Branksome video rappers are hip sound of the suburbs (From Bournemouth Echo)

Branksome video rappers are hip sound of the suburbs

2:05pm Tuesday 9th December 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(1)

YourSpace Project, the group of local musicians responsible for the recent YouTube success of comedy music video, Branksome, are now looking to become Britain’s answer to New Zealand comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, stars of their own BBC show.

Fraser Bennett, 25, a music producer who has lived in quiet Branksome all his life, and his friends Hugo Farrant and Matt Karsenti hope they can build on their success and emulate The Conchords, despite admitting to having never heard of the New Zealanders before making Branksome.

Fraser, aka ‘Frazer Freeze’, says: “We’d honestly never seen or heard of them until recently when someone saw our video and said we were like them, so we started watching all their stuff. They’re amazing and we’d love to be able to do things like that.”

The lads, who list American comedy South Park as one of their influences, have also been compared to comedy Welsh rappers Goldie Lookin’ Chain. They readily admit the Branksome video was only ever a bit of fun, filmed because they had some spare time.

The Branksome rap, which was recorded in Fraser’s parents’ attic that doubles as a recording studio, has now had 15,000 views on YouTube and a group has recently been set up on the internet social networking site Facebook called Branksome Video which already has 601 fans.

Fraser explains: “It all started when I was working on MySpace the Musical, which is on YouTube too, because I had this idea of making a whole musical based around MySpace, so I wrote loads of songs for it.

“One of them was called Top Friends, which is on YouTube as well, where we pretended to be a proper over the top boy band called The White Street Boys. So we hired all the equipment out for a weekend and filmed the video for that on the beach in the freezing cold. When that was done we still had a day left with the equipment so Hugo said let’s film the Branksome video as well.

“We honestly never set out to film it, so it was kind of an after thought really. We didn’t expect it would get this big and it was only made for a laugh to show to our friends who are from the area and hopefully make them laugh as well.”

The song Branksome was actually written more than year ago but due to not being able to get hold of video equipment and finding a time when everyone was free, the video wasn’t actually uploaded onto YouTube until five weeks ago.

Since then the number of views of the video has shot up dramatically. On Friday the video had 10,600 views and by Sunday evening that number had risen to more than 14,000 following national publicity.

“With Branksome, we were just messing around in the attic one day and I was making a beat and started singing ‘Welcome to Branksome’ over the top of it as a joke, but it sounded really good, so we thought we’d try and record that.

“Hugo wrote the lyrics in literally 20 minutes. He’s amazing, he writes as quick as he’s thinking, because he comes from a freestyle type of background. He wrote the whole MySpace the Mus-ical in about 40 minutes.”

Top Friends was written by Fraser and his friend Matt Karsenti, who he met, ironically, through MySpace.

“We saw each other’s work on MySpace and got in contact, which resulted in me and Hugo driving up to London to meet him and we all just hit it off straight away,” says Fraser.

The YourSpace Project boys have tasted relative success before when they used to perform in the bars and clubs of Bournemouth.

“We were originally in a seven-piece improvisational band and we used to do two 45-minute improvised hip hop jazz sets in clubs where Hugo would get people to shout topics or ideas to him and he’d just freestyle rap about them straight away. People were amazed that he could do it and we did really well at that for a bit.”

“It was a bit like Eminem meets Whose Line Is It Anyway? Thinking about it now we should definitely have called it Whose Rhyme Is It Anyway?”

Hugo, a 27-year old English teacher with distinctive blonde dreadlocks, is currently in Australia touring his material with other artists, but has said he would be back in an instant if the YourSpace Project began to take off.

The only obstacle seemingly stopping the YourSpace Project from gaining commercial success is time and resources.

“We have so much material recorded and we’re just desperate to film it and make music videos but we have to wait for our video expert, Dave Kay, to be free, but he’s a very busy man.

“Dave put a lot of time into shooting the videos and he was there from the very start but because he’s so busy it’s difficult for us to get time with him, hence why it took so long to get Branksome onto YouTube.

“It’s looking like we’re going to have to wait until January to get some time with him and be able to make videos for all the songs I’ve got written and recorded.”

Fraser is also a freelance street dance teacher and runs dance workshops, recently creating a 10-minute musical called The Wizard of Hip Hop with a group of young children that he teaches.

“My background is in musical theatre. I’ve always been singing and dancing and making music since I was a little kid.

“I really can’t help it; it is my life. If I’m out shopping I’ll just start dancing in a clothes shop or something.”

Since the success of Branksome, Fraser has been fielding congratulatory phone calls and emails from old school friends, as well as music managers and DJs wanting to make the song into a record.

“We’re not looking to dwell on what we’ve achieved so far. Believe it or not we’re all serious musicians and we’re looking to take this much further. At the moment though we’re unsigned and self-contained and we want to be making videos seen by thousands of people regularly.”

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(1)