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By Luke Davis

There’s a million emcees vying to be the latest bright young hope of UK hip hop and grime. You’ll find them selling their CDs to shoppers on Oxford Street or to record shops in Soho on Sale or Return, in website chatrooms typing out their lyrics or in open mic nights clashing. Or maybe they’re a step further and you’ll find them featured on those websites and in those shows and they have a label doing their shotting for them. Whatever, there’s a million of them.

Carmella Minto is just one individual amongst that vast crowd. But, as she’s happy to point out, being a female MC raised in Nottingham helps her to stand out a little. Add to that the fact that she’s thoughtful, eloquent and genuinely talented, and you see why there’s only one Pariz (hence Pariz 1).

Having started rapping at the age of 17, Pariz 1 has used the past seven years to go from being just another young aspiring emcee to become a recognisable name on the UK hip hop scene. Her video for ‘Notts City’ is being played on Channel U and MTV Base, she has had support slots for Lil’ Kim and Big Daddy Kane, a starring role in Channel 4’s critically acclaimed ‘Rapping at the Royal’ project, and has an incendiary mixtape, ‘Uncomplicated Vision’, that’s shifting quickly. Clearly Pariz has been making the most of the opportunities available to her since she moved from ‘Fort Notts’ to the Capital two years ago.

The roots of her career though, stretch right back to Nottingham and the youth schemes that introduced her to the craft and business of making music. Her natural desire to perform led her from school productions to a local community studio in St. Anne’s, to singing in a girl group, and then finally to rapping. Along the way she was lucky enough to come into contact with some of Nottingham’s finest MCs, such as her label-mate Kamikaze, who helped her to transform a love of hip hop and reciting rhymes into the start of a career.

Currently living in London and signed to the production/management label Street Dreams Ltd, she’s realistic about how difficult it is to make it as an emcee in a city full of talent, but she remains focused and confident. “Right now, there’s a lot of people trying to break through,” she tells. “But it just means you have to put in a lot more work.” She continues, “These lot are very spoilt for choice down here, you know what I’m saying? It’s really hard to get the props you deserve down here.” Nevertheless, Pariz seems in no doubt that she’s deserving of recognition. When asked where she would figure in a debate about who’s the best MC in the UK, she replies without hesitation, “I’m at least in the top five! I have to be; in my list anyway. In my list I’m number one, innit?”

In order to ensure that her talent is translated into success, Pariz maintains a pragmatic attitude towards her marketability. Firstly, there is the fact she is a female in a male-dominated industry. Although she feels she should be judged purely on the basis of her music, she’s well aware that being a female rapper will in itself attract attention and is happy to embrace it. Similarly, her being from Nottingham and not London can only be to her benefit. “Nottingham has the advantage. More people want to hear what we’re saying because we’re not from the capital,” she argues. “City people want to hear what we ‘country’ people have got to say. Like, what do we spit like.”

Nottingham has a history of breeding the highest quality of emcees. Pariz finds it difficult to explain exactly why such a relatively small city produces such a disproportionately high number of the UK’s finest, but confirms that the conveyor belt is still moving. “There’s a hell of a lot of rappers in Nottingham now that people still don’t know about. Or people know about them, but as much as the Out Da Villes, Pure Genius and Mr. 45 and them people. But there’s a whole heap of people.”

Recently, far more attention has been given to Nottingham’s gun crime problems. Pariz explains that the level of violence and the national awareness of it has certainly risen since she’s been away but that Nottingham has long had a problem. “No one knows why people are getting killed up in Nottingham and why it has got so violent all at one time,” she says. “I could never answer that because I’m not around to see it. But when I was around to see it there was the thing of even if you saw anything, you just basically hold it down and keep your mouth shut and go on like you don’t know what people are talking about. Just say nothing.” In response, Pariz seems adamant that speaking about these problems and teaching the next generation is the only means of remedying the situation. That said, she won’t shy away from what she considers to be the responsibilities of herself and other emcees. “Until everyone starts to grow up and realise that what’s happening is stupidness, then I don’t think it will ever really change. The elders aren’t teaching these youts nothing, and I am guilty of that myself. My early stuff, I look at it and think, boy, I wasn’t teaching the youts nothing… I was just randomly spitting.”

Unlike many who have chosen to comment on violent lyrics in hip hop, Pariz understands that MCs who talk about guns do so because they are a part of the world they come from, but also that the artist can choose how he wants to talk about them. “Just because you see it [gun crime] all the time, just because a man in Brixton or a man in Tottenham, or Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, just because you see gun crime happen and you see your bredren get killed and this that and the other, it’s alright talking about it on track, but it’s the way you talk about it. You don’t want to be reeling off names of guns and how much weed your bredren shot, and how he then got shot in his face. It’s like glorifying the image. It’s like glorifying that kind of lifestyle… You have to really think about the way you’re putting whatever you’re saying across.”

Pariz is serious about teaching the next generation. She has already spent time holding classes in hip hop and emceeing and, in the long term, intends to continue her involvement in youth programmes similar to those that brought her into music. In terms of her own career though, things are moving quickly. The video for ‘We Stand Tall’ featuring Young Blood’s Militia is set to come out on Channel U next month and MTV Base shortly after. A debut album featuring production from Urban, So Solid’s JD and Mykal Millions is currently being worked on with a view to release next summer. With characteristic self-confidence, she concludes, “I’ve got a plan. My plan is basically to just flood the market. Just flood it, flood it, flood it, so people can’t stop hearing about Pariz 1!”