Riz Ahmed

And that's when I started doing it.

promoting my own club nights.

And it became a really invaluable place where every week without fail, I could hone my craft.

I could try out new lyrics.

I could gain confidence as a performer.

And I think it helped me not just as an MC, but as an actor.

I suppose 9-11 Blues is my first rap track.

It's kind of deliberately silly, but also deliberately, you know, it's a satire, really.

It's a provocative kind of satire.

And it takes the shape of an almost like a nursery rhyme or school kids jingle.

I wrote that when I was 23, I think, 22.

You know, I just felt like I was surrounded by this

circus of fear mongering and of paranoia and mistrust and the war on terror and being a young Muslim post 9-11.

I was like, this is crazy.

How do I make sense of this?

And comedy is really my first love, you know.

So I decided to kind of write this satirical rap song.

It did kind of like unofficially.

There was a sense amongst radio DJs that they cannot play it because it's too politically sensitive.

Let me tell you, the best thing you can do to an artist who's trying to start out and get some attention for their work is ban their work.