‘You sound pretty sure. Why do you say that?’ Mr Lang asked, focusing his gaze on Ray’s mother.
‘I know because it’s the only thing that he cares about, he does nothing else. He can’t cook, he’d live on biscuits if he could, he never does his homework, he just listens to music instead, and he spends all his money on rap music. If he doesn’t become a rapper, he won’t become anything.’
‘And you don’t mind if he becomes a rapper?’ asked Mr Lang.
‘Well he’s not going to be an airline pilot or a doctor, so he can be a rapper. Look, I want him to be something, because something is better than nothing.’
Prem’s mother began to get vocal. ‘I am not going to allow my son to go to some place to turn some knobs on a big stereo and shout over some boff boff bang bang noise that they call music.’
‘It’s not shouting, Mum, it’s called rapping,’ Prem said.
His mother slapped him on his head. ‘It’s shouting.’ She turned towards Mr Lang. ‘I tried to get him to sing a nice Hindi song and he wouldn’t. I mean if he could sing a nice Hindi song maybe I could get him in a film in India – you know, a Bollywood film. I have a cousin who is a big Bollywood star, he said Prem is good-looking and he stands a good chance of becoming a film star too, but no, Prem doesn’t like Hindi films, Prem doesn’t like his own culture, he wants to do that shouting rapping thing to that Jamaican music.’
The moment she said ‘Jamaican music’ there was silence. Tyrone and Ray looked at each other, their parents looked at each other, and Prem looked highly embarrassed.
Mr Lang leaned forward and in a quiet voice said, ‘It’s American music, Mrs Sharma. Reggae comes from Jamaica. Reggae started with mento music, then that became ska music, then there was bluebeat and then reggae. Dancehall evolved from reggae, but you will find that in Britain dancehall is called ragga. Now some people claim that the roots of rap can be traced back to Jamaica and from there back to Africa, but there is no doubt that hip-hop music comes from America, and the biggest market outside America is France. But having said that, one has to give credit to our lads here, for in the last few years Britain has begun to develop a very distinctive style of hip-hop, and in my opinion it won’t be long before we begin to see some great, innovative artists on the scene. So, to sum up, Jamaica is the home of mento, ska, bluebeat and reggae, and the roots of hip-hop are in America and not Jamaica, but its branches are spreading internationally – or should I say outernationally?’
The boys looked at Mr Lang, amazed by his knowledge. Ray nodded in agreement.
Everyone was impressed, except Mrs Sharma.
‘Sorry, but I don’t care where it comes from. Children need education.’
‘But Mrs Sharma,’ Mr Lang said reassuringly, ‘they will still be receiving an education, the only difference is that it will be more practical and less theoretical, and it will also be more tailored to their needs. I can assure you that they will be doing most of the things you find in any other school, but just at a different pace.’
‘So where’s this Social Inclusion place?’ Ray asked.
Mr Lang got up from the desk and sat in his high-backed leather swivel chair. He used his feet on the ground to turn the seat from left to right and from right to left, still trying to be as informal as he could.
‘You will remain pupils of this school but you will become recipients of what we call our Off-Site Provisions. The actual centre you will attend is called Positivity and is based at Hamilton Road, just off Manor Road. The people at Positivity have a whole range of experiences. Some of them experienced exclusion themselves when they were in school, and they will listen to your needs and develop a programme to suit you.’
Ray and Tyrone nodded positively. Prem was expressionless.
‘I’ll give it a go,’ Ray said.
‘Me too,’ said Tyrone.
Mr Lang looked to the parents. Ray’s mother nodded.
‘OK,’ said Tyrone’s mother.
Mr Lang could see that Mrs Sharma was uneasy. ‘Listen, Mrs Sharma, all being well, Ray and Tyrone can start at the beginning of next week. You can take some time to think about it, talk about it at home. I’ll make arrangements so that if you decide to go ahead Prem will also be able to start on Monday, but only if you say so.’
Back home, Ray’s father showed no interest in the subject when his wife explained the situation. Tyrone’s father thought that the boys should have been separated, but he was willing to go ahead with the idea. Mr and Mrs Sharma stayed awake until two o’clock the next morning talking about what they should do. In the end they decided to allow Prem to attend the project, believing that it was the best option open to them.
Ray kept avoiding his father as much as he could – when they did cross paths they hardly spoke. Ray spent the next few days in the music shop helping Marga Man out and freestyling in the park with Tyrone and Prem. When they told Marga Man about the head teacher’s plan he was impressed.
‘Yeah man, sound good to me. So have all your parents agreed to it?’
‘Yes,’ they said in unison.
‘My parents took a bit of time coming round,’ added Prem. ‘But what can they do? I’m not gonna be a doctor, and I’m not gonna be a Hindi movie star.’
‘Everyone’s all right,’ said Ray. ‘Because we’ll be getting some kind of education, and we’ll be off the streets.’
‘And one more thing,’ said Tyrone, ‘we will be doing what we like, music, and everything will be based on that.’
‘Yeah man, dat’s why it sound good to me,’ said Marga Man. ‘But you must take this ting serious yu know.’
‘We’re so serious,’ said Ray. ‘When it comes to music you can’t get more serious than we.’
The boys had now become known to the police. On Thursday night as they walked home from Flip Discs they were stopped and searched and on Saturday in the shopping centre they were stopped and questioned, and on both occasions the police called them by their names. But the boys had agreed between themselves that they had to try their best to stay out of trouble. It was tough, but they succeeded.
By the end of the week they had all received information about the Positivity Centre and on Monday morning all three arrived at the centre with their mothers. The receptionist took them into a large open-plan office where they were introduced to Sam, an energetic Asian woman dressed in a black tracksuit who bounced around the office introducing them to her colleagues. The boys and their parents politely nodded and shook hands with the staff, but as they sat down in a corner to be briefed by Sam the staff members’ names had formed a nameless blur in all of their memories.
The parents were once again reassured that what the centre had to offer was worthwhile before they left, leaving Sam and the boys to talk about the programme that the centre had in mind for them. Some of the more formal lessons were to be taken in rooms owned by the local college and in community centres nearby. Their maths lessons would be based around music theory and their English lessons would also include reading books on the subject.
Soon the main topic was raised.
‘Right,’ said Sam, handing each of them an A4-size piece of paper. ‘We have a great relationship with this studio, which is based in East Ham. It doesn’t mean much to me, but this is a list of the equipment that they have there. I’m told that it’s all good, and we’ve had no complaints in the past.’
The boys read down the list but most of it meant nothing to them either. Ray stopped reading and put his paper on the floor. ‘Never mind all that, who owns the place?’
‘Well,’ Sam said, smiling, ‘it’s run by a wonderful guy called David Oak. Have you ever heard of a band called The Strolling Rollers?’
‘No,’ they replied in unison.
‘Nor had I, but David Oak used to be their bass player. Apparently they had a hit with a song called “Honey Sugar Baby”, or something like that, and they were on Top of the Pops once – well, that’s what he keeps telling me.’
The
boys looked at each other suspiciously.
‘He’s expecting us to pop in and see him,’ Sam continued, ‘not to work, just to introduce yourselves.’
After a brief tour around the centre, which was also home to other groups involved in theatre and youth activities, Sam drove them in the project’s minibus to the studio. It was called Firehouse. When they went inside, Sam pointed out David Oak, who was working with a female singer who couldn’t sing. They stood for a while and watched as she tried again to get at least half of the song on key.
‘You’re doing great, baby!’ David said every time he re-wound the tape. ‘One more time now, baby. Let’s go for it.’ When he ran out of words of encouragement he told her to, ‘Take five. And get some coffee.’ He was a large guy whose eyes, nose and lips were barely visible through the hair that covered his face.
‘I’ve been expecting you guys,’ he said, reaching out to shake hands. ‘I captain a nice little ship here. We got good analogue and digital recording facilities. We got Pro-Tools Logic Audio Platinum four point seven running off the PC in a 48-channel Mackie desk, with some great off-board gear, and we got a great live room. Do you know Tommy Hurst?’
Everyone shook their heads.
‘Well, he used to be in a band called Silver Fish. They were big in the seventies. He records here all the time. And David Essex. Well, he hasn’t recorded here yet, but he said he will. Do you know much about recording?’
Everyone shook their heads again, including Sam.
‘Well, don’t worry. There’s nothing about recording that I don’t know. I’ve done it all, me. Hard rock, soft rock, boy bands, girl bands, I’ve done some of that old reggae stuff as well, yeah, I like a bit of the old reggae jeggae. This is how I like to work with all the kids that come through here: first I get you to know how the board works, then we go on to the off-board stuff, effects units, compressors, samplers and patch bays. Once you’ve done all that I’ll get you to lay some tracks down. Do you write your own stuff?’
‘We create our own stuff,’ said Ray. ‘We’ll write it down if we have to, but freestyling is how we create, we got music on the mind all the time, you know what I’m saying? The words just come from the lung to the tongue, you know?’
‘I hear you, and that’s what I like to hear. When you lay your tracks down if you need some help I’ll play a bit of bass for you, and if you need singers I knows loads of birds who sing, nice birds too.’
Sam had heard this all before and she knew that once David started talking it was difficult to stop him. She told David that this was just a visit to say hello and that she would be in touch, and they left the studio. As soon as they were outside the building Ray spoke his mind.
‘I ain’t working with that guy. No way. What you guys say?’
‘He’s weird,’ Prem said. ‘I don’t think he’s all there.’
‘He’s a bit eccentric, but he’s all right,’ Sam said. ‘We use him a lot for our service users.’
‘What’s a service user?’ Tyrone asked.
‘You,’ she replied.
‘Service user. Well we don’t want to use his services,’ said Ray.
‘It’s not just about equipment, he doesn’t know where we’re coming from,’ said Tyrone. ‘It’s obvious.’
‘Yeah, and if he was so great, why hasn’t David Essex recorded with him already? Who’s David Essex anyway?’
Sam did know who David Essex was. As she was explaining, Ray was thinking up an idea. When he was clear about what he had to say he interrupted.
‘Listen,’ he said, looking at Sam. ‘You have an arrangement with this guy, right. He owns this studio and you do some kind of a deal with him over the amount of studio time you allow your –’ he stressed the words ‘– service users to use. Is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Sam.
‘OK, so why can’t we use another studio?’
‘Because we have an arrangement with this studio,’ said Sam.
‘Well, this is what I say. All this stuff about doing maths and English is fine, but we want to do this music technology thing in Stratford in a studio we know already.’
Prem and Tyrone nodded enthusiastically.
‘Yeah,’ said Prem.
‘Yeah, with Bunny,’ said Tyrone.
Ray continued, ‘All you have to do is arrange your arrangement business with our man in Stratford and that’s it. There’s nothing so special about that studio. There’s nothing special about that David guy.’
‘There is,’ said Sam.
‘What?’ said Ray.
‘Well, we have inspected him. He had to pass a test, and he knows how to work with the service . . . people we send to him.’
‘Well,’ said Ray, ‘you can go and inspect Bunny. He won’t mind being inspected. Actually I think he would like to be inspected.’ The boys laughed.
Sam didn’t think it was that funny, but she could see the sense in Ray’s idea. ‘OK. I’ll have a word with the guys back at base, and we’ll see what we can do.’
Sam went back to Positivity and put the proposal to her colleagues, and the boys went straight to the recording studio and explained things to Bunny. Bunny was happy with the idea. He was pleased to have an opportunity to work with the boys, and even more pleased because he would be getting paid for his services.
When the boys told Marga Man, he praised Ray for his logical thinking. He knew that the boys wanted to do nothing as much as they wanted to do music, and that leaving them to roam the streets, or even serve in the shop, was a waste of their talent.
The next day Sam and a colleague went to Bunny’s studio to make sure that Bunny was willing and able to work with the boys. They were happy with what they saw, and after the boys received the good news at the centre they went on to give the news to Marga Man.
‘Everything’s cool,’ Prem said as they walked up to the counter.
‘It’s all done, guy. No problem,’ said Ray. ‘From next week we take up residence with Bunny.’ There was a little celebration with much touching of fists but then Ray went behind the counter and turned the music down. ‘Listen. Let me talk. I think we should have a plan.’
‘Yu full of ideas,’ said Marga Man, all smiling and jolly.
‘This is serious. We gonna be in the studio three times a week. Bunny’s the engineer, he’s gonna be in control of the equipment and teaching us how to use it at the same time, right?’
Everyone nodded yes.
‘I say we should take this for real and record some serious stuff. We got studio, we got engineer, we got the beats and the lyrics and we got Marga Man. Marga Man, you know about music, you know what music should sound like in a car or on a CD player, you know what’s happening on the scene, so you should be our producer.’
‘For real,’ said Tyrone. ‘For real.’
‘It makes sense to me,’ said Marga Man, now becoming quite serious. ‘I feel we can do some nice nastiness if we really put our minds to it, but it depends on how serious you are. If I have anyting to do wid dis I don’t want to mess about. I’m too old to waste my time.’
‘And we’re too educated to waste any time,’ said Ray. ‘If you don’t produce us we’ll have to ask our head teacher to.’
There were laughs all round.
‘I’m your producer,’ said Marga Man. ‘What does your head teacher know about hip-hop?’
‘Actually, he knows a lot,’ said Tyrone. ‘More than our parents.’
‘But not as much as you,’ Prem added quickly.
That night the boys sat on the wall outside Ray’s house freestyling and talking about future possibilities. And there they decided that the time had come officially to adopt the names that they had wanted to adopt for so long. Prem was now Prem de la Prem, Tyrone was Pro Justice and Ray was X-Ray-X. Together they were to be called Positive Negatives.
Chapter 7
Studio Time
The first full week on the project went well. The boys not only attended the studi
o in the time slots that had been arranged by the project, they also sometimes stayed late into the night to watch and help Bunny as he worked with other bands. The English lessons were adapted to their interests and as well as reading technical books they practised writing letters to record companies and answering letters from fans and agents. In maths they worked out the tempo of music by studying the BPM – beats per minute – and they studied percentages by examining the kind of royalties they could expect to receive if their records were selling in the shops.
In the second week the boys began to really get serious. Ray summoned Marga Man to the studio to hear an idea they were working on. With the help of Tyrone and Prem, he improvised the rap idea. It was about them taking their place in the hip-hop world – at times angry, at times humorous, with a memorable chorus. As soon as Bunny got a metronome click up on the computer Ray played a bass line in on the keyboard. Bunny began to run around the studio saying that he had a sample of drums somewhere that would fit the bass line perfectly, but Ray stopped him, insisting that they play in their own drum beat from the drum machine.
Marga Man left the studio and the boys crowded around the drum machine punching in their ideas. Over the next couple of days they tried various melodies and added some percussion, and by the end of the week they had completed the backing track. They put it on CD and over the weekend they practised their lyrics to perfection.
After attending lessons the next Monday the boys went to see Marga Man in the music shop. As soon as the shop was empty they put the CD in the player so that he could hear the backing track. As it played they looked towards Marga Man, waiting for his response, but he just nodded his head expressionlessly to the beat. When it was finished he raised an eyebrow and said, ‘It nice, man.’
‘Nice?’ said Ray.
‘Yeah, it’s nice,’ Marga Man said calmly.
‘That’s a killer beat,’ Ray said, pointing to the player.
‘It’s a nice killer beat,’ Marga Man said, just holding back a smile. ‘OK, tonight you put de vocals down.’
Gangsta Rap Page 6
