ABANDOMAN
Meet Rob and Sam, aka Abandoman. Described as Flight Of The Conchords meets 8 Mile, this is a comedy hip hop show with a difference – the whole thing is improvised, with the starting point being the audience. Having toured with Ed Sheeran, headlined comedy stages at festivals like Glastonbury, Latitude and Bestival, the awesome Abandoman visits Norwich twice this summer to entertain us. Rob, a hugely likable, chatty Irishman and rapper of the dup is writing a new show for this year’s Edinburgh and I spoke to him about how he got started, who he rates in the hip hop world and the story about the aquarium leg.
H
ow did you first start writing funny songs, and how long did it take you to come up with your own unique act?
It’s always been improvised. Even when I first came over to London as a stand up comic I would improvise all my sets, which was very stressful. When you’re new you don’t have the confidence to do that really. Ten I went to an audition for a hip hop theatre show in 2008 which was being set up by Bashy the rapper and Jonzi D who runs Breakin’ Convention. I had a really good time at the audition and freestyled for ages. I was an office temp at the time so I was in a suit which provided extra amusement! After that tour of a year and half, and doing all sorts of freestyle workshops as well with them, once I got back to the stand up circuit I adored the rapping side. I decided to build
hip hop into the show, as I’d been rapping since I was at school anyway. My first ever show was in Brighton, and I went onstage really terrified. Someone had a story about their cat passing away and I did a rap about that, and since then every show has been based around a member of the audience’s story, and the songs we create around that. Growing up in Ireland I didn’t have that much exposure in person to rappers, and so going on tour with the hip hop theatre company was great because I felt comfortable enough to stand up next to those amazing rappers and authentic MC’s and be confident in myself. What do you think of the state of hip hop in 2017? I was listening to Apple’s playlist of Hip Hop A List, which was, you know, grand. Te grime are lyrically much more interesting than the hip
hop at the moment. Te stuff that’s going on in America, there’s not many words and not much storytelling. I don’t yearn for the past but I wonder at what’s gone super pop at the moment. Basically, a lot of it has become near singing, which I don’t have a problem with but I think there’s no storytelling like you got with NWA or Ice T, at least commercially speaking. Bugsy Malone does some great storytelling, and the UK artists are leading a bit more with the storytelling elements, and British MC’s are now getting very popular in the States, like Giggs. Your shows are based on audience interaction. What’s been your favourite moment? Hogmanay, two years ago in Edinburgh. Four lads from the army were in the front row, so I went out and asked them for a story…why were they there? Te soldiers had seen Abandoman exactly five years ago. Tey’d just returned from Afghanistan and one of them had lost his leg whilst they were there. Tey were there to celebrate the five year anniversary of seeing Abandoman and to celebrate this guy’s new leg. Tey’d all chipped in and got him a leg with an aquarium inside because he loved fish! On every song that guy and his leg got featured that night, it was excellent, they were top lads and I loved their narrative, to celebrate a leg, I just loved it. It was one of those
“Tere’s a Skrillex meets Ceilidh sounding song in the new show. I am so into that track I broke my knee on stage dancing to it.”
nights that you just cannot create. Your 2016 show Life & Rhymes sold 10,000 tickets at Edinburgh, and that’s the show you’ll be doing at the Arts Centre in September. What will you be performing at Laugh In Te Park here this month? For the first time I’m actually writing a hip hop show and that’s what we’re taking to Edinburgh and what you’ll see at Laugh In Te Park this month. It’s scripted with animation in it, it’s a ridiculous musical really, Rosie and Drake, based on Rosie and Jim the TV show. Tough it is a hip hop show it won’t be Abandoman’s famous freestyle hip hop show, it’s something quite different. It’s very odd and interesting for me to write a show. I’m loving it, but it’s tricky – I have to remember stuff, you can’t change it as you go along – it’s a different energy. Usually the audience and I create the show together and their energy and participation feeds it. For me it will be two very different shows.
LIZZ PAGE Read this interview in full at
outlineonline.co.uk
INFORMATION Abandoman plays at Laugh In The Park in Chapelfield on 27th July, and at Norwich Arts Centre on 28th September.
OUTLINEONLINE.CO.UK / JULY 2017 / 31
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