Blade Runner

The challenge. To make it through this article without mentioning the words 'UK' and 'hip-hop' together at any point. Why? Because every year or so, once someone drops an album that sounds like it wasn't made in the US; doesn't rely on cliched tales of gangsters and guns; and is actually made by three blokes from a place where it rains all the time, the old unmentionable is rolled out. The term has had so many 'second comings' it should be in triple-platinum status at this stage. But it isn't. Yet.

Okay, triple platinum is a little bit over the top, but Mark B and Blade have recently released an album that deserves your attention. One problem though. Mark B and Blade make hip-hop. They live in the UK. So I guess that makes them…

"Whatever you want to call it, it's just music, really," offers Blade, the Iranian-Armenian emcee coming straight out of New Cross. "I consider myself to be making music, it just happens to fall within that particular genre. We can't compete with the Americans, but the time is coming. I'm not sure if it's this year, but I can see a breakthrough when there are hundreds of us, constantly bombarding the scene and the charts without having to commercialize our sound. There are a lot of us now… more acts than fans!"

Time for a quick history lesson. The affable, articulate Blade is one of the longest established players on the British scene with a CV that reads something like 'been there and done that'. Mark B is the fast-rising beats man, a quiet and equally as articulate expert in his field. The pairs' collaboration came about in a strange way: Mark was a longtime Blade fan who kept badgering him with tapes of his beats until the pair clicked on a style both could work with.

"Before I was making beats, I knew Blade 'cos I was buying his records. I was a big fan of his - I still am," says Mark. "When I started producing seriously, it was him I wanted to work with. The first time we went into the studio - about six years ago - the stuff was too laidback, the style wasn't right for him. So I did something better, he was into it, and finally, we're here now."

"We always kept in touch, even through the bad times. He kept hitting me with tapes for years before we said: 'Alright, it's time,'" says Blade.

The duo's album, The Unknown, arrived quietly at the end of last year, on the Wordplay label, part of the tres-cool French Source records group. No hype, no big-bucks videos, no gimmicks. But then something a little odd started happening. The elpee started picking up accolades from publications as diverse as Hip-Hop Connection and The Guardian to - much to Blade's incredulity - The Times. Even more odd is the fact that their new single, the title track, has just been play-listed on BBC Radio 1.

"You know, once the single is on Radio 1, it gets you twice as far immediately," says Mark. "We're getting 18 plays a week and Dr Dre is on twenty. He's got a million pound video. We've haven't got a video. ("Mark ain't even got a video recorder!" chimes Blade) It's good that we get all the support without all the bullshit corny marketing. None of that name dropping, labels, all that shit."

Aaaah, record labels. Check the aforementioned new single for a brief taste of their opinion on the sycophantic world of A&R and percentage points. Yet it seems like Mark B and Blade have found a happy home within the kindred spirits of the Source family.

"We could have put this album out three or four years ago," reckons Mark. "We were both skint at the time, we had nothing. But we said, 'Nah, let's wait until we find a label that's serious about us. Which is what we have now."

"Well, we didn't have nothing," says Blade. "We had a lot of confidence in ourselves. We wanted to work with people that appreciate what we do. We've talked to a lot of different labels before, but when we spoke to Source, we heard things we hadn't heard before. If you see the boss, he's down to earth, he's… scruffy! He's a real person!"

So what happened in the wilderness years of 1993 to today, Blade?

"I had a lot of personal things going on in my life, and I met a lot of jokers that wasted my time. But people ask me how come I stayed with it? In all honesty, I know I'm gonna make it, I promised myself. Even when I was being nagged to get a job, even when I was pushing trolleys, I was still doing this." He emphasises this. "So I asked myself: 'Am I gonna keep putting records out here and there and be broke for the rest of my life, or am I gonna disappear for five years and come back with venom? Like I say on the album: 'I told you I'd be back with venom, sending 'em to hell and back, any doubts you had we're ending 'em.'"

No doubt. Mark B and Blade are the living embodiment of beats, rhymes and life. The refrain of their new single goes something like: 'We are the unknown…'.

Not for much longer.