Topic: In 'Chap-Hop,' Gentlemen Rappers Bust Rhymes About Tea, Cricket

[rickl]

BRIGHTON, England—For some British rappers, nothing goes better with laying down rhymes than a gin and tonic and a Sunday afternoon stroll.

They have created chap-hop, fusing the American urban musical genre with the imagined lifestyle of the British upper classes. And this coastal town, with its candy-colored Victorian villas and seafront promenade, is the setting for the latest hip-hop feud.

In chap-hop videos, hip-hop tropes are subtly undermined: Barely clothed models are replaced with a ladylike redhead in a summer frock, cricket bats are substituted for uzis.

Professor Elemental, a self-styled "Steampunk Mad Professor" and leading chap-hop MC, is one of its top exponents. He is easy to spot in the Marwood Café here, even amid its décor of spectacle-wearing stuffed owls and dismembered mannequins. Clad in Victorian-explorer garb, complete with pith helmet, he is eager to talk about his planned trip across the Atlantic.

"I'm going to break America, and ride it like a pony," Elemental—real name Paul Alborough—explains while sipping English Breakfast. "Global domination, then a nice sit down and a cup of tea."

Video at the link.

[Pandora]

He ain't gonna break sht over here, fckin bigmouth limey.  He ought to stay the hell home and break those who are demographing him out of his own country.

I couldn't get the video to play.

[rickl]

Too bad.  The video works for me.  It's a sort of polite, upper-class British rap.  The song is an ode to tea.  No profanity at all.

[charlesoakwood]

"I say ooh long, you say no.
"Ooh Long." "No."

Oh yeah, give me that Orange-Pekoe cut black tea.
And at two put a twist of lime in that tonic.