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Smokey BarzFrom Grime Wikipedia
About Smokey Barz (SB.TV)Jamal Edwards, better known as Smokey Barz is an up and coming force on the Grime scene, with his online production enterprise SB.TV and links to Kiss 100, Choice FM and Pyro Radio to name a few. This young media star is on his way to become a mogul, not just in the grime scene but across the spectrum. Adam Farhat spoke to him. Friday August 24th 1990 a star is born, (it was Luton dunstable hospital where Jamal Edwards aka Smokey Barz was born). He moved to Acton soon after and has grown up there ever since. He was heavly influnced by music as kid by his mum mainly who used to sing, this is where he picked up his talent and passion for music and has transformed himself into what he is now but it wasn’t until year 7 when he first even attempted to rap. Year 7 talent show Acton high school Jamal quotes “I watched the year elevens peform a rap and I was amazed and wanted to learn more”, and thats exactly what he did a few days later he went up to a group of them in the playground and asked if they could teach him they happily obliged and thats where it all started for Jamal. From then on he practiced and practiced and started evolving musically until he went into studio and started taking it seriously by recording tracks and he made his first hit recorded and produced by Ren who had helped him out alot. He finally released his debut mixtape “Theres no smoke without fire” to critcal acclaim from the London area, thats when people started taking him seriously and realised he had talent, he even got over 1000 downloads on the free promo. Since then he has grown as an artist by appearing on numerous radio stations such as Laylow, React, AXE FM, Urbantingz and more and touched mic with some great musicians in the grime industry such as Double S, Clipper and Griminal to name a few. Jamal has done a number of impressive work placements such as working on the X Factor (Leona Lewis’ year) where he worked as a Runner and covered AFM’s (assistant floor managers), Cambridge Theatre (Chicago: The Musical) and Bid UP TV at the age of 16 which to me is pretty impressive. Nowdays Jamal has turned his attention to video work and has founded a company called “SB.TV” which is part of Twisted Visions which is Jamal’s own film company he started. It started from humble orgins just casually filming grime talents in his local area such as Soul, Slidez, Ugly and a couple more homegrown talents at the age of 16, now 3 years later he has filmed many established grime acts such as Black The Ripper, Little Dee, Griminal, Wretch 32, Skepta and Kano in the process gaining a national audience on Youtube with over a million hits and made over 100 videos. Cleverly Jamal saw a gap in the market and exploited it to sucess, The camera-work is simultaneously filling a void and provided something accessible, and visual which the grime scene had seen before but SB had his own ideas and wanted to contribute to the scene more, which made his audience go global. Jamal wasn’t the first musician in his family though, his mum Brenda Edwards rose to fame on the hit TV show X Factor, initially she did it just to see if she could progress and it ended up with her being in the final twelve. He was shocked and ecstatic at the same time and this would change his family’s life forever. Jamal met a host of stars along his mums amazing trip during X Factor such as Sharon, Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne because Sharon was her mentor, I asked Jamal what was one of his memorable moments and funnily enough he said it was when he went to go and stroke Sharon’s Chihuahua and it nearly bit his hand off. He thought it was funny because the dog was pretty small and it shocked him because it was kind of fierce. The X Factor show made Jamal appear in various magazines, newspapers and TV every week while his mum was on and he said “It was weird as I was like a local celebrity in my area, lots of people were coming up to me and going I saw you on TV the other night it was very strange at first but then I got used to it.” Sadly his mum came 4th, and this spurred him to pursue his career much harder. Since he founded his company and it took off recently opportunities have come about. Logan Sama the only Grime Kiss 100 DJ noticed Jamal and saw he had talent. Jamal offered to film his radio show to give his listeners a visual sense of his show, this was one of the memorable days of Jamal’s career as he was an avid listener of Logan’s show and now he’s filming it, he is now a part of Kiss 100 and has filmed legends in the Grime industry such as Skepta, D Double E and Kano. Overall Jamal has had a meteoric uprising in the Grime industry into one of the newest young talents in the scene and he is still progressing. Eventually he sees himself shooting Music videos for some of the top stars across the globe or filming for companies such as Kiss 100, BBC, MTV or any top companies. All in all he is going to continue working in the music industry for many years to come, as he has such passion I haven’t seen in anyone else before. Artists/Producers SB.TV has filmed
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