Scroobius Pip

Renaissance Man - rapper, spoken word artist extraordinaire, record label boss (Speech Development Records), actor, top podcaster and former photography student. That's Scroobius Pip. He gives good 'mug', too.

I'm a big fan of his weekly 'Distraction Pieces' podcast on which he has rambling conversations with all kinds of interesting guests - some famous, some not - and talks at length about such subjects as mental health, race, comedy, films, acting, music, spoken word, mixed martial arts, drug laws, pizza and... stuff. I don't always agree with him (and he really needs to do something about the gender balance of his guests!) but I like his attitude, his passion and his willingness to talk about the 'big' subjects as well as the small stuff. He's got a big heart and it's definitely in the right place.

He's just brought out a book featuring some of the best comments, thoughts and pontifications from his guests over the first 100 or so podcasts and he was in Liverpool tonight to meet his public and answer questions about... stuff. It was thoroughly entertaining and I got to take his picture and have a brief chat with him about our mutual love of Billy Bragg. What more could I ask?

'Get Better' www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEitrZU-nCw