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By Rachel Burley

Having just released her second mixtape, ‘Out of the Blue, Volume 2 – The World Will Know’, Baby Blue has achieved one small part of her career goal. But, that’s just a tiny part of a much bigger agenda - world supremacy for her music and UK hip hop.

The roots of this lyricist’s interest in music goes back to her youth and her older brother, MC Bamboozle. “Music has always been around me and I’ve loved music from a young age,” told Blue, 21. “My brother was an emcee when I was younger so that made me wanna do it.” She continues, “What got me into hip hop was when somebody gave me a Nas album. I loved it and it inspired me to start writing lyrics. I also used to listen to The Fugees and when I heard Lauryn Hill, she was the first woman I’d heard rap, so it got me thinking, ‘Yeah I could do this’.”

A few of Baby Blue’s friends at school were in a crew and asked her to go to a studio and record something. She ended up doing a couple of courses at the studio and the rest is history. “When I was at the studio my friends took me to, I recorded a couple of tracks. Then I started putting tracks on radio; basically I gave my CD to about five DJs and for some reason it just kept getting played on radio stations, so the CD must have got passed around. That’s how my name started, but I was doing competitions, performing, doing features for other artists and that is how I grew as an artist,” she explains.

To gain status on the UK scene, she regularly performed at Carnaby Street’s legendary hip hop store/open mic joint, Deal Real. “When I was coming up, I did quite a few shows there,” tells Blue. “They do their shows on Friday nights where people come down, a whole lot of rappers come, but quite a few big people from the States go there as well. I haven’t performed there in a while but I used to do it quite regularly. I like the shop a lot and they’ve very supportive and support my CD.”

Baby Blue’s second release is an independent one, and is bursting with 23 lyrically explosive tracks, all penned by the South West Londoner. She describes her progression from ‘Volume 1’ to ‘Volume 2’: “It’s moved on, it’s more lyrical, quite musical and it has better ideas. It’s got some hot features on there. My favourite track is called ‘I Still Don’t Care’ featuring all the biggest hip hop artists in the UK; SAS, Sway, Pyrelli, Bigz and Sincere. It’s deeper and the beats are of a better quality than ‘Volume 1’. It’s like an introduction to my album. It’s hot!”

Baby Blue’s debut album, ‘Through Innocent Eyes’, is due for release later this year. She is known and respected for her lyrical content, but does she have a particular track that embraces her best lyrics? “It’s difficult to say as I’ve got different ones, but one of my favourite songs for lyrical content is a song called ‘Dreaming’. The first part of it is on the first mixtape and the full story is on the second. It’s an imaginative storytelling track about dreaming if I were invisible what I would do. It was quite a difficult track to write, but ’cos I like doing stuff that most people can’t do, it is one of my favourites.”

She expressed the inspirations behind her music and her mixtapes: “It’s love for the music really; music is my passion and I love hip hop. Things that happen in my life make me want to write about them or things that I see happening in other people’s lives. It’s something that I enjoy and it’s what I love.” She continues, “There’s inspiration behind loads of different songs. It’s very important to do mixtapes because that’s where you build your fan base and come up as a hip hop artist, by doing the street stuff.”

It would seem that the majority of Baby Blue’s time is taken up by music, but she has no regrets about that. “Music is what I do full time. This is what I’m spending my life doing, my life is about music. There are times when I take days off here and there, but now it’s really about working as hard as I can, but I do like travelling.”

Away from the stage, Baby Blue’s friends know her as Rachel. Does she have two different personalities to suit both identities? “A lot of people say that I act like two different people, because when I’m rapping, I sound like I’ve got a certain kind of personality which is Baby Blue, but I’m just a normal person.”

She’s a busy lady but still has the time to support good causes such as the ‘Mothers Against Guns’ campaign. She described her involvement with the movement: “It’s an anti-gun crime campaign and it’s trying to have a voice for people. They have done it through music ’cos it’s powerful and they’ve made about three or four songs. The CD got released in September [2005] and I was on one of the tracks and we did the video for that.”

“They called me ’cos I lost a family member to gun crime and they were quite interested in having me support the campaign,” she says, explaining how she got involved with campaign. With first hand experience, does she believe Britain’s gun crime situation is getting out of hand? “Yeah, it always has been I think,” she comments.

Unlike the American scene, the UK urban music scene isn’t as respected as their US equivalent. Lack of airplay, label support and belief of the people is restricting the growth of UK talent. Baby Blue explains why she believes the UK is so underrated. “It doesn’t have a lot of help and the industry needs to put more money into it. There was a point when it was growing and getting big with Ms Dynamite, Dizzee Rascal and So Solid Crew, but now it’s not growing as much and people don’t believe in it. It’s definitely underrated, there’s a lot of talent and potential, but it’s not being recognised. It’s not making it from the underground to the mainstream.”

Devoted to UK hip hop, Blue is doing her best to get her voice and the UK sound heard. “I’m going to different places like America and the rest of Europe and taking my music with me,” tells Blue. “I think that’s what we have to do; we have to branch out and get people to catch onto the music for it to become really big. It’s about dedication and it will get there.”

Closer to home, she has had plenty of support from her local area, but she wants to get the sound of UK hip hop felt all around the world. “You have to have the support from your area, and for me it’s South London. I’m always representing South London but it’s really about representing the whole UK in the rest of the world.”

The worldwide domination of hip hop is a large task to fulfil, and could easily take a lifetime. Baby Blue revealed where she hopes to be this time next year in her quest for superiority. “To be in a better position that I am now. I wanna be taking my music worldwide rather than just in this country. This time next year, I want people all over the world to know about Baby Blue and the UK music scene, because it’s not recognised like it should be.”

For more information, check out www.babyblueonline.com and www.myspace.com/babyblueonline.