TikTok's Middle Class Rap God on his Breakout Success
608,000 followers can't be wrong... which rhymes with 'song.' Cripes! Maybe I could be a rapper. I spoke to MC Hammersmith ahead of his Edinburgh Fringe show: Hippity-Hoppity, Get Off My Property.
I mentioned something casually last October, and it's come back to haunt me multiple times. I insinuated that TikTok comedians who turn their hand to stand-up are always “quite good,” but lack experience. It was my first Zoom interview, and I'd let my guard down chatting to a neurodivergent guest.
Since then, viral comedians tend to let on that they've read those words, and either fill me in on their live experience before going viral, or demonstrate an awareness of needing more stage time.1
Will Naameh, known as MC Hammersmith, is in the former camp. Having performed his freestyle rap comedy for 5 years prior to his TikTok success, he rapidly gained a shocking 608,000 followers. It shocks only because, I mean, who the heck packs that much heat? Well, a fella you can rely on for laughs, who happens to spit his rhymes at the speed of light…
The Interview
What has been your main goal?
The main goal that I’ve had since I was a teenager is to do improv and not get a real job. I discovered and instantly fell in love with improv at 14. I was quite anxious and nerdy, with narrow interests that weren’t leading anywhere.
By experiencing improvised comedy, I immediately found my calling and realised I never want to do anything else. I’m privileged and blessed to be able to do that, and nothing’s gone particularly wrong so far.
And any minor goals?
Haha, I tell you what… when I was younger, I wanted to visit Syria once a year, because I am Syrian. Obviously, global developments have made that slightly harder.
I did want to learn Arabic when I was younger. My Dad speaks Arabic, and we’re very close, but he just never taught me. He didn’t think it would be useful. I mean, a quarter of a billion people speak it, so it would be useful. Currently, I can count to 10 in Arabic and say, “I love you, grandma,” and I learnt how to do those things at age 9.
It’s a language-focused aspiration. You did a linguistics degree, didn’t you?
Yes, that was one of my narrow interests when I was younger. I loved words, loved wordplay, loved puns and the intricacies of language. However, if there were an improv degree, I would have done that instead. I spent most of my degree avoiding lectures and doing comedy, improv, and student plays at Edinburgh’s Bedlam Theatre. I don’t think I attended a single seminar for 3 years.
Have you applied your knowledge of linguistics to your rapping?
Yes and no. I can explain to you the academic reason why some rhymes sound better than others,2 but it doesn’t help me to freestyle.
“I don’t think Biggie or Tupac ever got a 2:1 in Linguistics from Edinburgh Uni.”
Sometimes it helps you understand the problems of the craft, without necessarily providing a solution. For example, the dominant rhythm in hip-hop today is called “the Migos flow.” It involves triplets of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable, on repeat.
However, it makes freestyling difficult because the English language tends towards a loose pattern of one stressed syllable following one unstressed syllable, on repeat. So, the Migos flow isn’t how we tend to talk and think.
Improv and freestyle rapping involve doing things on the fly. Is that what you like?
Yeah, I love it. I had anxiety when I was younger, and I have OCD now, and that tends to be an obsession with control, so there’s a great freedom in environments where you can’t control everything. I still do a lot of improv in groups, and that’s still my biggest love.
As for the rapping, I tend to see the audience as my “scene partner” and we’re building it together. It’s best not to get too ahead of yourself; you’ve got to listen to what you’re getting back from the audience.
How have you gone about building an audience?
I’m so glad I didn’t post anything online for a long time. I started MC Hammersmith in 2016, and it took me 4 or 5 years before I put out any videos. So, I got to practice really being bad at rap for 5 years.
Three weeks into lockdown, I posted a rap of me in my flat, with a bunch of bars that I’d written since I started. I immediately had a swathe of new followers on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and everything. I thought, “Right, this is obviously the start of something,” but it’s not just about having 1 video, it’s about making hundreds.
So, do you think in a way you were better than you thought you were at the time?
Ha-ha, yes and no. I didn’t expect it to go viral at all. However, it exposed a bunch of flaws in my rapping that I wasn’t aware of, and that I’m still working on. Because it made the front page of Reddit, and the people there were brutal. 3
“I’m more focused on a funny punchline than the rhythmic flow of the words. It’s not for people to jam to on Spotify. I’m doing it for everyone to laugh at.”
However, I’ve found that when I do manage to make it both funny and perfectly in time, the videos perform a lot better.
There’s a lot of humour in rap music…
Oh yeah, the best punchlines in hip hop, and battle-rap especially, are amazing. It’s why I love Big L and so many battle rappers. I will sit and watch the most aggressively, sort of toxicly masculine, angry battle rappers going at each other, in URL, the American battle rap league, and they’re intentionally funnier than a lot of comedians.
There’s a trend at the moment called “compliment battles”, where rappers say aggressively nice things to each other in the form of rhyme. It’s actually really sweet. The whole set-up/punchline in stand-up is exactly the same in rap battles. You’re introducing ideas and finishing them in future lines.
Chris Turner performed at one of the first Edinburgh Fringe shows I saw as a teen.4 Was he an influence at all?
Sort of, we’re good friends now. It took years for us to cross paths, because he moved to America, but we do a joint show every Fringe.
One of the first improvised rap videos I saw was of him rapping about random objects in a comedy club. I’d probably already seen MC Supernatural or MC Juice, the grand-daddies of freestyle rap, but seeing it done from a comedy angle made me realise, “Woah, I could do this too.”
Abandoman was another. Weirdly, the Oxford Imps5 also put up lots of battle rap videos back in the day. Off the back of them, I found North Coast, New York’s improvised hip hop comedy group, and Baby Wants Candy. I realised there was this whole genre of comedians who rap.
“Improv and freestyle rap are the same in that, you’re just ‘yes and-ing’ yourself. You’re saying a phrase, and then coming up with a suitable way to follow it up.”
Except, rappers who do it are a thousand times cooler than improv nerds, ha-ha. One tip for you, you can pause in rap after the set-up before the punchline, just like in stand-up.
What’s going through your mind on stage?
Not an awful lot, ha-ha. The most common thing people say after a show is, “Man, your mind must be working so fast.” I’m like, “No, it’s really quite slow.” The perception is I’m straining every synapse in my cerebellum to make all the connections and find rhymes as quickly as possible. But as any good freestyler will tell you…
“I’ve sat down and memorised tens of thousands of words that rhyme.”
That way, I don’t have to waste my limited brain power on coming up with new ones. For example, if you said the word “original,” I can tell you that it rhymes with “lyrical, miracle, dirigible, critical, pivotal, criminal, invisible”, etc. That’s because I’ve done those rhyme schemes thousands of times.
I’m now at the stage where I can freestyle with pretty much any word. Although I’m certain there are gaps in my knowledge. I sometimes have to bend the pronunciation of a word to fit the rhyme scheme.
In my mind, I’m barely half a line ahead when I’m freestyling with random ideas, and if I’m losing the thread a bit, I think about the point I’m trying to make. Or I’m trying to “spike a rhyme,” like in volleyball, i.e. setting up the ball and then spiking it over the net. This involves coming up with the punchline first.
I’ve got a Bluetooth speaker on my desk, so if I saw it, I might go “All you whack rappers, you are all weaker, but I’ve got the rhymes that are blowing up the speaker.” Then the first word I associate with “speaker” is “sound,” so I’d try and spike that rhyme too, e.g. “I’ve got the rhymes that are oh so profound. I’m loving the speaker, and I’m digging the sound.” This technique is called lily-padding.
If it’s the end of a show, I’ll burn slightly more mental currency by trying to remember all the names of the people I’ve spoken to. I’ll remember our interactions within the hour and sum them up in a big mega-rap at the end.
People say, “Woah, what are your memory techniques?” Well, in the 20-second scripted introduction, where I don’t have to think about what I’m saying, I’m going “What was their name, and their name, and their name. Right, I’ve got it.” And that’s all there is to it.
You can’t clag your head full of stuff, and expect to have the presence of mind to freestyle rap. It demands enough mental currency, so you want your head to be clear. Then you can notice shiny things in the room, respond to the audience and improvise freely and readily, from a positive, relaxed place, rather than being stressed.
“If my mind went at a thousand miles an hour, deploying advanced memory techniques, I’d be broken at the end of every gig. Whereas actually, I’m just a bit sweaty… As a consequence of jumping around a lot.”
How are you rapping about the audience? Is it cheeky, or lightly insulting in a fun way?
Well, I never punch down, or certainly never attempt to.
Certain things are off limits, i.e. making fun of people’s race, gender, sexuality, their trans status, or if they have a disability. I feel like if they can’t control something, or they’ve been historically victimised, as part of a protected minority, it’s not something to make fun of.
That’s from a moral perspective, but from a purely practical perspective, I’m trying to ensure that people have a good time at my gigs. And I’m trying to get suggestions from these people — subjects to rap about. So, if you insult the crowd, they’re very unlikely to get involved.
“If you celebrate each participant, and lift them up, making sure they get a big round of applause at the end, and see it as a ‘compliment battle’ instead of a rap battle, then they’re much more likely to get involved and throw you mad suggestions.”
I was never edgy starting out, but I realised early on that if I try to insult them the way the compere might, it doesn’t come naturally to me, because I’m such a people-pleasing beta-male coward. So, I try and elevate them, lift them up. If anything cheeky comes out, I think it has to be, as far as I can work out… Against a straight white male. Then at least I’m punching sideways, if not up.
I do a gig for my old school every year, a very posh private school in West London. And that’s the only gig where I feel I’m actually able to punch upwards, because most of the crowd are even more privileged than I. A lot of them are the sons of Dukes, Earls and Lords. And a lot of them are raging Tories.6
“If I am ever cheeky, it’s against, erm… The Conservative party.”
I always meet and greet participants after the shows and give them a fist bump. They always say, ‘I was so nervous when you brought me on stage, but it was fine! Thank you for a great show.’ They’re never like, ‘How dare you, you ruined my life.’
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Referencing your most viral video, are you an avid chess player?
You know what? I don’t think I’ve played a game of chess since I was 6. I never expected that video to pop off when I made it. I thought it was quite niche. Chess people were like, ‘He’s set the pieces up all wrong! The knight and the bishop are switched, and the board is sideways!’ I’m a Squaredle man myself; that’s my game of choice.
It’s a daily word puzzle with letters in a grid, and you have to make as many words as possible. We have a group chat called The Society of Gentlemen Squaredelers, with lots of my improv friends. Ha-ha! It’s a point of pride that we each get in the top 1% globally each day. Really sad stuff, but we love it.
Random, but have you ever been to Laser Quest, and how did it go?
Yes, I have! I went as a child and also on a stag-do; I was tasked with organising for my best friend, Sam Irving, a fellow improviser. The problem being, it was 2021 and the COVID restrictions banned gatherings indoors of more than 3 households.
So, we had a quite dignified outdoor whiskey tasting evening, but in the morning, outdoor laser quest was the only suitable activity I could find online… In a forest by Edinburgh airport at 10 in the morning. It was great fun, hiding behind trees, swan-diving behind bushes, getting sniped off logs.
“I’m a fairly feeble man, but what I lack in upper body strength, I make up for with a sort of litheness. I can sprint and hide very quickly.”
Are you good at scurrying, would you say?
Mmm… there are two types of people, the alphas and the scurriers, and I’m a real scurrier.
You mentioned Edinburgh, is that where you are now?
I am, I’m in my flat in Edinburgh and I’ve been here 15 years. Studying at first, but I stuck around because it’s great for improv. My old job as a tour guide was here too.
Moving to London is a wise move for straight stand-up, because it can lead to television work, but it’s different for me, because I interact with live audiences. It’s also great for the Fringe.
What can audiences expect from your upcoming Fringe show?
Ah, yes, my latest show is called MC Hammersmith: Hippity-Hoppity, Get Off My Property. The world’s first and only guided walking tour of a stately home, told through the medium of improvised rap.
The second they step through the doors of Monkey Barrel Comedy, they’re teleported to my ancestral home, Hammersmith Hall, and I’ll take them round and do a rap in every room. And when the hour’s done, Hippity-Hoppity, Get Off My Property!
It’s an hour of improvised raps, and people give suggestions verbally and via an app. I’ll use their stories, their objects and their suggestions. Sadly, Hammersmith Hall is not a real place.
“I know I radiate the vibes of someone who grew up in a stately home, but sadly not.”
I’ll level with you, I came up with the title before I came up with the show.
If someone circled 5 shows in the Edinburgh Fringe guide, and they only had one spare evening, how would you convince them to pick yours?
I’d say the Edinburgh Fringe is about seeing things you don’t get to see throughout the year. It’s about seeing things in tiny rooms with big fire hazard audiences, and it’s about shows made for those people in the room on each given night. Plus, Monkey Barrell Comedy is a comedy venue year-round, so it’s the perfect setting.
As for my show, it’s niche; you’re not going to find another like it. Plus, I’m a veteran of the Fringe. I’ve failed enough times at doing it that I’m now reliably good. It’s also at a very reasonable time of 1:55 pm, hip-hop o’clock! The new lunchtime. So, no need for an expensive boozey evening. You can enjoy it with your brunch.
What makes you laugh?
Ha-ha, men falling down holes. My TikTok algorithm is just pizza videos and construction workers falling into mud. I don’t know why! Slapstick I find funny.
Obviously, I grew up watching Whose Line Is It Anyway? The funniest game they did was Helping Hands, where Ryan Stiles had his hands behind his back and Colin Mochrie started feeding him food… There’s nothing more tickling than a man struggling and failing to eat a cream bun.
I’m a simple man of simple pleasures.
Did you always believe you would make it this far?
No, I don’t think so. One thing about going to an all-male private school is that it gives you an unbelievable sense of arrogance. You’re told, ‘The world owes you a living. You can achieve anything.’
So, I had a reckless, unfounded confidence to succeed that was quickly taken away from me when I did my first open-mic nights as MC Hammersmith… to 10 people in a restaurant in Paisley. I always said, if I can make enough to make a living and have a full diary, I’ll be happy. So, I’m absolutely blessed, it’s quite surprising.
What were some signs that you were heading in the right direction?
When I could cut out more and more tour guiding work, where I’d been standing in the Scottish rain with my fingers nearly freezing and falling off, but also doing my first arena gig supporting Jason Manford, I believe that was in Hull.
I took it as a sign that I could probably do this full time, but for every arena gig, you will have 10 open-mic nights in Paisley, trying out new material and being aggressively humbled. It’s all a learning process.
I really enjoyed speaking to Will. If he ever wants a game on chess.com, I’m his man. You’re probably already following him on Instagram, and certainly TikTok, but if not, them’s your links. Perhaps more importantly, you can purchase tickets to see him here.
If you leave a comment, it makes me happy, and the likes do too. Also, I’m open to kissing.
I still feel this idea holds some weight, but not as much as I did back then.
You need to listen to the audio for the full explanation.
As they often are on Reddit!
AAA Batteries (Not Included), a show cleverly named to place the trio of stand-ups at the front of the Edinburgh Fringe Guide. I believe Adam Hess was one of the other comics that made up the 3 that year. Chris still takes the show to the Fringe, but the line-up changes.
An improv group from Oxford, England.
The UK’s main conservative party, loosely analogous to the Republicans in America.
Another great read👍🏻👍🏻
Loved reading this Dan x