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Kate Nash signed her first record deal at just 19 – and her 2008 song, ‘Foundations’, is a generation’s anthem. Then her world unravelled. Here, the musician reveals how wrestling saved her – and why when life gave her lemons it didn’t make her bitterEarly in the summer of 2019, only weeks before a documentary about her was due to go live on the BBC, Kate Nash found herself in a state of total panic. Five years in the making, when the recording had originally kicked off for Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl, its producers had planned to make a film capturing Nash’s life as she knew it then: a late 20-something singer – known to most for her chart-topping, era- defining 2007 debut album Made of Bricks – continuing to carve out a career for herself out of the spotlight as an independent recording artist.There’d be struggles, yes: going it alone in the industry is a relentless hustle. But nine months into filming, Nash’s world unravelled in ways she could never have predicted. Work was already stalling; music execs were uninterested in both her own punk-rock offerings and the more commercial pop lyrics she was attempting to sell. Then she discovered her money was gone; her manager had been misappropriating – or at least misspending – it. A lengthy legal battle ensued and Nash was forced to move back home to north London with her parents unable to make rent, flogging her belongings for survival. Although talk of her personal life and mental health went mostly unspoken in documentary’s final cut, it’s clear to see she was quite seriously struggling. Continue reading…

Nabil Ayouch’s grittily authentic tale of a rapper turned teacher helping his students find their creative voices is a class actThe Arabic title of Franco-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s empowering hip-hop fable translates loosely as “rise your voice”, while in France, where the film competed for the Cannes Palme d’Or, it’s known as Haut et fort ­– “high and loud”. Both monikers perfectly capture the vibrant spirit of this stirring street musical, described by its creator as arising out of “the desire to make a film to give voice to young people”. On one level it’s a patchwork of popular cinematic tropes, combining the strength-through-music themes of films as diverse as 8 Mile and School of Rock with the inspirational classroom formats of everything from Blackboard Jungle to Dead Poets Society. But there’s also a strong whiff of the discursive politics of Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom, mixed with the accessible rebellion of Jafar Panahi’s Offside or Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang – a heady brew indeed.Real-life rapper turned teacher Anas Basbousi keeps things close to home as new teacher at an arts centre in the Sidi Moumen district of Casablanca, an area still stained by the spectre of fomenting terrorism. On his first day, Anas boldly spray-paints the wall of his classroom, only to be told that it’s not his classroom – it’s a classroom, one that is used by others who don’t necessarily appreciate his rebellious free-form vibe. Tensions increase when Anas meets his class, played by screen first-timers scouted at Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen (a cultural centre co-founded by Ayouch), whose real lives inspired their fictional on-screen alter egos. As each student takes the floor to show the new teacher what they can do, he dismissively bats aside their efforts, accusing them of failing to use their authentic voices and reducing one misfit to tears for bragging about a life that bears little resemblance to his own. Continue reading…