DO NOT GIVE BIG YIN A BAD
Street poet Brian’s hip hop tribute to his comedy hero in reply to idiots who say he’s betrayed his roots
SIR Billy Connolly continues to divide opinion – but one Scots rapper wants to celebrate the Big Yin’s comedy and has used his funniest jokes and one of his songs on a new track. Brian Jamieson, one of Scotland’s original rappers who has been at the forefront of hip hop for the past quarter of a century, has put his all into his last album Your Back is a Great View. While the Glaswegian may be signing off, he doesn’t think Billy will ever be forgotten in new track Ode to the Big Yin (Good Love). Although, when they were filming the video for the song beside one of Billy’s murals at Glasgow’s Barrowland, Brian was abused by passers-by. He revealed: “When we attempted to shoot the video in the Barras beside his murals, we ran into conflict with knuckle draggers pointing at it and saying ‘I hate that tottie picking c***’ which lead to my wife Julie BY RICK FULTON shouting back, ‘I’m sure he loves you as well’. “I think Billy is a timeless genius, like Richard Pryor. He is a true one-off.” Earlier this month, Billy was attacked by nationalists for being unpatriotic about Scotland and admitting he disliked people who “write England off because they’re Scottish”. It follows his comments during the independence referendum in 2014 when he claimed Scotland had been saved by the Union. And when he was knighted last year, many felt he had forgotten his roots in the 60s when he worked in Glasgow’s shipyards. Brian argued: “The knighthood is nothing but a daft trophy. “You can never please everybody but the happiness that man has put in people’s living rooms will never be forgotten. “It hurt people when he spoke on the independence issue, especially with his background and roots, but when you look at what he actually said, it was more against patriotism and nationalism than independence. “But when you are stuck in the thick of it,