MC Hammersmith, the freestyle rapper from the ghetto of middle-class West London, has released his debut album ‘Mother’s Fettuccine’ via Distro Kid. He has also announced his first ever UK tour of his new show ‘‘Straight Outta Brompton’ following a run at the Edinburgh Fringe. The tour starts in his hometown of Edinburgh on 19th March at The Stand and ends on 28th April at Brighton’s Old Market.
“Hello! MC Hammersmith here. I am thrilled and delighted to be touring my improvised rap show across the UK. I can't wait to hear your suggestions, turn them into freestyle rap tracks live onstage, and rave loudly with audiences across the country! Feel free to challenge me. Throw me stupidly long words. Suggest impossibly complicated things to rap about. I never feel any challenge is too difficult because my private school upbringing instilled me with reckless and entirely misplaced self-confidence. Brap brap brap! Sorry.”
MC Hammersmith (a.k.a. Will Naameh) was born to an English mother and a Syrian father. He attended an all-male, middle class private school in Hammersmith. After escaping this, he took up improv classes and started performing freestyle rap comedy. Although mixed race, his middle-class English accent and pale skin tone means he has always passed for white. This, combined with his awkward personality, made for the perfect framing device to draw comedy from his hip hop performances.
“I am tremendously excited to be releasing my debut comedy rap album, "Mother's Fettuccine". Get it? Like the famous Eminem lyric "Mom's Spaghetti", but different words because I'm posh. Lovely stuff. The album is 10 tracks. The first 5 tracks are viral comedy raps I released in video format on social media from April 2020 onwards, now re-recorded in studio quality. The second 5 tracks are brand new original comedy raps. This is a scripted comedy rap album as I wanted to push myself fully into a scripted realm for this project. I hope that my love of wordplay, technical flow, musical comedy, and - of course - the genres of hip hop and rap music as a whole, shines through.” MC HAMMERSMITH
He has a Master's degree in Linguistics, specializing in phonology, from the University of Edinburgh. He was studying at the same time he started rapping. His Linguistics expertise helped him become a full-time freestyle rapper, as he combined his love of hip hop with his academic studies into the mechanics of rhyming.
Since then, he has performed at Fringe and comedy festivals all around the world, headlined at major comedy clubs across the UK, and has won multiple comedy awards for his freestyle rap performances. Being a freestyle rapper meaning he raps spontaneously, unscripted, with absolutely no preparation and at lightning speed. The lyrics and rhymes of his raps are 100% improvised.
He also has OCD - in particular to do with obsessive thoughts. He has since discovered one of the benefits of OCD was developing an obsession with rhyming: if he had a thought of a rhyme, he wrote it down. He now has his own personal rhyming dictionary (and memorised it), and at last count it was 15,000 words long!
He writes and performs scripted hip-hop comedy. His video ‘Posh British Boy Raps in Car’ was a viral hit gaining over 10 million views on social media. Since then, he has released several more scripted hip hop comedy videos, that also went viral. He is also a writer for acclaimed YouTube web series ‘Epic Rap Battles of History’.
Outside of rapping, MC Hammersmith trained in improv at Second City and iO Chicago, the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago, and UCB New York. He regularly performs improvised comedy shows in one of the UK's leading improv comedy shows including Spontaneous Potter: The Unofficial Improvised Parody. He has also supported Jason Manford and John Bishop on tour.
MC HAMMERSMITH TOUR DATES – BUY TICKETS HERE
Tues 19th EDINBURGH - Stand Comedy Club 0131 558 7272
Thurs 21st GLASGOW - Stand Comedy Club 0131 558 7272
Sat 23rd STOCKTON – Arc 01642 525199
Sun 24th HULL – Comedy Lounge 07835 054873
Wed 27th NEWCASTLE – Stand Comedy Club 0131 558 7272
Thurs 28th BLACKPOOL – Comedy Station 01253 381381
Fri 29th LIVERPOOL - Philharmonic 0151 709 3789
Sat 30th SALFORD – The Lowry 0343 208 6000
Sun 31st SHEFFIELD - Leadmill 0114 272 7040
APRIL
Thurs 18th LEEDS – Wardrobe 0113 383 8800
Fri 19th BRISTOL – Hen & Chickens 01275 375056
Sat 20th LEICESTER – Y Theatre 0116 255 7066
Sun 21st BIRMINGHAM – Glee Club 0871 472 0400
Thurs 25th OXFORD – Glee Club 0871 472 0400
Fri 26th CAMBRIDGE - Junction 01223 511511
Sat 27th LONDON – Leicester Square Theatre 020 7734 2222
Sun 28th BRIGHTON – The Old Market 01273 201801
Picture Credit: Empirical Photography/David Wilkinson
