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Minista Poets, from left: Giz, Warlord Baka, Mentor, and Jack The Lad |
The primed Ministas’ questions
INTERVIEW: MINISTA POETS
GIZ, 21, and Warlord Baka, 23 – real names Gavin McKie and Daniel Beyaz – grew up on the Bemerton estate off York Way, King’s Cross. After forming Minista Poets in 2004, new recruits Jack the Lad, 21, aka Sean Haire, from the Marquis estate in Canonbury, and Mentor, 19 – Pete Mentor – from Hemel Hempstead, joined. They host their next monthly night, www.myspace.com/hip
hopaholicsanonymous, at the Cross Kings venue in York Way on December 8.
On your Myspace it says you’re influenced by religion – that’s quite unusual in
Britain’s youth today.
Warlord: It’s a powerful thing these days. It’s a big factor in a lot of the problems in the world as well.
Mentor: But we’re all quite openly spiritual people in a way.
Giz: Two of us are religious and two of us aren’t (Warlord and Mentor are).
You’re also quite political?
Giz: It’s our main thing – our main inspiration is what’s around us, and to not pick up on politics in this day and age would be ignorant.
Warlord: Everyone sees what goes on, but not a lot of people talk about it.
Jack the Lad: It’s like it’s not their problem, but it’s all our problem. You’ve got things like television and shops to take your mind off it.
You have a song called Millionaire – how does materialism sit with you?
Mentor: I’m happy to have it, but I’ll give it away in a second. I give a lot of my clothes away to homeless people if I don’t need them.
Warlord: You won’t see us swinging chains in a music video that we rented from a shop.
Warlord: Sex sells, that’s what they like, so they use it. The hip-hop thing, a lot of rappers they talk about the same stuff, it’s like guns, knives, fighting, drugs.
Mentor: Hip hop used to be about unity. It’s completely lost the essence of what it first started.
You perform at a poetry night at the Cross Kings – what do you think of it?
Mentor: If you go up to people in the street and tell them your opinions, they’re gonna think you’re crazy. You put a beat and mic with it, you can express your opinions.
Do you think politicians listen to people?
Mentor: Winston Churchill said “a living is what you get, but a life is what you give,” and these days politicians don’t care about people.
Mentor, you’re doing a tour of British prisons next year to give inmates a hip-hop workshop. When you go to youth offending centres, why do you think people are there?
Why are they committing crimes?
Mentor: Statistics say 60 per cent of people in prisons have never had a father figure or male role model in their lives. I ain’t seen my old man in three years. Before I became a Christian, I was a drug dealer, hanging around with gangsters, all that stuff. It’s to do with the family, father figures, and there is a significant lack of love, and people actually giving encouragement and care.
Warlord: Teachers need to interact with the kids, we need role models. You can’t look up to Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, the local police. I look up to the man that serves me a drink.
How would you describe your music?
Mentorn: Funkadelic
Giz: Splendid
Jack: Special
Baka: It’s a cross between vintage champagne and flat Coca-Cola.
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