Renée Silver

The "Sweaty Palms EP", featuring my collaboration with South London based rapper, Renée Silver, is due out on Shadetek next week. As part of the hype, Renée has kindly supplied a few words about herself, to fill you in on her story so far...:


"Enthralled by Hip Hop from the second she heard the beats, Renée Silver has been rapping relentlessly ever since. This began with freestyling before her ever-prevalent lyrical urges also got their hands on a pen and pad, and she developed the art of writing engaging, emotionally charged and quick-witted rhymes. Indeed, 2006 will see this wordsmith make the smooth transition from a gifted live performer, used to pulling off high energy, highly entertaining gigs on the underground scene, to a successful recording artist. And if she can keep on writing and performing material like her forthcoming track, ‘Shocking Out Proud! (Sweaty Palms Mix)’, then she’ll be entertaining us for years to come. Although, in all honesty, she’ll probably do that whatever happens! I mean let us just recap 2004-05 for her: sick freestyle after phat freestyle, which resulted in Deal Real Records reaping the benefits, when she challenged this highly critical Hip Hop crowd to make her work with any word that they could throw at her, at the Female All Stars’ Christmas finale. Of course, she reigned supreme: devouring word after word, in rhyme after rhyme. Indeed, this is now a regular feature in her stage shows, which always delights the crowd. That said, by July ‘04, writing, gigging and freestyling alone were no longer sufficient to satisfy her itch to rhyme; so she ventured out into the cold world of ‘battling’. Now, almost 18 months on, she has battled it out in Bedford, Bournemouth and Manchester as well as at London’s infamous Battle Scars, Lyric Pad and The Jump Off. And her travels have hardly been in vain as she has won more than 50% of the battles that she has entered, and ended 2004 as Lyric Pad’s reigning champ. She then burst into 2005 taking battling to another level, when she won the first London heat of Battle Scars, with previously unseen ingenuity and skill.

“There’s some crazy fuckers out there. But to be fair, most of them are hiding some
sort of twisted genius, laughing at you, laughing at them. Renée Silver would happily fit into this category.” Wah! Issue No. 1, 2005.

"So we patiently await the Battle Scars grande finale with baited breath! What of the remaining battles that she has lost though, I hear you ask? Silly question, especially if you have ever seen her or even just heard Lyric Pad’s recordings of the battles on Itch FM (105.5). However, if you insist on receiving a factual answer, here it is. She has ‘never’ failed to reach the final stages of a battle and thus has only lost to the following proven champions:

"Professor Green: Finalist: Hip Hop Power Summit, ‘05 & The Jump Off Champ, ‘04/05
Lay Z: Semi-Finalist: UMF Battle, ‘05 & Battle Scars Champ, Manchester ‘04
Saint: UMF Battle Champ, ‘04
Dekay: Lyric Pad Consecutive Winner, ‘04 & Phuturehype Champ, ‘04
Nathanial: Urban Freestyle Champ, ‘04

"Winning isn’t everything to Renée Silver though, as engaging in these battles has also provided her with the desire to educate or re-educate people about the true art of MC-ing. As such, she has drawn upon her previous knowledge of running MC/Rap workshops and is now co-ordinating and leading her own tailor-made workshops for both amateurs and professionals alike. But her eagerness, to assist in elevating UK Hip Hop to greatness, does not stop there. Therefore, she recently took over the running of Calibrated Entertainments’ Street Team, making it ‘Renée Silver’s Calibrated Street Team’.