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Blizzard battle aftermath

By Mark Grist on 21-02-2012

Thanks for checking out our website!

I’m guessing that some of you have stumbled on this because you’ve seen me competing in a rap battle whilst wearing a suit. It’s only a small part of what I do, but it’s also the most well known. The battle itself was really just a part of what Mixy and I do as Dead Poets. 

First off, despite what you may have seen written online, Bradley is NOT my student. I live in Peterborough and he lives in Manchester. I left teaching full time in 2010 to work as a poet, although I still do the odd bit of supply work. We went with a teacher/student angle as we thought it'd be funny and it hadn't been done before. 

And that leads on to the next thing I want to say about the reaction to the video. I’m not doing this to teach Bradley any kind of lesson. He clearly doesn’t need one. He came with really intelligent bars. He also used less offensive language – choosing to be the more sophisticated of the two of us, whilst I was the one who ended up trawling the gutter. There aren’t many 17 year olds who would go into a rap battle and insult their opponent by referencing Germany changing their national currency.

Finally, this isn’t my first rap battle. I first battled as ‘The Count of Monte Gristo’, back when I was still teaching full time. My first battle was against a guy called Omen in Peterborough (another emcee you should check out). I won that battle as well – probably with my best line being

 

‘I went to university? Is that the best that you’ve got?

I’ll take your mother to the opera, and destroy her private box.’

 

Other than that, I’d like to say thanks to everyone that watched the video or reposted it. I'd also like to say thanks to everyone I've met within the battle rap community. I’m doing this as part of a poetry show I’m writing called ‘The Geek shall inherit the Earth’. I’ll be taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer to see whether anyone finds the experiment as much fun as I do.

The next battle to come up online is against Zain Azrai, a really decent guy from Malaysia. The challenge I set myself was to take him on without any misogyny, homophobia or racism in my bars. We’ll see what people make of it when it comes out!

 

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A Teacher Eh? Well..... No, not really

By MC Mixy on 21-01-2011

So since getting back from Edinburgh in 2011 me an Mark have been doing a lot of work in schools, we did ten days in south London primary schools over November an December 2010. It Was fun, all the classes we worked with seemed to get a lot out of it and all the teachers we met had nothing but positive feedback! Of course mark has a lot more experience working with kids so he’s used to the job. Me on the other hand have worked in schools and youth centre’s but never been trained to do it or worked it full time. I was worried a bit not having the university education or even decent GCSE’s but I felt I settled in very nicely.

Teaching is something part of me had always wanted to do, when I was in school it was never my aim but I always believed I could do some of my teacher’s jobs better than they could. Don’t get me wrong some of my teachers were great but some were terrible. They had the grades to back them up on paper but they lacked so much in social skill, respect and general manners. The sad truth is if I’d liked my teachers more or they had engaged me I may have done better, but hey, I’m not passing blame I can’t have always been easy to deal with myself. Still, I don’t think I’m the only kid that felt that way about school.

I’ve really enjoyed doing this work, now instead of going to the same office and sitting there for 8 hours a day getting shouted at by people over the phone and mugged off by management in the office, I make my living threw performances and workshops, entertaining and inspiring! There’s nothing else I’d rather do, it’s much more rewarding and fun, plus it gives me more time to write. I really can’t complain about much right now. But don’t worry, I’ll find something soon.

The other day I was told I was a natural teacher... Not gonna lie, my head swelled a bit, it was nice to hear, like validation, I felt like I was doing well but wouldn’t believe it till someone else said it. Today I actually got a job offer teaching creative writing and performance to young people, very early days but it looks great at a glance... See how we do I guess

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Edinburgh Fringe 2010

By MC Mixy on 06-09-2010

So yeah, me and Mark hit our first month long run at Edinburgh fringe festival August 2010. There were a lot of pro’s and con’s but overall the whole month was a success! We got the train from Peterborough on August 5^th, I had a big backpack and a box of our CD’s that we planned to sell, Mark had a big backpack.. a small backpack.. a handbag.. a laptop bag.. and 3 boxes of flyers and posters which made our getting on and off the train quite a task in itself!

We were sharing a flat with Tim Clare  and Ross Sutherland who were both doing their own shows, two amazingly good poets I was happy to learn from while in Edinburgh. When we got to the flat Tim was there and getting ready to leave for his show so me and Mark walked with him into town to find our venue ‘The Banshee Labyrinth’

We got to the venue and checked out our performance space, it was a dingy little cave like room, with seats you could probably fit 35 maybe 40 people in. To be honest that was a bit of a relief, they say when you go to Edinburgh fringe you should expect an average audience of 4 so the smaller the venue the less noticeable an empty room would be. We met a few of the staff from the venue that day and luckily they were all more than safe, by the time we left we had made more than a few good friends.

We had the best part of two days in Edinburgh before our first performance and we spent the time watching other shows, drinking, giving out flyers, and running material when we could, just trying to get the feel for the area, you know. We were performing the 12.30 - 13.30 slot every day and while handing out flyers and putting up posters it was pointed out to us by a targeted audience member that the time was not printed on our promotional papers, over the next few weeks I spent a lot of time with a  pen writing on stacks of them!! On the night before our first gig we planned to get an early night but Mark had some friends in town so we ended up at a Kayley (Scottish barn dance) till 6am.  Not a good look.

The day of our first gig, we started the half hour walk from the flat to the venue not knowing what to expect, the best term to describe us both would have to be… hanging right out. We got to the venue for about 11.15 only to find out we couldn’t get in any earlier than 12 any day, and the venue would only let public in at 12.30. Still, we got in, set up the seating, checked the sound, and got a few pear ciders 2 maintain our level of intoxication. To both our surprise we had about a 30 strong string of people pile right into the venue and take seats for our show as soon as the doors were opened. Relief.

Our first show went really well which was a big confidence boost to know that we were not out of our depth at this world renound festival, knowing that we could smash a show was exactly what we needed to start our run on the right foot. The room of smiling faces left while showing a lot of praise and positive feedback, they even left us about £70 in donations and CD sales, I didn’t have to touch my bank account the whole time I was in Edinburgh, the taking after every show went from £35 up to £153 which was more than enough to get by on.

The shows seemed to blend into each other a bit, sometimes the crowd was not very responsive but we always got them by the end, we had a few minor technical issues but worked through all to the best standard possible. The vast majority of our shows were to packed rooms and the smallest audience we had for the dead poets show was about 16, still 4 times the expected average. Very happy with that.

On top of the 20 dead poets shows me and mark both involved ourselves with numerous other slots, we both took part in the poetry takeaway which was basically a stall on the royal mile set up by Tim Clare to write free poetry for the public on any requested subject. I had a lot of fun doing that and covered shifts whenever I could, though I am slightly upset I kept no copies of the work I wrote for people!! If I wrote you a poem and you’re reading this, please, get in touch, I’d love a copy!

We both performed on the royal mile, took part in the hammer and tongue poetry slams, we both made it to the final and mark managed to come joint 1^st. We both performed at other regular running nights such as Utter, The Two Gents, and both assisted with a guest appearance for Helen Mort in ‘A Pint For The Ghost’ I was also hitting the weekly open mic night at the Banshee and dragging random musicians up to jam with me, even won my second battle for the UK rap battle league ‘Don’t Flop’ as you can tell it was a busy month.

We somehow managed to get 6 different reviewers in to watch us, how this happened I don’t know as many of the acts were really wanting reviews and not getting much luck. All 6 of them gave us a positive review with 4 out of 5 stars which to be fair I am very happy with, we said before we went to Edinburgh we were aiming for 3 stars. The reviews were from The Scotsman, Three Weeks, Music OMH, Edinburghfestival.co.uk … and another 2 I can’t remember… Sure Mark will know, I’ll ask him.

I’ve been back in Peterborough about a week now and am still missing the way of life I had in Edinburgh for a short while. I miss performing everyday, I miss the other acts, I miss the staff at the venue and the temporary flat mates, I miss being able to party every night of the week till 6 in the morning, I miss running threw the days with Jagerbombs, Tequila, Koperberg, Newcastle Brown Ale, cans of Carlsberg and cheap Brandy! I could spend a day naming names here but I wont, you know who you are!!

I could rabbit on for days about everything that happened in Edinburgh last month and that would still not scratch the surface so I’ll leave it here for now. Many thanks to everyone that has supported us and those who continue to do so, everyone we met along the way and those we are yet to meet, all is appreciated!

Now, next year……………

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The Scotsman gives Dead Poets four stars

By Mark Grist on 26-08-2010

The Scotsman gave us a four star review the other day. Hurrah! Here it is -

 

 

What do you get if you mix a hip hop MC with the former Poet Laureate of Peterborough? Answer: a funny and insightful combination of two art forms that have much in common, but are rarely seen in the same room.

Through the story of their unlikely partnership, Mark Grist and MC Mixy use their different forms of lyrical wordplay to break down the clichés associated with both of their musical genres.

When Mark, an English teacher, uses poetry to enthuse about the bright young minds of “difficult” kids, Mixy counteracts this with the perspective of someone who never wanted to go to school. While Mixy battles with being a rapper from “the sticks” rather than “the hood”, Mark paints himself as a cosmopolitan city dweller looking for a “girl who reads” – as he explains through a feminist anthem that will bring joy to the hearts of anyone who is sick of R&B songs about hookers. Meanwhile, Mixy’s rap about poet John Clare proves rap nor poetry need be limited to the subject matter they have come to be associated with.

Things stay just the right side of funny, rather than geeky, and when our likeable hosts decide to swap modes of storytelling, the results are frequently hilarious. By the end you’ll see both rap and poetry as entertaining, uplifting and freeing styles of storytelling united by their potential. 

 

I never though of 'A girl who reads' as being a feminist anthem, but that's a pretty nice thing to say. 

 

Otherwise, the festival is going really well. We packed out again today and the audience were great. We had to stop A LOT and wait for them to stop laughing. Caused us to overrun, but it was a great gig. Two more to go!

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Reviews!

By Mark Grist on 14-08-2010

Hi guys, we're in Edinburgh and we're loving it. The audiences that we've had so far have been really up for it, which makes my attempts to battle rap much less intimidating.

We've had two reviews so far as well! Threeweeks and The Scotsman have both given us fours star reviews. We've never been reviewed before (except for in a few blogs) and so we're buzzing.

Once the reviews are available digitally we'll post them up for people to check out. Right now though, we've got a couple of pints to tuck into. :)

If you've come to see us so far, thanks!

Mark

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