The Coalition – an alliance of distinct parties, persons, or states for joint action Much Love and Priceless come together…

It’s no secret that the UK hip hop game is often unfairly overlooked in favour of its older cousin from across the other side of the pond. In comparison homegrown beats and rhymes have only very rarely penetrated the home charts compared to the US which seems to share almost an equal place with pop music in this country. But there is hope… as the likes of Mark B & Blade, Blak Twang, Ty and Roots Manuva have proved over the last couple of years and with that in mind we would like to introduce new hip hop super-group The Coalition.

The Coalition is an eleven strong make up of one producer, one deejay and a whole posse of lyricists. The Reading based crew have already got residencies on internet radio stations Pyrotechnic Radio, UK Rumble with others still to be confirmed soon. They have had one of their tracks ‘Dubians’, a tag they styled for residents of South Whitley (the part of town they’re from) featured on a recent Touch Magazine cover CD, vocalist Deadly Hunta has just performed his collaboration with Aphrodite ‘Smoke Dog’ on Radio One (the track expressing the finer points of weed will be on Aphro’s new album through V2) and performances aplenty have included Jungle Splash at the Rex, in Stratford and The Matrix, in Reading.

The Coalition as the name suggests is a crew fused of different parties. Much Love who deal with hip hop and ragga and Priceless who were straight hip hop came together through one of the lyricists Jairzinho who saw good things in the possible fusion of the two crews. Producer Subject came along after the link up and started out making drum & bass beats with Tops from Streetbeats but is now a born again full-time practioner of hip hop beats. He recognises the successful switch that Adam F has made from jungle to hip hop and feels Timbaland’s beats and vibes from ragga and bashment too. Dexterous DJ Rudie Rich flexes different styles such as hip hop, ragga, garage and drum & bass.

The spitters are Fruit Juice, Sen-C, Brains, Who Knows, Kay-Nine, E, Valourous, Jairzhino and Deadly Hunta (who was worked with Bobby Digital and toured with Glamma Kid and Buju Banton besides others). Deadly Hunta claims this alliance “is about the youth and the future” and “giving pure pleasure musically”. “We’re opening doors to a new breed of music, the ragga and hip hop together is a new lick”. Valourous who draws inspiration from “hardcore ragga” such as Bounty Killa and Kapleton asserts that The Coalition are “pioneers on a mission - you won’t have heard this shit before!”. Fruit Juice has previous to the group held down a deejay residency at a house and techno club in Holland but looks to Red and Meth for their “bouncy, rolling flavours”.

When you sit down with The Coalition it’s like a family vibe with a healthy amount of respect for one another. For instance when I tried to find out influences of the crew they purely acknowledged each other for inspiration and assert there’s nothing like vibing off of each other. You get a whole lot of variety from this crew with what some might say is untypical UK production to the lyrics which take on ragga and hip hop flows with bursts of reggae and R&B singing. They’re very much focused on developing and nurturing their own sound and, without disrespecting, not reading too much into what other peeps are doing.

One thing The Coalition are fully aware of in this game is longevity and definitely don’t want to become a victim of the all-to-common scenario of fading out after two / three tracks. They all realise that they are doing something that most people would die for and making the most out of every minute, one line that summed up the attitude of The Coalition was “smile at us and we’ll smile back”. So expect to see them right up in your face, doing numerous PAs and taking over the airwaves from now on. Their first release, an untitled as yet six tracker, is out right now…