Neme

Michelle Hobart, known as Little Neme, is 22 and from Norwich. Neme first started writing her own rhymes aged 14 during different periods at school. She claims, ‘I loved Eminem’s craft, the way he puts his anger into music, and the way he uses poetry as a form of expression.‘ Neme had a difficult childhood; from bullying to domestic violence, to family breakdowns and family wars: ‘I never knew what was next in my world, I hated every minute, every second was another song.’ This young female rap artist kept listening to her musical heroes and started developing more as an artist; from lyrical content to vocal power and energy. Three years and about 300 songs later, she decided it was time to step into the booth and record her feelings for real. ‘I had like 300 songs written from the age of 14 to 17, I was so hungry for studio time.’ Neme entered a studio for the first time to record tracks at the locally situated ‘Purple Studios’. ‘I realised after I recorded my first 2 songs that being a recording artist is tough, and wasn’t as easy as professionals make it look.’ Neme knew she had a lot more to prove, and that she would have to work even harder to make an impact on the listeners of the world. Neme began freestyling to different beats and developing a unique sound to find a voice that people would love. The more she freestyled, the more she found herself, and her passion for hip-hop grew to an outstanding level. In 2005, Neme started rap battling in local clubs in Norwich, her first opponents being the likes of Arkaic and Context. She wanted to get her name out there as much as she could, ‘I wasn’t doing too much before battling except for recording mixtapes. I didn’t have internet access at the time, so I didn’t have a MySpace page, so the only way people would know me through my art was cos they either knew me, or heard my CD, and that wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be known as a female rap artist that wasn’t one-dimensional, that could sound hot freestyle battling, and murder tracks’. Neme’s first battle was against a well known UK battle rapper called Arkaic; he was the reigning champion of that night club in freestyle battling, so Neme knew she had to be focused and not make a fool of herself. She took Arkaic through a harsh three round battle, where unfortunately Arkaic just scrapped the crown. Regardless of losing, Neme had built a massive fan base in only 10 minutes by her battling skills; ‘Man, I had people coming up to me all night after the battle to shake my hand and show me love, saying how much they thought that for a young female I was incredible, the bouncers were all over me, lol.’ As the years went by, Neme knew she had to separate herself from the crowd. She gave up battle rapping soon after her last defeat; ‘I just got sick of battling man, I began hating it with a passion, it became almost pathetic to me, I found it wasn’t being creative at all.’ Neme decided to focus on her solo career as an MC. In 2006 she designed her MySpace page, and was astounded by the response she was getting from people across the globe, ‘I was gob smacked, really, I couldn’t believe the love I received, all types of people were feeling me, from teenagers, to young kids, to gangsters in America, to parents of young kids, I kept getting loads of plays everyday. I even had Jin The MC big me up, I was like, OHHH!!!’ Neme hooked up with a production team in Lewisham, South London called 2Deep productions; ‘They found me on MySpace, Leenoz, who’s a producer for 2Deep called me showing love and bigging me up, saying how they wanted me to go down to London and record with them, all free of charge, I was like lets do this.’ Neme recorded a variety of songs with 2Deep and worked with several artists from the 2Deep camp. One of the songs they produced, ‘Start Runnin’, was particularly appreciated by the UK public, but Neme felt that the music video did not live up to the high standard of the track. In 2008, Neme vows to work independently