Heeey I’m here with Yusuf K Mouharrem aka Press1 one half of CAMOUFLAGE CHILDREN
He’s frank, honest and above all, passionate…Trendy to rude boys and like a rude boy to hipsters.
“I hate the term hipster almost as much as I hate the term chav. My father Kemal is my biggest influence when it comes to fashion, a mix of European and inner-city London culture.”
Been involved with music since he bought his first guitar at the age of 8. Hip-Hop and MC wise he's been honing the art of speaking music for about 7 years.
Camouflage Children
Camouflage Children's songs range from everything from drink and drug fueled nights, to the harrowing realization that your girlfriend has gotten engaged to somebody else behind your back. They will either make you laugh, cry or want to dance. Bottom line, there’s so much honesty in their music. Whether a comical track or one that makes you want to peer outside of the window whilst rain taps against it, it will definitely be honest.
So how did the group come together?
The group me and Lenz started last August....At the beginning when we were 15/16 we'd hang out at spots like The Jump Off. We were. Creeping out to Sound, and Scala in Kings Cross after school on a Monday night every week with just enough money to get there, get in and get back. Watching the MC battles was inspirational for me at this point, I knew someway, somehow I had to get involved.
Chapter 1...
So, I was working as an Interactive Producer at the O2 arena. How cool does that title sound? This was a good chapter.
I spotted a sign looking for bands to sign up to a Battle of the Bands competition, regardless of no band members, instruments etc. I inquired and signed up as Press1. I asked Lenz to help with hype man duties with the promise that he’d get to perform some of his songs. The competition was first split into categories; we breezed through the first round against a weird Greek guy who was singing Craig David renditions!
By the time the 2nd round had reached, we’d decided to do it completely 50/50. I’d spit a verse on one of his tracks and vice versa, although I credit Lenz on basically teaching me how to rap - this was the birth of Camouflage Children in essence.
Final round
Which pitted us against 3 very strong groups. We get up and after our 2nd song the CD begins to skip. Not just a quick skip, you know that unbearably jarring and horrible sound you used to get from corrupt files you downloaded from Kazaa? That sound. We had to improvise the entire set with no back up music and thinking back, it somehow worked to our advantage. We ended up winning - studio time and shaking the hands of a lot of people we’ll probably never see again.
THE MIXTAPE
The mixtape, Bangalore Volume.1. is a collection of songs we’ve recorded since last November. It’ll be available for free download from our soundcloud, bandcamp and all other avenues in the next couple of weeks. We recently released a controversial net video for one of the songs, ‘Essex Girls’. A song taking a tongue-in-cheek look at the celebrity culture we blame for such programmes as The Only Way Is Essex.
We’re wrapping up the mixtape at the moment and soon moving into the studio to work on our first official EP release, with nationwide distribution, Itunes, the whole shebang. Prematurely I’d have to predict that the EP will be long and arduous but also the most satisfying to complete and promote.
What can we expect from Camouflage Children in 2011?
Also be sure to check out our live show. We’re at Le Scratch @ Concrete in Shoreditch on the 20th May and at Supa Dupa Fly in Plan B in Brixton on the 4th June.
http://facebook.com/camouflagechildren
http://soundcloud.com/camouflage-children
http://camouflagechildren.bandcamp.com/
http://twitter.com/camochildren
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