Runic Rap - GENESIS ELIJAH Orignal Painting

This is the first in my new series of paintings, Runic Rap.
 
Runic Rap is an attempt to place contemporary UK rap artists in the bardic/scop tradition that has its roots in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Britain.
 
Hip Hop artists are today's bards - the social commentators and storytellers who describe life on this island, over drum beats. They carry the mantle of the deep rooted poetic tradition that has existed here in one way or another for thousands of years.
 
Many UK rappers are migrants or descendants of migrants, and are often perceived as separate from Britishness for this reason. But British history IS the history of migration and collaboration.
 
UK Rap is the inheritor of both the American-born Hip Hop and the British bardic context.People believe performing poetry over music was somehow invented in a vacuum in 1960/70s New York. You just have to see any performance of Beowulf to see how wrong this is.
 
Speaking over drums is a global phenomenon rooted in our collective ancestors.
 
Here is Genesis Elijah painted on a Runestone, in the Northern European/Scandinavian tradition.
 
The lyrics are taken from his track "G"
 
'There might be some confusionabout what a real G is
Real Gs make their own money
Real Gs raise their kids
Real Gs don't hit women -
That's not a G, that's a bitch
Real Gs aint no racists, aint no rapists, aint no snitch
I been a G, from when...'
 
Gouache and Acrylic Paint on A4 Bristol Board.