Meet Ireland’s firsthip-hop charttoppers
Original Rudeboys – definitely not the Orb – have found their hook
The Original Rudeboys were the first Irish group to take hip hop to the charts in this country. Some may cite Rubberbandits’ risqué rap as beating the Dublin group to the punch but the Limerick larrikins are arguably more a comedy act than a musical outfit. Twenty-five-year-old Seán ‘Neddy’ Arkins, Rob Burch, 24, and Seán ‘Walshy’ Walsh, who is 23, only formed their band after writing what would become their first hit during a house party in 2011. Stars In My Eyes went top three, as did their debut album This Life.
Just two months ago, the band picked up a Meteor award for Never Gonna Walk Away, which had become a staple of Irish radio towards the end of last year. They celebrated by officially changing their name to O.R.B, responding to what many of their fans were calling them anyway. ‘Some of them would come to gigs with banners saying, “Are you down with O.R.B?,” Neddy Arkins, the band’s rapper-in-chief says.
‘It’s recognition of what our fans know us by. Some people were confused by the name. I was surprised by how many people assumed we were a ska band because of the name Original Rudeboys.’
I voice concern that they could be confused with the Orb, but they’re having none of it.
‘Well, not to be rude, but it’s maybe only the older generation that would remember them,’ Neddy says.
It would be rude to tell them that the Orb took Metallic Spheres to the top ten in 2010, but he continues.
‘Certainly most of our fan base wouldn’t know who they are. It also worked because the new album is a shift from where we were musically. If the album is to work outside of Ireland then O.R.B is more of a hook than the old name. Friends in London told us that over there Rudeboys can be associated with being a thug and we didn’t want that attached to us.’
Although the first album earned them much praise for marrying folk music to rap, they say that was more out of necessity than invention.
‘We never intended to be a mix of folk and rap,’ he says. ‘All we had when we started was Walshy’s guitar and Rob’s ukulele. If we
‘All we had in 2011 was Walshy’s
guitar and Rob’s ukulele. We worked with what we had’
had have had an electric guitar or a keyboard we would have used them.
‘We worked with what we had and that’s how that sound came about,’ Rob says.
‘That’s why this new album is so different. Now we have proper instrumentation, we have found the sound we always wanted to have.’
The album Rob mentions is All We Are and it is a definite step in a commercial direction. Ambition was driving them that way even before a lengthy stint supporting The Script on tour convinced them it was the correct thing to do.
‘That idea of making the sound bigger was there,’ Walshy says. ‘When you are standing at the back of the arena or side of the stage, seeing the response to what they’re (The Script) doing happen in front of you and how they do it, it definitely rubs off on you.’
The band from Ballybough don’t see this move as a sell-out.
‘We always have had and always want to have a message in our music,’ Neddy says. ‘But I will challenge any band to tell me they don’t want to go out and fill an arena and have 17,000 people sing their music. To do that, you have to improve your music and in every way just grow. Like so many other amazing bands have done before us, we want to fly the Irish flag.’
Plenty of Irish migrants around the world are already flying their flags due to lack of opportunities here. The band know many from their own area of Dublin’s inner city doing this and comment astutely on it in Last Of The Nation.
‘More than half my class from school are gone. When they go they just forget about Ireland,’ Rob says.
The boys are acutely aware that their own graft and invention is the only thing that prevented them from joining the exodus.
‘If I hadn’t gone I would probably have done college and fallen into a job that I absolutely hated,’ Rob reckons.
‘I was planning on leaving the country,’ Neddy says in closing.
‘I did a stint on social welfare, I worked in an office with me Da and went to college. What else was there for me?
‘I was putting money away. I didn’t want to go but everyone else was doing it. Then, thankfully, this came up and I get paid to travel the world but come back.’
All We Are