a bit of folk: whilst we were at uni, Aled and I went to a hurdy-gurdy festival, a euphoric experience for both of us, and Kevin has the Irish connection or something... he’s a cultural man anyway.

It was a bit of a reunion for us. I hadn’t seen the lads since a wedding of our dear friends Aled and Jo Seago in the summer. We needed something big to get the old gang together. An adventure – comparable to the stuff that we got up to in Lancaster: DERT was it.

How Aled found out about DERT was a bit of a mystery to me – I presumed he had found it during a Google binge but unbeknownst to me, he also had some ulterior motives for journeying to Oxford...

Who went?
Instead of picking me up from Oxford station they hid behind the information desk giggling and waiting to jump out at me. Aled and Kevin’s circumstances have changed a lot in a year, but they are still the same precocious boys that I remember from university.
Aled still wears his heart on his sleeve, fawning over raven-haired beauties we pass in the street with awed whispers of “sweet wiggens”. He looked resplendent – if a little like a character out of a Belgian newspaper cartoon – in his tweed jacket, pastel blue skinnies and red shoes. As usual, his satchel contained a drawing pad and a fine selection of artist pens.

Kevin has also not changed. The same generous, rambunctious, thoughtful and mischievous Londoner he always was – although he does seem to have a fascination with Twitter. A sign of the times. I did not know that he had lived in Oxford before, running a restaurant there. There was rumour of eating at Jamie’s Italian, making the most of Kevin’s ‘I know Jamie’ discount, but instead we plumped for the cheap (but tasty nonetheless) option: bagels and salad that famous ice cream place.

And of course, there was me. Have I changed? More haggard yes but still wearing an Archie Fan Club T-shirt and looking like a hobo in my civies. This weekend has been a real breath of fresh air. The first week back from half term has been a real shock to the system – I’m fed up of the constant failure to meet my expectations that seems to be my job at the moment. So it was nice to do something completely different, instead of marking my year 10s’ controlled assessments or my year 12s’ coursework (whoops!).

DERT Oxford website: http://www.dert2011.co.uk/
Aled's blog: "Bearded Knitting"
Kevin on Twitter: BigChefKevoir

Portrait of a Uniform

The jacket is blue and buttoned
to the neck.
The collar is sharp and white:
triangles.
The stretched mouth is screaming,
a dark gaping maw
that sends the picture spiralling
into darkness.
Blurred pink hands grip the chair
like frozen meat.
Pale knuckles.
Black streaks the image, a rain-smeered
window,
eclipsing sightless eyes.
The yellow framing stands out.
Bright geometric shapes
lavish
regal
religous
formal.
Gold, like the genie's prison.

Target Range

Step right up and try your luck
aim for the biggest buck
are you a chicken (cluck cluck cluck)
Wheel the corpse out on a truck.
Think it's funny, think it's strange -
Welcome to the target range.

The pen is green, the pen is red,
I'll shoot an apple off your head
Stay still or you'll end up dead.
"Meet the targets." the boss said.
Think it's funny, think it's strange -
Welcome to the target range.

Think you can make learning fun?
The pen rests snuggly as a gun.
But when all is said and done
the target is a human one.
Think it's funny, think it's strange -
Welcome to the target range.

Don't loose the plot,
Repress the humanity you got.
No power to the have-nots
The target is a head shot.
Think it's funny, think it's strange -
Welcome to the target range.

Poem dedicated to
*The Dead Kennedeys
*Seamus Heaney
*Rage Against the Machine

Work

Struggling is complex
tangela-blue tentacles
curl around late hours
at the computer.
But failure is simple:
the figures don't add up.

There is either hollow
success or failure, but
we will always struggle.
(With what?)

Existing in circuitous
24 hour faith beginging
to hope makes us voluble.

I will not give up.
I will succeed...
Despite it all.

That Sunday Afternoon Feeling

When I glance at the clock
and my dinner's less appealling,
don't think that the meat is off -
It's That Sunday Afternoon Feeling.

When I clasp my hands in prayer
at the alter kneeling,
don't think I'm a pious man -
It's That Sunday Afternoon Feeling.

When you find me tie-round-neck
and swinging from the ceiling,
don't think I'm suicidal,
It's That Sunday Afternoon Feeling.

The Weekend is Dead

'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.'

(W H Auden, 'Funeral Blues')

'Buildings crashing down to a cracking ground
Rivers turn to wood, ice melting to flood
Earth lies in death bed, clouds cry water dead
Tearing life away, here's the burning pay'

(Black Sabbath, 'Electric Funeral')

I.

The clock was stopped,
The Nokia ring tone cut.
I dressed in black;
My funeral work suit.
It was a day of black coffee,
umbrellas and awnings,
cigarettes and local radio:
It was Monday morning.