As a new rap exhibition opens in the city, west Yorkshire’s MCs remember how body popping gave way to bleak social commentary – and rap battles in their underpants
“This is mind-blowing – it’s my dream come true,” says Monk, as we walk through Leeds City Museum, where boxes of hip-hop memorabilia are scattered everywhere.
A record shop is being constructed in one corner, a 1990s bedroom studio in the other. Behind me a full-size replica of a graffiti-covered 1980s New York subway train is being finished. The revered Leeds MC and artist LSK hands me a pen and instructs me to tag the train. Bereft of talent or ideas, I hastily scribble my initials in a childlike scrawl. He nods for me to do more, so on gothe names of my wife and my dog.
