That's a Rap | Five minutes with Kieran Hamilton-Amos

Kieran Hamilton-Amos and Corey Weeks are the Co-Artistic Directors of That's a Rap - a company that uses rap with drama to uplift and empower young people who have become disengaged from mainstream education. 

Growing up in inner city Birmingham, rap music was ingrained in the culture.  Through their company they create work which uses rap as a tool in theatre and film, as well as teach others or how to realise the potential of a piece of rap theatre. 

Their latest project is coming to Bristol Old Vic from 12 Mar - 5 April and blends rap, R&B and drill with the poetry of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. 

We chatted to Kieran about the process. 

Can you tell us who you are and what your involvement is on Romeo and Juliet? Hello, My name is Kieran Hamilton-Amos, Co-Artistic Director of That's a Rap alongside Corey Weeks. That's a Rap contributed to the show by writing the lyrics and doing book.

What’s the music like? The music is eclectic. It's  R&B, it's hip hop, it's grime, it's soulful. It is gospel. It's a bit of everything I think.  We didn't want to limit ourselves to any one thing, we wanted to use the best musical language to tell the story.

When you come along, you will hear familiar sounds, but eclectically it's going to be like, “wow, I've never heard anything like this”.

Where did the idea come from?
The idea came initially from the conception of the That’s a Rap company.

We wanted to send out something to schools and theatres to show them what we did, which was the mixture of rap and theatre and bringing them together.

And we thought what better way to do it than through a classic play like Shakespeare?

And then we kind of created something and sent it out to a few people, one being Corey Campbell, the Artistic Director at the Belgrade.

And after, after he heard it, he messaged us and said he thinks there's something special here and to continue to dig into it. And if we really wanted to, you know, push it a little bit further than what we thought it could be at the time.

And with his like creative direction, here we are, here we are for production, you know what I mean?

How did you involve the community of young people in the reinvention of this show?

At the earliest stages of this work, we knew it was important to involve the community in its development. We partnered with Coventry Academy to uncover modern and relevant perspectives on the themes of Romeo and Juliet, adding a contemporary twist., From this collaboration also came inspiration for the musicality of the production, with students helping us develop some of the songs for the show.

Their unique perspectives and talents directly impacted the performance, tones and lurics. During the first R&D session, the students offered invaluable feedback which elevated the quality and authenticity of this production.

How do the songs fit in?

So initially, I think we'd probably written about 25 to 30 songs - that's not how many is in the show, by the way. We've cut that down a lot more!

But the thing that we wanted to do is to continue the poetics of Shakespeare.

So even when there is a song, it slides so cleanly into the scene and so cleanly out of it, you won't necessarily know that a song has just happened. You'll just be hearing them talking and there's some music in the background.

And then all of sudden the numbers finish and you're like, was that a song? Was it not a song?

And it just seemed seamless.

Young people are already loving this, but does it also appeal to traditional Shakepeare fans? If you already like Shakespeare, you already like rapping, and it's just the continuing of the poetics. It's just a poetic language.

Shakespeare writes in such a beautiful way, and all we've tried to do is uplift that and expand and add our own interpretations on it.