Hotly tipped newcomers will join artists pivotal in shaping Scotland’s burgeoning hip hop scene at Pitch, the country’s showcase platform of hip hop and underground culture. As announced on God Is In The TV last month, the event will take place on Saturday 27th August across three venues in Glasgow’s East End.
The all-day event of performances, discussions, workshops and networking opportunities will culminate in a live showcase at Saint Luke‘s featuring performances from Aberdeen artist AiiTee, Dundee’s MC Salum, Edinburgh’s MC LOTOS and Cardiff grime MC Mace The Great.
Shortlisted in 2021 for both the Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMA) and the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award, Nigeria-born, Aberdeen-based AiiTee will bring her mix of Afrobeat and Gospel-influenced R’n’B to the showcase, while Dundee rapper and producer MC Salum will demonstrate what makes debut album Crocodile DD and current single ‘Bambooz Me’ such addictive listens. Recently the first Welsh MOBO artist to perform at SXSW, Mace The Great will perform at the Pitch Scotland showcase in partnership with new music festival FOCUS Wales. Also appearing live will be LOTOS, often dubbed the first female Scottish MC. Rapping about her life in Edinburgh’s Wester Hailes since she was 11 and cutting her first release aged 13, LOTOS’s authenticity and talent-first, looks-second ethos made her a role model to new generations of female MCs.
NoLay, the South London rapper known for her portrayal of ex-convict/beautician Mandy in hit Netflix/Channel 4 drama Top Boy, will share her experiences in an exclusive in-conversation event with Scotland’s most successful social media star and rap fan Bash The Entertainer. Bash came to Scotland as a child seeking refuge with his family from Democratic Republic of Congo and began making comedy as a response to the racism he first encountered in his new school playground.
Also featuring is the influential Penilee artist Mog: releasing music since 2009, Mog’s distinctive use of Scots cadence and hyper-local vernacular to tell of life on a south Glasgow estate validated experiences and identities once subjected to ridicule. Mog will take part in a pre-recorded panel discussion on the meaning of Scottish hip hop hosted by Sanjeev Mann, the broadcast journalist behind the Hip Hop Scotland podcast. Also featured will be Arusa Qureshi, author of ‘Flip The Script: How Women Came To Rule HipHop‘, Glasgow vocalist/MC Clarissa Woods and Sean Focus, the Afropop/influenced rapper-producer who became the only Scottish artist to feature on Amazon Music’s +44 platform during lockdown.
Success in hip hop and music culture will be explored in a panel discussion hosted by Kwame Safo of new talent funders the PRS Foundation. LOTOS, who’s performed with global giants including Nas and Lauren Hill, will offer insight alongside producer/engineer Marrik ‘Marrik Mixed It’ Shearer, Martyn Flyn of Glasgow’s LuckyMe Records and Henca Maduro, cofounder of Pitch Scotland Dutch partners New Skool Rules, Europe’s biggest urban music conference.
Pitch Scotland will explain funding in a workshop at Many Studios with Jamie Houston of conference partners Creative Scotland and the PRS‘s Kwame Safo. They will also take part in a subsequent ‘Meet The Industry’ event, where conference-goers can book one-to-one meetings with industry professionals FOCUS Wales Programme Manager Sarah Jones, Henca Maduro and Pitch Scotland organisers Richy Muirhead and Alana Hepburn.
Throughout the day Glasgow street artist Rogue One will create a new mural at The Space, the community arts hub hosting Pitch360, an educational and networking space for 16 to 21-year-olds featuring workshops on rap with Becca Starr of the Academy of Music and Sound and another on beat-making with mentoring scheme Music Plus and producer/artist and sometime Mog collaborator Konchis.
Many Studios will host a spoken word programme featuring performances from the SAMA Best Newcomer winner Bee Asha Singh, one third of female rap trio The Honeyfarm and cofounder of Spit It Out, an organisation centring discussions around trauma and creativity; Texture aka Scottish Slam Poetry championship winner Bram E Gieben, and Fiyin Fakunle, accomplished soul musician and author of poetry collection ‘Afrodite’, self-published when she was 19.
Saint Luke’s will also host a DJ set from K4cie, a screening of videos by hip hop artists from Scotland and an exhibition of hip hop photography.
