Meet The MC: Bashy

Bashy’s soul, “that shining light” as he describes it, has never been far from the surface. It was there when he was being filmed by Risky Roadz on the kerbside as a 19-year-old, armed with a sour-green Chupa Chups lollipop that matched his t-shirt. His iconic Risky Roadz 2 freestyle opens with the abrasiveness needed to thrive in grime’s most gladiatorial era, but then it blossoms into a searing, sharp analysis of the environment that was shaping the young MC. “I’m 39 now, 20 years later, and the sentiment is the same,” he reflects. Then an idea suddenly grips him. “I need to download it,” Bashy says, excitedly. “Because Roony [Risky Roadz] sent it to me. Let’s do it!”

He pulls a matte grey MacBook from his backpack, opens it and taps away on his keyboard for a moment. Then the voice of his younger self fills the room: “Dough ain’t pumped into the slums / Families are on low income / That’s why everyone’s fighting over crumbs.” Bashy is transfixed, he’s looking into his past and quietly rapping along, raising a gunfinger with every punchline. Unbelievably, it’s the first time he’s seen the full video. “This stuff makes me get mad emotional,” he says, voice breaking. He places his head down on the table, briefly overwhelmed. We reach across and put a hand on his shoulder. He composes himself. “You can see the hunger; man was hungry, man was broke,” he says, passion stirring in his voice. “But the soul, the soul ain’t left man. It’s always been there.”