Sway Spread Like Fire

The year is 1982. A heavily pregnant young woman arrives at London, Heathrow from Amsterdam. Her ultimate destination is her place of origin - Ghana. She decides she is to rest in London for a few days before proceeding with her journey, taking a cab to North London to visit an old friend from back home. Not long before she decides to recommence her journey, her waters break and she is rushed to hospital.

Moments later she gives birth to a wide-eyed healthy baby boy and a few days later mother and child make it to Ghana, but they return to England to escape the struggles and hardships of life in parts of Africa at the time.

Fast forward to 2005 and that baby boy is now a young man known to the public as Sway. The 22-year-old grew up and spent most of his early days wandering the streets of Hornsey, North London.

It was at the age of 11 that he first truly discovered his passion for words and music. In his own unique manner, he started to mimic some of his favourite artists by changing their lyrics and doing his own versions of their songs. In secondary school, he would spend much of his spare time utilising the equipment in the school’s music department, trying to hone his talents as a producer.

“I didn’t wanna be a rapper because I didn’t wanna be famous,” says Sway. “My forte was production but people kept demanding to hear me rap. I started thinking that these people were trying to tell me my beats were rubbish?I liked my beats?!!”

He began producing tracks for local talent and although this gave him respect locally as a beat maker, people still insisted that he combine his humorous and quirky personality with his song writing ability and pursue a career as an artist. After months of practice he managed to gain more confidence in his ability to perform, and so Sway, now aged sixteen, began entering open mic competitions.

He managed to get to the grand final of an open mic session at London’s Dingwalls despite being too young to even be in the club! There he lost out to his opponent, Chester P of Task Force. But the bug had set in.

Then, weeks later, as the youngest of a Tottenham based rap trio, Phynix Crew, he reached the finals of Choice FM’s Rapology ’99. What happened? “We lost innit. But it was at this point my career was really born.”

Soon afterwards, Phynix Crew joined up with two other collectives to form the group ONE. By now, Sway was tiring of simply battling. He wanted to start making songs and between a working part time retail job, studying at college and composing ring tones for a ring tone company, he began building his own studio in his bedroom.

Although Sway was in a group situation he began recording solo tracks (as Sway Dasafo) out of the frustration of some of his group members lacking in work ethic. He recorded a few songs; one entitled On My Own. The track got into the hands of aspiring 1-Xtra DJ Excalibah who championed it to the A-list upon the station's launch.

When One finally recorded enough tracks and raised enough money to independently release their debut 10-track CD Onederful World Sway was responsible for 50% of the production of this project alone. Through their street hustle the group managed to sell 2,000 units without external help or distribution.

After a copy of the CD reached a member of the MOBO Unsung committee, the group reached the final five of the competition and although they didn’t win (again), they began gaining airplay from Radio 1’s DJ Tim Westwood & 1-Xtra’s DJ Semtex. In 2003 Sway decided it was time to make himself a priority. He shortened his name again and began jumping on mix tapes all over London.

His name and face were already well known on the underground British rap circuit and so now he wanted to branch out and explore more musical avenues: “UKG was big at this time but I just couldn’t do it because I never felt the vibe of the scene suited me, British hip hop was just so dry and grey, Hip Life (West African Hip-Hop) was a no-no ‘cause I couldn’t rap in Twi (a Ghanaian dialect and his mother tongue), Drum & Bass just hurts my head sometimes and I can’t sing good so RnB was out the question! I never felt at home anywhere.”

Despite this in the previous year Sway was invited by his cousin, Drum & Bass DJ Ink (Metal Headz/ Renegade Hardware), to feature on some D& B tracks and became a core affiliate of the collective now known as Fifth Element.

This year, the word on 22-year-old Sway is spreading like wildfire. He has been supported by DJs such as Big Ted & Shortee Blitz (Chubby Kidz), G-Child, Tim Westwood, Ras Kwame, Jenny Francis, Letitia SD, Zane Lowe, Rodney P & Skitz & Masterstepz.

Having recorded at a frantic pace throughout 2004 the first single to hit the streets is the double AA vinyl, Flo’ Fashion and Up Your Speed. The former went straight in at number one on the 1-Xtra listeners' chart last year and is a satirical look at life behind the scenes of a “fake baller.” Meanwhile, Up Your Speed is a neck-breaking classic UK anthem in the making - think Fallacy’s Groundbreaker to the power of 10!!- Sway is now concentrating on recording his first solo project entitled This Is My Demo.

Says Sway: “I’ve been getting a lot of label attention but I’ve been putting stuff out on the street first because I wanted to be myself and not have people try to change me.

Any attention that comes my way as a result will be because I’ve been doing me rather than having to change for someone else.”

The This Is My Demo project will be available from May 2005 and is the only project Sway intends to release independently through his own production company Dcypha Productions in conjunction with Alliance Recordings Inc. Although Sway is currently generating interest from a number of record labels he has yet to sign on the dotted line but is confident it will happen in good time: “I don’t mind what label I end up with as long as they’ve got the clout to push me properly and they believe in me. I’m pretty confident about what I’m about to do, and...oh yeah...my voice isn’t going nowhere...yet!”