POLITICALLY CHARGED, socially conscious, verbally dextrous, witty, and intelligent underground rap and spoken word will be the order of the day when the Speech Development Records Tour hits Galway.
The tour comes to the Róisín Dubh on Saturday November 22 at 8pm with poet and activist B Dolan, electro/guitar duo warrenpeace, and rapper/spoken word artist, and Speech Development Records founder Scroobius Pip.
Pip, best known for his excellent collaborations with Dan Le Sac, particularly the 2008 album Angles, founded Speech Development Records in 2011. The label now boasts artists of the calibre of warrenpeace, Jackamo Brown, and polarbear, as well as being the European label for Sage Francis and B Dolan.
This tour marks a number of firsts for the label. This is the first time it has gone on tour; the first time warrenpeace has also toured; and B Dolan’s first European shows with a live band.
Pip will be MCing, rapping, and DJing. Get a taste of him on stage with this video shot in Galway in 2011 by Rory Walsh of Spire Productions.
Providence, Rhode Island’s, B Dolan is a genre-defying mix of underground rap and spoken word, whose music has won the admiration of both indie and hip-hop fans through songs like ‘Film The Police’ and ‘Earthmovers’ and the album Which Side Are You On?, the title track of which is a blistering critique of homophobia:
For this tour, Dolan’s backing band will be Warren Borg and Paul Glover, who backed Scroobius Pip on his acclaimed Distraction Pieces tour, and DJ Buddy Peace, with whom Dolan has collaborated extensively. The tour will support Dolan and Peace’s House of Bees Vol 3 mixtape, as well as provide a taste for Dolan’s next album, due out on Speech Development Records, next spring.
Check out ‘The Devil is Alive’, a reworking by Dolan and Peace of Rick Ross and Jay-Z’s 2013 single ‘The Devil is A Lie’, from House of Bees Vol 3.
The night will open with Warren Borg on guitar and Buddy Peace on deck duties in their collaborative guise as warrenpeace.
Warrenpeace craft music which combines raw beats geared around live sampler performances, adrenaline fuelled guitar noise, and grizzly, sub-heavy synths. On top of the sonics come angry and personal stories of contemporary London life.
In June Speech Development Records released warrenpeace’s debut album SDR007, which features guest appearances with Scroobius Pip, Natasha Fox (Distraction Pieces/FutureAges and Amy Bullman (DJ Zinc/Rinse ). The singles ‘Indoor Voice’, ‘Hungry’, and ‘FRNKLY STVN’ enjoyed extensive airplay on XFM and BBC 6 Music.
Tickets are available at www.roisindubh.net, the Ticket Desk at OMG Zhivago, Shop Street, and The Róisín Dubh.
