24-year-old hip hop word smith Michael ’Mixy’ Riccardi has risen to prominence in recent years as quite possibly the saviour of Peterborough’s otherwise marginalised and secretive scene, uniting the younger beat hungry clubbers with the older literary aficionados of the poetry circles by becoming the youngest person and first ever MC to be awarded the coveted Peterborough Poet Laureate title, as well as releasing one of the best local mixtapes to be heard (last year’s MMIX Mixture Mixtape).
His succes has made him just as likely to be seen at a poetry workshop as rocking the mic in a sweaty dancehall and has even taken him as far as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with fellow scribes Keely Mills and Mark Grist (both ex Laureates and the latter forming the other half of Mixy's well lauded duo Dead Poets.)
His second full length mixtape, entitled MMX (which for anyone unfamiliar with Roman numerals means 2010) was released earlier this summer and continues what he and producer Gareth ‘Big G’ Smith started in 2009.
Calling it a mixtape is almost belittling to it’s unique quality, even though of course the word mixtape can in hip-hop terms mean a lot more than just a glorified compilation with guest rappers, it is still more like a complete album in its own right, lacking the peiced together shuffling plot line of some mixes you might hear.
In true hip-hop style the wealth of samples used, and the ingenuity with which they are implemented, is diverse and clever, deftly moving between obscure 70s Colombian salsa, Cretan folk music, luscious classical orchestration and famous popular songs such as Beverly Craven’s ‘Promise Me’. Still, the samples would be nothing without the production skills of producer Big G, who handles everything from classic hip-hop rhythms to dubstep and drum and bass with bombastic flare. Even the presence of my pet hate, sped up chipmunk vocals, on penultimate track My Love can’t detract from the great beat work that makes up the track itself; a genre sprawling floor filler with heartfelt vocal performance from Mixy.
Speaking of whom, Mixy is of course the star of this show and I haven’t even mentioned his output yet. So, has the Laureate title gone to his head? Does he still have the wry and clever charm that gave him the edge in the first place? The answer is a resounding yes, and indeed he is even better than when he first emerged, having gained confidence and scope, covering everything from his personal reflections on relationships to the well publicised struggle for interracial community cohesion in his native city.
His ability as a poet shines through in the tracks, all of which tell stories, some of them funny, some of them shocking but all with the same skill and ability that first elevated him above the jump-up-jump-up banality of so many other MCs. His sensibility is intelligent and tends away from too much of the exclusive lingo that may alienate some people from the genre.
Sometimes he may even be guilty of going into too much lyrical detail, spinning out on tangents of minute observations and aspects of the situations he is rapping about, but further listening enables everything to fall in to place, his verbosity simply too much to digest in one listen (which isn't a bad thing, as immediacy is not always a virtue).
Not just a great achievement on Peterborough’s scene, but good enough to impress hip-hop listeners up and down the country.
In summary then, Mixy and Big G are, to use their own words, merkin it!
To get it for a meagre £3 check out his website here...
And as a sneak preview grab one of the tracks, Peterbronx, here for free!
