What A Load Of Rap!

Improvised hip hop tunes might sound like unusual terrain for comedy, but it’s precisely this approach that has seen Abandoman achieve growing popularity in the UK, with their hugely entertaining live shows landing them awards, critical kudos and TV and radio appearances. Comprised of Irish frontman Rob Broderick and multi-instrumentalist James Hancox – with the line-up swelling to include a full band for the bigger shows – Abandoman’s gigs find Rob bantering with audience members and extracting details about their lives, and using the information to construct brilliantly realised hip hop comedy numbers, with Hancox providing the musical backing.

The group have already gigged with chart-topping English artist Ed Sheeran, and this month sees them hitting the road to support the singer once again. How do Abandoman find performing to music audiences, as opposed to comedy club punters?
“If we weren’t music, I think that it would be a struggle,” considers Rob. “We’d be stood there going, ‘Lads, shut the fuck up – I’ve got shit to say!’ There are exceptions, like Jack Whitehall or Noel Fielding, where the performers have a certain element of fame, or are so handsome that people go, ‘He might have something to say’. I’m neither of the above!”
Unsurprisingly, Abandoman’s act has proved very popular at Edinburgh, and one late night series of slots which saw the duo performing with other comics (including The Mighty Boosh’s Rich Fulcher) resulted in them being offered a short stint on a BBC Two kids’ TV show. This provided them the opportunity to perform their unique style of improvised comedy in the company of some high-profile comics, including Catherine Tate.
“A BBC producer came up to Edinburgh and picked a load of sketch groups to do this show, and the idea was that the material would be kind of kid-friendly, but would still stay true to their acts,” explains Rob. “We were the house band on the show, and every day there would be a celebrity guest, people like Stephen K. Amos, Catherine Tate, Jessica Hynes and Jason Byrne. The kids would give us a word we had to use in a story about them, and they’d give us a little bit of stuff too. In Catherine Tate’s case, I think it was something about Doctor Who.
Abandoman’s adventures have seen them play some unusual shows, including a Brit Awards after-party, a birthday bash in Dubai for a corporate high flyer, and several weddings. But perhaps the most bizarre occasion of all was model Daisy Lowe’s 21st birthday party, a suitably glamorous event attended by scores of fashionistas and trendy media types.
“My main memory of that is Alexa Chung doing some rapping,” recalls Rob. “A few of us were freestyling outside, including another group who were doing a show, House Of Fairytales. We were kind of the rap contingent. So we were hanging outside freestyling, and this girl who was just there in the dark, jumped in and dropped this amazing little freestyle. Off she went, and we were like, ‘That was Alexa Chung!’ Then she came back again and rapped some more, and she kept on referencing Mailman. I was like, who the fuck is Mailman? Then I realised that she wasn’t freestyling, she was dropping a Dr. Dre lyric, which she then forgot. I’ve never seen a group be so disappointed so quickly!”
Rob has also recently been working on a TV pilot based around Abandoman’s trademark brand of improvised hip hop comedy, although he says that moving into TV is by no means the group’s ultimate aim.
“It’s not the big thing. I’d like to play with the music, and try to move it in the direction of working with a big band. I’m trying to get it to the point where you can come to a comedy rave, where it’s like, ‘Let’s go!’ I think hip hop takes in everything from Kanye and Jay-Z’s album, which is a proper hip hop record with two rappers going head-to-head, through to other stuff which is ridiculously catchy. That isn’t what I used to be into. There’s a lot of trance stuff that’s dipped into hip hop. Example is a good example of someone who has a live show that is a rave, which takes in some amazing rapping, some great production, and some great synth lines and hooks. That’s the kind of thing I’d love to do, and it’s something I’ve been working on for a while – a show that feels like it’s a proper, full-on rave, but it’s funny.”

Abandoman play Whelan’s, Dublin on February 11.