He's Got Rhyme,
He's Got Power.
He Can Learn To Rap If He Spares An Hour!Bristol Evening Post reporter Simon Peevers went along for a lesson to see if he could transform himself from a mild-mannered office hack into a rap superstar in less than an hour.

Clifton village, on the outskirts of Bristol, has never been associated with the cutting edge of rap music.

I don't think I have ever heard Tim Westwood say "Big up to the Clifton massive" on his Radio 1 show.

But that may all change with the arrival of Colin Innes, who, despite being a Bristol University graduate and a Latin and French tutor, is offering lessons in rap music.

He believes you can get the hang of it within just one lesson.

So that seemed like an ideal cue for me to start my first ever lesson in rap - that's rap without the C.

Donning the obligatory bandana and puffa jacket, and feeling a bit of a prat, we sat down to bust some rhymes. Or something like that.

Colin put on a CD by Jurassic 5 and I shuffled around nervously trying to tap my foot in time to the beat.

But with Colin's patience and coaching, I managed to get through all of two lines without tripping over a word or coming in late.

Then we moved on to the chorus and I have to confess that although I won't be sharing a stage with Dr Dre any time soon, I felt like I could walk the streets with my hood up in pride.

But then we got onto the tricky part of trying to write a song of our own.

Bearing in mind the sort of rhymes I'm used to seeing are usually along the lines of "Up Yours, Delors", I felt I could have my work cut out.

Colin said: "I like to get students to improvise stuff or be inspired by other lyrics. While the beat is going they can put a song together.

"It can be about anything that is going through their heads while they are chucking lyrics around."

Keeping the backing track going, Colin and I played around with the idea of Bristol and how to express out feelings for the city in a rap.

After lots of ridiculous hand gestures and stereotyping of rap artists - who are, incidentally, some of the most famous and lyrically talented musicians in the world - I managed to come up with a work of genius(!).

And if I take my tongue out of my cheek for a second, I should say that I had a lot of help from my teacher.

But on a more serious note, Colin says it is important for more people to understand what rap music is about and that it is not dominated by gun-toting gangsters as has been suggested in the media recently.

He said: "Some people perceive it as just singing without melody and related to the gun violence of the ghettos of America.

"But rappers are people just talking about their life experiences and their environment.

"That is what I want to teach others to do - express themselves."

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