Profile: Solja

BBC Urban Award winner and UK Rapper Solja announced his official Album ‘Audiography’ will be released in early 2012.

Since his days with music crew Raw-T, Solja – real name Fabian Facey - has proven to be one of most prolific independent rappers in the cut throat UK Rap scene.

At the tender age of eleven, he moved to the streets of O.T. (Old Trafford) from Moss side and exposed to the hash brutal reality of urban Manchester he realized his only escape was his music and bedroom studio, spending hours perfecting his music and learning his craft.  

2004 witnessed Solja burst onto the UK Rap scene when collaborated with Raw –T, and along with stable mates like DJ Flair, DJ Q, Mack D, Dreade, Little G, signed a record deal with the label Factory 4, releasing their debut CD ‘Realise and Witness’ while touring Europe.

In 2006 seen him split from Raw -T and release his first solo mix-tape ‘Put your money where your mouth is,’ which was nominated for a BBC mix-tape award.The following year, Solja invaded the UK Urban scene with a barrage of raw street music videos, high-profile personal appearances while working with other artists’ album projects.

In the autumn of 2008 he released ‘One Army,’ and toured schools giving speeches and performing in aid of his S.A.F.E. project - an anti-gun and knife campaign - That exposure and the critical acclaim of his mix-tape secured him a BBC urban music award.

These days Solja likes to be known as ‘Soljlocks’ or ‘Flee-boy Solj.’ He regularly features on BBC 1xtra’s ‘Tim Westwood’ show where his unique rhyming style is developing a national audience and A growing fan-base. His song-writing (It’s all in his head) has many of his contemporaries and peers astounded at his ability to hear a beat and construct a tune in his head without writing anything down.

He describes his music as:

 “A drug…

“Its my healer… my high…the other mix-tapes have been a taster.”

So what does the future hold for this talented ‘King’ of the urban music?

Well Solja explains his plans to ‘Go Global’ with his anti-gun & knife campaign, flooding the clubs and schools with his music and his message.

Asked if he plans some time off ‘from the biz,’ he immediately announces his intention to start his production company to work with ‘up and coming artists’ and help out his own community.

With no rest for the W.K.D. 2012 promises to be a very productive year for the 23-year-old workaholic.

Solja’s music is available from iTunes and HMV stores around the country.

Watch Solja's Interview below:

Click below to view Solja's Timeline:



sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owouCHQUNJQ 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/6r63 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEjjBNn0V90&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL9CCA3E2833AB1604 

http://www.datpiff.com/Flee-Boy-Solja-Put-Your-Money-Where-Your-Mouth-Iz-mixtape.24241.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/performingartsfund/winners/kobi_onyame

http://twitter.com/#!/SOLJAMUSICK 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0082kyx                                                                              

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/home.do

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

http://www.flawlesshustle.com/music/s-o-l-j-a-universal-solja-lp-free-download/

Ghost Night Events

“I try to help the spirits…I just want to know more”

Speaking to spirits is an everyday occurrence for Rachel Heaton. The 38-year-old ‘Ghost Night Events’ organiser and skeptical believer sat down to talk about her new company, what it takes to be a paranormal investigator and working with Richard Felix, Living Television’s ‘Most Haunted’ Ghost-buster and Historian.

Rachel describes her experiences when contacting the spirit world and demonstrates the gadgets and gizmos used when tracking her paranormal friends.

Although she has some spooky tales to tell – predominantly with a ghost called Edward who she’s contacted numerous times. The Huddersfield businesswoman believes contacting spirits has indeed changed her life:

Ghost Night Events was featured in
the 9th issue of Haunted Magazine

“We have all got our spirit guild…

“Knowing there is life after death makes me a better person.”  

When asked if her events were a form of black magic, she laughed out loud and said:

“Its fun, it’s about being in a historic location and investigating ghosts”

Her first spiritual experience didn’t faze her either,:

“I was intrigued I just wanted to know more”

Rachel has many Ghost Night Events lined up to ‘scare the wits’ out of people including a Christmas special at haunted Cannon Hall.

For further information about Ghost Night Events visit:

www.ghostnightevents.co.uk

Watch Rachel Heaton's in-depth interview below:

Click to play slideshow of Ghost Night Events:



See below for upcoming Ghost Night Events on google Maps:


View Decembers Ghost Night Events in a larger map


sources:

http://www.tributemosthaunted.co.uk/

http://www.ghostnightevents.co.uk/pages/home/index.php

http://www.richardfelix.co.uk/

http://ezinearticles.com/?Can-Spirits-Communicate?-PROOF!-How-You-Can-Talk-to-Spirits-With-Amazing-Ease!&id=3899003 -

http://ghoststudy.com/

http://www.cannon-hall.co.uk/

Audio Skills Test - Vox Pop

I asked members of the public, from all different age groups, sex and races: "How are they coping during this economic crisis?

Here are the responses I got?

Video Skills Test

In this interview I asked a petrol station employee how the rise in petrol prices has affected his business. I also interviewed a taxi driver, however due to the time restriction I couldn't add it. For this topic I couldn't think of a better location than a petrol station. Also I used two cutaways during the interview, as they were relevant to the topic in discussion.

With many Rap artists bringing out new albums this year, I decided to create a bar chart so that rap fans could see who is dominating album sales and maintaining their place on the Billboard chart list; and what newcomers are approaching Lil Wayne’s top spot with ‘Tha Carter IV’. 

This chart illustrates the Billboard top fifteen rap albums of 2011, in their current position listed in chronological. It also displays the number of weeks they have coexisted on the chart list, companied by their peak position.   With this bar chart you can compares each albums ranking with the number of weeks they have appeared on the chart to where they ranked at their peak. The bar chart will allow people to view the data very simple and clear. I used blue and red to make the bar chart stand out to appeal to the youth, also it helps to separate both sets of data again making it easier to read and understand.

Source: http://www.billboard.com/#/charts/rap-albums

View Map Skills in a larger map

Wedding fair is a success

I chose this news article about the Wedding fair as it clearly stated where it took place, which allowed me to mark,the exact location of Preston north end on my map. I think this makes it easier for people to see where the stadium is situated if they are not residents of Preston. I also added the contextual link of additional wedding fair’s taking place, as this would be of interest to anybody who is thinking about getting married. I used an icon of a person kicking a football to represent the football ground.

Taser gang attack man

My Second News story featured a piece about a gang who attacked a man with a Taser gun, as the crime happened in one set location 'the victims home', it was a useful article to put on the map. For the contextual link I decided to put two stories, one is taken from the BBC news website, explaining how the Uk plans to crack down on the importation of Taser ammo.  The second article was taken off the Sun's website, which spoke about David Cameroon going back on his word about how he plans to tackling knife crime in the UK.

Hospital car charges review

The Third article spoke about the hospitals car park charges being reviewed, I chose the

red cross symbol as my marker because that represents hospitals. I chose this

article because again it states the location and of what the news story is reporting on 'Royal 

Preston Hospital'. Although Chorley and Ribble Hospital was mentioned the main bulk of the report

was about Preston. I added a contextual link of additional information about the parking charges/

available spaces, this link also will get updated if or when they make the changes,

which could turn out to be useful information for some.

Public drink purge is hailed a big success

My fourth and final article praised the councillors for the fall of alcohol related crime and disorder in Chorley. I decided to use this article because again it was very clear where the event took place. I believe the icon of the cocktail glass I used was very appropriate for this story.  The Contextual link I inputted was to the Directgov webpage, which features information explaining the links between alcohol and crime.

All four of my stories I picked, were mainly because I could pin point their exact location on my map. Also I wanted stories that I could link with some background information or relevant websites for the articles. In my opinion the map does make the stories stronger because readers can now have a clear vision of where each event took place. However I still prefer to watch or listen to the news than read about it.

Uclan Journalist

For the skills test we were asked to take a photograph then resize and crop the picture to three different specifications. I decided to take a photograph of the Preston north end football club. The first specification was 100 wide by 100 high pixel thumbnail, for this size I decided to focus on the Preston north end’s football clubs logo, as the imagine was going to be cropped so small the most effect part of the picture was the logo. The second specification was 400 pixel wide by 300 pixel long. For this size I decided to keep most of the imagine, however, I did crop out the lamppost and the pavement as I felt they didn’t need to be in the picture. In my opinion it made the photography look better without having pointless imagines in shot. The final size was 200 pixels wide by 500 pixels high, I decided to have the logo again as the main focus, but unlike the thumbnail I included the doors and a car, preventing the picture from looking too Blaine.