Cheesesteaks, Soft Pretzels & Rhymes
March 1, 2009
This morning we got up early as we were going to Philadelphia. I was really excited as we were going to meet with Ethel Cee who is a local female mc in Philly and her manager Maori Holmes who also manages Black Thought and Ursula Rucker. We’ve been planning for Ethel to come to Birmingham to check out our scene so I’m keen to find out more about her and her experiences as a young MC in the States.
We caught the coach in Chinatown straight to Philadelphia. It takes two hours to get there but seemed like 20 mins. As we entered Philly the city looked very clean, the buildings were more spaced out and everyone seemed to be moving in a similar (slower) pace to back home, whilst New York was manic!
Once there, we caught a taxi to our hotel which was a 5 minute drive. As we pulled up people were helping us and offering to take our luggage, which was different! The hotel was lovely and made everything more exciting. We went up to our room freshened up then met Ethel and Maori and went for something to eat before getting down to work. We ate at a restaurant called SILK CITY which also is the place where King Britt DJs on a Monday night. The restaurant was a real American diner and looked the spitting image as the diner on Kelis’s video ‘Milkshake’. The food was amazing and the portions again were massive I had chilli ribs mmm…delicious!
We left there and headed back to the hotel where me and Ethel Cee had a little writing session and got to know each other better. (Ethel Cee’s coming to England in June to work with me then and we’ll both be apart of the bass festival organised by Punch records) Ethel was the first MC whilst on this trip that was into electro based music. I was beginning to think that it was Hip Hop or nothing in the states. We spoke about all manner of things including writing techniques, artists who inspire us, what we hope to acheive in the future and what we’d like to do together when she comes over to the UK.
I definitely finished the day on a high. I wrote some bars and had a little thinking session about what to focus on when I get back, how to open different doors and what’s going to be my next move. I’m definitely going to start reading and put all difficulties behind in that area and really show everyone what I’m made of.
