A day with Sway

Yesterday saw the MTV Base team travel up to Sheffield for ‘Street 2 Elite’ for Adidas’ all star summer tournament. The annual ‘Street 2 Elite’ basketball event showcased some of Sheffield’s hottest talents both on and off the court.

MTV BASE’s very own Kat and UK’s finest Kano both gave MTV BASE exclusive diary access as we watched them do their thing. Catch all that strong UK talent on The Lick next week.

Speaking of UK talent, aren’t we looking healthy right now? With acts like Estelle, Wiley, Kano, Dizzee and Sway all doing well in the charts this year, I can’t wait to see how the MOBO Awards represent us later this year.

Even on Base, the viewers chart now gives equal voting love to the British massive as well as the Yanks. Now that’s progress!

I get a lot of videos sent to me by new acts in the UK but what we need to remember is even if the track is hot, the quality of the video needs to be strong to get some spins. You only have to look at Dizzee, Kano, Sway, JME, Skepta, Sincere and Pyrelli’s recent videos– which have all raised the bar– to see that the playing field standard has gone right up this year.

Next, we caught up with Sway who has everyone humming “F*** your ex” right now. Sway told us all about his new venture, called Project 2.

“What I like about this project is that it enables people from ages 18 to 25, predominately students, to go somewhere else for 10 weeks, learn about a culture and work and help the development of that country. I think that’s a great idea, particularly the fact they’re going to Ghana, because that’s my homeland.”

Sway thinks he has been successful because his lyrics are diverse.

“It sends out the message that you don’t have to rap about the street culture all the time. There are different aspects of life you can rap about. I rap about my heritage in a positive light because Africa is a beautiful place. When I went over there for the Africa Nation’s Cup, it was like something I have never seen in my life. I have never seen a whole country so crazy over football. This is the kind of thing I would not know about if I was not going out there myself.”

Sway also told us his thoughts on the UK’s out of control street violence:

“I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve witnessed it first-hand and it is getting worse. The only way of getting rid of it is finding out why the kids feel it is ok to carry a knife or gun.”

“You need to go to the root of the problem and speak to the children. When they look out the window and there is another block of flats, it suppresses your creativity. I’ve grown up on a council estate myself, so I understand that kind of mentality. I could have easily fallen into that trap.”

Sway also talked about his friendship with US rapper, Lupe Fiasco: “It’s through Lupe that I met Kayne West and Pharrell. I can now converse with Pharrell and he can give me advice on how to get into America and break me in.”

Sway also let slip that his next album might use a 22-piece orchestra…

“It’s something I have wanted to do since I was a kid. I wanna have violins playing to my music. I want to set a standard for urban hip-hop.”

With all that positive forward thinking, how can Sway possibly fail? Stand up straight UK: a new day is being born under our very eyes!

Someone who’s definitely brought hip-hop to the masses in his own untouchable manner, is Radio One’s Tim Westwood. And finally, the moment many of you have been requesting has arrived: Westwood takes over MTV Base every night this week at midnight for his DJ Takeover! Will he spill all the backstage secrets of our biggest stars? Watch and see. Don’t sleep– literally!