Distinctively attired in a trucker cap, charity shop suit and his infamous beard, Scroobius Pip is the unmistakable face of the UK’s spoken word scene.
Notable for his work alongside Dan Le Sac, his second solo album ‘Distraction Pieces’, released though his own label Speech Development Records in 2011, achieved an official UK album chart position of 35. One of the first old school hip-hop style records to re-emerge in the UK Top 40.
Since then, the spoken word visionary has gone on to be announced as the man to run XFM’s new hip-hop focused show, ‘The Beatdown’.
I caught up with Scroobius Pip recently to talk to him about his involvement with the new XFM project, how he started out and when should we expect the almighty return of Dan Le Sac v Scroobius Pip. This is what he had to say:
Hi Scroobius, how are you today?
I’m good thanks. Just on the train to London, where I’ve heard the streets are paved with gold. So that sounds nice. How are you?
I’m very well, thank you. First of all, do you mind explaining to our readers what encouraged you to pursue a career in spoken-word hip-hop?
Well, I started doing spoken word due to living in a small town and not really having many option on people to work with. Spoken word was something I could do off my own back without having to wait around on others to get their parts done and stuff like that. I’ve always loved hip hop so the two came hand in hand really.
Your 2011 release, ‘Distraction Pieces’, saw you peak at #35. How does it feel to know that you sort of resurrected the enjoyment of old-school hip-hop in the UK?
It felt amazing! And even more so as I did it on my own label. It meant that it was an insane amount of work but felt all the more rewarding when it surprised everyone (including me) and had a lot of success!
Following on from your successive promotion of the urban music scene, you’ve now been appointed for the XFM show ‘The Beatdown’. Congratulations are in order, but how does it feel to now be recognised as an international radio host?
Thanks! The “host” part isn’t the exciting bit for me. Despite my career choice, I’m not actually someone who has a need or great desire to have everyone hear my voice. So the thing that excited me about doing The Beatdown on XFM was the fact that I could give a lot of amazing hip hop and spoken word a new home on British radio.
There’s some amazing stuff out there that just gets over looked by the UK so it’s great to get to play it to fresh ears each week. (Saturdays at Midnight or listen again atXFM.co.uk or on the mixcloud app)
You have a close working relationship with Sunday Best and Bestival, with this year it sees you present ‘The Satin Lizard Lounge’. What should people expect from this festival experience?
Well, I’ve been doing the Satin Lizard Lounge at Camp Bestival for about 4 years and Bestival for the last 2 years and I’ve been amazed at how quickly it’s grown! Basically, I program and host a line up of the best spoken word artists on this ever growing scene and put them on at my favourite festival!
So it’s a good life really!
The variation from comedy to politics, emotion to whimsy is something that always amazes me with this scene. I have actually brought the ‘Satin Lizard Lounge’ into the radio show too so that people can get a small taster of this event.
Many of those may also know of your work alongside electronic production artist Dan le Sac, but how did your collaboration come about?
Very naturally really. I had sent Dan some of my stuff to try and get him to book me and, when he did, he had remixed a couple of my tracks.
From there we wrote two albums and toured the world for about 5 years straight! Simple really!
I presume you’re hearing this question a lot, but with Dan Le Sac’s album coming out last year and your solo record prior, does that mean that you pair will finally be looking at a follow up to ‘The Logic Of Chance’?
Yes indeed. We are currently working on our third album and hope to have something to show by the end of the year. Writing is, of course, an unusual process so timelines may change but it’s exciting to be hearing all this amazing new stuff from Dan.
Our final question, with your in-depth knowledge of poetry, spoken word and the urban scene, who would you advise all our readers check out?
The list could be endless and, I should at first recommend checking out the poets I have in my radio show each week (laughs). But, promo aside, Kate Tempest and PolarBear are probably still at the very top of the UK spoken word scene. So give them a look!
Thanks for the chat!
Thanks to you! Pip.
You can catch Scroobius Pip live every Friday on XFM. If you want to catch him live, he’ll be performing at Camp Bestival and Bestival later this year.