“The first time I heard hip hop was in the 1980s. Growing up in the UK I had never heard anything like it before. I fell in love with the music, the culture and the lyrics inspired me. It would be the music that would accompany me in my own struggle to find my identity which would last 27 years.
It all started on a school day when I was given an N.W.A cassette tape. The frustration with a broken system in the USA was felt hard through the lyrics and accompanied with the production of Dr Dre, what wasn’t there to like? I felt very frustrated and confused at that time in my life as I had just embarked on my own journey to find my biological parents and when I heard hip hop, I wanted to hear more, so I travelled to London city on the train. I didn’t have any money, so I would bunk on the train, hide in the toilet and sit on the seat so the conductor couldn’t see my feet and this would be the only way I could get to London over the next few years.
I would have my walkman and hip-hop tapes and go from phone box to phone box across the north of London. I would flick through the yellow pages and cross off any surnames that remotely were close to what I had been given. Calling and asking for someone that I would come to learn after 27 years never existed, at least not in that name or even that ethnicity. After a while of not getting much done I would travel to Camden market and Portobello road just to listen to vinyl records such as Public Enemy, Run DMC, Ice Cube. That’s how my day trips of truancy would end.
Not knowing who you are creates an unknown space in you. It never lets you rest and it created an artist in me. You have no mould to grow into. You create your own. I was always involved in making music in some way and when I started creating art in 2014, hyperrealism enabled me to express my feelings on paper instead of through music. Combining my interest of people’s faces with my love for music and the desire to capture the soul of someone in the moment is the drive behind every artwork I create. Most of my charcoal pieces take over 100 hours and it’s the respect for the music that gives me perseverance to spend thousands of hours drawing.
Hip hop gave me the resilience to overcome the most challenging moments of my life. It was there from the beginning until the end of my identity journey. So for those that want to know why I portray Hip Hop. It’s all about love of the music and the respect for the pioneers of this amazing culture. Music is like love, you don’t choose it, it chooses you."