edinburgh 1

Jamal from Tones! is interviewed about his hip-hop opera, which explores themes of self-discovery, race, and class. The performance is semi-autobiographical and incorporates different rap styles. Jamal wrote the entire piece with help from Johnny and Matt. He wanted to do something by himself and has previously co-written urban musicals. Grime is explained as an underground music genre with socio-political themes. Jamal plans to work on a children's play next, which may include Father Christmas and rap. The interviewer enjoyed the show and was pleasantly surprised by its unexpected elements. Jamal from Tones! How's it going? It's going well, thank you darling. You have a performance. Would you like to tell the lovely audience of PRSG what it's about? Yeah, sure. Tones is a hip-hop opera and it's a journey of self-discovery from, I'd say, from childhood up until adulthood, discussing race and class and how you fit in society and societal expectations, that kind of thing. And it's all, it's an autobiographical performance. Yeah, I mean, to an extent it's semi-autobiographical, not completely autobiographical. What bit, oh no, no, no, seeing that would just ruin the, ruin the thing if I say which bit is real. I'm not going to say that. But, I quite like the way, right, this is what I like about it. Yeah. I like the wrapping style and the way it changed with the different scenes. Yeah, yeah. I find that quite amusing as well. Amusing? That's interesting. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, but I did go into it with a different mind, sorry, someone is shouting for a performance. So, I do apologise if any of that comes through. I went into the mindset because it was the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. Yeah. So I was thinking that you were going to do like a thing about hip-hop. Yeah. And when I saw that it was, I was pleasantly surprised. Oh, good to know. Good to know. Was it just your, did you write the whole thing yourself? Yeah, I wrote the whole thing, yeah. I wrote it from start to finish. There was a bit of help with Johnny, the director. Yeah. And Matt, who also texted, they're both part of Wound Up. So they helped sort of, little plot points or anything I wasn't sure of, I asked them both. Tweak it. Yeah. They helped to tweak it. They were the tweakers. They helped to tweak it. Expert tweakers, the best tweakers I've come across. So, what made you do it in the first place? I really wanted to do something by myself. I've never done anything by myself. Are you an actual? Oh, I believe I am, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm the right war. Oh, right war as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you written more stuff than this? Yeah, so a lot of the stuff I've done, I've co-written. So I work with a company called High Rise. High Rise Theatre, now High Rise Entertainment. And what we do is we create our own urban musical. And we've been doing it for years now. So we've been doing it, we've got a grime musical called Little Miss Lady. Right, can I just, right. I'll just put this into context, right. Yeah. I'm white, Geraint is black. Yeah, I'm going to say a really white question now. And that is, what's grime? Okay, so grime is an underground music that was developed in the early noughties. So we had UK Garage, which was prevalent, yeah, in the 90s, late 90s, yeah. A bit nicer actually, quite the opposite. Garage was like... Oh right. I'll be in your flowers for a year or two. Yeah, that's all Garage. Whereas grime got a bit darker and a bit heavier. Because I think the socio-political climate shifted. Oh, socio-political. Yeah. This is not the sort of language that I would put with grime and hip-hop. I would not. Socio-political. Yeah, but that's where people get things confused. Because the truth is, it's like punk. The same thing you can think of with punk. The most disenfranchised people make the most rebellious art forms. Right. In response to being... Picked on. Yeah, picked on and not seen or not respected by society. And that's where these movements are born from. Do you know what? Me and Benny should do that, but we should call it Crip Hop Day. Just smash it. Absolutely smash it. Yeah, I think we'd be really good... Sorry, Benny, I know I told you not to talk. But I think we'd be really good at a bit of Crip Hop. Crip Hop? Yeah, yeah. Yeah? Well, we should do that as our next project. Email me. Yeah, I will. I'll email you. Yeah, so I really like hip-hop. Yeah, the old school. The old school. Yeah. Delusional. Yeah. Enemy. Mm-hmm. And that sort of stuff. Yeah. Just sort of like... And I used to do body popping. Yeah. Yeah, but I did a screamer as well, which is Filipino stick fighting. Oh, wow. So basically, I did them both together. Yeah. And I will say that was quite awesome. Yeah, I can imagine it. I can definitely imagine it. Yeah, yeah. But that's the reason that I came to the thing. I was like, hey, hip-hop, I'm down with that. Yeah. Yeah? But I didn't feel as cool because it made me a little bit sad. But I'm glad that you came out of it alright at the end. Uh-huh. And you're like still... Yeah, and that was really important. Doing stuff. Yeah. That was really, really important that it didn't end on like a really harrowing, horrible note. Was that true? Yeah, I mean, an aspect of it is very true. But we pushed it like further than it was. But how I got into that situation was true. But the result of the situation was embellished. Did you win it? Because you were doing like... Oh, the rap battle. The rap battle. Did you... I won. I won. So whether you won or whether you lost... Yeah. Or what you did and whether the remaining thing that happened... Yeah. That was because you lost. A result of that, right. So these are separate occasions that we've put into one narrative. But these things happened separately. They all happened separately. Yeah. They weren't... Yeah. They weren't in that order, no. Right, okay. But we put them all together and went this has happened, that's happened and that's happened. But did you win the rap battle? Yeah. Yeah? What did you win? Did you win the respect of your peers? Yeah, just the respect of the peers. There was no prize money. There was nothing. Just people going, yeah, oh. And that was about it. But you won and that's the main thing. Yeah. You know. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. And have you got the next project lined up? We've got a few things working on, yeah. What are you working on? So one of them is a children's play. It's the next thing we're working on. A children's play? Yep. Okay. What is that? Are you allowed to say anything? Or is it a spoiler? It's a spoiler. It's a spoiler. Okay. But yeah, it's going to be epic. It really will be. It really will be. Are you going to bring it back here next year? Hopefully. I think it's more of like a Christmas time thing. Right. In terms of the way we're setting it. Is it going to have Father Christmas in it? It's going to have, yeah. It's going to have Father Christmas in it? Yeah. There's going to be rapping. There's going to be bars. There's going to be music. It's just going to be a bit of like, you know. Yeah. All of that. There's going to be some cool dance moves going on right now. And that is what's going to happen in the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you want a white person in it. Yeah. Look, I'm going to do some dance moves and shit. Will you bring the sticks as well? Of course I will. Okay. Great. Yeah. It's on deal. You know, if you need me, I'm like there. I'm like quite homey. Even though I'm like awfully white. Awfully a lady. And awfully disabled as well. So, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the difference? No, everyone's included and it all helps. It all helps. Yeah, totally. Anyway, really enjoyed it last night. And, well, yesterday afternoon. Yeah. It wasn't last night. 3 o'clock. I missed it. The day before, I didn't know when to come. But I got to the thing because I thought it started at half past three. Yeah. So I got there like 20 minutes into it and went, oh no. So I had to get a hold of mummy and go, look, I was really excited. Yeah. But I came at the wrong time. And then I got another ticket in. Oh, great. So, you know, that is how much I wanted to come and see it. Well, I'm glad you came to see it. I'm really glad you came to see it. Cool. And I'm glad you enjoyed it as well. Yeah, I did enjoy it. Which is great. It was good. It was not what I expected. But I was pleasantly surprised. Brilliant. I don't think anyone knows what to expect with this show. And I think that's the best thing about it. Because you look at the poster, you go in, and your expectations are complete. You've got a Jedi soul cover on the cover. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so I thought there was going to be more of you. Yeah. Well, there technically are. If you look at the poster, there's three versions of me. I know, but I didn't know. I obviously don't look at posters properly. Because I didn't realise that there were three different people. Yeah, but it's just me. I thought there were three different people. But there were. Yeah. So, that tells me that I should look at posters properly. No, it's all good. It's all good. There are three different sides of personality. And that's what it's about, isn't it? It's about identity. So, yeah. There we go. We got it now. Well, gorgeous sharing with you. Yep. Good luck with everything you do. Yeah, thanks, appreciate that. And, um, head. Peace out, y'all. Peace out, Dallin. Oh, I do this all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like my thing. I can't do that. Right. See you later. See you later. Take care. Bye. Bye.