P The Emcee
After many years, many battles, and many tracks the country is finally getting to know about P The Emcee. I witnessed this guy battling; freestyling an belting out verses everywhere from stairways, stages, underneath bridges to being stopped on the street, in the pub and asked to do 16 bars.
He got into Hip-Hop very early on in life, “I used to be a B-Boy,” he says while sitting up “I used to be one of the best in town probably because I was one of 3 people who used to do it! But I used to spend hours scanning on the old boom box (with the cardboard holding down the play button) for anything to break to, Run Dmc, Snap, Jonzon Crew, Planet Patrol anything I could get my hands on, it was Hip-Hop but I didn’t know it”. It wasn’t until later that year “The Chronic” on cassette tape found it’s way to Mullingar did he sit up and listen seriously.
“A good friend of mine, Mark (Mad Method) Farrell got me into Hip-Hop and got me into taking this emceeing stuff seriously, so since then I gave it 110%”. P has been writing about 8 years now but why is he only making a real go at it now? “I didn’t want to come out an record the first thing I jotted down on a piece of paper, an thanks be to God I didn’t because it was shite! But I kept at it an let time do what it does best, I’ve written books after books after books of lyrics over the last few years because I needed the practise an I’m delighted I’ve done that because in my opinion I think emcee’s need to evolve”.
P has gone through many different forms to reach what he is today. “My original name is “P The Emcee”, everybody knows me as “P”, but when I started out writing I said to myself “just because I’m writing it doesn’t make me an emcee”, I felt I needed to earn the title as an emcee before I could call myself one. As I was saying earlier I think emcees need to evolve, I went by the name “21Crooks” it stood for respect to people who are themselves’ which helped me throughout discovering what it is to be an emcee. In the last 5 years I’ve made a lot of recordings I’ve scrapped an I’ve written loads that’ll never see the light of day mainly because I didn’t think I had what it takes yet, but in the last two years I’m really happy with what I have an I’m proud to call myself an emcee. I think it’s a mistake a lot of people make these days, they don’t give themselves’ time they just as Aycee says “Get a rap name an want to be in the rap game”. I’ve got great respect for not only Hip-Hop but music in general an I didn’t want to abuse it by diving in feet first. To be an artist in my opinion I think you need to have lived, you need to know what it’s like to go through all the emotions an to go through life, if you hear me talking about a subject then you can bet I know a lot about it but you’ll never hear me talking about something I know nothing about, music is a tool that needs to be used properly, but if you don’t know how to use it then it’s not going to work”
Why Hip-Hop? And why be an emcee? “Why Hip-Hop? Because I love being different! It was said to me “why can’t ya learn the guitar like normal kids”-haha! When kids stand up in school an said they listen to Take That I could say I listen to that raw shit!! Haha, Nah I’m only kiddin’, I love Hip-Hop because it was birth out of poverty with a voice and a message, It wasn’t all about “I want to hold you so an not let go”, it was about every kind of issue, everything that affected you and me, everything that was relevant, you had Public Enemy with “Fight The Power”, you had Grand Master Flash with “The Message”, De La with “Me Myself and I” all delivering strong messages of independent taught. I love the head-nod affect that happens in Hip-Hop, I love the skill of Rakim, Krs, Big Daddy Kayne and Gift Of Gab, I love the intelligence of Common, I love the story telling of Slick Rick, I love the street vibe from Gang Starr, Jeru, Nas and I love the go forever flow of Diamond D and Pete Rock, I can’t explain fully why Hip-Hop an I never will be able to which is a good thing”. Why an emcee? “I wanted to be an emcee because I could relate to Hip-Hop and I felt I was at the same level as Hip-Hop, I could relate to what it was talking about an who was saying it. I’ve got a lot to say an nobody’ll listen to me other wise!!-Haha! No I’ve got a lot to say an a lot to talk about, I love touching on all aspects of Hip-Hop, I love doing the skill thing, the battle thing (which I think comes naturally to an Irish person because we’re always taking the piss out of each other!), the political thing the emotional thing etc because I think an emcee should be someone who can touch on everything an do it to the best of their abilities an not just talk about how great they are for 22 tracks! I want to give something back to Hip-Hop, I want to be able to create classics and banging tracks, I want to show people how I think it’s done, I want to help people involved in Hip-Hop and I want to teach and be taught”.
After many recordings P finally settled on his first official demo “Subject To No Change” “I’ve made Subject To No change about 4 different times with about 20 tracks, I couldn’t agree with myself about how it’s going to sound an what will go on it, 3 years ago I made it and after the final mix down I said no I’m not happy with it so I scrapped the entire thing until nearly exactly a year later I put it together an that was that”. Having shipped the demo off around the country leading it to be played on various radio stations P got a very positive response from it. “I haven’t heard one bad thing about Subject, still haven’t which is surprising really because I can point out a load of things I’m not happy about on it but I guess that’s just me? After shipping it about a few places I’ve had people asking me if they can play it on air, asking me to be on mix tapes and other emcees wanting to make tracks together”. P went back to making more tracks and working harder than ever before, and a year later with an l.p worth of material ready to record he decided to make a few more copies of “Subject To No Change”. I was talking to a guy one day who got a copy and asked me to make a few more for him and he’ll send them off so I did that and sent a few off myself”. A copy ended up on the doorstep of Allan Clarke a.k.a Aycee from The Gudmen. “I got in contact with Aycee who I heard of before off a mixtape some years back. A friend of mine made mixtapes of Irish and Uk Hip-Hop. I put my number on the demos so one day he gave me a shout an told me he was impressed an asked if I was interested in becoming a member of The Gudmen. Of course I had to consider itme bollix I did I jumped at the chance!
So where does P see himself going? To the toilet I’ll be back in a second! Nah I’m really happy where I am now, my main concern is The Gudmen because there’s so much potential and I’m really excited about the stuff we’re putting together”. The lads? The lads are two of the most creative people I’ve ever met, I worked with a lot of people in music, in the studio and while engineering and I can safely say these guys have creativity going spare! When we meet up for a session or before gigs or just meet up there’s a great buzz surrounding us, we all have new ideas, new tracks, different ideas, advise for each other and we work together as a team which is the important part.” What do we hope to hear? “Something new that creative and fresh, we’ve surprised a lot of people lately that have heard what we have so far and I can’t wait to do it again when we’ve everything wrapped up”.
I’m one of those people who was indeed surprised with what I’ve heard and very excited about what has to come. P The Emcee with The Gudmen will be releasing there new E.P very soon entitled “O Bollox, Where Are They”? And trust me when I say this will be an instant classic!
Author: M. Harrington
All the time & loads of places
Check out www.thegudmen.com or www.myspace.com/ptheemcee for news, gigs, shite talk an all that jazz...
