More Knowledge

I recently shared an old recording of what I believed was the UK Rappin' Championships and asked if any of you knew anything more about it. Well, thankfully someone came forward who knew quite a lot about this event and has provided a considerable update. So here’s a follow up post to share this information with you, along with some video footage of the event!
But before I start, I want to say a big thanks to Shan Dookna for taking the time to help out and share his extensive knowledge.

The event name is still unconfirmed, but I think I’m safe to assume that it probably wasn’t officially called the UK Rappin’ Championships, which would also explain why the all knowing internet didn’t return anything when I started digging.

The competition was actually held as part of the DMC DJ Mixing Championships, and in 1988 these were held at the Hippodrome in London. However, another trawl of the web still doesn’t provide much fruit, the main focus is purely, and understandably, on the DJing. This leads me to believe that this freestyle competition was mainly a warm up show before the main DJ event.

Shan tells me that the judging panel included members of the Cookie Crew and Mike Allen. In my original post I pointed out that the audio cuts off before the winner is announced, but I can now confirm that the winner was in fact Fresh J, who was apparently from Huddersfield. The final battle between Fresh J and MC Brooklyn is actually on YouTube and can be seen here:



One of the female emcees on the recording went by the name of Jazzi P. Shan tells me that this is the same Jazzi P that later went on to work with hip house producer Les Adams. She had a couple of commercially successful singles, as a soloist under her Jazzi P name, but also as the vocalist for Adams’ group L.A. Mix, who had a reasonable hit with the track Get Loose on which Jazzi fires some rapid rhymes. But like what happened to many artists who jumped on the hip house bandwagon, it didn’t take them very far.

Shan also confirms that the Einstein we can here is the same Einstein who was later signed to Music of Life, although it wasn’t a particularly memorable evening from his career as he lot to MC Brooklyn who was the eventual runner up!

Now for the best bit (in my opinion anyway). The beatbox guy I told you about was Sefton the Terminator, and as an added bonus his routine is also on YouTube (see clip below). This guy really was ahead of his time as I can’t recall another beatboxer that was combining beats and melodies at that point in time. If you didn’t listen to the audio last time, then I recommend you watch this short performance as it’s a classic.



So now I know. Well, I know a lot more than I did a couple of weeks back! But I know there is still more to tell, and would be interested to hear any other stories about this event. Shan thinks that Kamanchi Sly and Big Ted may also have been winners of this competition, but this is unconfirmed, for now!!!

There is also a chance that sometime in the future, Shan may be able to upload the video for the entire event. This would be great as it doesn’t currently appear to be in the public domain, which is a real shame. If this happens, I’ll be sure to let you know.


Mike Check.