It's official: Barnet has got 'flava'.

Usually labelled as a quiet, leafy suburb, our borough is in fact home to some of the biggest talents on the UK garage scene.

And before you tell this reporter to 'rewind selecta' let's check the facts. Brit award-winning rapper The Streets was born in Barnet Hospital. DJ Luck (of DJ Luck and MC Neat) lives in Hendon. And now, the Cockfosters and Whetstone posse of Twisted Souls who successfully supported garage superstars Heartless Crew at the London Astoria recently are being tipped for the top.

Twisted Souls are, collectively DJ Replay, DJ Skipper, MC Chyna, MC Tweety and MC Shakey, or to use their birth names, Paul Panayi, 16, Victor Nyarasi, 16, Ken Abangma, 19, Jacob Mitchell, 19, and Emmanuel Oduntan, 18.

Their music is best described as garage meets hip-hop with an rn'b edge, with lyrics about STDs, gun crime and urban rage.

Which begs the question: did Tweety and co. grow up in Barnet or the Bronx?

"Last year someone put a gun to my head.

"They were asking where they could find Chyna, and then he just put a gun to my head. That was in Arnos Grove," says Shakey.

"People don't think about Barnet like that, but a lot of the people who come to this area come from other areas, like Islington," says China.

Barnet does have a garage scene, says Tweety. "The Green Man pub in Barnet plays a lot of garage tunes, and I've MC'd there before.

"We all used to go to Barnet Parkwhere's that?, where a lot of people go to practice their MC'ing. That's how we met."

Their recent gig at the Astoria (for the anti-gun DISARM campaign), and the airplay they received on Kiss FM and Capital Radio for their first single, Roll Or Ride, has attracted enough interest for the band to be offered a future tour around colleges and schools.

It's a much-trodden route for many a band on the road to fame, and could be the start of big things for this twisted mob.

"We want to get our music and our message to as many people as possible," says MC Chyna.

Respect to that.

May 7, 2003 16:00