‘There’s so much hip hop being made, but not much being said.’ So speaks tHE tRUTH, the Canadian-born rapper who has made Abu Dhabi his home. His is clearly the dissenting voice in an industry which so often prizes dazzling style over content. ‘There are few hip hop artists who go out to reach people,’ he laments. ‘It’s a marketing gimmick. It’s fashionable now. I call it trend music.’
Reaching people is very much on the mind of Christopher Roumi (aka tHE tRUTH). As we speak, he is busy putting the finishing touches to his first album, produced by British DJ Brünjes, and arranging post production with Canadian production studio OPTIX on his latest video, ‘Suicidal Bomber’. ‘The album’s 90 per cent done,’ he reveals. It also has the backing of Dubai DJs Ronny Jacks, Dany Neville and Australia’s Psychopathic Beats, who are producing a number of tracks. ‘They heard my music on the internet and they came to me,’ he explains.
It has been a rather convoluted route that led Roumi to this point. A freak present from his grandmother of a Cool Mo’D album fuelled an early passion for rap music. He was later kicked out by his exasperated parents in his mid teens. ‘I was hanging onto life by a very thin thread,’ he confesses. An existence spent hustling on the streets and a succession of personal traumas including the death of a number of close friends led him into trouble, but it was poetry that showed him the way out.
A turning point came when he helped start a community programme in his native Ottawa teaching hip hop to kids. He remains in contact with a number of the children. ‘You can see them on YouTube with their freestyle battles. They’re trying to keep it clean and go in the right direction,’ he declares. Another turning point came when some friends who had been putting on concerts encouraged Roumi to go up on stage in the intermission and do some of his spoken word poetry sets. ‘I’d get up and these musicians would say to me, “Man, I think we should make a beat for this.”’
Five months ago, following the break-up of his engagement, Roumi moved to Abu Dhabi, searching for some stability, a clean slate, and to focus on his music. ‘I realised I had one shot to do something in my life that I really wanted to do. I want to be able to communicate with people and grab that hopeless person who’s feeling the same way that I felt; to be able to change their vision.’
But Roumi is yet to play live in the UAE – Abu Dhabi has yet to hear tHE tRUTH. ‘There are not many places to gig here,’ he tells me. ‘There is a problem being able to lockdown venues. You need a licence. If you don’t have that then the club has to purchase a specific licence for that day or they get fined.’ Hopefully, he tells me, himself and another artist will be able to put a show together in the capital this November.
In the land of censorship, does Roumi feel that he may have to compromise ‘the truth’ at times? ‘I don’t use too much vulgarity. I try not to attack people or places. I try to attack situations,’ he explains. His poetry comes from personal experiences – largely of his homeland. One track, ‘Can’t You See’, he describes as a sweeping 60 bar verse with no choruses: ‘It’s not your regular song,’ he explains, ‘it basically breaks down economic situations, poverty, welfare and governmental problems within North America.’
Other tracks are more personal. The upcoming single, ‘For The Weathered’ (also released on Dany Neville’s Radio One ‘The Edge’ Mixtape), was written for five friends who passed away in a car accident. ‘I want to be able to connect with a whole bunch of people through the experiences I’ve been through, whether it makes them feel happy or sad.’
But Roumi is serious about what he wants to achieve He knows that his white collar day job in the world’s richest city is a far cry from his previous life and the situations he raps about, but that is the point. It is breathing space. Room to speak for the man they call tHE tRUTH.
Find out more about tHE tRUTH at www.letitbetold.com
