Rapper Loki turns down screen offer
people in my family, It’s not going to happen. I need to retain some control.”
One of the Orwell Prize judges, Labour peer Andrew Adonis described Poverty Safari as “a modern ‘ Down and Out in Paris and London”.
But Loki admits he has misgivings about some of the content which has affected his wider family.
He said: “There are already some things about the book I regret. I have got peripheral family I have not seen for years who I just assume don’t even know I exist.
“Some of the things in the book were the first time they had heard of these things happening and it was difficult for them and they expressed a lot of anger and pain towards me and they were quite right to do so. One of the lessons I have learned is that while writing about my personal experience is an important part of what I do, I have to be mindful of the impact that has on people close to me and remember it is not just my life, it is theirs as well.
“I’m all for doing TV. I’d like to do a bit of screenwriting or acting, but I don’t want a Poverty Safari TV series. To me, that cheapens the whole thing in a sense so I very politely declined to enter into a conversation about it. It was an instant no.”
The father- of- two will be taking Poverty Safari to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing at The Stand from August 3 to 26. It’s a different take on the book, encompassing music, comedy and spoken word.
He said: “There’s quite a bit of brevity in the book and it’s trying to channel that through the live show because we have to find a way to laugh at these more serious things,
“I think that’s a way of processing it. I’m known as a rapper but I have a lot of other influences and interests and abilities that I want to put front and centre in the show while being true to the themes of the book.
“Basically just trying to get the book up on its feet so to speak, to try and hammer some points home in a different way you sometimes can’t capture through the written word.”