I am convinced that there is a planned systematic shutting down of our culture. There are no nightclubs anywhere in central London that will accommodate our acts for gigs, so in turn DJ’s cant break urban artists with the music lovers like they did back in the days of clubs like Subterania and Fresh and Funky. So that’s the live side gone. Now I hear rumours that a company called Global are buying up GCAP who own Capital Radio and Choicefm and that they will most probably be axing all the hip-hop and R&B shows-they have already kicked our music out of most of Galaxy-they might do the same to Choice and that means we will have nothing on our national airwaves either!. What’s going on? Speak now or forever lose our culture!.
One person that is supporting Choice and everything it stands for is our girl Mariah who even after she wasn’t scheduled to turn up at the CHOICEFM 18th birthday party came by near the end of the night after she finished working to support the station and pick up her CHOICE HALL OF FAME AWARD from Choice head Ivor Etienne. My mate DJ George Kay was supposed to interview her on the radio that morning but it didn’t happen in the end due to clash of schedule times so MC was determined to make it up to Choice and George cos she’s sweet like that.
Earlier in the week Mariah spoke to MTV and we grilled her on all things music. A few folks were surprised by the fly title of the album E=MC2, which is very clever and funny cos MC hates maths and whilst she may be a musical genius certainly isn’t a maths one! MC laughed and agreed ‘’its like emancipation equals Mariah Carey times two. This is a 100% of me, having fun. People ask me all the time: ‘how do you make music that people continue to respond to?’ You just keep being real, keep being you. Stay true to who you are from the beginning’’. A lot of people haven’t understood Mariah’s new single ‘’touch my body’’ but in my opinion you have to understand her humour to understand her musically. She added ‘’Touch My Body’s exploding all around the world – I’m just so thankful because it’s a song that really does express my personality, and you watch the video and get a bit of a glimpse of who I am as a person, So, the concept of the video is basically a ‘compu-nerd’ comes to help me fix my computer and then he goes into fantasy-land and I’m right there with him. I love adding the element of humour because: why take this so seriously? They’re only videos!’’.
Mc also told us it was frightening before her last album came out because no one knew how successful it would be ‘’I didn’t know what was going to happen with The Emancipation. I was, of course, hoping for success, but the fact that it was such a massive worldwide phenomenon - I was so grateful and thankful to God for that gift.’’.
Mc added if you liked the last album that was your first course at dinner and we should ‘’treat the new album as dessert” meaning it’s the best part coming up’’.
For those who keep suggesting that MC has only in recent years thrown herself into the more hip hop side of things and on the new album she scoffs ‘’Its so funny because ever since I did my first remix with ODB people have been saying ‘wow, you’re doing this new hip-hop thing.’ And I’m like: it’s not new, its what I’ve always loved, I’m just allowed to do it now. And a lot of people didn’t know some of those hip-hop collaborations because they didn’t listen to hip-hop radio or buy remixes –. So now yes there’s a lot of hip hop flavour but there are definitely very powerfully sung, emotionally rich ballads’’.
Mariah then controversially added ‘’its definitely a lot more fun being ‘Mariah Carey’ in 2007 than it was when I first started out because I was very young and people were kind of bossing me around and telling me what to do and it was more difficult to be myself. But, now, being able to make the music that I love and also whether its singing an big ballad or doing an up-temp record that makes me happy!’’.
Then the first female mc to have a huge hip hop record and MC’s friend DA BRAT who was hanging out with MC added ‘’regarding Leona lewis who everyone says is the new Mariah-I don’t know who she is. I was actually listening to the music in my dressing room and I saw a glimpse of her and you know to me she doesn’t compare to Mariah Carey at all, nobody compares to Mariah Carrey at all. You know Simon Cowell has good taste he can blow artist up but I just don’t think anybody compares to Mariah though, Mariah’s an Aries, I’m Aries. We have fun together, we automatically hit off and become good friends and now she’s my bff’’. So with that we all toasted everyone that MC has ever inspired (and you know there are a lot of them), wished them good things and then went off for yet more ‘’boyfriend gossip’’ of which there has been much!.