GAMMA
We thought about writing a fancy press release for Gamma, then we thought why bother? Let this speak for itself.

You could get all intellectual about Gamma’s lyrics and music, but at heart what the group are about is great beats and great rhymes. Yeah, they’re doing their own thing and coming with their own style, but it’ll still have your head nodding and muttering along with the raps. And in the end, that’s all that counts.

What distinguishes Gamma is three vocalists with three distinctive styles and flows. They met in the mid-nineties at Cream Of The Crop @ WKDs. Blacktiude (aka Ebu) had moved down to London from Birmingham and, not completely impressed by some of the freestyle on offer in the capital, persuaded Juice Aleem to come down to win the money. His first attempt led him to a final showdown with an MC called Lord Redeem… To find out who won that night you’ll have to ask the group. Whatever way, it was the start of a friendship between the three MCs.

They built their relationship working together on the now-legendary Ghetto Grammar project, but even then they were getting together, along with producer Mister Mitchell one or two nights a week and working on beats and rhymes together for the group, Gamma. Up till now the only available result of this work was the track ‘Prang’ which featured in an early version on Disorda’s ‘Mind The Gap’ cassette.

Juice and Ebu have appeared as Gamma alongside Blak Twang on Roots Manuva’s seminal "Skiver’s Guide" and on compilations such as "The Experiment" and "10,000 Men Strong". Juice has also worked as a floating member of New Flesh For Old since 1998.

So now the three MCs:
JUICE ALEEM. A Big Dada stalwart, Juice has been accused of being too clever for his own good, usually by people who haven’t bothered to listen to him. He combines great tone and flow, rhythmic attack and crystal-clear delivery with a distinctly off-colour sense of humour. Forget what you’ve heard about him and hear him. After all, this is the man who contributed one of the most memorable freestyles to be heard on Westwood for quite some time:
"I’m sticking my dick in a chicken/ don’t stop fucking till it’s stopped clucking/ what? what?/ suttn for nuttn/ nuttn need nuttn for nuttn/ Nought point five energise my life/ I connect all my chakras/ I’ll get back to ya/ lord of the perfect black/ I’m so spectacular/ you better realise I’ll come back/ like Osiris/ you can’t miss you can’t diss/ if not then you catchin’ a jet black fist/ Try picture this/ you can’t picture that/ I picture perfectly/ You can’t mess with me/ or you get rushed to Emergency/ so urgently…" … and so on…

BLACKITUDE, THE ROBOTIC E.B.U. Superficially a yard style, Ebu bounces across the beat, his bloody-minded exuberance disguising the fact that he drops pure science. Take this example: "Being under construction/ here the born words from the Old World Order/ manifested in diasporic not revolutionary expression/ captured and made immortal by media not of total/ understanding - true rhyme scientists get robbed artistically/ they bleed rocks dry/ they manufacture/ hear the man with the facts/ Inner vision telepathy and DNA memory." (From "Facotry")

LORD REDEEM
"I call my type of rapping out-of-road soul. I’m the brock-pocket, sandal-wearing, poverty-stricken, no flashiness, calypso singer. That’s me!" Certainly, Redeem’s rhymes add a musical quality to the Gamma attack, his thirteen years of childhood and adolescence spent in Texas shining through and combining with his London roots to make a unique flow, his years as a teacher adding depth to this lyrics. He brings the drama to the group, he says.
"Who the Nigga with a Bunch of Punch of Creme a Bitter!/ Boundless Home Six Wick Run Hitter!!!/ It the Texas Drawling Lingua Brittanica!/ Yankee Dodging Ten Pound Train Inspector!/ Twelve Benefit Grant Cheque Receptor!/ Immaculate Conceptor Lord Redemptor!"

Combine this with production from Ebu and Mr Mitchell which ties the ultimate head-nod factor with an array of clever and original sampling and you’ve got the makings of a little classic. Add in guests like Knowledge Scientific Cipher and the hotly-tipped Defesis and you’ve got a package that’ll keep you going back to it again and again.

"It’s all about identity really," offers Lord Redeem. "Because hip hop has no rules. But it does have certain things that feel correct about it. One of them is you feel you’re speaking to someone and someone’s speaking to you from their soul."

Original, intelligient, straight up hip hop sounds from out of the UK but not limited by it? Believe…