Scribe is now New Zealand icon who truly blew the doors wide open for Hip Hop with his debut release ‘The Crusader’, and became an international success story.
The recipient of numerous NZ Music Awards, breaking records (the longest running Kiwi #1 hit on the Singles Chart ever with Stand Up / Not Many !!!), amazing live performances and winner of the coveted Silver Scroll Award for songwriting excellence, to name but a few, Scribe has reached superstar status both here in NZ and in Australia. He has made history and along the way forced the industry & record buying public to accept hip hop in the mainstream.
“A rhyme book is something that to an MC is very personal, it can hold anything. You never know, you could turn the page and go from a summer day to…Armageddon. I thought Rhymebook is a good indication of what the album is. It’s something personal; it’s my heart and soul on the line”.
Four years in the making, Scribe returns with his sophomore album, opening up the pages of his much guarded rhyme book to reveal the gift and the curse that came with the phenomenal success of The Crusader and to mark out his next moves.
When the smoke cleared on an album that ate up territories on both sides of the Tasman and set the stage for bigger conquests, Scribe retreated from the glare of media attention to his Christchurch home. There he raised his newborn baby daughter and isolated himself in a one window basement with a pad and a pen and a pile of beat tapes sourced from New Zealand to New York.
Scribe wasn’t filling the pages of a stack of exercise books because he had a record company hungry for a second album but because he had a world of new experiences under his belt and a fan base onboard that has come to expect total access, from the thoughts in his head to the pages he commits his words. Some rappers boast of money that lasts three lifetimes; Scribe has three lifetimes worth of stories and took the time to tell his second chapter the right way.
“I’m not trying to be a millionaire, trying to write songs all the time and keep my name out there. I just let my art take its time - I don’t think it’s something you can force. Words have weight for me”.
From the high drama of 'Til The Day' to the string-laced title track 'Rhymebook', 'Every verse, every flow, Every lyric is true', every bar honed to its essence. Scribe dips into four years of the highs and lows of The Crusader and back in time to a life where hip hop music was an only escape. From there he looks outwards, ready to recapture the hearts and minds of an international audience. Brizzy and Wollongong now roll off Scribe’s million dollar tongue like his home town did on his debut. This time round, Scribe’s voice is the choice of a generation and he has stepped up to speak to it.
