Foreign Beggars

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Foreign Beggars is one of the most prolific and versatile Hip Hop/drum & bass groups to emerge from the UK. Consisting of MC’s Metropolis and Orifice Vulgatron, Producer Dag Nabbit, Human Beatboxer Shlomo and DJ Nonames. Known for playing a mass amount of live shows every year, and charting the trajectory of the groups more than a decade-long career their sound has progressed from classic loop driven rolling hip-hop to incorporating dubstep, glitch, grime and bass, Foreign Beggars have no need to find a niche in the rap game, preferring to master creating their own sub-genre.

2018 looks to be a big year for Foreign Beggars after just wrapping up their Australian tour celebrating the release of tracks TOAST and BOSH. And you would be right to assume that the new singles are pre-empting a fresh album 2 2 KARMA due for release February next year. This will be Foreign Beggars eight album, and from the sound of the first two tracks, it is going to be epic in every way!

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Hey Pav, thanks for taking the time to catch up with AMNplify.

No worries Brianna, thank YOU!

Firstly, can you tell us a little bit about the Foreign Beggars journey, and how you got to where you are now?

I have just always had a lot of passion and energy for music. I mean, I moved to London for university but I also moved there for the music. So, I think I was only 22 when we set up our label and dropped the first record. I met Nonames when I was at university with Metropolis and thankfully we stayed in touch after that, then we met Dag Nabbit. When we were finally ready to create the record Metropolis was living in South Africa at the time where he had a lot of musical influences from the culture which really worked well with the kind of music we were creating. I would say the crew really started with the Asylum Speakers album which was around 2001 that we started on that, and yeah that’s basically the essence of how Foreign Beggars started. 

I can hear that your sound has evolved over the many years you have been creating music together, has that been an intentional, or natural process?

I think like for us, I got some advice from someone I admired, he basically said, 

“Once you start putting records out you need to put something out every two or three months to make sure you capitalize on the hype from before.”

So we have kind of made that our mission to just be consistent, as well as high quality. We were always into the British underground shit so we all kind of have different tastes, the music kind of evolves as you go through different eras but we try to stay true to the essence of what Foreign Beggars are as much as possible. When we first started putting records out it was a time when if you were a rapper you HAD to come out on vinyl, you had to come out on wax to be a legitimate group in those days. So its like, we started in the period when everything was analogue, and now there is all this internet promotion going on. We’re lucky we came out when we did. 

How would you describe Foreign Beggars music, with it being so unique and evolving over time?

I think there was a period where we got a lot of recognition for a lot of the dubstep stuff we’d done. If you listen to the Uprising, which is our most electronic album, but it’s still very much a rap album. We’ve got a very broad spectrum of musical tastes in our group, and I think you are going to hear that come through on the new album.

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Foreign Beggars // 2 2 KARMA

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So 2 2 KARMA is going to be a good reflection of all of the crew members musical input?

Yeah, I think this one is much more of a rap album. There are moments of different other genres in there but specifically, it’s a rap album. It’s a hip-hop album, I mean, we have a few electronic producers on there too. It’s definitely a deeper and more emotive album than our previous releases. 

Do you think the words, rap and lyrics are more crucial to this album than others you’ve created?

Yeah! Definitely, that has been the intention with this album. I think that we’ve been known for our more electronic music, so the lyricism side of it got diluted in the process. We just wanted to put it down, and actually just say some stuff. The levels of rap music coming out of England is so high right now, it’s amazing. 

It’s kind of not been supported in the mainstream for so long that, so it just wound up in the underground where it’s just like busted through like a f**king volcano! 

You’re currently touring Aus, but what comes after the album release in Feb 2018?

As soon as f**king possible yo! We’re just working on a US tour at the moment, but I reckon when the album drops we will be playing New Zealand then I reckon a UK tour, a European tour. When the album drops the first focus is going to be the United States. 

If you had to eat one food for the rest of your life what would you choose?

Oh. My. God. I know what I’d choose but it’s f**king immoral. Baskin Robins, coffee ice-cream. Yes, please! 

Amazing combo! Thanks for the chats, and good luck on the album drop.

Thank-you so much for all the support Brianna. 

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Catch Foreign Beggars live at one of their last Australian stops of the tour! 

Click HERE for tickets.

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AMNplify – BD