Ryan looking to Ryza-bove his worries ahead of Highland rap battle showdown
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If there was one emotion you would never expect a rapper to express – let alone a veteran of the vicious sport of rap battling – it’s fear.
Yet the night before this interview, Ryza – the rapping pseudonym for 27-year-old Dingwallian Ryan Jensen– swapped the bars and beats of hip hop for the banter of stand-up comedy. And in his own words, it was, “terrifying to be honest – that’s the best words I can use!
“My girlfriend was there, I literally walked away from it saying ‘I’m not doing it,’ and she pulled me back – I’m glad she did.
“I’ve never been nervous before a battle, but I’d been nervous for three days before the comedy, just shaking and stuff – bad! I don’t get nervous about a lot of things at all, and that just terrified me!”
Trying new things seems to be one of Ryan’s big passions though, and it’s a passion he’s bringing to the Highlands this weekend with the introduction of the Highland Battle League on Saturday.
A night of hip hop and rap battles at Mad Hatters, the night marks a first for Inverness – hence the name of the night, the delightfully descriptive “The First Event”.
“Do you know why I called it that?” Ryan laughed. “Not because it was the first event, because I couldn’t think of nothing else! You’d think being a battle rapper I could think on my toes, but nah – The First Event.”
Battle rapping is a particular kind of rapping that involves bragging, insults and boasting – often involving two MCs spitting abuse at each other – sometimes comedic, sometimes venomous.
“You need confidence for rap battling,” Ryza explained. “I never really had a lot of confidence being younger, but you kind of get a lot of confidence from battling. Just shouting in somebody else’s face knowing that they can’t do anything about it, it kind of builds up a wee bit of confidence.
“Because the rules are, don’t hit each other – that’s pretty much the only rules in battling! You can say whatever you want, but I’ve seen battles where dead relatives and stuff have been mentioned – and that’s far too far!”
This is the first event of its kind in Inverness, and the first hip hop event in the city for ten months. “It’s not daunting, it’s more...it’s exciting, but I’m just wondering how it’s going to go down.
“It’s like with the stand-up, I was wondering. ‘How WAS it going to go down?’ And now it’s done it’s like ‘Yeah, it’s not as bad as I thought.’ I’m hoping it’s the same after my event comes, because it’s a totally different up in Inverness than it is to Glasgow or London or that.
‘With battles down in London they know about intelligent bars and stuff like that, but with Inverness I think it has to go back to the roots, with jokes and stuff like that. The fact it’s the first one like this in Inverness is why it’s so daunting for me.
“To be in charge of it, you know, if it’s a flop then people will blame me and it won’t come up again for at least another five years or so.”
To that end, he’s stacked the line-up with some of the country’s brightest rap talent. “I’ve got Wee D on the bill, who I’m actually battling, but he’s also the headline performer. He’s my favourite Scottish rapper and battler. It’s always been on the cards for me and him to battle – but to do it in my home bit is even more daunting than the actual event itself.”
On top of the battling, Ryza will be also performing songs with The Highland Collective on the evening – something that he’s looking forward to after the pressure of battling.
“I have fun doing songs – I have more fun doing battling, it’s just less stressful doing songs,” he said. “With battling, you have to work out six minutes of material, you have to practice it for about a month, and then you do it once and never again.
“With songs, you can do them all the time so I know them off by heart, but with the battling it’s like, literally you can’t even do one line of what you’ve written for a battle, or in any more songs, because people look down on you.
“That’s the annoying thing about battling, but I do love it – honest!”
Highland Battle League: The First Event comes to Mad Hatters on Saturday. Battles include Ryza vs Wee D, Mackenzie vs G-Mo, and Fuzzy vs Jailz. Live performances come from Wee D, The Highland Collective and Intelli Gents. For more information, go to the Facebook page.
