Mid November 2014

After nearly two years, the wonderful Inter-Gaelic Rap Project finally came to fruition in Cork, taking myself and the wonderful Ruairidh Greumach, drummer from reknowned Gaelic electronic band Niteworks, and a Gaelic-language tutor and poet in his own right, to Cork, Ireland, to work with the utterly amazing GMC & Bubba Shakespeare, two of Ireland's leading Irish-language rappers.

The project was such a success, Ariel performed one of the songs written, bilingual rap 'Set Yourself Free' at the prestigous National Gaelic Awards at the Radisson Blu in Glasgow, and was reviewed by the Daily Record as giving a 'Knockout Performance' the following Friday, with this lovely image of Ariel appearing in the paper.

With a lot of material written and recorded in just four days, it's vastly surpassed even my wildest dreams. Ariel is now looking to get the boys over to Scotland to work on a full album next year, so lookout for Crowdfunder funding details coming in the months ahead. A fantastic and highly-regarded producer & composer has also contacted Ariel and is interested in producing the album, which is some truly exciting news! However for a taste of what we got up to whilst our work gets the GMC mixing treatment prior to release, here is Bubba Shakespeare and the techno production genius that is Garry MacCarthy, with one of their very own tunes!

Towards the end of 2015, I'll also be looking to take out Bilingual and Gaelic Rap Workshops to schools and communities in Scotland, so if you're interested, you're most welcome to get in touch! Ariel is also focussing on the teaching of rap in Gaelic as part of her Approaches to Critical Artistry module for her Master's Degree in Gaelic Arts (Teaching & Learning) at the Royal Conservatoire, Glasgow, in conjunction with Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

Thursday, 12 October 2017