10SHOTT from Wolverhampton

“One of the best British emcee’s to date” is the words Hip Hop Connection Magazine chose to describe rapper, singer, songwriter and producer 10Shott. Since he debuted all those years ago with the now classic “Bagged Out” album with his crew Vicious Circle, 10Shott has really put himself on the UK Rap map with support on Kiss FM, HHB Radio, BBC 1Xtra, Galaxy FM and Conspiracy Radio. Ever since his amazing solo debut mixtape “Ghetto Brick Road” dropped at the top of the year the interest in 10Shott is just growing and growing! His flow, his style and pure lyrical capacity but him leagues ahead in the race for the UK title! Here we team up with one of Wolftown Recordings leading acts and get the low-down on everything that’s happening with 10Shott, talk about his recent trip to Jamaica, all the collaborations he has been doing as well as getting an insight of what to expect from one from of the UK’s brightest hopes.

Since the release of your mixtape “Ghetto Brick Road” at the start of the year have been doing much other recording?
Fi real! Well I hosted volume four of UK Runnings as well as featuring on all the current Wolftown releases including LATE”s CD “Wreckless In Texas – Hosted by Chamillionaire, Tricky”s UK Runnings “National Anthems Mixtape”, plus had couple tune on “Hustlers, Ballers, Shotcallers” mixtape and I did the “Some’ll Get The Picture” track with producer Juttla. I have just finished recording some new mixtape tracks for Wolftown future releases too.

I have also featured Baby J’s new “F.T.P Mixtape”, I’m also gonna be on Dap C’s album, I’ve done a track for Diveno, material for Trz and Souljah Clique, female rapper Priceless and last week I did the “Smiling Faces” track for “HHB Radio Volume 2”. That track features Size8, Reload, Izzy G, Joe Gutta, Kid Rad and Lunatrix, which I have also just featured in the video for.

Also I went to Jamaica and did tracks with Iya Lazor from West Moreland, Pray Mantice from Montega Bay and Champelli from Kingston. Some Hip-Hop ragga combinations!

That’s mad that you did all that in JA. How did you hook all that up and did you do anything else out there apart from recording?
I was on a trip to Jamdown to my mixtape and other material and showed couple man what I do; I reeled off bars to man who then introduced me to Pray Mantice. From there I went up on Irie FM in Kingston, JA’s biggest radio station and they played my shit on air. Then from there I got chance to go up on Links FM in West Moorland to perform live on air. This is when the buzz started to get around and within days I was booked up in a studio!!! Man was coming up to me and calling me the “Brownskin Eminem”! I took that as a compliment saying Em’ is a top selling artist! I had about thirty people hooked up to do tune with but I was only there for a limited time so I just rapped on about six tunes and shot a ghetto video in a Ganja field!

That’s big man. So back home for a minute, the feature on Baby J’s new mixtape is a big look as there are some real big UK names on there. Tell us more about this.
Baby J got in touch and asked me to rap 16 bars on one of his productions so I chose “4 Walls” the beat he did for Blade, I voiced it up with my boy Tricky Papp we mixed the vocals together and I sent it over. Baby J liked what I did and the rest is history as they say! Baby J is big in the game and is “the new UK Kayne West”. He’ll be doing beats on my album for sure.

And how did the Dap C collobo’ happen?
Again he got in touch and said he was doing an album. The other guests are Kool G Rap, Cannibus, Skinnyman and man like S Kalibre, so I was well interested to get on there. Dap has booked me to play in Leicester before so we kinda tight that way too.

So “The Smiling faces” track how did that all happen and who produced the track?
The track was produced by Kroscene, sick beat!! And Lunatrix got in contact with me asking me to open the track up, and told me they where shooting a video, so I was like yeah man, that’s big!

So are doing a new mixtape?
“Ghetto Brick Road… The Next Avenue” is currently being recorded, I have it all written and all the beats in place so its juts a case of voicing and mixing now. I also finished the album too, so expect a lot more from me real soon.

Can we expect any collobo’s on this mixtape?
I have some guests from outside the Wolftown label on this one. Supernovar, Reveal from Poisonous Poets, MD7, Rukus & The Entourage and some others but I don’t want to give too much away.

What kind of tracks can we expect on “The Next Avenue”?
Expect another classic mixtape that will keep you entertained and educated as well as getting you ready for the album.

How about videos for tracks off the mixtape or album?
I am doing one with Juttla, and then obviously my solo video which will be the jump off for the album. I am always looking for good video producers out there holla at tenshott@hotmail.com or www.myspace.com/10shottwolftown.

Does you going solo mean that Vicious Circle have spilt up?
For now it’s about our solo careers, so we can both explore and find out who we are individually. Me and Size 8 started rapping together, but your solo project will always be a lot more personal, we both have different issues to address. However Vicious Circle will be releasing a mixtape soon, probably in 2007, we haven’t slept on it, and V.C soon bring it come! How u mean!! Ha ha

So where did the title Ghetto Brick Road come from, it’s a big title!
Well I actually came up with the title explaining that there is light at the other side of the hood (council estate) and associated it with “The Ghetto Brick Road” follow it and there’s light, u can do what u want in life, however on the cover I changed the concept by having the ghetto brick road leading to more ghetto explosions! Ha ha

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Go get the mixtape “ghetto”, I’m looking for shows so any promoters get in touch, looking for beats for the album, looking for REAL rappers with the fire!!!! And singers who can sing!!!!!!

Anybody you wanna big up?
Bigg up all the mans reppin for the Midlands – everyone on Wolftown, MD7, Entourage, S-Squad, HHB (Occupy Your Mind Records), C.O.V, Baby J and My DJ’s “DJ Springa and Jamin Dread”.

Interview by Simon Dellar.

For more info check these important links;
Wolftown Recordings
10shott MySpace