Bitter Taste in My Mouth / Spit it Out With a Rhyme
May 1, 2016 1:27 AM   Subscribe

Riz MC has just dropped his new mixtape Englistan. Released on St George's Day, it turns out that as a second generation immigrant he has some thoughts about identity and nationality.

Riz Ahmed aka Riz MC (Previously) is a British actor, rapper and director known for his film roles in Ill Manors, Four Lions and Nightcrawler.

He's also got a musical backlog that includes Sour Times, a spoken word piece about the suspicion and misrepresentation of South Asian people in the UK after the attacks on the 7th of July 2005 in London.

Englistan's theme is of British Asian identity and what it means to be a member of one nation with feet in two. A highlight is the closing I Ain't Being a Racist But..., narrated from the point of view of an English Nationalist.

He's directed and released a short film Daytime to coincide with the mixtape, which explores the same themes by looking at the day in the life of a boy in 1990s Britain.

All of this comes with a background of local, regional and national elections, and importantly, the background hum of the in/out EU referendum.
posted by sarcas (6 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
The cover of that mixtape - genius. it shows him wearing a top made of the England and Pakistan cricket shirts, combined. Which is a reference to the Tebbit test, where Tory politician Norman Tebbit complained that some immigrants were "failing to integrate", notably because they continued to support Pakistan or the West Indies at cricket, in preference to England*.

And then of course it plays on Londonistan and similar terms as well. Brilliant.

Thanks for this. I've enjoyed some of his earlier work (esp. e.g. All in the Ghetto) so I'll be giving this a listen.

*Which is obviously ridiculous given that Brits living outside the UK continue to support their own country, and it's not like I stopped supporting the All Blacks when I lived in the UK, but you never hear anyone claim about that, huh?
posted by Pink Frost at 1:37 AM on May 1, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is ace.
posted by LMGM at 4:36 AM on May 1, 2016


Is "ace" current or established slang in the UK?
posted by clockzero at 11:13 AM on May 1, 2016


Pink Frost I was not aware of the Tebbit test (this is what I get for being born an expatriot and only "coming home" 15 years into my life). I'd copped the cricket tops, but had just assumed it was a more general Londonistan link.

clockzero: "ace" is certainly current in my house, we live in Scotland but my linguistic background is..atypical..and my partner is Irish. I cannot for the the life of me remember if I've heard anyone else say it recently.
posted by sarcas at 1:25 PM on May 1, 2016


Ace is established. Kinda old at this point. I consider it late 90s / early 00s.
posted by ACair at 1:27 PM on May 1, 2016


Ace, man, like a spaceman.
posted by acb at 3:06 PM on May 1, 2016


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