Chap-Hop, Straight out of Surrey

"Hip-hop has been a commercial proposition since the release of 'Rapper’s Delight' in 1979. That’s 30 years, a long time for any genre," writes Sasha Frere-Jones in this week's New Yorker. The genre, according to Frere-Jones, is on the way out. Not so for Chap-Hop, however, which has been going for about six days since the video below was put up on YouTube, featuring Gentleman Rhymer Mr B.

The eponymous Mr B, who lives in Hove but comes from Surrey (of course) accompanies himself on his idiosyncratic banjolele, and manages in the video to telescope the history of hip-hop into five minutes. As Mr B says of his more gangsta rivals, "They do give respect really. They act tough, but generally speaking are awfully nice chaps." Mr B explains himself here.

When did you start performing cabaret/burlesque?

Quite by accident in late 2007. Having penned a few ditties purely for my own enjoyment, a friend asked me to play a full show at a do he was putting on. Went down rather well, so I thought, "I’ll have a go at this, seems a wheeze."

What defines your own brand of cabaret/burlesque performance?

I know not of too many hip-hop-based cabaret performers on the circuit. Beats, rhymes and manners, there’s the rub!

What is the best performance/backstage/business tip you have learned during your time on the circuit?

Politeness, manners and general gentlemanliness cost nothing and furthermore they oil the wheels of business quite nicely too!

(thanks to ShakeItDoll.com - putting the url into Burlesque).