Chiddy Bang

“It all started in Philadelphia,” Chiddy Anamege says whimsically, over a vodka cranberry in an East London dive bar. Xaphoon Jones [Noah Beresin] is next to him as he recollects exactly how their hip hop outfit – Chiddy Bang – first found life. “We went to the same uni. I was a business major who liked to rap and I used to think, ‘there’s a studio on campus, if I can find a kid who has access to it, I can get in.’” Jones proved to be that golden ticket; he too was going to Drexel University, a music major with a passion for creating sounds, and thanks to a mutual friend who noted that Xaphoon had an ability to craft beats and that Chiddy had a natural talent to rap, the two got together. The boys set to work and started immediately, releasing their music for free on the internet. With the MGMT sampling “Opposite Of Adults” (which appeared online over two years ago and clocked up just shy of seventeen million hits on YouTube) the boys were a hit, culminating in a deal with the legendary Parlophone Records – home to musical giants such as Coldplay, Gorillas and The Beatles.
“They wanted to put “Opposite of Adults”, “Truth” (which samples Passion Pit’s “Better Things”) and a couple of other songs in our debut album which we actually spent a lot of time fighting over,” reveals Xaphoon. “If we were going to do an album, we were going to do it properly in a studio and with instruments and maybe some less obvious samples. We didn’t want to jumble popular tracks that already existed in with our own material – so that’s why it’s taken us so long.” The resulting album reflects the focused attitude of Xaphoon (“I’m just the nerd one,” he says when asked who works harder. “There’s no place I’d rather be than inside the studio.”) who creates pulsating beats and electronic sounds for Chiddy to spit honest, inspired, occasionally message-filled and often tongue-in-cheek style lyrics over (he advises “Got To Wear A Glove/If We’re Going To Make Love” on the track, “Baby Roulette”). For evidence of how easily lyrics come to the rapper, just ask him about his experience of bagging a nine hour, 18 minute and 22 second world record for the longest freestyle rap. “I drank a lot of Red Bull,” he jokes, “but at the end of it I remember my mouth was burning.” Does he remember any of what he actually rapped about? “It’s funny,” he confesses, “I cannot.” Could he do a quick freestyle for us now?
“That’s not fair, man,” Xaphoon objects. “You can’t be like ‘Go!’ – you need to give a topic. You might have to do some beat boxing or some rapping. You’ve got to compliment him, or buy him a drink first, or something!” “Xaph is a secret freestyle guru,” Chiddy reveals with a knowing nod, “he can spit secretly.” And it seems it just takes a bit of gentle flattery for Xaphoon to break into an unexpected freestyle. “I’m in the UK and I kick it like soccer,” he begins, “Chiddy on my left drinkin’ cranberry vodka/sippin’ on some tea with my main man Steve/I mean Duncan, it’s ok, we ain’t talkin’/I got a whole bunch of homes in the … plunken?” An impressive effort! And just nine hours 17 minutes and 56 seconds off a record.

[Originally published in Rollacoaster magazine, issue 4, February 2012. Photography by David Sessions.]

Delilah

North London girl, Delilah, is telling Rollacoaster how her debut album is shaping up to be more personal than the 21-year-old could ever have expected. “This album goes back through the last ten years of my life. There is a lot of vulnerability and personal, intimate moments in this record. It was definitely a challenge to blend songs from adolescence, singing about how much you hate life, with songs from adulthood, singing about love and lust. The only way I could do that was to strip it all back to what is most real and human – vulnerability.”
Titled From The Roots Up, the album’s name itself suggests it will be as honest as Delilah claims. But what is this? Delilah isn’t even her actual name? “It’s Paloma,” she reveals. She was born in Paris as Paloma Stoecker in 1990 but she relocated to London and grew up here. “I kept Paloma for a few years after signing [she has been signed to Atlantic Records for three years] but I would just get demos of my music with Paloma Faith’s name on it and vice versa. Paloma is already quite an unusual name for two British pop stars and it could have gotten confusing so I changed.” Overlooking the fact that Delilah was effectively presented with the opportunity to sabotage Paloma Faith’s career before it had begun – and didn’t even think to do so – we’re told that her stage name is reflective of her personality and music and still remains true to her family, which has pleased her mother. “I told my mum ‘I need a new name’ and she was like ‘No! I spent ages choosing that name for you!’ But Delilah was the name of my great grandmother from the Cuban side of the family. I thought it was quite apt as we look alike and it’s quite a temptress name and is quite enchanting.”
Enchanting is certainly one way to describe the captivating vocals of the young musician who entered the charts at the end of last summer with her atmospheric first single “Go” and released an EP at the beginning of this year. Her debut album is yet to come and she says it will be ready in time for the summer. But it’s not just through her own music that audiences may have heard her hypnotising vocals; drum and bass duo Chase & Status drafted her in to sing on their track, “Time”, and then took her on tour. “It’s funny, I did practically live with them for two years on a tour bus so I think we became too close to work together,” she says, denying the boys will feature on her own album. Keen to keep the focus on herself, Delilah is also looking forward to headlining her own tour this spring. “It’s going to be so good because there will be no rush to make time for a headline act. And although I’ve collaborated and toured with a lot of people over the last few years it’s been a deliberate decision for my first album that it should really be all about me.”

[Originally published in Rollacoaster magazine, Issue 4, Febrauary 2012. Photography by Ben McDade.]

Tyson

“Music now is soulless” despairs London singer Tyson. “You know what to do to sell records? You just repeat yourself. How long is that going to last for?” A long time fan of soul legends like Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner, Tyson would rather keep his ears tuned to the past rather than to the eardrum-bashing repetitiveness of modern types like David Guetta. “I have always liked diva music,” he breathes. “I still listen to “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” and Boney M and Diana Ross. What happened to the days when we carried tunes?” It’s a question he hopes to find an answer to for himself. With an incredible falsetto voice and throbbing electro beats, Tyson’s music harks back to his musical idols and is reminiscent of the works of artists like Sylvester and Prince. “Listen to “Do You Wanna Funk” and it does something to your body. Your heart starts beating and you think – what is that? That is soul. Our ears today have been trained to listen to those repetitive things again and again. It’s a hook; sure, my songs have got hooks in them, but they’ve also got the music and the vocals.”
Having experienced the more generic music-making process as part of funk-pop group Unklejam back in 2006, Tyson is adamant he will never return to creating music-by-numbers. Now signed to Back Yard Recordings – home to the likes of electro duo Chromeo and lauded London MC-cum-rapper Wiley, whose ranks he joined just last year – Tyson has enjoyed the freedom to create honest songs that speak from the heart about love, sex and relationships. The resulting reaction from his admirers has been far stronger than he anticipated. “I’ve never had such intensity,” he enthuses. “People don’t just like my music, they love it. I think when you’re real and true to yourself, people identify with it. In the past, I’ve made music and people were like, ‘I like it’ but now it’s a different thing altogether. They’re like ‘thank you man, you made me believe in music again’.”
Finding that his music attracts a mix of highly-sexed women (“No comment,” he smirks when asked if he ever goes there with his rather forward female admirers) and appreciative gay men, the singer is now perfecting a live show that he hopes will reflect the more flamboyant elements of his music that he is taking to the road this month. “I’m going to get some dancers and get some waackers,” he declares, referring to a dance method that combines snappy hand movements and body pops that needs to be googled to be fully appreciated. “It’s a bit like voguing, but quicker. I found it by accident and basically the music they waack to sounds exactly like mine so I thought to myself ‘they’re dancing to my music – I need them to come and dance at my show!’. I’m making it more of a party and I want it to be spectacular and ridiculous. It will be like theatre.”

[Originally published in Rollacoaster Magazine, Issue 4, February 2012. Photography by Ben McDade.]

Sebastian de Souza

As anyone that has ever watched even one episode of E4’s hit show Skins will know, those kids are pretty wild. All-night parties, run-ins with the law, promiscuous sex, drug abuse and bouts of violence – it’s an apparently accurate dramatisation of modern-day British teen culture. So after arranging a photo-shoot with Sebastian De Souza (who has played the brooding Matty Levan since the beginning of season 5) in London’s luxurious St Martins Lane Hotel, Rollacoaster are anxiously anticipating a huge bill for one trashed suite and excessive use of the mini bar by the end of the day. But arriving at room 302, the space is immaculate save for a pile of dark hair neatly swept into the corner (“He needed his hair trimmed,” informs his publicist, apologising for the mess as he sits quietly tapping on his iPhone from a chair).
Sebastian enters the room having finished shooting in one of the corridors. He’s bright-eyed, has a broad smile and gives a confident handshake when introducing himself. Nothing so far suggests that he would have been up all night in some trendy warehouse party where 18-year-old guys presumably go to socialise. As the shoot wraps, we take the actor down to the hotel bar where we anticipate the company credit card to receive the abuse we envisioned with a demand for a table-length’s worth of midday tequila shots – but Sebastian instead only orders a cappuccino. And does so politely.
“I think because of what Skins is and the age group that it appeals to, people often seem to get slightly confused about where the character ends and the actor playing the character begins,” he says, admitting to being far less rowdy than his on-screen persona, revealing he is occasionally stopped in the street by fans. I don’t really understand celebrity and when people approach me to ask for an autograph or photograph – I think it’s bizarre.” But with Matty’s brooding attitude and Sebastian’s smoking good looks, does this not work to his advantage – with a cornucopia of admiring female fans? “I wish!” he laughs as we ask if he gets propositioned. “Disappointingly, that never happens. But please invite your readers to write in” (letters to the usual address, then).
His air time as Matty, however, is soon to come to a conclusion as fans of the show will know the entire cast is renewed every two years and the sixth season finale is just a few weeks away. But for Sebastian, he is not worried about saying goodbye to his first television role. “That’s it for me,” he begins. “It’s very important to know when to turn the light off and the writers are very clear how they write in order to follow a structure that should end in two seasons’ time. The whole point is that the characters leave school at the end of the two years to go on to do other things. So for me, the party is over. But it was a party!”
With Skins behind him, Sebastian isn’t feeling too much pressure as to what roles to tackle next (he has no secure plans beyond a story arch on Sky Atlantic’s The Borgias – although he is writing material himself), nor does he feel pressure to match the Hollywood levels of success that came to Skins’ first generation of stars, Nicholas Hoult and Dev Patel. “I am just interested in doing some good work in the next few years, whether that is on screens or on stage – I’m not precious about it,” he explains. “My greatest passion is the theatre but does he feel pressure to match the Hollywood leveI also recognise that that option might not be open to me in the next few years. I will take what I can get and if that’s great work, then fantastic.”
And if that should fail, he has a back-up plan that couldn’t be more far removed from the debauchery of Skins if it tried – “Gardening!” he exclaims. “I’m setting up a company with a friend of mine. I sort of like being outdoors. It’ll be very hands on. Trimming. Mowing lawns. Gardening in Holland Park where people have lots of money. And gardens.” But that radical nature of his Skins character isn’t completely untraceable as he provides vocals on an underground electro track called “Stay” by Cubiq – a raw track that has Seb singing exaggerated vocals over a tinny tune that wouldn’t sound out of place blasting over the soundsystems of a warehouse party or late in the night of a music festival – something he may soon do. “We might go to South Africa this year because the label we released on has a big scene there – so I might be singing in Jo’burg,” he teases. Very rock and roll for a Holland Park gardener. “I know! Fucking rock star! I’d like to do that. Everyone wants to be a rock star and that is how I am fulfilling this dream.

[Originally published in Rollacoaster Issue 4, February 2012. Photography by Chad Pickard and Paul McLean.]

Conor Maynard

“A million is not enough anymore,” brags 19-year-old Brighton lad Conor Maynard – he’s not referring to outrageous earnings, though we’re reasonably confident that that too is on the horizon. The young singer found success online by covering popular songs on YouTube, his videos racking in high audiences. A cover of Ne-Yo’s “Beautiful Monster” scored a million views and video hits followed suit. “After that it just rocketed,” he beams, “I now have two videos that have over eight million views each, and others with two or three. It’s amazing.”
Discovering his talents, seemingly by accident, was a girl at school who overheard Conor singing the R Kelly and Usher song “Same Girl”. The following day word spread among the student populace and Conor found himself being hassled to sing all the time. Eventually he decided to upload his efforts on the internet and share his vocals more easily. As the online visits skyrocketed, it wasn’t long before interest came from a suspicious source.
“I was contacted by someone from New York who said they worked with Ne-Yo and that he wanted to sign me,” he recalls, “the caller sounded like he had such a typical New Yorker accent that I thought it could be one of my friends down the road. But we arranged to have a meeting over Skype, and one night I received a Skype call; it said ‘Santos calling’ or something, and I thought ‘Oh god, is it going to be all my friends having a laugh?’ – but it was Ne-Yo. He said, ‘Hello sir.’”
After one of the biggest names in R&B pop had shown interest, attention quickly followed from major record labels. “They were all asking, ‘who is this British kid that Ne-Yo wants to work with?’” Signing to Parlophone at the end of last year, he is now preparing for the release of his debut single. But wait, an internet star who draws the attention of a major artist and gets signed by a major label to release their own material… didn’t Justin Bieber live this modern fairy tale already?
“If I am going to be compared to one of the biggest artists in the world right now, then it’s not a bad start,” Conor ripostes. “But the album will cut through the comparison,” he adds confidently. Working with major names across the globe, including Jermaine Dupri who produced Usher’s, one of his idols, albums, his pop-infused, hip-hop-tinged beats will see him closer to his ultimate hero, Justin Timberlake (“he has done everything I want to do with my life”). But he’s already well on his way to success with awards – he was granted the MTV Brand New For 2012 gong even before he released his debut single, “Can’t Say No”. And with a 175, 000-members Facebook fan page and a YouTube channel that’s the 7th most watched channel in the UK, he’s got his online fans’ unwavering support on his side. But has he received any suggestive emails or tweets from fans yet?
“I don’t think I’ve had any cases of that just yet,” he laughs. “But someone once told me that they conceived a baby while one of my songs was playing in the background. Which must have been a beautiful moment. But it’s kind of weird at the same time.”

[Originally published in Rollacoaster Issue 4, February 2012. Photography by Ben McDade.]

Cover Drive

“World domination!” T-Ray Armstrong, drummer and sometimes vocalist of Barbadian pop band, Cover Drive, confidently declares.
“That is what we really want,” concurs Amanda Reifer, the strikingly beautiful lead singer of the group who shows equally unwavering conviction in her statement. Coming from a band who appeared last summer with the bouncing attitude-infused track, ‘Lick Ya Down’ – a Bajan term that effectively translates to knock your lights out – the steely ambition of world domination could almost come across as a menacing threat to rule with an iron fist. However this energy-driven band are only looking to reign with their irresistible blend of uplifting pop and summery Caribbean beats.
“As a band, we have two major influences and they are No Doubt and Black Eyed Peas,” Amanda smiles, with agreeing nods coming from ‘Bar-Man’ Hill (guitarist Barry) and Jamar Harding (bassist). “We always say if they were to have a baby, we would be their love child,” she laughs, singling out the Rock Steady and Elephunk as their reference points.
“Our music has a lot of Caribbean influences in it and we wave our flag really high,” adds T-Ray, explaining the summer-feel of their tunes which so far have proved a hit with the British audiences. Their recent number 1 single Twilight hit the top of the charts last month with it’s bursting, sun-drenched melodies spilling over winter’s darkest month.
“It’s cold. It’s wet,” Amanda shudders, still adjusting to the British capital grey winter. The band relocated to Britain after signing to Polydor records. “But we’re here to work, and we enjoy the work that we do,” she notes positively.
Originally the group were working on individual projects. Bar-Man – who is a classically trained pianist, but plays guitar for the band – was working on music production. Jamar got into bass after being attracted to guitars thanks to an older brother’s interest. And T-Ray can beat a note out of anything, creating sounds from drums, helmets, bottles – you name it  (“If it makes a nice note, I’ll try to incorporate it into the music,” he says). While Amanda had always enjoyed singing but it wasn’t until T-Ray’s mother, Kerrie who first suggested the four get together and she now serves as their manager. “She always has the best ideas in the world,” the lead singer gushes. “The first time we performed together was in T-Ray’s house in front of a camera doing a cover of Hey Soul Sister by Train. It went online and generated loads of views and then we got interest from the label.” Since signing, the band have gone from a front room to the front of the stage having supported Dappy on tour in the UK. They were also handpicked by fellow Barbadian beauty Rihanna to open for the Barbados leg of her Loud Tour. “You can imagine for a new band, opening in front of all those thousands of people – we were so nervous, but once we started it was just the best experience of our lives.”
The crowds have been won over just as easily as the radio airwaves and the music charts. With music this infectious and uplifting and an album of summery sounds on the horizon – those thoughts of world domination? We will happily surrender.

[Originally published in Rollacoaster Magazine, Issue 4, February 2012. Photography by David Sessions.]

Thomas Mann

“No one has ever been to a party even remotely close to this one,” declares 20-year-old Texan actor Thomas Mann of Project X, the screwball teenage nightmare movie (he describes it as “Risky Business meets Cloverfield) in which he makes his lead-role debut this spring. A typically fist-biting offering from the makers of The Hangover, Project X follows a day in the life of social outcast Thomas (that he and Mann share the same first name is completely coincidental) who is convinced by one of his friends to throw a party in an attempt to be “cool for one night”. Needless to say the party is a hit, and needless to say it gets out of control. Guest numbers surge, cars end up being driven into the family pool and, ultimately, riot police arrive. Surely a movie about a wild all-night party must have been, well… kind of a blast to film?
           “It was really fun,” says Mann, “but we shot for five weeks with lots of night shots. Eventually you get tired of it and you remember that it’s work. Though it was the best disguised work that I’ve ever had to do.” In reality, Mann is not so much of a party animal… yet. “In high school I was kind of a good kid, I didn’t do too many bad things,” he says. “Hopefully my craziest party is still to come.” Well, he’s certainly in some crazy upcoming movies, namely Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters, a fantasy horror from Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola. “It’s very gory,” he says. “Lots of blood and guts.” That’s what we like to hear.

[Originally published in Wonderland issue 29, February 2012. Photograph Aingeru Zorita.]

Alexander Ludwig

Alexander Ludwig is not the kind of guy that sits still. Talking to us after a day of surfing in Hawaii, the 19-year-old actor is looking forward to taking to the slopes of his native Canada in the next few days. “I’ve been skiing since I was 17 months old. When I get back to Whistler I do tonnes of extreme skiing on double black slopes, out to the back country – or heliskiing.” His life may sound like something from an action movie, but this only helped for his role in the eagerly anticipated The Hunger Games. Based on the hugely successful novel by Suzanne Collins, the film stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss who is selected to compete in a televised fight to the death against 23 other contestants where only one can survive. As Cato, Ludwig is as close to a villain as any of these “tributes” can be and – as anyone who has read the novel will know – is certainly the most formidable.
“When I got the part I immediately started training with a US Navy SEAL doing tonnes of workouts and learning fight scenes,” he says. As if battling for survival in the futuristic drama wasn’t enough, Ludwig is also enrolled at the University of Southern California, is writing his own scripts and is working on music material with The Fray’s producer, Aaron Johnson. How does he have the time? “I really don’t,” he laughs, “but Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, those guys are my idols and I would love to base my career on what they have done and see what happens.”

[Originally published in Wonderland Magazine, February 2012. Photograph Aingeru Zorita.]