- By Fred Spanner
“There was a guy who heard screaming outside his house. He looked outside and there was a goat attacking children in the street. He went to help but forgot that he was naked, and ended up wrestling the goat to the ground. It wasn’t a good look. But it was Hull, so I suppose anything goes.”
MC Hammersmith is the creation of comedian Will Naameh. We gave him a five-star review for his Edinburgh Fringe show last year, and now it’s time for the rapping to stop and the talking to begin. Hammersmith claims to be the world's leading rapper to ever emerge from the ghetto of middle-class West London.
The multi-award-winning comedy freestyler has racked up over 100 million views on his social media pages and has recently released his first album, Mother’s Fettuccine, packed full of his YouTube hits. Loaded described him as “Jacob Rees-Mogg on crack”. Let’s see if he’s calmed down since last August…
How did you discover you had a talent for delivering fast-paced, improvised rap?
“That’s very kind of you to say, but I don’t think my brain works any faster than anybody else. It’s a boring answer but I just put it down to practice. I’ve been doing improv since I was fourteen. I didn’t do it very well back then. I certainly wasn’t a natural. I found improv a great release in being able to clear my mind and respond to another person’s idea and build on it.
“When I freestyle rap I feel like that’s what I’m doing. I think if I listen to myself, I can throw out any preconceived idea that I have in my head, and where I think the rap is going, and just dig deep.
“For instance, if I make a mistake and everything is flowing and going well I’ll be able to notice I’ve made a mistake, pause and flip the direction of where the rap is going, and acknowledge that mistake in the rap. It also proves to the audience that you’re really improvising.
“I don’t think it’s about being quick. I think it’s about being relaxed and present. I think it took me a long time to realise that, especially when I was doing comedy clubs. People have paid to see “comedy” and the expectation is it needs to be funny. The trick is to relax, have fun, be obvious, and listen to yourself. Comedy is then a side-effect of that.
“I think I appear quick by being slow.”
You studied linguistics. Do you think that helped?
“I think so, but then again Tupac and Biggie didn’t have a linguistics degree. Sadly, when I was at uni, there was never a module on freestyle rap.”
You’ve worked and trained internationally. How did that go?
“Oh wow! I’ve lost money in so many countries.
“I found out recently, that there’s a guy I went to school with who’s worth $100 million dollars. But, hey, I’ll just stick to freestyle rapping. I’ve lost money in America, New Zealand, Australia. But it was all good training.
“I studied improv in Chicago, New York, and L.A. It was amazing to get that opportunity and go to the places where Western improv was born. It was there that I discovered the secret to improv was to go “One brick at a time.” Not to get too far ahead of myself.”
How do you train to be a freestyle rapper?
“I have a rhyming dictionary which I’ve written myself. It’s about 10,000 words long and I just sit and learn them. I also used to have a whiteboard and if there was a word that came up that I stumbled over during a show, I’d write it down and I just work our rhymes for them when I get home.”
When I reviewed you at the Edinburgh Fringe last year, I described you as “Jacob Rees-Mogg on crack.” Is he aware of you, at all?
“Yes, he tried to come to my Edinburgh Fringe show last year, but he couldn’t get in as it was sold out. The thing is, people think I’m a raging Tory, but I’m not. The most popular video I have is called the “Vote Tory Rap,” but ten seconds in you realise that it’s just satire. Some people unfollowed me, then followed back when they realised it was anti-Tory. Even some of my close friends who know I vote Green (cos I like being disappointed) were like, “Is Will a Tory?” I thought they would have known me better.
“I heard from a friend of a friend that Michael Gove is a fan. Which is a cursed challis.”
How often do people turn up at your gigs and ask you to rhyme the words “Orange”, or “Antidisestablishmentarianism,” thinking you’ve never had these words thrown at you before?
“Probably every third gig
“Sometimes I wonder if people think I’ve just wandered onto the stage and have never done this before. There’s a rapper called Isaac Knox who started out dining raps to family-friendly crowds at Disneyland. He’s doing, like, ten shows per week to kids. And, no offence, but kids are thick, and they’ll give him the suggestion “Mickey Mouse” about three times a day. Sometimes in life, you just get an open goal.
“The biggest compliment you can get after an improv show is an audience member telling you that it wasn’t improvised.”
You ask audience members for mildly embarrassing stories to rap about. What are some of the strangest you’ve had?
“There was a guy who heard screaming outside his house. He looked outside and there was a goat attacking children in the street. He went to help but forgot that he was naked, and ended up wrestling the goat to the ground. It wasn’t a good look. But it was Hull, so I suppose anything goes.
“Also, I was in Australia (losing money, as usual) and I asked for an embarrassing story. This guy told me that at his stag party, he rolled a ‘five’ and had to piss in his own mouth. It was a game they were playing. You roll a dice and if you get a ‘five’ you have to urinate in your own mouth. The thing is, he was the only one playing the game, so it sounded like he just was looking for an excuse to do it.”
Your shows are full of raw energy and it’s 100mph from the off. I was knackered just watching it. Do you feel burnt out afterward?
“It’s a lot, and at the Fringe I’m doing two improv shows a night in addition to my solo shows. It’s very full-on. I have certain rules like I don’t drink during the Fringe, I hydrate and I don’t stay out late, I eat healthily. I learned my lesson when I was younger. If you don’t look after yourself it just wears you down.
“I take one day off a week to just sit in silence and do nothing. It’s a proper detox for the soul. It takes about two weeks after the Fringe for me to start feeling normal again. The festival is undergoing so many changes and full runs are becoming less popular, so maybe I’ll start thinking that way too. It’s an insane way to try and make a living.”
Are you heading out on tour shortly?
“Yes, it’s a one-hour 45-minute show with hip-hop bangers based on audience suggestions. I take stories, random words, and objects and turn them into completely improvised hip-hop tracks. There are also a couple of surprises this time around. It’s a different show every time and I’m absolutely blessed to have people come back and see me several times in a row.
“Having said that, if you know 300 people in Canterbury who are into freestyling hip-hop please send them my way. The tour is selling really well, but for some reason, Canterbury is slower than the rest. Maybe they’re not a hip-hop bunch?”
Perhaps we can send them a copy of your album, Mother’s Fettuccine. I think my favourite track is I’ve Definitely Got A Gun (which is followed immediately by I’ve Got Literally Millions Of Guns and Why Does Nobody Listen? I Said I’ve Got A Gun.)
“The way I write is if I spot something in the world that has a double meaning, I’ll immediately write it down and try to think how I can turn it into a rap lyric. When it came to “Kit-Kat” and “Six-Pack” that was a moment of dwelling on sexual frenzy and thinking of what would be the most outlandish lyric.”
Surely there’s a place at Glastonbury for MC Hammersmith?
Maybe it’s time for Loaded readers to lobby the bookers and get me on the bill? Perhaps myself, Stormzy, Skepta, and Dave might be a decent line-up.
You also have a show lined up for the Edinburgh Fringe later this year, called “Hippety Hoppity, Get Off My Property.”
Yes, each time I try to make it a bit different. There are some new routines and some new technical surprises. The more I do the festivals, the slicker and better I become. It’s a different show every time, so come along more than once!
What else are you up to?
I’m selling a car, if anyone wants a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4?
