No rabbit in a hat tricks...

Walter Pico - My Alter Ego (Remix)
Walter Pico -Bad Guys
Walter Pico - Don't Ask
Walter Pico - Flash in the Pan

If I had an ounce of musical talent in my bones I think I would have ended up making music like Walter Pico. We've been leading parallel lives. As a kid, he saved up the money from two paper rounds to feed his desire to acquire hip-hop classics on wax. Me too! Then he became obsessed with gangsta rap - "If an album didn't feature a Parental Advisory sticker it wasn't worth the time of play," he says in his biography. Yep, I went through that phase too - the ultimate teen wigga, wandering the mean streets of Dorchy in my bomber jacket with the rest of the DTP (Dorchester Town Posse), NWA lyrics running through our brains every time a cop car cruised by. Me and Walter even became disillusioned with hip-hop at the same time, when it "started to resemble one of those scandalous, but colourful, glossy gossip magazines. Peeps recording in the booth were talking about whose necklace is the biggest and sparkles the most, who gets to date the 'model chicks' and who has the most cars parked up in front of mum's house." Couldn't have put it better myself. Plus we both rock a fat beatbox... So, yeah, we got a lot in common, me and Mr Pico. But the BIG BIG BIG difference is that he channeled his disillusionment into producing beats and rhymes of his very own. I got into techno and lost it in the bass bins...

With these impeccable credentials and bonafide old school influences, it's not surprising that Walter Pico makes brilliant music. He's a bit like Money Mark, playing wicked little keyboard riffs with awesome beats, snatches of vocal samples and the odd dose of old school "wiggy wiggy scratching". You can tell he's into Jurassic 5, and it's not just the fact that he's sporting one of their tees in the photo above. His music is a throw back to the good ol' days of hip-hop: "Original beats and real live MCs"... And he's a funny guy - occasionally I've found myself giggling away on public transport at some of his two-liners. Imagine Kid Acne if he came from the Home Counties. There's also a bit of the Flight of the Conchords in there. Sometimes you know he's taking the piss - it can almost verge on a pastiche of old school hip-hop - but he's doing it with intelligence and the quality never drops.

They obviously work better in context (ie wit da music), but here's a few examples of his lyrical flows. Little bit of politics + nifty wordplay = the win...

I dreamed of me, possibly, as an MC, but then thought just how nice it might be,
With life being high-speed and expensive, to change the ‘C’ to a ‘P’ and claim expenses.

Emcees with beef I eat like Black Eyed Peas, I used to slurp a lot until I caught Brain Freeze, now I wear a Parker with a pocket on the sleeve, with luminescent markers in the dark to write ideas.



Available to purchase now is My Alter Ego - an 11-track concept EP that introduces Walter Pico to the record buying public. It's the precursor to his first full-length LP, which should be out later on this year. And Mr Pico very kindly hooked me up with some exclusives that don't feature on the EP. There are four tracks up there for your downloading pleasure that actually make up a quality EP in their own right. When the outtakes are this good, you know you need to hook yourself up with some of the real shit. Link to buy below.

The talented Mr P even makes his own videos. Check this one for early single, Let's Get It Together - a crude but charming take on Aardman's stop-motion plasticine shizzle -



Buy My Alter Ego by Walter Pico from Norman Records
Walter Pico MySpace
Walter Pico at Crazy Worm Records- loads of good content here - tunes, videos and the like...