RENAISSANCE RIZ
If you’re not familiar with this 26 year old from Wembley you soon will be.
A brief glance at his CV and the only way to describe him is Renaissance Man, but then this is one guy that does not like to be confined to ascribed labels – just listen to his lyrics.
A Politics, Philosophy and Economics graduate from Oxford University he had the potential to do anything. Banker, Lawyer, Journalist or Politician? Riz MC opted for rapper - bursting on the scene in 2006 with “post 9-11 blues” which made satirical jibes at the climate of fear surrounding the so called War on Terror. It wasn’t long before the song was banned from the radio waves. Since then he has gone from strength to strength playing at Glastonbury and the BBC electric proms, touring with legends like Massive attack and Mos Def and being named the emerging artist in residence at London’s Southbank Centre.
Impressed? Well he also has a rather successful acting career with staring roles in ‘The Road to Guantanamo,’ where he played a British detainee at Guantanamo Bay and ‘Britz’ in which he played a Muslim MI5 agent, amongst his many credits. Occasionally he does the odd bit of blogging too, with work published for organisations like the Guardian, no less.
I caught up with him on the advent of his first foray into mainstream cinema in the film ‘Shifty’ to talk about his work.
Rick – Tell me about Shifty
Riz – Shifty is a well educated intelligent young guy who finds himself on the wrong side of the track and becomes a petty drug dealer but soon goes beyond being petty. I don’t think he ever saw himself going down that path but he stagnated and saw himself in the small town where he grew up with friends. He doesn’t see himself pursuing a glamorous criminal life – it’s just the rut that he gets stuck in, Lots of people get stuck in ruts working in chip shops or offices and this is the rut that he happens to be in. He sees it as a business and feels that other people are the ones with the problem for judging him for providing a service and product. But I think there is a voice in his head telling him that he is destined for something else. He could have got a proper job and moved out of the area so when his old friends comes to visit him he reconnects with his past and starts to question himself.
Playing him was really interesting as I got to humanise the character. Drug dealers are always portrayed as simply drug dealers rather than real people behind that. When I was growing up I knew lots of people that fell on the wrong side of the track and sometimes there is a disconnect between what they do and what kind of world they live in and the real human beneath. I think there is a gap between the kind of stereotypes and the reality of three dimensional people that we meet face to face. So it was nice playing this character not as a drug dealer, but as a guy that happens to do what he does.
Rick – Why should we watch the film?
Riz – Because it is a good film really. I could say support it because it is a British film. I could say support it because it was only made on a budget of £100 000, which is what most films spend on their catering. Ultimately it is a thrilling and enjoyable film. It is very witty, it is very funny and very realistic too...it’s doesn’t patronise the audience, it’s not a cartoony comic book that glamorises crime but on the other hand it is not some sort of depressing, slit your wrists docu-realist thing either. It is a film you can go and enjoy and connect with as it is realistic.
Rick – How far do you relate to the character?
Riz – I think we can all relate to that basic human conflict that he is going through – which is really what the film is centred on. It’s about friendship, it’s about loyalty, and it’s about questioning your future when you reconnect with your past.
Rick - Moving away from shifty, you graduated from Oxford and could have done anything that you wanted to. Why become and actor and a rapper?
Riz – I could have done anything that I wanted to but I don’t think I could have done anything that I didn’t want to, and I guess I always wanted to have a voice and articulate stories in a way that I find interesting. I guess it also satisfies my hobo nature. You go from project to project, you meet new people and you go to different places for different periods of time.
Rick – Your parents migrated to Britain from Pakistan, how did they react to your choice of career?
Riz – I think that they always thought that this was a hobby for me and that I would grow out of, It wasn’t really until they saw the first visible signs… seeing me on televisions and billboards that they realised that I am making a living out of this. But I think that it is completely natural for my parents to have that reaction. I would have that reaction if my kids told me that they wanted to be an actor. I would tell them that 90% of actors struggle to make any money from acting, and most of it is down to luck. It is even harder to make any money from music these days.
Rick – How far has your ethnicity, religion or social background been an issue in getting to where you are?
Riz – well obviously being an ethnic minority there are less roles out there, but hopefully we are now moving into a post racial era. We’ve got a black president in the White House and I don’t think it would be a massive leap of faith to start seeing more diversity on our screens. So now I am going up for roles which are racially non specific – and that’s really where we want to get to, not selfishly for my own career prospects, but as a society where we get to the point where Obama is not described as a black president but just a president, and we look at each other outside of our labels first. It has been challenging – I would go up for a tenth of the auditions that a white counterpart would, but I am proud to hopefully be at the forefront of smashing that door down.
Rick – Is there a role you would refuse to play?
Riz – I don’t know, I just take each day as it comes. There is a shortage of work out there for any actor and if you’re ever in a position where you make choices then you make them on the basis that there is not much work out there. If you can make choices then you are a minority and should be grateful for that. To say that I wouldn’t take certain roles would be arrogant.
Rick – Shifty is your first foray into mainstream cinema and you are likely to take on some high profile roles in the future. Would you ever ditch your music career if it were to affect your credibility as an actor?
Riz – Any creative person is concerned about how their creative output is perceived, but I think if you set out to make too many things that are tailor made “credible” then you’re not going to make stuff that’s interesting – so I try to put those questions in the back of my mind. My music career would only affect my film career, or vice versa, if your output in one or the other was shit.
I think that as Riz MC I am at my creative extremes. It is me at my most soulful and depressed or me at my most hyperactive or sarcastic. It is an expression of my emotional extremes – of my peaks and troths that make me want to put pen to paper. My musical output has so far appealed to hip hip and electro demographics, but my album will be quite varied and hopefully transcend demographic boxes. In short, I wouldn’t want to give up either – doing one makes me better at the other. I think it can be quite interesting if you see a different side to someone...I think it is more confusing for journalists more than the public, who are more willing to embrace multidimensional personalities. But the press are more concerned about where we place someone in terms of shelf space… Maybe it is becoming less relevant, we’ve got more direct ways to interact with our public in terms of twitter and facebook and that sort of stuff – so maybe it will become less of an issue.
Rick – Your first musical hit, Post 9/11 blues, was controversially banned from airtime. How far did it consolidate what you were saying in the song in terms of your views on the war on terror and the climate of paranoia?
Riz – That song was very much of its time. I would feel quite glad if post 9/11 blues and sour times start to feel quite dated, which hopefully they have as that kind of ugly drum beat of paranoia dies down, which I think it has – before we were all terrified of terror and now we are all terrified of the credit crunch monster. I think my more recent output has been more about social politics… I don’t think that those two songs are a fair representation of my musical output – I get annoyed when people call me a political rapper and stuff. Back to the question, I do think that it was quite ironic that the track fell victim to the same kind of knee jerk paranoia that it was satirising.
Rick – On a lighter note, as you become a big movie star I am sure many of our female readers will be wondering if you’re single?
Riz – I am.
Rick – So if they want to start posting their knickers and thongs to you …
Riz – (Laughs) I am getting a twitter account.
Rick – and what is next for you?
Riz – Next up is rage with Jude Law and Judy Dench, and freefall is on TV in the summer. I am also shooting something called Centurion and something else that I am not allowed to talk about at the moment.
To find out more about Riz check out http://www.myspace.com/rizmc or add Riz MC on facebook (don’t worry he doesn’t mind random people getting in touch).
To read Rickin’s interview with Riz in full, go to the online edition of Talent www.smaarttalent.com
