The beauty of going to a music festival is encountering unexpected things, things you never knew existed, let alone that you needed, until the moment you heard them. And that happened to me this year at Iceland Airwaves when a tweed-suited chap with a waxed handlebar mustache strode into Lucky Records, walked up to the stage, pulled what looked like a small banjo (which I later learned is in fact a banjolele, which is exactly what it sounds like – a banjo ukele), and proceeded to spit rhymes like a Victorian gentleman.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer.
Mr. B’s genre du jour is called chap hop, which Wikipedia describes as “a fusion genre of music originating from England that mixes the hip-hop genre with elements from the Chappist or steampunk subcultures and stereotypically English obsessions such as cricket, tea, and the weather.” More simply, it’s gentlemanly Victorian-era hip hop. And I’m sold.
Sounds niche, you’re thinking. Of course it is. But Mr. B is nothing if not prolific, having put out a dozen or so albums over the last decade and a half, including his most recent release, B-Curious. It’s also a lot of fun. We caught Mr. B twice at Airwaves. His second show was at the Loft Hostel bar, and judging by the reactions from the folks just there for a drink when Mr. B took the stage, they didn’t look sold. But here’s the thing. You could see them get into it, song by song. Yes it’s quirky and funny, but Mr. B is also a talented musician, and when he snuck in a little Nirvana riff some folks perked up, smiling, like, “hey, I know that riff”. Then mid-set he went into a chap-hop-style medley of late 80s/early 90s hip hop and people were nodding along, their smiles widening. A few songs later he did the same thing, but using well-know rave tracks, and at that point he owned the room.
So what is chap hop like? Well, lyrically the references are often of an earlier era. If you show me your ankles / You may change the angle of the dangle, Mr. B rhymes, harkening us back to a time when a lady showing her bare ankle to a man was considered highly risqué. We have a song about having “The Morbs”, a phrase used to denote a temporary sense of melancholy. Did I mention that the live set included a teacup solo? Because it did.
Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer is fun and charming and unique and a nice change of pace, and B-Curious is a great place to start exploring his brand of chap hop. It’s available on the streaming services, and you can also pay him a visit on Bandcamp HERE. Accoutrements, including CDs, pocket squares, cufflinks, and yes, even mustache wax (!) can be found on Mr. B’s website HERE, so go check him out. He might even show you his ankles.