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The Review - MUSIC - grooves with RóISíN GADELRAB
Published: 22 January 2009

Members of grime collective H.O.O.D. FELLAZ

Boys, and girls, reclaim the Hood

INTERVIEW
H.O.O.D FELLAZ

WITHOUT pirate radio and Castlehaven Community Centre, H.O.O.D.FELLAZ would probably never have formed.
The 11-strong collective is a mesh of Camden grime MCs and hip-hop rappers – who met as teens MCing on pirate station Raw FM – and an east London crew they met at City and Islington College.
The Camden guys went to Haverstock and William Ellis schools and kicked around in the Gospel Oak, Queen’s Crescent area, mentally storing the observations that would later form the inspiration for their first album, So Far So Hood.
Caeza and Lullaby – they prefer not to use their “government names” – are here to talk about their debut album but they are a little coy.
Their songs may talk of the hood, but the furthest Caeza will go is to say there was a recent “incident” while filming one of their videos.
Each has their specialism so the grime guys will contribute different verses to a track while others, like Lullaby, stick firmly to hip-hop.
Lullaby, 22, said: “We didn’t want a straight attempt at gangster rap. There’s a deeper meaning to us.
“In our sort of music there’s a hell of a lot of negative messages. And we don’t want to just be a stereotype.
“We’ve a broader outlook on life and you can achieve better things. But we do talk about past experience and things we’ve seen.”
Working with huge numbers can be hard.
“We do bump heads a lot,” Lullaby admits, but Caeza added: “It’s better to have that then one person coming up with all the ideas. I prefer that there are creative clashes.”
Caeza’s grateful to his days at Castlehaven Community Centre: “We used to go after school. They used to have decks, pool tables. Without that we would have been lost. We knew we’d see people from the manor. I don’t think we appreciated it as much as we do when we look back now.”
• Get the 21-track CD with seven solo-track bonus DVD from
myspace.com/holdingourowndestiny

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