About Me
Sensei C is a Birmingham MC/Composer/Musician, also operating in South Devon, dedicated to the music he loves. Sensei's love of music goes back as far as he remembers, but it wasn't until after eighteen years of writing songs, learning clarinet, teaching himself guitar, drums, bass and keys, playing in bands, working on solo projects, messing about with samplers, making instrumental music and forgetting about writing songs that he discovered his true calling. As Sensei C left Birmingham's Music and Video exchange and put a newly purchased copy of "The next step" by People under the Stairs on his headphones and was suddenly lost in a sea of interweaving rhythms topped off with syncopated rhymes that he trully fell in love with Hip Hop knew what he had to do - become an MC. True he was a late starter, but he had been writing poetry and lyrics for years and as far as he was concerned this was just a natural development of a gift he had long neglected. He was willing to put in the hours, placing all other musical efforts on the back burner (which he has only really returned to in the last year) and spending countless amounts of time building his skills.
After 6 months of hard work he met Joel the Custodian and The What Supreme of the Phantom Limb - a collective of MCs, DJs and producers dedicated to pushing creativity in Hip Hop and making tracks with clear themes and ideas behind them. The ideological similarity was perfect and before long Sensei had been initiated into the Phantom Limb.
After a year Sensei had become dedicated to two projects within the collective. Firstly The Extensioners with Joel the Custodian and DJ Cro, a Hip Hop band, where Sensei played guitar and clarinet as well as rapping, with a focus on developing live Hip Hop, making music which had to be seen live in order to be fully appreciated and required all three bembers to sounds complete, where all lyrical content was pure narrative. Unfortunately, after six very happy months of playing together, finally puncuated by a show with Ninja Tune super group One Self, THe Extensioners were forced to go on hiatus due to Sensei going away to University to study Music and Joel's wife having a child (a beautiful girl named Evie, God bless her and all the family). Still it's not all over yet so look out folks.
THe other project underwent a much more subtle and gradual birth, starting with Sensei C and The What Supreme spending a lot of time together writing, just the same as they did the first time they hung out. The two went well together, Sensei learning a lot from The What and gradually finding a real grounding as an MC, for which he is eternally grateful. After working together for nearly a year Sensei C and the What Supreme took the name HLI (Head Lighter Islanders) and began their plan to show people what it was they're about, which is still going on today. After a summer spent recording for their forthcoming album and playing shows in Birmingham and Cheltenham, the group were divided by half the length of the country with Sensei departing for Devon, but continued to carry on strong still playing shows together, including one in Devon, writing together and recently returning to recording together. It'll take a lot to silence these two and when you hear them you'll listen, so be prepared.
As well as HlI Sensei C has been working his hand in making music independently. Whilst studying for a degree in Music Composition he revisited a lot of musical disciplines he had neglected for nearly two years, playing a lot of Jazz clarinet and teaching himself some saxaphone, composing songs and instrumental pieces (as well as his first Hip Hop piece, all music written and played live) and, recently, finally getting round to making beats and AS WELL as all this he is doing work recording for a solo effort of some description. Basically there's a lot in this man's pipeline so you've been warned, Sensei C is here to show you what he's about.
