Did you know that Great Britain has two queens? No, don’t be alarmed. This is neither a coup nor a contender for the throne. Lady Leshurr, although royal in her own style, is the queen of British rap. And the UK rapper and YouTube sensation is coming to the music capital on a three-city tour as part of Bira 91’s new hip-hop focused campaign – FreeFlow. The property, that aims to shine a light on hip-hop and its subcultures in India, will take the celebrity artiste through Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi.
Born Melesha O’Garro, Lady Leshurr is one of the UK’s most exciting rappers, known for her ingenious freestyling that combines mischief, wit and expert comic timing. Lady Leshurr’s music is packed with witty asides, fast and furious put-downs and a tongue-in-cheek aesthetic.
The prospects of the trip, she affirms, are promising. “Coming to India and representing grime – not a lot of artistes have an opportunity like this to tour India. Hopefully when I am here, I can get into the studio with one of the rappers supporting me on the tour and record something. When it comes to the shows, I don’t know what to expect. All I know is that it’s going to be an amazing trip and I am going to love it.”
For the audience, she has something really special in store. “When people listen to me, I want them to takeaway inspiration and hope. There are a lot of people who come to watch me who are trying to do the same thing as me. I always say in all my shows that if you’ve got a dream, then go for it! It doesn’t matter if you’re an artiste or not. I always try to be an inspiration and care about who is watching me because the younger generation is the future. I didn’t have a lot of people guiding and supporting me when I was young nor did I have a lot of English artistes to look up to; so I want to be that artiste for young people today.”
So to whom would she attribute her musical interest to? Melesha promptly replies: “Eminem! He inspired me and there was always music around me growing up.”
Looking back, Melesha recalls that getting shows was the hardest part of her journey. “It hasn’t been easy for me at all. I have been doing this for quite some time. I had to quit my job for my music, move to London and away from my family. It is a sacrifice that I had to make. I had to do that to benefit my career. The shows were coming in real slow at the start and I had to create my own brand to draw the attention of people who have never heard of me before. It’s been a long time coming. I think the reason why I started getting a lot of shows was because I was doing a lot of covers. I was known for doing a lot of covers, rapping over other people’s beats and that’s basically what got me the shows to begin with.”
Having come into the limelight with her Queen’s Speech YouTube series (currently at fifty million views on YouTube, and counting), Lady Leshurr recounts that battle rap videos inspired Queen Speech.
“I used to watch a lot of battle rap videos and think why these guys aren’t signed by someone or bigger than Jay Z because a lot of them are really incredible and amazing. That was one of the ideas behind Queen’s Speech – I thought about doing freestyle with an actual song and melody. I call it a banter battle rap and, in reality, I wanted to do something fun.”
With sold out shows from New York to Brixton, and having attracted the attention of international hip-hop heavyweights like Timbaland, Erykah Badu and Busta Rhymes, Melesha credits her success to her music. “My songs are quite colourful, bubbly, entertaining and humorous. It’s basically just my sense of humour reflecting in my music.”
Check Lady Leshurr out at The Humming Tree, Indiranagar, along with supporting acts by India’s Prabh Deep and Aerate Sound on November 17.
