Jamestown hip hop MC in the recording studio

Nov 21 2008 by Laura McLachlan, Lennox Herald (main ed)

CHAD the Lad and MC pal K9 Kev are back recording – and loving every minute of it.

Chad, who hails from Jamestown, hooked up with Kev while at college together in 2005 – and have been gigging throughout Scotland alongside various other artists.

Despite being white Scottish hip hop MCs, Chad and Kev have been ripping it up on the scene, with the pair’s street anthem ‘Live for the Weekend’ even making it’s way into the hands of Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody, who played it on his XFM Residency Podcast.

Chad said: “The track got a great response from all over the country.

“Shortly after that we won a national radio play on Martin Bates’ XFM Uploaded show and Martin was even quoted as saying, ‘It’s one of the biggest responses I’ve had to a tune on the show.’”

The duo began work on their first single later last year, which consisted of three different tracks.

Kev said: “We didn’t really expect people to respond as well as they did to Live for the Weekend, so we decided to try something a bit different and release a single.”

The single included a reworking of Weekend with a live instrumental, a second track called Party Lassies and a third, End of the Line which featured singer and songwriter Judith Harron in a song that tells the story of life's hardships – some typical MC material.

The lads are now finishing their album, have a few more gigs at the Dumbarton Social Club and at Ashton Lane’s Oxjam festival under their belt – and if that wasn’t exciting enough, they have also roused the interest of some industry bigwigs.

“We’ve also had some interest from a UK based record label,”said Kev.

“With a subsequent album release too, we have a really busy few months ahead!”

For the lads’ gig info log on to www.myspace.com/k9kevchadthelad.