A SONG written
by a young Southside rapper in collaboration with a best selling US rap artist
is set to cause a stir on the airwaves.
Robert Byrne (24), from Tallaght, who is better known
in the music world as
‘Nucentz’, won Ireland’s First Rap Superstar Competition
last April.
As a result he was offered the opportunity to work on
a track that he wrote himself with US hip hop star Lupe Fiasco.
The talented young rapper secured more than 50 per
cent of the 67,000 public votes cast in the competition, which was hosted by
Spin 103.8. The radio station ran it in conjunction with Fiasco to find
Ireland’s most promising hip hop talent.
Robert has been described by one of Ireland’s leading
hip hop websites, rapireland.ie, as “one of the standard bearers in Irish
hip hop”.
He played his first gig at just 15-years-of-age and
has supported such legends as Public Enemy and Asher Roth in concert.
Lupe Fiasco, from Chicago, has collaborated with rap
legend Kanye West. He has also released two albums
‘Food & Liquor’ in 2006,
and
‘The Cool’ in 2007. He is due to release his latest album entitled
‘Lasers’
in March.
Speaking to Southside People about the release of the
new single, entitled
‘Had Enough’, Robert explained how he and a producer wrote
the music and the lyrics.
“Lupe is putting a verse on the winning song that I
recorded,
? Robert said.
“I sent him the instrumental and he sent back his
verse.
“We have our own producer, Jamie McPeake in Dundrum,
who creates the beats and I write all the lyrics and record it.
“The song is about me being fed up in a job I was in,
?
he explained.
“It is me saying that I thought I would have made it by now with
the music. At the time I was wishing something would kick off because I was
sick of my nine to five job. It is a mellow enough tune and Lupe got on the
same buzz in the second verse.
?
The song was first played on Spin FM but will be
broadcast by many of the country’s other top radio stations in the coming
weeks.
Robert hopes that the collaboration with the world
famous hip hop artist, which he is releasing on an independent label, will further
his career and help raise the profile of rap in Ireland.
“With a name like Lupe’s behind you, you can’t really
go too far wrong,
? he said.
“Already people are taking much more of an interest
and hopefully it will do a bit more for Irish hip hop as well.
?
Robert will also feature in a television documentary
about the Irish hip hop scene, which is part of a series called ‘Reality
Bites’. The documentary will be shown on RTE2 in the coming weeks.