A new rap opera which examines the dilemmas and aspirations of urban hip hop is to tour in the autumn with music by alto saxophonist jazz musician and MC Soweto Kinch.

The Birmingham player who first shot to prominence with his 2003 album Conversations With The Unseen has written the music for hip hop writer Jonzi D’s new production Markus The Sadist which goes on tour in October. The new piece is the tale of a young MC who comes from nowhere but through his raw talent progresses through the music industry jungle where he reaches a dilemma: sell out, sound American, buy into the corporate lifestyle or throw his career away. Described as a rap fable Kinch’s music for the production builds on his last album A Life In The Day Of B19 – Tales Of The Tower Block which chronicled the fictionalised urban reality of a Birmingham high rise and the lives of its residents complete with narration by former BBC newsreader Moira Stuart.

The cast of Markus The Sadist includes grime star Bashy who Soweto has worked with in his own specially curated Flyover show in Birmingham and it also picks up on an earlier project he was involved in with the show’s director.

“I have worked with Jonzi D a few times,” Kinch explains. “On Aeroplane Man depping for Jason Yarde but this project has been in incubation for two years. Jonzi D’s work traverses all the different art forms, following the tradition of West Indian and African culture that defies the differences. He’s a B-boy, in hip hop, but more than just a rapper with a lot of different cultural elements coming into play.”

Kinch sees the main protaganist of Markus The Sadist (played by Bashy) as someone who has had specific ideas and aspirations but has now reached a vital moment in his career when he finds himself gravitating towards a new unexpected orbit, when what was underground suddenly comes into the full glare of the media. It’s something that has happened recently in the pop charts with the success of grime star Tinchy Stryder. “Grime happens to be the flavour of the month, its speed in reaching the mainstream is instructive. Four or five years ago it was off the mainstream radar. I worked with Bashy on the Flyover show and what he brings is a level of consciousness. He’s not bling-obsessed but he’s not dissociating himself from the scene he finds himself in – he was organising grime events long before he was discovered.”

The dilemma in the piece is a classic case of growing up in public fast, filtered through the prism of a tough urban perspective. Hip hop now, Kinch says, is about “commercialism and integrity”, different choices and skills. “What was interesting in the past was that there were more styles, think of NWA, Queen Latifah and all the rest. Now the choice is to go completely corporate or underground.”

Tour dates include Artsdepot, London N12 (1 and 2 October); Arc, Stockton-on-Tees (6 October); Playhouse, Nottingham (8 October); Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Maidenhead (10 October); Malvern theatres, Malvern (13 October); Contact theatre, Manchester (16 and 17 October); Bloomsbury Theatre, London (19 October); The Drum, Birmingham (22-24 October); West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds (26 and 27 October); and New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich (30 and 31 October).

– Stephen Graham

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