South East London blogzine - things that are happening, things that happened, things that should never have happened. New Cross, Brockley, Deptford and other beauty spots. EMAIL US: transpontineblog at gmail.com Transpontine: 'on the other (i.e. the south) side of the bridges over the Thames; pertaining to or like the lurid melodrama played in theatres there in the 19th century'.
There were lots of South London shout outs at Reading Festival last week including East Dulwich's Tom Misch, Croydon's Loyle Carner and in the Lewisham corner Ray BLK.
Nigerian-born and Catford-raised, Ray BLK (real name Rita Ekwere) was the winner of the BBC's Sound of 2017 award (for emerging talent) as well as Best Newcomer at the 2016 MOBO awards. She has been making music for a while, starting out with the Great Expectations inspired Havisham in 2015, but it was last year's Durt EP that really put her in the spotlight, in particular the track My Hood which features Stormzy.
She's followed it up this year with tracks including the latest single, Doing Me, and guest vocals on the Gorillaz album.
My Hood reflects her love/hate relationship with Lewisham- she wrote it after having her laptop nicked, and told BBC 'I was robbed around the time I wrote it and I honestly just wanted to leave. I was like, "I'm getting robbed. My neighbours sell drugs out of their house. It's not where I need to be." The lyrics reference Morleys chicken, the Blue Borough and Deptford's Pepys Estate:
Barely anyone at school after fifteen
We're chasing paper then Blue Borough should be green
I won't lie, finding a way out is our dream
But you should come to my hood, my hood, my hood
Top floor of Pepys estate, we'll show you our world
That building turns you to a woman from a girl
